I think what he was getting at is that space aliens are mostly pedophiles and that getting children interested in space would only play into the hands, er *tentacles*, of said space aliens...
That's correct. Second Life has the main adult grid for 18+ and the child grid for -18. They don't meet.
My boss was interested in use of SL for education. Until I explained that it could only be used for adult education or for children teaching other children.
How about a third (mixed age group) SL grid for educational purposes?
If there is a 'real' reason for no cellphones on planes, I think its about time we found out the *real* reason people are not allowed to bring decent quantities of drinking water on planes.
It is, surely, trivial to test whether a given substance is H2O. I mean, how hard can it be?
It is, surely, trivial to test whether the container has got a false top containing water and the rest of it contains some other (possibly explosive) substance. Those xrays give pretty detailed views plus you could push a probe down the mouth of the bottle and wave it about. They do this to passengers all the time.
Therefore there has to be a reason why passengers are not allowed to bring *water* onto planes.
One theory is that the homeland security guys figured out a way to harm an aircraft by pouring enough water into or onto a certain area of the passenger compartment of the plane; flooding it with a conductive fluid.
The first world war for example; the first industrial scale war where people were virtually put on a conveyor belt into a slaughterhouse. Warfare waged with the methodology of industrialisation.
European wars were not quite so bloody nor so automated till then.
In earlier times it required people to get blood on their hands. Now it is virtually waged by remote control. Theres a fundamental psychological difference.
Industrialisation can be successfully applied to some areas of human endeavor (eg production of consumer goods), in other areas it is *obviously* mis-applied.
Industrialisation may be good for some things but it is not a cure-all nor is it the best way to do *anything*.
Industrialisation has caused so many problems for the world. Aside from the benefits of mass production of consumer items such as cars or refridgerators, industrialisation only brings dehumanisation.
The industrialisation of warfare.
The industrialisation of education.
The industrialisation of music.
All three have been distanced from reality; warfare has become so preposterously easy that nations walk into wars with their eyes shut and no idea what they are getting themselves into.
Education has become a process of (attempted) mass production of nearly identical minds.
Music? Music has become a process of mass production of bland repetitiveness.
Will the likes of Britney or Metallica be able to survive in a post-industrial music world? I doubt it. And the music stores which pander to this kind of rigid, unimaginitive pap? I doubt it.
There will be more live music and improvements in software and technologies which today contribute to 'piracy' will only help to return control over production to those who actually *create* music.
Its becoming easier and easier for 'ordinary' musicians to produce and distribute for themselves; music becomes a 'cottage industry' again.
Next on the de-industrialisation hit-list: education.
unless you're coming in with preconceived notions about how it should work, rather than learning how it actually works
Oh like for example the way the keyboard seems both inspired and retarded simultaneously?
For example, is there a really good UI reason that when you are editing a document, the 'home' key takes your view to the top of the document but leaves the cursor where you were so that if you then use the cursor keys you zoom back to that location in the document? I'm sure that someone at Apple had a great reason for *that*...
Seriously, I prefer OSX to any flavor of Windows and I've been using Windows a hell of a lot longer than I've been using OSX.
OSX beats desktop Linux too. But sometimes OSX just feels... insulting. Like the 'preferences' (for the OS as well as for almost all the applications, especially iLife apps). Just condescendingly simplistic.
Microsoft realized that since maybe 1/10,000 people actually can act on the BSOD data that shows, there's really no reason to show it to everybody else.
Meanwhile in OSX land the 'spinning beachball of death' is totally uninformative yet aesthetically pleasing.
an OS for the masses would make it completely transparent to the user what is being done with memory. The user 'from the masses' doesn't care what's being used for what. As long as things run responsively and quickly, it's a win.
Like OSX then?
My only gripe with OSX on this front is the deceptive 'x' button on the corner of the window which *seems* as if it should close the application but which, in most cases, merely hides the main application window; the memory is still in use.
Apples theory is that their memory management is so good and so transparent that it shouldn't matter. (I disagree -- when I close an application window I *intend* for the application to exit.)
What we, as a community, need to do is to discourage people from sending documents in editable formats when the recipient is not intended to edit the damn document.
One nice way I can think of takes advantage of a great feature enabled by default in MS word et.al. Its the 'fast save' feature where all of the changes to a document are preserved when you save it.
What happens is that when you email that word document to someone they get to read all the juicy edits you did, all of the deleting and spelling mistakes, typos etc. Its all there.
It would be handy if there was a way to save the document in such a way that you could return it to the sender with all that crap plainly visible.
Ok by setting the wheel button to 'Handled by the MacOS' I get the middle click effect.
However I don't like clicking the wheel button; in windows I have the small thumb button mapped to middle click.
Any idea how I can get that effect on the mac? I can assign the small thumb button to a number of functions, none of which are equivalent to a 'Handled by MacOS' wheel button.
Interesting, mine is a microsoft wireless intellimouse explorer 2.0, I have the latest intellipoint software installed but in the configuration pane I can't see anything that resembles a setting for a middle click; I can set all of the various buttons on it but can't see a setting for middle-click.
a right click on a Mighty Mouse or an apple trackpad is just as easy as any 2+ button mouse designed for windows. And yeah, you can use any usb mouse on a mac just as easily.
