Codewright is dead. I'd like to say "bring back the Brief editor" which, as I recall, was owned by Borland. I'd like to, but now I'm using vslick. Your time, Borland, has come and gone. You tubed the products I used, so I had to find others. Now I like the replacements, so why change back? If we're talking TurboPython or TurboRuby, you might get my attention, but it had better be juicy enough to lure me away from the open-source alternatives.
... I go back and forth between left and right mousing (cordless mice are great for this), and sometimes I use a trackpad, which seems to help. Vertical mice don't help me much at all.
And this one would help you even less. It's hard-coded for righties and there is no southpaw version.
This article recommends alternating a mouse between left & right hands to avoid RSI. I'm too entrenched in my mono chirality ways to learn to do that (I'd give my left arm to be ambidexterous). On the other hand, the mouse is intended to relieve RSI, making alternation less of a necessity.
... under Linux. I've got several variants of wheel mice, and the distro's I've tried can't seem to handle "the wheel thing" properly - especially my beloved MS explorer optical with the wheel & extra buttons. Fortunately, the web is full of (bad) advice on how to get multi-button mice ~working.... heavy sigh...
I'm also not surprised that the sleep and WiFi are flakey. It's gotta be tough for an OS to support proper re-initialization on hardware that can be powered off and on. That's not something that OSs typically do... if it's on, it's on, if it's not, it's broke.
My wife and I have living wills that allow each of us to request the termination of artificial life support for the other in the event that one of us is in a "persistent vegetative state" for some period of time. The period of time is open to interpretation and, hopefully, medical advice. Our fear was that some of our relatives (of the religious fundamentalist variety) would seek to keep us alive indefinitely to fulfill their own agenda. Now it looks like that might not be such a bad idea. 19 years is an awfully long time to be bed-ridden, but as it turns out, death lasts even longer.
Reminds me of "Colossus - The Forbin Project". It's about yer basic computer-gone-berserk. Halfway through the movie, "Colossus", the machine that the US has built to automate defense, announces "There is another system", referring to the heretofor unknown Soviet counterpart system "Guardian". Colossus demands to be connected to Guardian, and the two machines develop their own language for communication, unreadable by the pesky carbon life-forms. Together they take over the world, peace prevails, and the remaining survivors live more or less happily ever after, until the second book, when the Martians help the humans disable the computers so that they (the Martians) can take over the world.
I seems that one way to encourage new discoveries is to learn how to cultivate or induce a state of mind or being that will make oneself more receptive to tangential thinking - by that I mean that moment where one takes a step back and "the light comes on" about something completely unrelated to the current course of research or study. This, IMHO, would be be open-mindedness, or egolessness. Too bad a massive ego is a prerequisite for tenured college professorship - I guess they won't be teaching how to do it.
In an alternate train of thought, it's too bad Charles Robert Richet, the French physiologist mentioned in the article, couldn't have experimented on politicians instead of dogs.... Maybe a precident could have been set that
Where are the comedies?!?!?! The thankless task of keeping the world safe by killing hundreds, if not thousands, of vicious mutants, evil humans, and bloodsucking vampire alien face-eaters is not to be taken lightly. It requires a strong stomach, a lightning-fast twitchy trigger finger, and a titanium-clad sphincter. This is no place for comedy, even virtual comedy. You can thank your lucky stars that there are at least a few warriers who are willing to sacrifice numerous hours of time, at the cost of their very hemmorhoids, to repel wave after wave of invaders.
9. Eye-move pc. All the projectors I've seen get pretty toasty, which translates to power usage. In a battery powered device this small (what kind of batteries?), I would think the projected display would be either too small or too dim for use by actual humans for any length of time. This feels like one of those ideas that's waiting for a miraculous invention (by someone else) to appear.
8. Flash required. The future does not contain Flash... Ignore...
7.... same
3.... same
2.... same
6. Transparent toaster. Oh great. Another highly-specialized kitchen appliance taking up already limited counter space, and consuming another outlet. At least make it where it can do bagles. Until then it goes with the electric hot-dog roaster, the electric fondue maker, and the electric cheese straightener. All I really need is my microwave, and my expresso setup.
