Re:I actually tried to check this out...
on
HD DVD Coming Very Soon
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"I would be a lot less anti-Microsoft if they actually put forth any effort at all to be compatible and/or interoperate with other OSes. I too am sick to death of the, "if you want to do this you have to run Windows" crap."
I hear ya. It pisses me off I can't play Dreamcast games on my Playstation 2.
"I was under the impression that LCDs sucked for fast motion video like an FPS (Quake). Is this not the case anymore?"
I have a Dell laptop with their 'Ultrasharp' display. Ultrasharp is supposed to have a pretty fast refresh rate. I can say that it's just fine for games. I've been playing GTA3 quite a bit lately. I've seen a couple of FPS games demo'ed at a Dell kiosk at my local mall and it was fine.
I think you'd fine a decent LCD monitor to be quite acceptable. However, I've known gamers to be rather fickle about refresh rates, so I have difficulty telling you definitively.
"The problem is that the technology is really line of sight oriented. 802.11b or bluetooth would work better..."
The problem with 802.11 or Bluetooth is that anybody could be listening.
This guy didn't want to do it in order to be faster or to communicate wirelessly, he just wanted to do it because it'd be cool to try. You never know when something like that would be more beneficial than the alternatives.
I think there's a better way, though. I think he could adapt a pair of pen-lasers to do the job at a higher bandwidth with less CPU overhead.
"Why do I want the ending explained when the whole movie was such a painful piece of crap?"
A.I.'s ending is flawed, causing a lot of people to miss the point of it. As a result, lots of people hated it. If you understand the ending, there's the possibilty you can appreciate the movie which is actually quite good.
But if you wish to intentionally be ignorant, that's fine with me. I just thought it was an interesting read. The author makes a damn good point.
"So if google cache is OK, why would this be any different?"
a.) Google just provides the link and the info, not the poster's interpretation of it. Not sure if you've noticed, but pretty often the article description is way off from what's posted on the site being linked to.
b.) You have to approach Google to get Indexed. Not the casae with Slashdot. With Slashdot, people run around the web and look for stories.
c.) The point of using Google is to go find the site, cache is intended to be used in case the info's gone or if the server's down. Slashdot, on the other hand, would be causing the server outage. If the target site generates ad-revenue, they're going to have a beef with it, especially if Slashdot's ads appear in the cache. Illegal? No. Sticky issue? Well you don't want to piss off the people hosting the interesting content, right?
Then there's the whole matter of hosting the bandwidth. The reason why Slashdot doesn't get slashdotted is because it's minimal imagery and server load etc. A good chunk of the sites we end up on have lots of graphics etc. Slashdot can either host them and require significantly more bandwidth (more ads as a result?) or not host the images and end up in the trouble mentioned in point 3.
Could it be done? On a technical level yes. Can it be done to everybody's satisfaction? Possibly, but it takes more work than just setting up a mirror server.
I think Slashdot's doing just fine having the users that made it in paste the info.
""largely visited using IE (70% ?)" or Opera, Mozilla etc. users pretending to be IE users so that pages will render correctly. Yes I am a Troll, what does my ethnic backround have to do with anything????"
Not a very good troll. Web-logs can distinguish between IE and Mozilla/Opera etc.
"That's not a good analogy. The caps lock LED is an indicator of state. "
Yes, that would be output. As a matter of fact, I vaguely remember reading a Slashdot article about the computer sending morse code to the caps lock indicator as an indication that something went wrong.
Though your example is quite accurate, the point of my comment was simply that there is no absolutist reasoning that can work in a situation like that. He had mentioned earlier in the thread that he felt touch screens were a matter of form factor, thus they're exempt. Convenient, eh?:)
Geez guys, why can't you go a day without publishing anti-MS crap! Don't you think that if this were really a problem that people'd be aff.... K(R*AB(*D [NO CARRIER]
"Why? (Score:0, Insightful) A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? This isn't a troll, I'm truly curious as to how this will be better than just a traditional monitor/scanner setup."
Heh I know it's happened before, but that's the first time I've seen a moderation like that.
"Wow, innane use of technology to fill a market that's been overflown with real solutions to a once-upon-a-time problem!"
He's not talking about filling a need, he's talking about doing something cool.
I used to have a Timex Datalink watch that did something sort of like that. It had an optical sensor on it and the computer would flash stuff on the monitor really really fast. The two devices synched up without needing cables etc. Damn cool. I wouldn't mind synching up my PocketPc that way, but until that LCD scanner display in the other article pops up, not likely.
Re:Very Old but Powerful for its time.. & stil
on
Implementing VisiCalc
·
· Score: 1
" A graphic for flash cards & teaching how to tell time can only be so ornate before it becomes bloated with too much "eye candy""
That's not the point. PC's are in nearly every home now, Apple II's are not. It's hard to get by these days without knowing at least a little bit about how to use a PC.
