I'd sure like to get my hands on one of the Paladin thingies. If I ever wanted to start up a small business, I could keep that little puppy on my desk, not to mention I would have a blast programming it. I think with a little adaptation I could seamlessly integrate a lot of important business applications without having to rely on much overhead or security risk lost to network transmission.
On the other hand, I'd hate to think of what would happen to me if it broke.:-/
I'm aware that Apple is not the best offering in the industry, but whether we like it or not their product is so ubiquitous that the average reader in fact expects such a comparison to be made. Most people will hear about the Zune and think, "Is it better than iPod?"
Whoever wrote the column is also very aware that his readership is thinking along these lines, so it comes as no surprise whatsoever that Apple was thrown onto the table. It's also no secret that Microsoft's Zune has been regarded as a challenge to Apple long before it was even released--they're even designed similarly.
And then Apple enters your review. I can understand a comparison to other competitive MP3 players but you just start using the brand name Apple. Why? Why not give me a rundown of this versus iRiver or Creative's MP3 players?
OK, so you're going to give up gaming because your hands won't let you. While thinking about your problem, I came up with an idea that you may want to use to your advantage:
Call me old-fashioned, but some of the best games I know about are adventures with text interfaces. Some are graphical, and some are not. The point aside, many of these games could easily be played with some kind of speech recognition software.
You could, for example, play games like Zork, Adventure, King's Quest, Quest for Glory (my favorite!) by simply dictating keyboard input. I imagine that there are hundreds of title out there that I have never even heard of.
You may also be able to find other types of games that could be manipulated with speech, such as a chess game where vocal commands would not interfere with your ability to play the game (nor would they be too frequent to annoy or tire you).
Also, I imagine you could still use your hands for some things. For example, turn-based games such as Nethack and Rogue typically only require a single key to be pressed at any given time. I don't think it would strain your hands much to push a single key, and you could take breaks easily. Those games could also be played with speech, but it would be incredibly mind-numbing to say "j j j j j j shift h" over and over.
Never give up hope. Worst case scenario, you could play games together with a friend (games that require thinking and puzzle solving, like Myst or even something like Zelda) and let him or her handle the manual labor while you both put your heads together.
critical analysis, sound reasoning, valid thought processes, and logic.
I went through public school in the United States, and I can tell you clearly that absolutely no part of these things were taught during my entire education. Logical thinking is not taught in courses except in special college courses and maybe a few faint references prior.
I taught myself to program when I was young, and I was a bit shocked and unfamiliar with the applied use of logic. I used to think logically when I was a youngster, and I would discuss my thoughts with adults, which usually rejected what I had to say. The way it seemed to me was that engaging in analysis was something that was socially rejected.
After growing accustomed to it and programming more, I noticed that analysis was real and actually worked (confirming my suspicions about the world). After programming regularly, I became a more logical thinker. I noticed that it changed the way people looked at me; the people I knew who enjoyed critical thinking wanted to be my friend (even if we disagreed on things, we shared a common love for real thinking), while people who preferred not to think about things found me to be either smart and exotic or annoying and insufferable. To some people, if you think critically about something, they hate you for troubling them with discussion (especially if they disagree, which they usually do since their ideas were socially transmitted and were not products of analysis). If you take a step further and show them proof, then they get even more uncomfortable.
My experience so far has lead me to believe that the majority of people can't think very well, or are at least taught not to about everything save for a few small exceptions. I'm don't think I am a conspiracy theorist, but I wager that social mechanisms definitely exist to repress intelligence.
That is why, I think, education to a large extent does not promote those things you listed.
O'Reilly values things like knowing what day it is. Why does he value you that? Because in his lifetime, he couldn't function without that kind of information.
People who can function without this information obviously don't need it. This has nothing to do with "reality" or not. In times gone by, you couldn't function very well if you didn't know the current phase of the moon (because that's how people organized time). That's reality, but I bet old Bill has no idea what phase the moon is, nor does he care. In his own way, he's disconnected from reality, but he made that sacrifice so he could devote his attention to connecting to things that matter to him.