5. Foldable display. Take a look at something that's been folded and unfolded a couple thousand times. Like piece of paper money. It gets pretty ugly after a while. toss....
4. Self-cooling [whatever] can. Great. I can't wait to see a couple hundred million of these in the landfill after the next World Cup or Superbowl.
1. Video game urinal. Um. How do the girls play? They can't. Guys win. How do the guys with prostate problems play? They can't. Young guys win. How do the young guys who have can't relax and pee in public play? They can't. Young drunk guys win.
hm. Flashing shoes? Am I supposed to be watching my feet while I run? In the dark? Maybe some safety value.
hm. Solar-powered water bottle. For me, a water bottle hanging off a backpack loop and swinging around while I hike is distracting, annoying, and a loss of energy. And the water heats up.
hm. Intelligent spoon? That's....um.... useful. How about an Intelligent Urinal game with temp, pH, salinity and (dare I even think it) viscosity sensors?
Show me some gadgets not solely based in, and reliant on, a petro-economy and you'll get my attention. Show me stuff that won't choke the landfill with toxic, non-recyclable waste when it breaks after a year of use. Show me stuff that will remove more waste or greenhouse gases from the environment than it takes to produce it. The future is not looking so bright...
We "depend" on it. IMHO, it's a way for the IT department to cover their butts. According to some of our experts, tape is a "write only" medium. That means that it's a gamble whether or not you'll be able to restore your original data a day later, much less 10 years later, when the original tape drive and software is long gone. Why is it important? For certain things, like product source code, we need to make copies and keep 'em safe for 11 years. This makes the lawyers happy, as the magnetic data storage business is a "lawsuit-intensive" industry. When called onto the witness stand during a copyright or patent infringement trial, the IT guy can say "Hey! I did my job. Backed it up. Sent the tape off-site. What else should I have done?"
That said, I've had to depend on IT to restore a corrupted PVCS archive on more than one occasion, and they have yet to fail me.
And how about this "database" term they throw around so nonchalantly? According to Lotus, everything inside Notes is "a database". Well, I've developed in Notes, and I've used databases, and what they got ain't related (ahem) to databases. It's more like a "data capture form with crappy search and indexing, and user-created links to other forms". Lotus wouldn't know a database if it bit 'em on the delimiter.
Strange that IBM (originators of DB2, where EF Codd invented relational databases) permits this perversion of the term.
Yes. BrowserQuirks is the vast range of dialects needed, beyond the root languages AychTeeEml, X-Eml, ThisWeeksVersionOfJavascriptAndWereStillNotEcmaCom pliant, and Sea-SS. BrowserQuirks is not so much an independent language, as it is a definition of what the root languges are not. BrowserQuirks (currently in beta rev 72429) is a dynamic, symbiotic, multi-vendor organism, which changes on a regular basis. There is no documentation, unless you're able to "read between the lines" of the various browser release notes - any root language feature not mentioned explicitly is probably not supported, or is supported in a non-standard way. And for that matter, even features that are mentioned are probably done in a non-standard way. A good comparison in the real world is to rapidly mutating virus that alternates between relatively benign and threatens to destroy all carbon-based life.
The browser vendors consider this "a really good thing" because it offers "product differentiation" and "market segment focus". The cost in human lives is not an issue.
Save yourself $250k! Pickup a pallet-load of self-emolating lattes, duct-tape 'em to the bug, and let 'er rip!
A related story.....
