Every time I try to take a closer look at Wave it just looks like a horribly cluttered mess. It's like they said "Why use ten different programs when we can replace them with one? How? By stuffing the data from ten different programs onto one screen! GENIUS!"
Are there any videos of this product that don't look like digital throwup? There has to be more to it than what I've been seeing, because what I've been seeing looks absolutely unusable.
So an anonymous reader submits a story of a anonymous person with a child at an anonymous school and that qualifies for the front page? I thought I'd seen useless articles posted at Slashdot but this must be the absolute worst.
I'm saying that cursive writing is more distinctive than printing, hence more personal and expressive when conveying a personal message and not just a grocery list. I think the nature of a continuously flowing line lends itself better to displaying individuality due to the greater degree of variation it can display.
Take the same message and output it in cursive, then printing, then electronically in say courier and tell me there's no difference in how personal it seems.;)
I grew up in an era when cursive was still common but I struggled with it right through until the end of High School. It was always terrible. When I got to college I abandoned it in favor of printing and it was a great relief. Now and then I use cursive for a letter because it still is the most personal way to write but it looks as awful as ever.
Cursive still has a place as a form of expression and as such should still be taught, but for the cursive challenged like me I understand its abandonment.
Copying the original text Lunar Lander was my first experience with BASIC. I just typed the program in from a copy of Creative Computing in I think Applesoft BASIC. I was great at typing it, not so good at playing it.
My arcade video game experience started with Computer Space around 1972 so I was in the right generation to take part in the video game madness of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I really liked the Atari Lunar Lander and still miss the wonderful sharpness of vector graphics.
I checked the article and there don't appear to be any details. A few of these hacking contests have been a bit overblown so I'd like to know what manner of exploit they used.
If it's another "well you need physical access to the machine and know the admin username and password" then it's no big deal. If it's "we had the user click a link and all hell broke loose" that would be much more interesting.
"Warmth" is not a physical property of sound, it is subjective. Do you really think people use it to indicate a change in room temperature due to the music? The same for "tone." It is not always used in the strictest sense of the word. If I said a sentence was written with a sarcastic tone are you going to put your ear down to the paper?
I hope you can appreciate that not only are there multiple meanings to these words but that their use in this particular case is common and has a long history. Be less of a pedant.
People have really weird internal processes that shape their preferences. Preferring shitty, hissy sounding music is just one of those odd results. I would not equate it with the perceived "warmth" of vinyl when compared to CDs. The warmth is not the snaps and crackles, but a different quality that I can't imagine anyone would think as a loss of quality. Just a change of tone.
The hissy music on the other hand is primarily as a result of poor or excessive compression that reflects a lost of information, not just a change in tone. And it just so happens that like in every other arena of human opinion most people prefer crap.:)
P.S. I am not an audiophile but I love clear, full range sound when it comes to music. I prefer digital over vinyl because I can't stand all the defects that come with vinyl, even though I grew up with them.
For what is touted as a major OS release I really can't believe that a single beta can get the job done. Either they are rushing it, or it's really just a minor change to Vista.
Tabula Rasa had some good basic ideas but felt like half a game. That was disappointing since there's still no decent sci-fi MMORPG out there. Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies filled that niche for the first couple of years before they each lost their way and I was hoping TR would pick up that mantle.
Both Anarchy Online and EvE Online had such evocative music that I found myself listening to it offline, even after I no longer subscribed. The music actually got me to resubscribe to Anarchy Online for a while just because I loved the atmosphere it evoked.
I've heard some good game music before but only these two made me think I needed to add their soundtracks to my library.
The phrase "numerous Dragon's Lair-style reflex focused button presses" was all I needed to read about this game to know that the developers have no idea what makes for a satisfying control scheme.
If people wanted to play "Simon" they would still be doing that. Canned sequences that are basically "Press A, B or C to see the cut-scene" is just idiotic, and in direct opposition to their "WE'RE SO REAL! LOOK HOW REAL WE ARE!" hype.
People seem to forget that this company seems to have made... one game. They have spent the majority of their time since opening announcing games without actually making them. So for a "game developer" that has been around for over a decade their output is practically non-existent.
I love well rendered characters and backgrounds but these guys are basically creating a very nice looking version of the old Gabriel Knight games and passing it off as paradigm-breaking innovation.
When employers are abusing workers unions serve a purpose. When there is no abuse unions are a destructive force that erodes quality, stifles productivity and ends advancement by merit. Unions are a pox on the modern workforce when they have no wrongs to redress.
Union strength is good for one thing: protecting workers from bad employers. Beyond that they have no place and should be immediately disbanded by their members.