Now, he notices that lots of other people are now connecting to things that don't matter to him. Furthermore, they're not connected to things that matter to him. This is okay because, frankly, they're not him, and he's not them. He has a problem with this, probably for a number of reasons, but I can't help but thing his interpretation is a little bit egocentric.
That's not to say that his criticisms are invalid. It is sometimes hard to get by in life without knowing the date, but if someone can do it, then hey... as long as it works.
Etymylogically, this appears to be an evolution of the word box toward its phonetically similar cousin, ox. The correct plural form of ox is oxen, and these are useful domesticated animals that have been used primarily for their ability to do heavy labor. Unlike traditional boxes, a computer is a special kind of box that is similarly used for carrying a workload. With this purpose in mind, it is not inapropriate to use the more specific term boxen.
You will also notice that human beings have a long history of personifying objects, especially technology.
You're splitting hairs. Technically you are right, but evolution is a theory as much as gravity is a theory. We've been observing it for so long that nobody wants to call it a "theory" anymore.
Computer engineers and software developers are just that - they can create software and build computers.
They aren't molecular biologists or doctors or anything like that, so its not taking the mindshare from those kind of folks.
Mod parent up
I previously discussed this topic on an older article about the $100 laptop. Yes, people need a lot of things besides laptops. Imagine the economy in the United States and its trade partners. Pick out all the elements besides money: labor/skill/organization, raw materials, facilities/tools. Now imagine all the money in that economy. We have a lot of money--more money than economic resources. Saying that we could throw more money into food for third world countries doesn't necessarily mean you will get the amount of food you valued your money at. Paying out money to have workers and facilities that are only able to produce computers and software gives third world countries a little something extra. Why? Because those economic resources could not have produced food, so they would otherwise be an untapped outlet. If all the money going into a project like that went into sending food over, you'd probably choke the food supply and incredibly diminish the value of the money you spent on it.
I like how the article gloats about how "light" the PS3 controllers are. Probably the fact that there are no massive weights inside to throw around (ie vibrate) has something to do with it. That light feel only serves to remind you what you're missing.
OS X can run free software, but it is not free software itself. This is a point of contention for many people, partly due to social values, and partly due to licensing restrictions. Many of us really cannot afford to run OS X because of copyright law.
That's what the suits want you to believe, but there is no way that people are going to trust a download service more than hard copies. Music is one thing, but movies are something different.
True, but it arises from the question, "What does human meat taste like?" After all, we've all heard of cannibalism, and sometimes it makes you wonder such things.
This does not surprise me considering that pork is the closest thing to human flesh that we eat.
I used to theorize that human flesh probably contains more of the same nutrients we need than any other food out there, so I had guessed in the past that in theory it would be pretty tasty.
I have been a diehard fan of the series for several years. I started playing Final Fantasy titles on the SNES when I was kid, and I watched the series have its ups and downs. Looking back on them, I have to say that I started playing the series right around its peak (VI being my favorite title, followed strongly by VII). I liked the other games a lot too, but I could tell that the series was floundering. Each new installment had something great about it, but also something sub-par.
Clearly the series is in its decline. There's nothing wrong with that--12 installments is a good run (not including various other titles stemming on different platforms).
I planned to buy this game long before it came out. I didn't know what it was going to be like, but the closer it got to release, the more I began to suspect that this title was going to be some kind of step up compared to the last few games.
Upon playing it, I was right in many ways; I find this game to be much more engaging and entertaining than X was, and the "fun" factor gave it a definite edge. This game is not spectacular, but it's got firm footing in trying to be the best it can be in spite of having to live up to the greatness of episodes gone by.
If you are a Dream Theater fan, you will probably understand what I mean when I say that Final Fantasy XII is in many ways the Octavarium of FF games. Dream Theater's latest album doesn't seem to offer anything spectacular or amazing, but you end up listening to it forwards and backwards, saying to yourself, "You know, every way I look at it, this is a good album." It has fewer flaws than the others--even the better ones. You can't find anything not to like about it, but you just don't like it as much as your analytic skills say that you should. That's art.
