Mount two of these in glasses with appropriate optics. Split the image (could be 3-d, of course, but anti interlace the image if 3-d isn't needed). & Viola! 1280 x 960 for those with normal binocular vision; let the visual matrix re-merge them.
I really can't wholeheartedly suggest that anyone RTFM[anifesto]--it is pretty tough going. (Incredibly, it is apparently shorter than previous versions. Groan.)
The manifesto attempts to redefine "hacker" as pretty much anyone who reworks intellectual material. At this stage of the world, this includes a substantial swath of humanity. Politically, this places a bunch of knowledge workers alongside each other in the trenches, all working to reap the benefits of their insights rather than being victimized by the amusingly named & nefarious "vectorists," who aspire to possess not only all means of communication (vectors) but stocks of information (archives) and flows of information (?just-in-time news coverage?) as well.
Under the banner that information should be free, the manifesto envisages a fairly nebulous post-factional regime that sounds a lot like contemporary anarchism.
To worry about whether or not you like the idea that hackers are artists is to get it exaclty backwards, the point of this is to convince all other knowledge workers that they are hackers. I think that the manifesto author presumes that other knowledge workers should be being flattered by being considered hackers, and that they will be so tickled that they will embrace the notions of the manifesto.
This is not to say that there is not some food for thought here; though sometimes obscurely worded, it really does have some interesting takes on the economy of invention. My caution to readers of the comments, is that whether or not you support this broadening of the term hacker, be careful that you don't accidentally side with a political agenda simply on the basis of that definition.
Since I've got many meetings in a day, and am only vaguely aware of the passing of time, a palm is crucial to allowing me to anger as few people as possible during the work-day by accidentally blowing them off.
Plus it plays MP3s; admittedly only a few at a time, but enough to get me home in a revised state of mind.
Web pages that are flat-out wrong and un-moderated are all the better for being ephemeral. I've often wished for a meta-critical facility like slashdot's ranking system for general web pages. This too is problematic, though; sadly, those with the most committment to cruising around the web & instering commentary are rarely the most qualified.
Wikipedia is an interesting example; try looking up a topic you know something about there. Even if you were to spend the considerable time necessary to iron out all of the misconceptions in many of the articles, there is no guarantee that someone won't come along the next day with an ax to grind and undo all your work.
Sorry if this is OT, but highlighting reliable info seems a more pressing issue.
I see it in the same class as some of Iain M. Banks & Jeff Noon. I'd appreciate suggestions of other similar writers from/.ers who have read these three.
And for those have to get a joke in: what is the name of this subgenre?
a good rundown of the impact of Photoshop CS on those using it to tweak digital camera photos is at DPReview http://www.dpreview.com/news/0309/03092903photos hopcsreview.asp
a generally useful site for digital photography news
"Heinleins . . . detroyed all the copies . . ."?
on
New Heinlein Novel
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
For me this is the only fact that makes it tempting to read. I wonder when the purge took place, during the early or late phase of his career. That is, does it undermine the straight-on patriarchial onanism of Stranger in a Strange Land or the more shame-riddled tone of "Job."
See the novel "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon, for a solution & a quick read from the point of view of an autistic savant. It, by the way, presents the opposing point of view on the Monty Hall problem.
One of the interesting effects of binocular photographic images (e.g. those looked at with a Viewmaster) is that they are not only stereo, but the fused image is perceived as twice the resolution as either of the two constituent images. Binocular solutions such as the one outlined here halve the resolution of the screen to achieve their stereo effect.
Bah.
Far preferable to put a small, cheap, 640 x 480 monitor in front of each eye which will be not only fused by the processor behind the eyes into a stereo scene, but one at 1280 x 960. This implies kludgy wires, though, or brain-frying bluetooth.
Or . . . or maybe you could teach yourself to wink with alternate eyes in synchrony with a screen that showed two views in quick succession. For user training, I envision a headmounted device with leads taped to the eyelids, and just a touch of voltage applied as negative feedback when the user is out-of-synch.
Most of us associate these tests with efforts to "express" (in the sense of squeeze out under pressure) inner feelings, and thus there is an assumption that responses to inkblots will be random. Not so according to their inventor; who asserted that there are correct answers to the standard blots used in his famous test.
The graffiti system of text input isn't anyone's favorite: slow, prone to error, and pointless for westerners to learn, since the few characters of this alphabet can be easily deployed over the area traditionally reserved for graffiti input.
However, this device with its Decuma software points up how nifty stylus input is for Japanese. The interface interprets the strokes of the stylus and gives a set of best guesses for the user to choose from. (visible, lower-right, here http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PEG/PEG-UX50/ feat4.html also at the Decuma site www.decuma.com) With good processing speed, this is a nice implementation from the point of view of those using a writing system of thousands of characters.