A few years ago, I and some friends took the Durango-Silverton narrow guage train from Durango, got off at the half-way point, and backpacked into Colorado's Chicago Basin for a multi-fourteener weekend. Next morning we woke early and bagged a couple peaks. By evening we were pretty exhausted. One of the ladies had brought along one of the "self-heating" dinners. While the rest of us were filtering water, pumping, priming, disassembling, cleaning, reassembling and fiddling with our stoves, she was lying back, taking it easy, and commenting on all our efforts in a smug voice. Eventually, and with much fanfare she displayed her "instant" dinner, pulled the string to activate the internal heating compound, set it on the ground, and watched. And watched. And poked. And pulled the string some more. By this time, the rest of us were (finally) enjoying a well-deserved meal. After many minutes, smoke appeared from the package, followed shortly thereafter by that unmistakable smell of "dead critter by the side of the road" -- essence de roadkill. The self-heating dinner was definitely getting hot, but apparently something had gone horribly wrong with the contents. She opened the seal and the oder that leapt out of that package had most of us ready to lose our meal. It was more than rancid, worse than putrid, it was the very essence of "bad". We quickly realized that the smell of this abomination would either attract or repel every carnivore in the valley. Not wanting to take a chance, we buried it some distance away. So there she was - miles from the nearest Starbucks, her only chance at dinner now sleeping with the worms. Quite the predicament. What's a very hungry single lady, off in the wilderness without food to do? There was a lot of pleading, and apologies, and eating of the crow. Fortunately, friends don't let friends starve. I had some extra ingredients for a pan-cooked pizza , so she at least got something for dinner.
Moral of the story... Well, I'm not sure, but at least now I feel more justified packing more than I can possible use.
Attention all employees, especially those in sandels, tee-shirts, and shorts.
Due to proposed laybacks by our funding venture canabalists, all software engineer positions above the rank of "obsequious toadie" will be eliminated. This includes all over-paid, under-producing, slashdotter "code monkey" positions in the north-40 cube-farm, whose jobs will be outsourced to S-E Asian simian coders, all of whom have doctorates in object-oriented poo-flinging, and work for coconuts. Don't be mad, you brought it on yourselves -- all those "Ludicrous" mp3 files on the server. You know how much it took to settle that lawsuit? Sheesh, I coulda lost my Saleen S7.
We, the upper management, almost sincerely regret the necessity of having to announce this decision, but our personal assistant was out today, so we got stuck doing it. Well, no time to chat -- my four-some is up, so get packing. Oh, by the way, all network access has been cut off, and security is on their way with some backup bouncers from my party last night! Whew, I'm glad the shareholders are picking up the tab for that. Have fun, and if you see me on the street, let's just pretend we don't know each other.
I think the main drawback to oversize bezels (apart from staring in the showers) is that, when using multiple monitors, it makes the "continuous desktop" mode look discontiguous.
From my experience, phishing arrives at the user via SMTP (i.e. email). Isn't the SMTP client a better place for this technology? Alright, so nobody uses SMTP clients anymore, but it's a nice thought. Given the proliferation of web-hosted email sites, why isn't this filter technology provided to web email sites? Most web email providers, like hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, and Netscape offer some level of spam filtering and anti-phishing protection.
And speaking of anti-phishing, how about a program that floods the phishing site with bogus info? For example, when I get a message to update my Paypal info, which points to a computer someplace in Brazil, why not just analyze the bogus Paypal site and send a zillion fake, but very real sounding names and passwords? A good program would spoof it's IP for each GET/POST.
Another solution requires the financial organization associated with the phish, like Citibank and Paypal, to take a more proactive approach. Let's say I get a phish to update my Paypal account. I got to the real Paypal and request a special, but totally bogus, "anti-phish" user id and password. I then go to the phish site and enter this special info. When Paypal detects someone trying to use this ID and password combo, they take "special measures" to try detect or identify the sender. I have absolutely no idea of what "special measures" would entail - account xfer audit trails?.... it's kinda like that comic with the 2 guys standing in front of a huge blackboard full of equations, pointing to the last entry, and one says "Then a miracle occurs"....
Let's not forget that the newer Intel Pentium processors, and the AMD equivalents, support downloadable microcode. This means it is theoretically possible to create a virus that runs within a single processor instruction. Ok, granted that's a stretch more inline with something seen on the sci-fi channel, but the capability is there to compromise a system.
Selegiline (aka Deprenyl, Eldepryl) is a selective MAO-B inihibtor used to treat Parkinsons & Alzheimers, but has also been shown to improve memory (and increase longevity and sexual activity... in rats).