I like this game. A lot. I'm going to keep playing it, but it's not the hallmark of the series. It is a result of much refinement, and its perfection finds it to be definitively imperfect.
Do I recommend it? Yes. It's the kind of game that you can hand to a newbie, and they will get a good feel for what Final Fantasy is all about. Going back to my Octavarium analogy, Dream Theater has said the same thing about their album--that you could give it to someone who has never heard their music and they will get a good all-around feel for what Dream Theater is about.
Voting 3rd party is idiotic. You're throwing away your vote in order to be 1 person among millions who doesn't really care who runs the country for the next four years. There is basically no difference between staying home and voting 3rd party, except that you waste a half your of your time doing the latter. Maybe twenty years ago voting Green or Libertarian had meaning, but nowadays anyone with a computer and a point of view can send a stronger, more effective message than casting a vote for an unelectable candidate.
Here is the way I look at it (correct me if I'm wrong)...
People should vote for the candidates who they truly want to see in office. If everyone voted by that criteria, then the elected candidate would be the one MOST people want. If you start basing your vote by guessing who is going to win (ie don't vote for your preferred candidate because it's likely that they will lose), you're essentially ruining the value of the electoral process.
On a side note, I think to keep things sane we should be able to do run-off style voting. In my computer science studies, I was once assigned to write software that simulated a certain voting system (the assignment claimed it was the system used in Australia) whereby each voter ordered their candidates by preference. Everyone's preferred candidate was counted, and if one candidate did not have a clear majority, the one with the fewest votes got eliminated and the votes were recounted--the people whose preferred vote was eliminated had their votes counted in favor of their 2nd preference. This way if you vote for a 3rd party that is likely to fail, your vote will be recounted in favor of the next best candidate--if you voted Green and Green didn't win, at least your vote wouldn't help Republicans because you'd have the Democrats to fall back on. Not too shabby, eh?
For me personally, Gnucash is a killer app. Now, I realize I'm using the term loosely because it's not really going to kill other platforms, but for me it did. =) I do like to tinker with operating systems, and sometimes for one reason or another I run Windows on my machine. Having had experience with Gnucash, I was hoping that, like most popular Linux apps, there would be a Windows port I could use. Was there? No. I would die without this program, though, so I switched (not a problem since I'm a Linux hobbyist, but interesting none the less). I find it amusing that I switched away from Windows because of better software support on another platform because usually it's the other way around.;p
Now that Gnucash is written in GTK2, however, I expect a Windows port? I remember reading that no port was made because the GTK1 code was too hard to port.
This is Apple's one chance to release their operating system in a version that is licensed and designed for non Apple machines. Undercut the price of Vista and it's sold.
If risk taking were rewarded, it wouldn't be risk. We reward success, not failure. Asking for rewards before results doesn't make sense. We may reward ingenuity, but not daring.
Inexperienced users, or those who prefer to focus on one task at a time, generally want to keep one single window open.
I consider myself to be an experienced user, and I also tend to focus on one task at a time. That doesn't mean that I don't keep other programs running, but those programs are doing work in the background (as such, I background them whenever I can, either invisibly or to the system tray).
Even though the computer can do many things at the same time, I can't! I inevitably focus on one thing more than another, even when I am switching between tasks. As a programmer, it's my nature to optimize resources, so I always keep my windows to a minimum to save space (make my desktop more usable) and resources (let my computer use its memory/cpu for other things, which it actually is).
I see your point, and I agree with you (I know a lot of newbies who are afraid of multitasking because Windows has taught us that a system will crash when you do that), but I also want to point out that in a way there are "expert" users who are in a similar boat in terms of avoiding too many windows at once. The main difference is that we have better reasons.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I love how it has the Ranish partition manager. I love that app.
dblll FTW!!!