(if you're about to mod me as off-topic, then let me explain: his joke was obvious an unfunny, not unlike some of the commentary on America's Funniest Home Videos.)
"So, it sounds like Micro$oft has got you by the ball's eh. It's called a monopoly."
Nope, at least not in the example he used. The problem he described wasn't that the stuff wasn't unavailble, the problem was that it'd cost them money. The ability to move is there, he's not being prevented from switching platforms. His company was too reliant on one vendor.
This can easily happen whether the vendor is a monopoly or not.
"This is hardly "abuse" of the DMCA, as the story claims. Now, you may not *like* the DMCA. Lord knows, I think it's one of the most disgusting pieces of legislation ever passed ("it's more *convenient* to prosecute the few smart engineers designing tools that can be used to bypass copy protection mechanisms than the people actually using them to commit a crime, so those engineers should be prosecuted? Meh!"), but this really is the DMCA being used as it was intended. It's not misuse of the DMCA at all."
The Slashdot Community really needs to learn to pick their battles. Right now, names like "DMCA", "RIAA", and "Microsoft" cause this knee-jerk reaction that just doesn't carry any weight.
"Oh, that's Slashdot. They hate anything that has to do with the DMCA. Don't expect informed reactions from them."
Would you listen to anybody if you had that opinion about them?
"What do you think it means when a police office goes "undercover", sets up a "sting", or just plain violates peoples rights to due process?"
undercover or sting != violation of due process.
As for whether or not sting operations and undercover police are secret police , here's the dictionary definition:
"A police force operating largely in secret and often using terror tactics to suppress dissent and political opposition."
Exactly what part of a sting is a terror tactic? When does an undercover cop suppress dissent and political opposition? You really think our gov't works that way?
Slashdot Mirror
... but first I have to restart my computer. gr.
"I would be a lot less anti-Microsoft if they actually put forth any effort at all to be compatible and/or interoperate with other OSes. I too am sick to death of the, "if you want to do this you have to run Windows" crap."
I hear ya. It pisses me off I can't play Dreamcast games on my Playstation 2.
"I was under the impression that LCDs sucked for fast motion video like an FPS (Quake). Is this not the case anymore?"
I have a Dell laptop with their 'Ultrasharp' display. Ultrasharp is supposed to have a pretty fast refresh rate. I can say that it's just fine for games. I've been playing GTA3 quite a bit lately. I've seen a couple of FPS games demo'ed at a Dell kiosk at my local mall and it was fine.
I think you'd fine a decent LCD monitor to be quite acceptable. However, I've known gamers to be rather fickle about refresh rates, so I have difficulty telling you definitively.
"403 kbs...
Obligatory Nelson Quote: "HA HA"
Soon the pants will be dropped, and the rulers are going to come out.
"The problem is that the technology is really line of sight oriented. 802.11b or bluetooth would work better..."
The problem with 802.11 or Bluetooth is that anybody could be listening.
This guy didn't want to do it in order to be faster or to communicate wirelessly, he just wanted to do it because it'd be cool to try. You never know when something like that would be more beneficial than the alternatives.
I think there's a better way, though. I think he could adapt a pair of pen-lasers to do the job at a higher bandwidth with less CPU overhead.
"Why do I want the ending explained when the whole movie was such a painful piece of crap?"
A.I.'s ending is flawed, causing a lot of people to miss the point of it. As a result, lots of people hated it. If you understand the ending, there's the possibilty you can appreciate the movie which is actually quite good.
But if you wish to intentionally be ignorant, that's fine with me. I just thought it was an interesting read. The author makes a damn good point.
"So if google cache is OK, why would this be any different?"
a.) Google just provides the link and the info, not the poster's interpretation of it. Not sure if you've noticed, but pretty often the article description is way off from what's posted on the site being linked to.
b.) You have to approach Google to get Indexed. Not the casae with Slashdot. With Slashdot, people run around the web and look for stories.
c.) The point of using Google is to go find the site, cache is intended to be used in case the info's gone or if the server's down. Slashdot, on the other hand, would be causing the server outage. If the target site generates ad-revenue, they're going to have a beef with it, especially if Slashdot's ads appear in the cache. Illegal? No. Sticky issue? Well you don't want to piss off the people hosting the interesting content, right?
Then there's the whole matter of hosting the bandwidth. The reason why Slashdot doesn't get slashdotted is because it's minimal imagery and server load etc. A good chunk of the sites we end up on have lots of graphics etc. Slashdot can either host them and require significantly more bandwidth (more ads as a result?) or not host the images and end up in the trouble mentioned in point 3.
Could it be done? On a technical level yes. Can it be done to everybody's satisfaction? Possibly, but it takes more work than just setting up a mirror server.