Combinations of acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, and CoQ10 have shown similiar effects (link , link)
Granted, we now have a bunch of very smart, long-lived, god-awful horny-all-the-time rats running around. You got a problem with that?
What happens when those hundreds or thousands or millions of ROM chips (and handy plastic packaging) become "last week's movie"? You would need a major recycling & remanufacturing operation to prevent landfill. We already have a plastic recycling industry, but can chips be ground up & recycled? There's a lot of energy and resources that go into distilling a bucket of sand down to an integrated circuit, and it would be a shame to not recover some of that....
Very small drives are... a little different. You're probably thinking of Z-axis damage, where the heads "slap" into the media after the drive is dropped "face down". What's kewl about these tiny drives is that everything (including the head or heads) is smaller and lighter, with less mass, which means less momentum, which translates into fewer chances for this kind of damage. Another way to prevent damage is use an accelerometer which the embedded F/W will use to sense impending doom and park the heads on a non-data portion of the media, or to remove the heads from the media entirely (ramp loading).
But in the end, you're right - Flash is much more tolerant of these kinds of environments. Yes it's expensive, but there's that Moore's Law thing that, for a few years now, has given us smaller, denser, and cheaper circuitry. There's also the limited number of rewrite cycles, but in the sub 1.8 inch drive arena, I think (MHO) Flash will be the ultimate winner. Until then, those of us using micro drives thank those of you who fork out the Really Big Bucks for Flash-based products (like the Nano) - you're helping drive down the cost for us all.
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Codewright is dead. I'd like to say "bring back the Brief editor" which, as I recall, was owned by Borland. I'd like to, but now I'm using vslick. Your time, Borland, has come and gone. You tubed the products I used, so I had to find others. Now I like the replacements, so why change back? If we're talking TurboPython or TurboRuby, you might get my attention, but it had better be juicy enough to lure me away from the open-source alternatives.
This article recommends alternating a mouse between left & right hands to avoid RSI. I'm too entrenched in my mono chirality ways to learn to do that (I'd give my left arm to be ambidexterous). On the other hand, the mouse is intended to relieve RSI, making alternation less of a necessity.
I'm also not surprised that the sleep and WiFi are flakey. It's gotta be tough for an OS to support proper re-initialization on hardware that can be powered off and on. That's not something that OSs typically do ... if it's on, it's on, if it's not, it's broke.
My wife and I have living wills that allow each of us to request the termination of artificial life support for the other in the event that one of us is in a "persistent vegetative state" for some period of time. The period of time is open to interpretation and, hopefully, medical advice. Our fear was that some of our relatives (of the religious fundamentalist variety) would seek to keep us alive indefinitely to fulfill their own agenda. Now it looks like that might not be such a bad idea. 19 years is an awfully long time to be bed-ridden, but as it turns out, death lasts even longer.
Reminds me of "Colossus - The Forbin Project". It's about yer basic computer-gone-berserk. Halfway through the movie, "Colossus", the machine that the US has built to automate defense, announces "There is another system", referring to the heretofor unknown Soviet counterpart system "Guardian". Colossus demands to be connected to Guardian, and the two machines develop their own language for communication, unreadable by the pesky carbon life-forms. Together they take over the world, peace prevails, and the remaining survivors live more or less happily ever after, until the second book, when the Martians help the humans disable the computers so that they (the Martians) can take over the world.
In an alternate train of thought, it's too bad Charles Robert Richet, the French physiologist mentioned in the article, couldn't have experimented on politicians instead of dogs.... Maybe a precident could have been set that
Where are the comedies?!?!?! The thankless task of keeping the world safe by killing hundreds, if not thousands, of vicious mutants, evil humans, and bloodsucking vampire alien face-eaters is not to be taken lightly. It requires a strong stomach, a lightning-fast twitchy trigger finger, and a titanium-clad sphincter. This is no place for comedy, even virtual comedy. You can thank your lucky stars that there are at least a few warriers who are willing to sacrifice numerous hours of time, at the cost of their very hemmorhoids, to repel wave after wave of invaders.