I'd sure like to get my hands on one of the Paladin thingies. If I ever wanted to start up a small business, I could keep that little puppy on my desk, not to mention I would have a blast programming it. I think with a little adaptation I could seamlessly integrate a lot of important business applications without having to rely on much overhead or security risk lost to network transmission.
:-/
On the other hand, I'd hate to think of what would happen to me if it broke.
If only they would cancel the production of flaws too. :-/
I'm aware that Apple is not the best offering in the industry, but whether we like it or not their product is so ubiquitous that the average reader in fact expects such a comparison to be made. Most people will hear about the Zune and think, "Is it better than iPod?"
Whoever wrote the column is also very aware that his readership is thinking along these lines, so it comes as no surprise whatsoever that Apple was thrown onto the table. It's also no secret that Microsoft's Zune has been regarded as a challenge to Apple long before it was even released--they're even designed similarly.
And then Apple enters your review. I can understand a comparison to other competitive MP3 players but you just start using the brand name Apple. Why? Why not give me a rundown of this versus iRiver or Creative's MP3 players?
lol
OK, so you're going to give up gaming because your hands won't let you. While thinking about your problem, I came up with an idea that you may want to use to your advantage:
Call me old-fashioned, but some of the best games I know about are adventures with text interfaces. Some are graphical, and some are not. The point aside, many of these games could easily be played with some kind of speech recognition software.
You could, for example, play games like Zork, Adventure, King's Quest, Quest for Glory (my favorite!) by simply dictating keyboard input. I imagine that there are hundreds of title out there that I have never even heard of.
You may also be able to find other types of games that could be manipulated with speech, such as a chess game where vocal commands would not interfere with your ability to play the game (nor would they be too frequent to annoy or tire you).
Also, I imagine you could still use your hands for some things. For example, turn-based games such as Nethack and Rogue typically only require a single key to be pressed at any given time. I don't think it would strain your hands much to push a single key, and you could take breaks easily. Those games could also be played with speech, but it would be incredibly mind-numbing to say "j j j j j j shift h" over and over.
Never give up hope. Worst case scenario, you could play games together with a friend (games that require thinking and puzzle solving, like Myst or even something like Zelda) and let him or her handle the manual labor while you both put your heads together.
critical analysis, sound reasoning, valid thought processes, and logic.
I went through public school in the United States, and I can tell you clearly that absolutely no part of these things were taught during my entire education. Logical thinking is not taught in courses except in special college courses and maybe a few faint references prior.
I taught myself to program when I was young, and I was a bit shocked and unfamiliar with the applied use of logic. I used to think logically when I was a youngster, and I would discuss my thoughts with adults, which usually rejected what I had to say. The way it seemed to me was that engaging in analysis was something that was socially rejected.
After growing accustomed to it and programming more, I noticed that analysis was real and actually worked (confirming my suspicions about the world). After programming regularly, I became a more logical thinker. I noticed that it changed the way people looked at me; the people I knew who enjoyed critical thinking wanted to be my friend (even if we disagreed on things, we shared a common love for real thinking), while people who preferred not to think about things found me to be either smart and exotic or annoying and insufferable. To some people, if you think critically about something, they hate you for troubling them with discussion (especially if they disagree, which they usually do since their ideas were socially transmitted and were not products of analysis). If you take a step further and show them proof, then they get even more uncomfortable.
My experience so far has lead me to believe that the majority of people can't think very well, or are at least taught not to about everything save for a few small exceptions. I'm don't think I am a conspiracy theorist, but I wager that social mechanisms definitely exist to repress intelligence.
That is why, I think, education to a large extent does not promote those things you listed.
This is just a case of mixed up values.
O'Reilly values things like knowing what day it is. Why does he value you that? Because in his lifetime, he couldn't function without that kind of information.
People who can function without this information obviously don't need it. This has nothing to do with "reality" or not. In times gone by, you couldn't function very well if you didn't know the current phase of the moon (because that's how people organized time). That's reality, but I bet old Bill has no idea what phase the moon is, nor does he care. In his own way, he's disconnected from reality, but he made that sacrifice so he could devote his attention to connecting to things that matter to him.