True story: At work people were making a photo wall of images from their high school days. I'm one of the older ones so I was going to post a prom photo from the 1980s. I scanned it in and said "Shit. My hair is way too damn tall. I don't remember it looking so stupidly '80s!" So I used PS to reduce the height of my hair down to something less laughable.
Of course the final joke is that I went bald and here I am using PS to give myself less hair.:D
As long as parents refuse any responsibility for the education, upbringing and actions of their child there's nothing that can be done. We're entering a brief educational dark ages where for the next couple of decades our schools will be putting out irresponsible "lawsuit babies" who will be unable to deal with anything that does not go as they expect. Parents, churches and the government want to strip education down to the most elementary, non-controversial topics possible so no one has to think, there will be no conflict and no need to learn how to deal with friction.
Within another ten years or so we will start to see the effects of this as the U.S. falls behind in every measurable standard of education and knowledge. Then perhaps there will be a change of heart as we head down to our inevitable second-world status.
I was receiving radiation treatments following cancer surgery (five years ago) and one morning just before the beam started up I heard the old Windows 95 error "ding" over the intercom. That did not make me happy considering that errors with radiation equipment can kill patients.
When I was done with the session I walked through the control area on the way out and found that they use Windows for patient scheduling, nothing more. Thank Christ.
I have also seen old versions of Windows in the control area for the MRI equipment where I get my regular scans. It crashed during the scan once and I had to wait five or six minutes inside the machine while they rebooted. That was a bit fucked up since I have minor claustrophobia, and even after 15+ MRI scans I still get a bit agitated during the exam.
This is an issue because they are cutting a service. I've been with Verizon for 8 years and have used Usenet on and off over that time period. Now they are cutting most of that service out for specious reasons.
That's the reason. It also makes people worry about the "thin edge of the wedge" because they are seeing the continuing erosion of the internet as they've known it.
Within ten years the internet will just be a page with a few big buttons that take you to government and corporate approved content. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Bland but not abrasive, and no more than that
on
Tim Russert Dies At 58
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It makes me sad to see people memorializing Russert as a giant of journalism. At best he was a non-abrasive talker tossing softballs. The standard for journalism only seems to get lower and lower.
It's too bad he has died but it's only bad for journalism because so many of his competitors are loudmouth idiots. A calm demeanor has been enough to make him look like Walter Cronkite but for those of us with longer memories Russert is not notable.
Only YOU care if your information is made public. There is absolutely no reason for any public or private organization to give a shit, and they make that evident over and over. Until it is more cost effective for them to protect the info than to leak it they will continue to do so. And that's never going to happen.
I think you have not heard of counterfeit brake-pads. Counterfeits are a significant danger when they move beyond the more visible realm of watches and bags. I would not be surprised if at least 50% of all manufactured items are subject to counterfeiting and it goes all the way down to mundane but important things like o-rings, cotter pins, bolts, cables, etc.
The problem remains the same whether it is a simple or sophisticated item: something has been compromised. But what exactly? Finish, fit, function? Do you want to gamble your life on it? Your property? Your data?
I don't care about watches and bag. The rest has me concerned.
Ebay is so large now they can afford to shed thousands of sellers and buyers and still improve profits for themselves and their partner, Paypal. The fraud fees alone will more than make up for any loss due to losing people as a result of the change.
I'm not sure how much money Paypal has to kickback to the Ebay officers for this sweetheart deal but it must be impressive.
Bit by bit internet service providers are chipping away at services people have taken for granted the same way the government is chipping away at our civil rights. People just become accustomed to it and lack of choice and value becomes the new standard.
Canceling doesn't matter. You will just bounce between the same kind of companies with the same goal: give the customer less for the same (or more) money. Corporations have figured out that the government either doesn't understand how to regulate them or is in bed with them and sharing the profits. So there is really no reason to give customers what they paid for. All they have to do is just keep changing the terms of service, and as one company gains an edge in providing less service their competitors will follow right along with them.
Even boycotting has no point. Our nation is so large with so many consumer that even if a million people turned off their internet service today their loss would just be absorbed and the companies will move on. Much like air travel internet service is becoming a necessity to people and that's where the corporations gain free reign to increase prices and reduce service and quality.
Get used to it. The future is one without choices.
Microsoft can buy any vote it needs. Why was this discussed as if there would be any outcome other than a Microsoft win? You cannot stop a company with the money to buy off every major decider on Earth.