How about middle-click?
Eg: In XP and Linux, I use middle click to open a new tab from a link in Firefox.
On a mac, with the same mouse and the correct drivers for that mouse, the same button which functions as middle click in windows and linux does nothing.
Otherwise, mac is fine. Apart from the occasional spinning beachball of death.
You cannot submit a report back to a client which looks like trash in *their* version of Word. Word 2003 is *not* Word 2004. And the upcoming Word 2008 will *not* be Word 2007. Any alteration in a document which is advising investors to spend billions on a particular equity is not acceptable.
I have trouble understanding why people insist on sending documents in editable format, whether word, rtf or whatever.
If they saved as PDF then the document will look the same everywhere, you don't get bloated word documents with all the editing intact; MS Word defaults to 'fast save' where all your deletions and changes are viewable by the recipient (why are people not more concerned about that??) and bloats the size of the document significantly.
Unless you need the recipient to make changes to the document there is no point in sending editable documents!
What I'd like to see is a firmware upgrade for roomba which made it go back to its base station to recharge when its battery gets low and when its fully charged go off and start cleaning again.
If there is an irobot techie reading this, can that be so hard?:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think what he was getting at is that space aliens are mostly pedophiles and that getting children interested in space would only play into the hands, er *tentacles*, of said space aliens...
That's correct. Second Life has the main adult grid for 18+ and the child grid for -18. They don't meet.
My boss was interested in use of SL for education. Until I explained that it could only be used for adult education or for children teaching other children.
How about a third (mixed age group) SL grid for educational purposes?
If I understand SL right, this commendable effort on the part of NASA is going to be accessible to either adults or children but not both?
:)
Can a SL location like this be accessible to children *and* adults at the same time?
Kids are (often) interested in 'space stuff' and should be encouraged, same for adults
If there is a 'real' reason for no cellphones on planes, I think its about time we found out the *real* reason people are not allowed to bring decent quantities of drinking water on planes.
It is, surely, trivial to test whether a given substance is H2O. I mean, how hard can it be?
It is, surely, trivial to test whether the container has got a false top containing water and the rest of it contains some other (possibly explosive) substance. Those xrays give pretty detailed views plus you could push a probe down the mouth of the bottle and wave it about. They do this to passengers all the time.
Therefore there has to be a reason why passengers are not allowed to bring *water* onto planes.
One theory is that the homeland security guys figured out a way to harm an aircraft by pouring enough water into or onto a certain area of the passenger compartment of the plane; flooding it with a conductive fluid.
Any other offers?
The first world war for example; the first industrial scale war where people were virtually put on a conveyor belt into a slaughterhouse. Warfare waged with the methodology of industrialisation.
European wars were not quite so bloody nor so automated till then.
In earlier times it required people to get blood on their hands. Now it is virtually waged by remote control. Theres a fundamental psychological difference.
What has industrialization brought you?
Britney?
Re-read my post.
Industrialisation can be successfully applied to some areas of human endeavor (eg production of consumer goods), in other areas it is *obviously* mis-applied.
Industrialisation may be good for some things but it is not a cure-all nor is it the best way to do *anything*.
Re-read my post.
Once people saw the benefits of mass production of consumer items, industrialisation was mis-applied to other areas eg. education and music.
The industrialisation of warfare gave us the first world war. The industrialisation of music gave us Britney.
Industrialisation of *manufacturing* isn't in and of itself a bad thing.
I agree with what you say but...
But with the cost of production quality equipment continuing to fall to commodity prices
I think that at the end of the day the quality of the music itself will end up being more important than the quality of the production equipment.
Todays corporate-quality music is massively over-produced with massively overpriced equipment and massively overpaid producers and executives..
Once we get past this into the impending era of de-industrialised music I think people will appreciate the *music* more than the production.
Piracy is killing the music industry.
The de-industrialisation of music?
Sounds good to me.
Industrialisation has caused so many problems for the world. Aside from the benefits of mass production of consumer items such as cars or refridgerators, industrialisation only brings dehumanisation.
The industrialisation of warfare.
The industrialisation of education.
The industrialisation of music.
All three have been distanced from reality; warfare has become so preposterously easy that nations walk into wars with their eyes shut and no idea what they are getting themselves into.
Education has become a process of (attempted) mass production of nearly identical minds.
Music? Music has become a process of mass production of bland repetitiveness.
Will the likes of Britney or Metallica be able to survive in a post-industrial music world? I doubt it. And the music stores which pander to this kind of rigid, unimaginitive pap? I doubt it.
There will be more live music and improvements in software and technologies which today contribute to 'piracy' will only help to return control over production to those who actually *create* music.
Its becoming easier and easier for 'ordinary' musicians to produce and distribute for themselves; music becomes a 'cottage industry' again.
Next on the de-industrialisation hit-list: education.
unless you're coming in with preconceived notions about how it should work, rather than learning how it actually works
Oh like for example the way the keyboard seems both inspired and retarded simultaneously?