Now, he notices that lots of other people are now connecting to things that don't matter to him. Furthermore, they're not connected to things that matter to him. This is okay because, frankly, they're not him, and he's not them. He has a problem with this, probably for a number of reasons, but I can't help but thing his interpretation is a little bit egocentric.
That's not to say that his criticisms are invalid. It is sometimes hard to get by in life without knowing the date, but if someone can do it, then hey... as long as it works.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212
hehe
Etymylogically, this appears to be an evolution of the word box toward its phonetically similar cousin, ox. The correct plural form of ox is oxen, and these are useful domesticated animals that have been used primarily for their ability to do heavy labor. Unlike traditional boxes, a computer is a special kind of box that is similarly used for carrying a workload. With this purpose in mind, it is not inapropriate to use the more specific term boxen.
You will also notice that human beings have a long history of personifying objects, especially technology.
--your local pseudolinguist
You're splitting hairs. Technically you are right, but evolution is a theory as much as gravity is a theory. We've been observing it for so long that nobody wants to call it a "theory" anymore.
Computer engineers and software developers are just that - they can create software and build computers. They aren't molecular biologists or doctors or anything like that, so its not taking the mindshare from those kind of folks.
Mod parent up
I previously discussed this topic on an older article about the $100 laptop. Yes, people need a lot of things besides laptops. Imagine the economy in the United States and its trade partners. Pick out all the elements besides money: labor/skill/organization, raw materials, facilities/tools. Now imagine all the money in that economy. We have a lot of money--more money than economic resources. Saying that we could throw more money into food for third world countries doesn't necessarily mean you will get the amount of food you valued your money at. Paying out money to have workers and facilities that are only able to produce computers and software gives third world countries a little something extra. Why? Because those economic resources could not have produced food, so they would otherwise be an untapped outlet. If all the money going into a project like that went into sending food over, you'd probably choke the food supply and incredibly diminish the value of the money you spent on it.
WoW used to get so much good press on Slashdot. Now this! I hope this doesn't have something do with...oh...I don't know... recent news?
It's a feature.
I like how the article gloats about how "light" the PS3 controllers are. Probably the fact that there are no massive weights inside to throw around (ie vibrate) has something to do with it. That light feel only serves to remind you what you're missing.
OS X can run free software, but it is not free software itself. This is a point of contention for many people, partly due to social values, and partly due to licensing restrictions. Many of us really cannot afford to run OS X because of copyright law.
That's what the suits want you to believe, but there is no way that people are going to trust a download service more than hard copies. Music is one thing, but movies are something different.
True, but it arises from the question, "What does human meat taste like?" After all, we've all heard of cannibalism, and sometimes it makes you wonder such things.
This does not surprise me considering that pork is the closest thing to human flesh that we eat.
I used to theorize that human flesh probably contains more of the same nutrients we need than any other food out there, so I had guessed in the past that in theory it would be pretty tasty.
I give this game an 'A' for effort.
I have been a diehard fan of the series for several years. I started playing Final Fantasy titles on the SNES when I was kid, and I watched the series have its ups and downs. Looking back on them, I have to say that I started playing the series right around its peak (VI being my favorite title, followed strongly by VII). I liked the other games a lot too, but I could tell that the series was floundering. Each new installment had something great about it, but also something sub-par.
Clearly the series is in its decline. There's nothing wrong with that--12 installments is a good run (not including various other titles stemming on different platforms).
I planned to buy this game long before it came out. I didn't know what it was going to be like, but the closer it got to release, the more I began to suspect that this title was going to be some kind of step up compared to the last few games.
Upon playing it, I was right in many ways; I find this game to be much more engaging and entertaining than X was, and the "fun" factor gave it a definite edge. This game is not spectacular, but it's got firm footing in trying to be the best it can be in spite of having to live up to the greatness of episodes gone by.