10. Semi-permanent LCD. Sounds like e-paper / e-ink (or here) to me.
9. Eye-move pc. All the projectors I've seen get pretty toasty, which translates to power usage. In a battery powered device this small (what kind of batteries?), I would think the projected display would be either too small or too dim for use by actual humans for any length of time. This feels like one of those ideas that's waiting for a miraculous invention (by someone else) to appear.
8. Flash required. The future does not contain Flash... Ignore...
7. ... same
3. ... same
2. ... same
6. Transparent toaster. Oh great. Another highly-specialized kitchen appliance taking up already limited counter space, and consuming another outlet. At least make it where it can do bagles. Until then it goes with the electric hot-dog roaster, the electric fondue maker, and the electric cheese straightener. All I really need is my microwave, and my expresso setup.
5. Foldable display. Take a look at something that's been folded and unfolded a couple thousand times. Like piece of paper money. It gets pretty ugly after a while. toss....
4. Self-cooling [whatever] can. Great. I can't wait to see a couple hundred million of these in the landfill after the next World Cup or Superbowl.
1. Video game urinal. Um. How do the girls play? They can't. Guys win. How do the guys with prostate problems play? They can't. Young guys win. How do the young guys who have can't relax and pee in public play? They can't. Young drunk guys win.
hm. Flashing shoes? Am I supposed to be watching my feet while I run? In the dark? Maybe some safety value.
hm. Solar-powered water bottle. For me, a water bottle hanging off a backpack loop and swinging around while I hike is distracting, annoying, and a loss of energy. And the water heats up.
hm. Intelligent spoon? That's ....um.... useful. How about an Intelligent Urinal game with temp, pH, salinity and (dare I even think it) viscosity sensors?
Show me some gadgets not solely based in, and reliant on, a petro-economy and you'll get my attention. Show me stuff that won't choke the landfill with toxic, non-recyclable waste when it breaks after a year of use. Show me stuff that will remove more waste or greenhouse gases from the environment than it takes to produce it. The future is not looking so bright...
That said, I've had to depend on IT to restore a corrupted PVCS archive on more than one occasion, and they have yet to fail me.
Strange that IBM (originators of DB2, where EF Codd invented relational databases) permits this perversion of the term.
The browser vendors consider this "a really good thing" because it offers "product differentiation" and "market segment focus". The cost in human lives is not an issue.
A related story.....
A few years ago, I and some friends took the Durango-Silverton narrow guage train from Durango, got off at the half-way point, and backpacked into Colorado's Chicago Basin for a multi-fourteener weekend. Next morning we woke early and bagged a couple peaks. By evening we were pretty exhausted. One of the ladies had brought along one of the "self-heating" dinners. While the rest of us were filtering water, pumping, priming, disassembling, cleaning, reassembling and fiddling with our stoves, she was lying back, taking it easy, and commenting on all our efforts in a smug voice. Eventually, and with much fanfare she displayed her "instant" dinner, pulled the string to activate the internal heating compound, set it on the ground, and watched. And watched. And poked. And pulled the string some more. By this time, the rest of us were (finally) enjoying a well-deserved meal. After many minutes, smoke appeared from the package, followed shortly thereafter by that unmistakable smell of "dead critter by the side of the road" -- essence de roadkill. The self-heating dinner was definitely getting hot, but apparently something had gone horribly wrong with the contents. She opened the seal and the oder that leapt out of that package had most of us ready to lose our meal. It was more than rancid, worse than putrid, it was the very essence of "bad". We quickly realized that the smell of this abomination would either attract or repel every carnivore in the valley. Not wanting to take a chance, we buried it some distance away. So there she was - miles from the nearest Starbucks, her only chance at dinner now sleeping with the worms. Quite the predicament. What's a very hungry single lady, off in the wilderness without food to do? There was a lot of pleading, and apologies, and eating of the crow. Fortunately, friends don't let friends starve. I had some extra ingredients for a pan-cooked pizza , so she at least got something for dinner.