For example, is there a really good UI reason that when you are editing a document, the 'home' key takes your view to the top of the document but leaves the cursor where you were so that if you then use the cursor keys you zoom back to that location in the document? I'm sure that someone at Apple had a great reason for *that*...
Seriously, I prefer OSX to any flavor of Windows and I've been using Windows a hell of a lot longer than I've been using OSX.
OSX beats desktop Linux too. But sometimes OSX just feels... insulting. Like the 'preferences' (for the OS as well as for almost all the applications, especially iLife apps). Just condescendingly simplistic.
by lawyers for laymen
Is that even possible? Wouldn't they get disbarred (or defrocked or whatever its called) for talking in plain english?
I suppose that a lawyer could *pretend* to speak so as to be intelligible to a laymen, for several thousand $$$ per hour... but would that count?
Microsoft realized that since maybe 1/10,000 people actually can act on the BSOD data that shows, there's really no reason to show it to everybody else.
Meanwhile in OSX land the 'spinning beachball of death' is totally uninformative yet aesthetically pleasing.
an OS for the masses would make it completely transparent to the user what is being done with memory. The user 'from the masses' doesn't care what's being used for what. As long as things run responsively and quickly, it's a win.
Like OSX then?
My only gripe with OSX on this front is the deceptive 'x' button on the corner of the window which *seems* as if it should close the application but which, in most cases, merely hides the main application window; the memory is still in use.
Apples theory is that their memory management is so good and so transparent that it shouldn't matter. (I disagree -- when I close an application window I *intend* for the application to exit.)
Yes. Windows 95 was considered resource intensive for a 386 with 4 megs of ram when it came out in 1995
:)
It was resource intensive for a 386 + 387 math co-pro + 16M of ram.
Linux was a *lot* happier on that hardware
Speculation, no matter how informed and certain, is never as good as proof.
Dude, you just need to smoke more weed.
What we, as a community, need to do is to discourage people from sending documents in editable formats when the recipient is not intended to edit the damn document.
One nice way I can think of takes advantage of a great feature enabled by default in MS word et.al. Its the 'fast save' feature where all of the changes to a document are preserved when you save it.
What happens is that when you email that word document to someone they get to read all the juicy edits you did, all of the deleting and spelling mistakes, typos etc. Its all there.
It would be handy if there was a way to save the document in such a way that you could return it to the sender with all that crap plainly visible.
Ok by setting the wheel button to 'Handled by the MacOS' I get the middle click effect.
However I don't like clicking the wheel button; in windows I have the small thumb button mapped to middle click.
Any idea how I can get that effect on the mac?
I can assign the small thumb button to a number of functions, none of which are equivalent to a 'Handled by MacOS' wheel button.
Interesting, mine is a microsoft wireless intellimouse explorer 2.0, I have the latest intellipoint software installed but in the configuration pane I can't see anything that resembles a setting for a middle click; I can set all of the various buttons on it but can't see a setting for middle-click.
a right click on a Mighty Mouse or an apple trackpad is just as easy as any 2+ button mouse designed for windows. And yeah, you can use any usb mouse on a mac just as easily.
How about middle-click?
Eg: In XP and Linux, I use middle click to open a new tab from a link in Firefox.
On a mac, with the same mouse and the correct drivers for that mouse, the same button which functions as middle click in windows and linux does nothing.
Otherwise, mac is fine. Apart from the occasional spinning beachball of death.
You cannot submit a report back to a client which looks like trash in *their* version of Word. Word 2003 is *not* Word 2004. And the upcoming Word 2008 will *not* be Word 2007. Any alteration in a document which is advising investors to spend billions on a particular equity is not acceptable.
I have trouble understanding why people insist on sending documents in editable format, whether word, rtf or whatever.
If they saved as PDF then the document will look the same everywhere, you don't get bloated word documents with all the editing intact; MS Word defaults to 'fast save' where all your deletions and changes are viewable by the recipient (why are people not more concerned about that??) and bloats the size of the document significantly.
Unless you need the recipient to make changes to the document there is no point in sending editable documents!
I have a roomba discovery and so far, in about a couple of months of use, it has not done that.
:)
So I rephrase my statement 'a firmware upgrade which will make it do so reliably'
then she'll step out of the way giving the poor Roomba an annoyed, disdainful look
Do cats ever give anything *but* annoyed, distainful looks?
The Bose of vacuum cleaners would surely be like the Bose of cassette players; $10000 for something that everyone else sells for 1/100th the price?
What I'd like to see is a firmware upgrade for roomba which made it go back to its base station to recharge when its battery gets low and when its fully charged go off and start cleaning again.
:)
If there is an irobot techie reading this, can that be so hard?
My roomba picks up pet hair fine but there is a 'pet hair kit' that has a different set of brushes and a special brush cleaner.
:) Put the robot down, press the button, walk away.
Roomba is pretty good at its job while being pleasantly simpleminded.
Here in NZ many shops have had 'specials' on them and they seem to be getting more and more popular.
Great for lazy buggers