Keyboards (remember Japanese typewriters) have not been ideal for this language; maybe the PDA is.
Back in the 19th century there was a long argument about whether photography could be a "real" art, like painting. It was argued that because the film simply received an image, that it was far to mechanical to be art. Despite the fact that people know how much manipulation goes into photography, many folks still feel that it can't be a real art because it isn't like painting. The hand of the artist may be less apparent in some paintings, but we can usually see it and understand in a very physical way the motions and choices the artist went through.
Sadly, one of the crafts of programming is to conceal the hand of the programmer. Like photography many programmers aim to make their products as transparent as possible to facilitate user interaction. So even a truly magnificent program shyly, slyly evades the user's direct gaze by hiding in the maze of code, and covering its tracks with easy interface.
Perhaps games or computer generated amination like Matrix aspire to art in their very best moments, but let me say one more thing about the history of photography; photographers started out imitating other art forms like painting and drawing. Many people now feel that though this was a natural starting point, photography couldn't become an art until photographers understood the real strength of their medium and exploited it.
I suspect that programmers are only starting to discover the real potential of their medium, and that the most complex, expressive uses of uses of computing are not yet finished imitating other media. True computer will not only be different from what we might imagine, and different from what we are capable of imagining right now; however, it is never-the-less what we WILL imagine.
I suspect that, as in all arts, it will not be the general public who decide what is great programming, but specialists, some of whom probably participate here. These experts have the insight to tell which programming is so elegant, so provocative, and expressive that it stands head and shoulders above the usual thing.
Speaking of re-thinking the usual, I've often wondered why someone didn't use a nice speedy search engine as the core of a translation program. After all, pro translators have been cranking out translations for centuries. The problem, of course, is that very few translations on line are linked, phrase by phrase, to the original.
Still, some classics of world literature by folks like Dostoevsky, Confucious, & Stanislaw Lem (not to mention masses of religious writing) have very careful translations. This seems like data waiting to be mined.
As someone who uses a Palm Vx to schedule with colleagues and has done a lot of reading on it (Moby Dick, Pepy's diaries and, shhh, a writer whose trilogy is currently being released in theaters) I'd like to get the larger, crisper screen, but won't pay the price in dollars or weight for these behemoth PDAs. Aren't we due an e-ink version soon?
Slashdot Mirror
Mount two of these in glasses with appropriate optics. Split the image (could be 3-d, of course, but anti interlace the image if 3-d isn't needed). & Viola! 1280 x 960 for those with normal binocular vision; let the visual matrix re-merge them.
I really can't wholeheartedly suggest that anyone RTFM[anifesto]--it is pretty tough going. (Incredibly, it is apparently shorter than previous versions. Groan.)
The manifesto attempts to redefine "hacker" as pretty much anyone who reworks intellectual material. At this stage of the world, this includes a substantial swath of humanity. Politically, this places a bunch of knowledge workers alongside each other in the trenches, all working to reap the benefits of their insights rather than being victimized by the amusingly named & nefarious "vectorists," who aspire to possess not only all means of communication (vectors) but stocks of information (archives) and flows of information (?just-in-time news coverage?) as well.
Under the banner that information should be free, the manifesto envisages a fairly nebulous post-factional regime that sounds a lot like contemporary anarchism.
To worry about whether or not you like the idea that hackers are artists is to get it exaclty backwards, the point of this is to convince all other knowledge workers that they are hackers. I think that the manifesto author presumes that other knowledge workers should be being flattered by being considered hackers, and that they will be so tickled that they will embrace the notions of the manifesto.
This is not to say that there is not some food for thought here; though sometimes obscurely worded, it really does have some interesting takes on the economy of invention. My caution to readers of the comments, is that whether or not you support this broadening of the term hacker, be careful that you don't accidentally side with a political agenda simply on the basis of that definition.
Since I've got many meetings in a day, and am only vaguely aware of the passing of time, a palm is crucial to allowing me to anger as few people as possible during the work-day by accidentally blowing them off.
Plus it plays MP3s; admittedly only a few at a time, but enough to get me home in a revised state of mind.
That's his employer.
Parse it: "Sorry, everyone else, it was just a job. Thanks, Andy, & I hope the check is in the mail."
The next question parallels the Avon fellow's "Who is Sylvia? What is she?"
Once recognized a site may deserve preservation.
Web pages that are flat-out wrong and un-moderated are all the better for being ephemeral. I've often wished for a meta-critical facility like slashdot's ranking system for general web pages. This too is problematic, though; sadly, those with the most committment to cruising around the web & instering commentary are rarely the most qualified.