I think Slashdot's doing just fine having the users that made it in paste the info.
"Wait, i can almost see something loading... It looks like Captain Janeway."
If you see an ad for the Internet King, skip it. It's a scam.
"People, why aren't we mirroring sites on other high-profile facilities with no bandwidth caps or problems?"
Oh shit! Why didn't you suggest that 2 years ago when Slashdottings started to happen?!?
"How about they build reasonable networks in the US first!"
Wait a while. USA is considerably larger than Japan.
""largely visited using IE (70% ?)" or Opera, Mozilla etc. users pretending to be IE users so that pages will render correctly. Yes I am a Troll, what does my ethnic backround have to do with anything????"
Not a very good troll. Web-logs can distinguish between IE and Mozilla/Opera etc.
"Did I get sucked into some hellish wormhole?
Or is this a normal Taco dupe? [slashdot.org]"
Niether. It's really Groundhog Day.
"That's not a good analogy. The caps lock LED is an indicator of state. "
:)
Yes, that would be output. As a matter of fact, I vaguely remember reading a Slashdot article about the computer sending morse code to the caps lock indicator as an indication that something went wrong.
Though your example is quite accurate, the point of my comment was simply that there is no absolutist reasoning that can work in a situation like that. He had mentioned earlier in the thread that he felt touch screens were a matter of form factor, thus they're exempt. Convenient, eh?
Geez guys, why can't you go a day without publishing anti-MS crap! Don't you think that if this were really a problem that people'd be aff.... K(R*AB(*D [NO CARRIER]
"Why? (Score:0, Insightful)
A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? This isn't a troll, I'm truly curious as to how this will be better than just a traditional monitor/scanner setup."
Heh I know it's happened before, but that's the first time I've seen a moderation like that.
"Wow, innane use of technology to fill a market that's been overflown with real solutions to a once-upon-a-time problem!"
He's not talking about filling a need, he's talking about doing something cool.
I used to have a Timex Datalink watch that did something sort of like that. It had an optical sensor on it and the computer would flash stuff on the monitor really really fast. The two devices synched up without needing cables etc. Damn cool. I wouldn't mind synching up my PocketPc that way, but until that LCD scanner display in the other article pops up, not likely.
"That opens up an interesting question, can some one exploite this to see what you are doing at your desk?
ie picking your nose =]"
I'm more worried about you guys finding out why I have such a terrible time typing...
"A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? "
Does your keyboard have a caps-lock light?
Wish I had mod points. Very good point. :)
" A graphic for flash cards & teaching how to tell time can only be so ornate before it becomes bloated with too much "eye candy""
That's not the point. PC's are in nearly every home now, Apple II's are not. It's hard to get by these days without knowing at least a little bit about how to use a PC.
"You know you're not funny when you have to explain your joke just so you don't get modded down."
It's plenty funny, problem is that Slashdot's culture's diverse enough that a lot of my jokes go over the heads of people with mod points.
Pardon me for being considerate.
"Coming soon... 64-bit Blue Screen of Death!"
SLASHDOT!
With special guest star: Bob Saget!
(if you're about to mod me as off-topic, then let me explain: his joke was obvious an unfunny, not unlike some of the commentary on America's Funniest Home Videos.)
"So, it sounds like Micro$oft has got you by the ball's eh. It's called a monopoly."
Nope, at least not in the example he used. The problem he described wasn't that the stuff wasn't unavailble, the problem was that it'd cost them money. The ability to move is there, he's not being prevented from switching platforms. His company was too reliant on one vendor.
This can easily happen whether the vendor is a monopoly or not.
"This is hardly "abuse" of the DMCA, as the story claims. Now, you may not *like* the DMCA. Lord knows, I think it's one of the most disgusting pieces of legislation ever passed ("it's more *convenient* to prosecute the few smart engineers designing tools that can be used to bypass copy protection mechanisms than the people actually using them to commit a crime, so those engineers should be prosecuted? Meh!"), but this really is the DMCA being used as it was intended. It's not misuse of the DMCA at all."
The Slashdot Community really needs to learn to pick their battles. Right now, names like "DMCA", "RIAA", and "Microsoft" cause this knee-jerk reaction that just doesn't carry any weight.
"Oh, that's Slashdot. They hate anything that has to do with the DMCA. Don't expect informed reactions from them."
Would you listen to anybody if you had that opinion about them?
"What do you think it means when a police office goes "undercover", sets up a "sting", or just plain violates peoples rights to due process?"
undercover or sting != violation of due process.
As for whether or not sting operations and undercover police are secret police , here's the dictionary definition:
"A police force operating largely in secret and often using terror tactics to suppress dissent and political opposition."
Exactly what part of a sting is a terror tactic? When does an undercover cop suppress dissent and political opposition? You really think our gov't works that way?