I really enjoy his books. The strengths far outweigh the shortcomings for me. I usually feel smarter after reading his stuff, at least for a little while. He has a knack for weaving little interesting facts into his stories and that really appeals to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time I try to take a closer look at Wave it just looks like a horribly cluttered mess. It's like they said "Why use ten different programs when we can replace them with one? How? By stuffing the data from ten different programs onto one screen! GENIUS!"
Are there any videos of this product that don't look like digital throwup? There has to be more to it than what I've been seeing, because what I've been seeing looks absolutely unusable.
So an anonymous reader submits a story of a anonymous person with a child at an anonymous school and that qualifies for the front page? I thought I'd seen useless articles posted at Slashdot but this must be the absolute worst.
I'm saying that cursive writing is more distinctive than printing, hence more personal and expressive when conveying a personal message and not just a grocery list. I think the nature of a continuously flowing line lends itself better to displaying individuality due to the greater degree of variation it can display.
Take the same message and output it in cursive, then printing, then electronically in say courier and tell me there's no difference in how personal it seems. ;)
I grew up in an era when cursive was still common but I struggled with it right through until the end of High School. It was always terrible. When I got to college I abandoned it in favor of printing and it was a great relief. Now and then I use cursive for a letter because it still is the most personal way to write but it looks as awful as ever.
Cursive still has a place as a form of expression and as such should still be taught, but for the cursive challenged like me I understand its abandonment.
Copying the original text Lunar Lander was my first experience with BASIC. I just typed the program in from a copy of Creative Computing in I think Applesoft BASIC. I was great at typing it, not so good at playing it.
My arcade video game experience started with Computer Space around 1972 so I was in the right generation to take part in the video game madness of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I really liked the Atari Lunar Lander and still miss the wonderful sharpness of vector graphics.
I checked the article and there don't appear to be any details. A few of these hacking contests have been a bit overblown so I'd like to know what manner of exploit they used.
If it's another "well you need physical access to the machine and know the admin username and password" then it's no big deal. If it's "we had the user click a link and all hell broke loose" that would be much more interesting.
"Warmth" is not a physical property of sound, it is subjective. Do you really think people use it to indicate a change in room temperature due to the music? The same for "tone." It is not always used in the strictest sense of the word. If I said a sentence was written with a sarcastic tone are you going to put your ear down to the paper?
I hope you can appreciate that not only are there multiple meanings to these words but that their use in this particular case is common and has a long history. Be less of a pedant.
People have really weird internal processes that shape their preferences. Preferring shitty, hissy sounding music is just one of those odd results. I would not equate it with the perceived "warmth" of vinyl when compared to CDs. The warmth is not the snaps and crackles, but a different quality that I can't imagine anyone would think as a loss of quality. Just a change of tone.
The hissy music on the other hand is primarily as a result of poor or excessive compression that reflects a lost of information, not just a change in tone. And it just so happens that like in every other arena of human opinion most people prefer crap. :)
P.S. I am not an audiophile but I love clear, full range sound when it comes to music. I prefer digital over vinyl because I can't stand all the defects that come with vinyl, even though I grew up with them.
For what is touted as a major OS release I really can't believe that a single beta can get the job done. Either they are rushing it, or it's really just a minor change to Vista.
Tabula Rasa had some good basic ideas but felt like half a game. That was disappointing since there's still no decent sci-fi MMORPG out there. Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies filled that niche for the first couple of years before they each lost their way and I was hoping TR would pick up that mantle.
Both Anarchy Online and EvE Online had such evocative music that I found myself listening to it offline, even after I no longer subscribed. The music actually got me to resubscribe to Anarchy Online for a while just because I loved the atmosphere it evoked.
I've heard some good game music before but only these two made me think I needed to add their soundtracks to my library.
The phrase "numerous Dragon's Lair-style reflex focused button presses" was all I needed to read about this game to know that the developers have no idea what makes for a satisfying control scheme.
If people wanted to play "Simon" they would still be doing that. Canned sequences that are basically "Press A, B or C to see the cut-scene" is just idiotic, and in direct opposition to their "WE'RE SO REAL! LOOK HOW REAL WE ARE!" hype.
People seem to forget that this company seems to have made... one game. They have spent the majority of their time since opening announcing games without actually making them. So for a "game developer" that has been around for over a decade their output is practically non-existent.
I love well rendered characters and backgrounds but these guys are basically creating a very nice looking version of the old Gabriel Knight games and passing it off as paradigm-breaking innovation.
When employers are abusing workers unions serve a purpose. When there is no abuse unions are a destructive force that erodes quality, stifles productivity and ends advancement by merit. Unions are a pox on the modern workforce when they have no wrongs to redress.
Union strength is good for one thing: protecting workers from bad employers. Beyond that they have no place and should be immediately disbanded by their members.