Moral of the story... Well, I'm not sure, but at least now I feel more justified packing more than I can possible use.
Due to proposed laybacks by our funding venture canabalists, all software engineer positions above the rank of "obsequious toadie" will be eliminated. This includes all over-paid, under-producing, slashdotter "code monkey" positions in the north-40 cube-farm, whose jobs will be outsourced to S-E Asian simian coders, all of whom have doctorates in object-oriented poo-flinging, and work for coconuts. Don't be mad, you brought it on yourselves -- all those "Ludicrous" mp3 files on the server. You know how much it took to settle that lawsuit? Sheesh, I coulda lost my Saleen S7.
We, the upper management, almost sincerely regret the necessity of having to announce this decision, but our personal assistant was out today, so we got stuck doing it. Well, no time to chat -- my four-some is up, so get packing. Oh, by the way, all network access has been cut off, and security is on their way with some backup bouncers from my party last night! Whew, I'm glad the shareholders are picking up the tab for that. Have fun, and if you see me on the street, let's just pretend we don't know each other.
I think the main drawback to oversize bezels (apart from staring in the showers) is that, when using multiple monitors, it makes the "continuous desktop" mode look discontiguous.
It's possible to create dangerous, mutant, cancer-like lifeforms. I created one that got elected to Congress, and another that is running the RIAA.
And speaking of anti-phishing, how about a program that floods the phishing site with bogus info? For example, when I get a message to update my Paypal info, which points to a computer someplace in Brazil, why not just analyze the bogus Paypal site and send a zillion fake, but very real sounding names and passwords? A good program would spoof it's IP for each GET/POST.
Another solution requires the financial organization associated with the phish, like Citibank and Paypal, to take a more proactive approach. Let's say I get a phish to update my Paypal account. I got to the real Paypal and request a special, but totally bogus, "anti-phish" user id and password. I then go to the phish site and enter this special info. When Paypal detects someone trying to use this ID and password combo, they take "special measures" to try detect or identify the sender. I have absolutely no idea of what "special measures" would entail - account xfer audit trails? .... it's kinda like that comic with the 2 guys standing in front of a huge blackboard full of equations, pointing to the last entry, and one says "Then a miracle occurs"....
Is it just me or does it resemble something from the "Dune" movie, or an Alien head from one of the "Aliens" movies?
Let's not forget that the newer Intel Pentium processors, and the AMD equivalents, support downloadable microcode. This means it is theoretically possible to create a virus that runs within a single processor instruction. Ok, granted that's a stretch more inline with something seen on the sci-fi channel, but the capability is there to compromise a system.
The report from In-state (table of contents) costs $3k. And they don't accept Paypal.
Combinations of acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, and CoQ10 have shown similiar effects (link , link)
Granted, we now have a bunch of very smart, long-lived, god-awful horny-all-the-time rats running around. You got a problem with that?
The size of your current RAM was the size of your hard drive 6 years ago. The size of your hard drive now will be the size of your RAM in 6 years.
What happens when those hundreds or thousands or millions of ROM chips (and handy plastic packaging) become "last week's movie"? You would need a major recycling & remanufacturing operation to prevent landfill. We already have a plastic recycling industry, but can chips be ground up & recycled? There's a lot of energy and resources that go into distilling a bucket of sand down to an integrated circuit, and it would be a shame to not recover some of that....
I'll admit I'm old-school (face messaging vs. instant messaging) but how many IM clients am I supposed to be using simultaneously?
But in the end, you're right - Flash is much more tolerant of these kinds of environments. Yes it's expensive, but there's that Moore's Law thing that, for a few years now, has given us smaller, denser, and cheaper circuitry. There's also the limited number of rewrite cycles, but in the sub 1.8 inch drive arena, I think (MHO) Flash will be the ultimate winner. Until then, those of us using micro drives thank those of you who fork out the Really Big Bucks for Flash-based products (like the Nano) - you're helping drive down the cost for us all.