Wikipedia is an interesting example; try looking up a topic you know something about there. Even if you were to spend the considerable time necessary to iron out all of the misconceptions in many of the articles, there is no guarantee that someone won't come along the next day with an ax to grind and undo all your work.
Sorry if this is OT, but highlighting reliable info seems a more pressing issue.
I see it in the same class as some of Iain M. Banks & Jeff Noon. I'd appreciate suggestions of other similar writers from /.ers who have read these three.
And for those have to get a joke in: what is the name of this subgenre?
a good rundown of the impact of Photoshop CS on those using it to tweak digital camera photos is at DPReviews hopcsreview.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0309/03092903photo
a generally useful site for digital photography news
Opinions are free, they're just not easy.
See the novel "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon, for a solution & a quick read from the point of view of an autistic savant. It, by the way, presents the opposing point of view on the Monty Hall problem.
One of the interesting effects of binocular photographic images (e.g. those looked at with a Viewmaster) is that they are not only stereo, but the fused image is perceived as twice the resolution as either of the two constituent images. Binocular solutions such as the one outlined here halve the resolution of the screen to achieve their stereo effect.
Bah.
Far preferable to put a small, cheap, 640 x 480 monitor in front of each eye which will be not only fused by the processor behind the eyes into a stereo scene, but one at 1280 x 960. This implies kludgy wires, though, or brain-frying bluetooth.
Or . . . or maybe you could teach yourself to wink with alternate eyes in synchrony with a screen that showed two views in quick succession. For user training, I envision a headmounted device with leads taped to the eyelids, and just a touch of voltage applied as negative feedback when the user is out-of-synch.
Most of us associate these tests with efforts to "express" (in the sense of squeeze out under pressure) inner feelings, and thus there is an assumption that responses to inkblots will be random. Not so according to their inventor; who asserted that there are correct answers to the standard blots used in his famous test.
It wasn't Freud, by the way.
The graffiti system of text input isn't anyone's favorite: slow, prone to error, and pointless for westerners to learn, since the few characters of this alphabet can be easily deployed over the area traditionally reserved for graffiti input.
/ feat4.html also at the Decuma site www.decuma.com) With good processing speed, this is a nice implementation from the point of view of those using a writing system of thousands of characters.
However, this device with its Decuma software points up how nifty stylus input is for Japanese. The interface interprets the strokes of the stylus and gives a set of best guesses for the user to choose from. (visible, lower-right, here http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PEG/PEG-UX50
Keyboards (remember Japanese typewriters) have not been ideal for this language; maybe the PDA is.
Sadly, one of the crafts of programming is to conceal the hand of the programmer. Like photography many programmers aim to make their products as transparent as possible to facilitate user interaction. So even a truly magnificent program shyly, slyly evades the user's direct gaze by hiding in the maze of code, and covering its tracks with easy interface.
Perhaps games or computer generated amination like Matrix aspire to art in their very best moments, but let me say one more thing about the history of photography; photographers started out imitating other art forms like painting and drawing. Many people now feel that though this was a natural starting point, photography couldn't become an art until photographers understood the real strength of their medium and exploited it.
I suspect that programmers are only starting to discover the real potential of their medium, and that the most complex, expressive uses of uses of computing are not yet finished imitating other media. True computer will not only be different from what we might imagine, and different from what we are capable of imagining right now; however, it is never-the-less what we WILL imagine.
I suspect that, as in all arts, it will not be the general public who decide what is great programming, but specialists, some of whom probably participate here. These experts have the insight to tell which programming is so elegant, so provocative, and expressive that it stands head and shoulders above the usual thing.
Keep an eye out.
See Woody Allen's short story "If the Impressionists had been Dentists," anthologized (I think) in "Without Feathers."
Speaking of re-thinking the usual, I've often wondered why someone didn't use a nice speedy search engine as the core of a translation program. After all, pro translators have been cranking out translations for centuries. The problem, of course, is that very few translations on line are linked, phrase by phrase, to the original.
Still, some classics of world literature by folks like Dostoevsky, Confucious, & Stanislaw Lem (not to mention masses of religious writing) have very careful translations. This seems like data waiting to be mined.
Me? I've got a job, for now.
As someone who uses a Palm Vx to schedule with colleagues and has done a lot of reading on it (Moby Dick, Pepy's diaries and, shhh, a writer whose trilogy is currently being released in theaters) I'd like to get the larger, crisper screen, but won't pay the price in dollars or weight for these behemoth PDAs. Aren't we due an e-ink version soon?