If you are a Dream Theater fan, you will probably understand what I mean when I say that Final Fantasy XII is in many ways the Octavarium of FF games. Dream Theater's latest album doesn't seem to offer anything spectacular or amazing, but you end up listening to it forwards and backwards, saying to yourself, "You know, every way I look at it, this is a good album." It has fewer flaws than the others--even the better ones. You can't find anything not to like about it, but you just don't like it as much as your analytic skills say that you should. That's art.
I like this game. A lot. I'm going to keep playing it, but it's not the hallmark of the series. It is a result of much refinement, and its perfection finds it to be definitively imperfect.
Do I recommend it? Yes. It's the kind of game that you can hand to a newbie, and they will get a good feel for what Final Fantasy is all about. Going back to my Octavarium analogy, Dream Theater has said the same thing about their album--that you could give it to someone who has never heard their music and they will get a good all-around feel for what Dream Theater is about.
Voting 3rd party is idiotic. You're throwing away your vote in order to be 1 person among millions who doesn't really care who runs the country for the next four years. There is basically no difference between staying home and voting 3rd party, except that you waste a half your of your time doing the latter. Maybe twenty years ago voting Green or Libertarian had meaning, but nowadays anyone with a computer and a point of view can send a stronger, more effective message than casting a vote for an unelectable candidate.
Here is the way I look at it (correct me if I'm wrong)...
People should vote for the candidates who they truly want to see in office. If everyone voted by that criteria, then the elected candidate would be the one MOST people want. If you start basing your vote by guessing who is going to win (ie don't vote for your preferred candidate because it's likely that they will lose), you're essentially ruining the value of the electoral process.
On a side note, I think to keep things sane we should be able to do run-off style voting. In my computer science studies, I was once assigned to write software that simulated a certain voting system (the assignment claimed it was the system used in Australia) whereby each voter ordered their candidates by preference. Everyone's preferred candidate was counted, and if one candidate did not have a clear majority, the one with the fewest votes got eliminated and the votes were recounted--the people whose preferred vote was eliminated had their votes counted in favor of their 2nd preference. This way if you vote for a 3rd party that is likely to fail, your vote will be recounted in favor of the next best candidate--if you voted Green and Green didn't win, at least your vote wouldn't help Republicans because you'd have the Democrats to fall back on. Not too shabby, eh?
I hear you.
;p
For me personally, Gnucash is a killer app. Now, I realize I'm using the term loosely because it's not really going to kill other platforms, but for me it did. =) I do like to tinker with operating systems, and sometimes for one reason or another I run Windows on my machine. Having had experience with Gnucash, I was hoping that, like most popular Linux apps, there would be a Windows port I could use. Was there? No. I would die without this program, though, so I switched (not a problem since I'm a Linux hobbyist, but interesting none the less). I find it amusing that I switched away from Windows because of better software support on another platform because usually it's the other way around.
Now that Gnucash is written in GTK2, however, I expect a Windows port? I remember reading that no port was made because the GTK1 code was too hard to port.
This is Apple's one chance to release their operating system in a version that is licensed and designed for non Apple machines. Undercut the price of Vista and it's sold.
If risk taking were rewarded, it wouldn't be risk. We reward success, not failure. Asking for rewards before results doesn't make sense. We may reward ingenuity, but not daring.
Inexperienced users, or those who prefer to focus on one task at a time, generally want to keep one single window open.
I consider myself to be an experienced user, and I also tend to focus on one task at a time. That doesn't mean that I don't keep other programs running, but those programs are doing work in the background (as such, I background them whenever I can, either invisibly or to the system tray).
Even though the computer can do many things at the same time, I can't! I inevitably focus on one thing more than another, even when I am switching between tasks. As a programmer, it's my nature to optimize resources, so I always keep my windows to a minimum to save space (make my desktop more usable) and resources (let my computer use its memory/cpu for other things, which it actually is).
I see your point, and I agree with you (I know a lot of newbies who are afraid of multitasking because Windows has taught us that a system will crash when you do that), but I also want to point out that in a way there are "expert" users who are in a similar boat in terms of avoiding too many windows at once. The main difference is that we have better reasons. :)