True story: At work people were making a photo wall of images from their high school days. I'm one of the older ones so I was going to post a prom photo from the 1980s. I scanned it in and said "Shit. My hair is way too damn tall. I don't remember it looking so stupidly '80s!" So I used PS to reduce the height of my hair down to something less laughable.
Of course the final joke is that I went bald and here I am using PS to give myself less hair. :D
As long as parents refuse any responsibility for the education, upbringing and actions of their child there's nothing that can be done. We're entering a brief educational dark ages where for the next couple of decades our schools will be putting out irresponsible "lawsuit babies" who will be unable to deal with anything that does not go as they expect. Parents, churches and the government want to strip education down to the most elementary, non-controversial topics possible so no one has to think, there will be no conflict and no need to learn how to deal with friction.
Within another ten years or so we will start to see the effects of this as the U.S. falls behind in every measurable standard of education and knowledge. Then perhaps there will be a change of heart as we head down to our inevitable second-world status.
I was receiving radiation treatments following cancer surgery (five years ago) and one morning just before the beam started up I heard the old Windows 95 error "ding" over the intercom. That did not make me happy considering that errors with radiation equipment can kill patients.
When I was done with the session I walked through the control area on the way out and found that they use Windows for patient scheduling, nothing more. Thank Christ.
I have also seen old versions of Windows in the control area for the MRI equipment where I get my regular scans. It crashed during the scan once and I had to wait five or six minutes inside the machine while they rebooted. That was a bit fucked up since I have minor claustrophobia, and even after 15+ MRI scans I still get a bit agitated during the exam.
This is an issue because they are cutting a service. I've been with Verizon for 8 years and have used Usenet on and off over that time period. Now they are cutting most of that service out for specious reasons.
That's the reason. It also makes people worry about the "thin edge of the wedge" because they are seeing the continuing erosion of the internet as they've known it.
Within ten years the internet will just be a page with a few big buttons that take you to government and corporate approved content. Enjoy it while it lasts.
It makes me sad to see people memorializing Russert as a giant of journalism. At best he was a non-abrasive talker tossing softballs. The standard for journalism only seems to get lower and lower.
It's too bad he has died but it's only bad for journalism because so many of his competitors are loudmouth idiots. A calm demeanor has been enough to make him look like Walter Cronkite but for those of us with longer memories Russert is not notable.
Sorry, had to do it.
Only YOU care if your information is made public. There is absolutely no reason for any public or private organization to give a shit, and they make that evident over and over. Until it is more cost effective for them to protect the info than to leak it they will continue to do so. And that's never going to happen.
I think you have not heard of counterfeit brake-pads. Counterfeits are a significant danger when they move beyond the more visible realm of watches and bags. I would not be surprised if at least 50% of all manufactured items are subject to counterfeiting and it goes all the way down to mundane but important things like o-rings, cotter pins, bolts, cables, etc.
The problem remains the same whether it is a simple or sophisticated item: something has been compromised. But what exactly? Finish, fit, function? Do you want to gamble your life on it? Your property? Your data?
I don't care about watches and bag. The rest has me concerned.
Ebay is so large now they can afford to shed thousands of sellers and buyers and still improve profits for themselves and their partner, Paypal. The fraud fees alone will more than make up for any loss due to losing people as a result of the change.
I'm not sure how much money Paypal has to kickback to the Ebay officers for this sweetheart deal but it must be impressive.
Bit by bit internet service providers are chipping away at services people have taken for granted the same way the government is chipping away at our civil rights. People just become accustomed to it and lack of choice and value becomes the new standard.
Canceling doesn't matter. You will just bounce between the same kind of companies with the same goal: give the customer less for the same (or more) money. Corporations have figured out that the government either doesn't understand how to regulate them or is in bed with them and sharing the profits. So there is really no reason to give customers what they paid for. All they have to do is just keep changing the terms of service, and as one company gains an edge in providing less service their competitors will follow right along with them.
Even boycotting has no point. Our nation is so large with so many consumer that even if a million people turned off their internet service today their loss would just be absorbed and the companies will move on. Much like air travel internet service is becoming a necessity to people and that's where the corporations gain free reign to increase prices and reduce service and quality.
Get used to it. The future is one without choices.
Microsoft can buy any vote it needs. Why was this discussed as if there would be any outcome other than a Microsoft win? You cannot stop a company with the money to buy off every major decider on Earth.
I really enjoy his books. The strengths far outweigh the shortcomings for me. I usually feel smarter after reading his stuff, at least for a little while. He has a knack for weaving little interesting facts into his stories and that really appeals to me.