Google, and only Google, so far, has realised this. It comes down to an analysis of the last source of the money that you can control. Web sites get money from advertisers; so most web sites try to keep their advertisers happy. But Google realised that in order for advertisers to make money off by advertising on their website, the website's users had to be happy. (Okay, this explanation may be a bit oversimplified, but I was up at 4:00 AM to roll new software to production systems so don't ask for better.) That is why Google doesn't have big-ass banner/skyscraper style advertisements: They would drive users away, which would make advertising on the site worth less.
The basic problem is not that we do not have enough power, it is that we have too many people stuffed in a limited volume (I'm going to avoid having to have two meanings of "space" in this comment, dammit!). Getting to space efficiently allows us to have a larger volume in which humanity can live.
It doesn't solve every problem in the world, but being to run very very far away from your problems helps. It's how the U.S.A. got started.
2) Did you even stop to think that the original poster might have thought this through instead of having a knee-jerk anti-Lucas reaction to anything? No, you didn't, because if you had, you would have realized that a knee jerk reaction would have the OP not seeing the film AT ALL.
3A) I'm not going to go see it, and that reduces the number who see it by at least one. One person is probably not enough to change the numbers that will be reported for how many people see it, but it's still a change in the number who see it.
3B) There's going to be more than three people who were so unhappy with the last two movies that they won't go see it.
4) Whoever the asshole that modded this "Insightful" is, he should have his moderation privileges removed.
I'm not only going to wait one week to see; I'm not going to bother watching it all. Okay, I might watch it when it comes out on TV, or if a group of people get together to watch it after the DVD comes out, but I'm definitely not spending my hard-earned (hah, I'm posting this from work) money to watch what I'm certain will be complete drivel.
Unfortunately, I'm sure most of the American Sheeple will succumb to the "ooo, shiny!" syndrome and going see it on opening night. They've lost the ability to tell drivel from good storytelling and will just be shocked at how good the special effects are.
Is it just me, or have special effects not gotten visibly better for a couple of years now?
Episode I was bad, just barely watchable. Episode II was so terrible that I sat through it once. My girlfriend bought the DVD as soon as it came out and it has *NEVER* been in the DVD player.
I can only imagine how incredibly bad Episode III will be.
Actually, I think it would be quite expensive. Album art is for a large number of albums is already scanned and available digitally. (Go to MyMusic.com and browse around to see examples.) But as far as I know, the rest of the insert, the back cover, and the lyrics are not available digitally from a reliable source. (Yes, I know you can find lyrics in dozens of places on the internet. The internet is not a reliable source.)
So the price for this information would probably be prohibitively high.
...is going to play video, not on an on-board screen, but via RCA (or similar) output built into the player. Bringing movies with me ain't so good if the ten people I want to share it with all have to their heads in the same two cubic feet in order to see it.
Some ridiculous percentage of a rocket's lift-off mass is fuel needed to get it to the correct altitude. (The Space Shuttle jettisons the solid rocket boosters and the big fuel tank before it reaches orbit. The boosters crash into the ocean and get re-used; the fuel tank burns) Anything delivered to low Earth orbit will no doubt have its own engine(s) for manuvering. These will simply have to be large to propel it to velocities where it can maintain orbit as well. They'll still be considerably smaller and cheaper than current multi-stage-to-orbit craft.
Wrap the damn thing in solar panels. This would cover power for whatever needed to be run in onboard, and, once you got out of this thick soup we humans breathe, you'd probably be producing so much power that if you had a way to store it, you could pump it back into the power grid and get California to pay you for preventing rolling blackouts.
Okay, it's a silly idea; but the point is that there are ways to use this other than the stated intent in order to seperate suckers from^W^W^Wmake money from it.
Well, if I remember correctly (from an episode of DS9 I think), Ferengi females are always supposed to be naked. (The one in the episode wasn't, that's why a I "supposed to".)
Granted, Ferengi are pretty ugly, and being female wouldn't help much...I'm sure someone could come up with a joke based on those facts.
From your comments, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of experience with TUIs. I work for a company that does credit card processing on Tandem computers (that's a brand name, not just a funny name for an SMP system (although it's that too)), and we have text-based interfaces to *everything*....and here's why you're wrong:
* "Must fit on a standard console (24x80)" and "Use of more input elements per screen". Any decent TUI will allow you create multi-page interfaces. Some of our TUI screens have 32 pages worth of data! (Granted, those are the inefficiently-built, difficult-to-use ones; but they are definitely still useful.)
* "Familiarity to users". Not really a big deal. TUIs tend to be very simple, and a lot of things that work in [insert your favorite GUI] work in TUIs as well - tab to move between fields, there's a standardized help key, etc.
* "Windowed interfaces". There are plenty of systems out there that let you work on multiple sessions through a single screen. And we've still got several people from the Old Skool Daze when "personal computer" was an oxymoron and access to the Tandem meant that you had a Tandem-built dumb terminal on your desk (they've got some weird protocol they use) who, even in a windowed MDI environment will have no more than two terminal sessions open.
I can't argue about the "able to display images" part though.
I've thought about doing this, actually. It's just too complex to offer Real Choices to the consumer. Not to mention that the consumer would need to make too many choices!
First you need to offer a range of frame lengths; then a range of crossmember widths; then you need to match all possible combinations of frame and crossmember to appropriate suspension and drivetrain options; then you need to figure out what kind of steering system you can wrap around the stuff you've already got in thee; then you need to match all of those with all possible body styles...you end up having forty different driver's side front doors to match different combination of height, body style, and power/manual windows.
It could be done, but I think the barrier to entry is a currently a little too high. Of course, if you combined this with simple diagnostic tools that allowed the owner to replace modular compenents easily with just a 10mm socket wrench, you might have a change of actually surviving in the market.
Well, if you've got a '77 Caprice (as it happens, I do), you can literally put a bicycle in the trunk, which I find a lot easier to get around on than a skateboard. (I haven't actually tried this, but I have no doubt that it would work - I might have to take the spare tire out for it to work, though.)
And if you have a station wagon, everyone can see what's in your trunk, so I wouldn't recommend keeping anything there. (My other car is a '94 Ford Escort wagon, so I've got experience with this one as well.)
There weren't any buses that came through the area I lived in when I was a suburban teenager with a POS minimum wage job.
That said: When the car I was driving broke down (between my sister and I, it had been pretty much driven to its grave), I rode my bicycle to work until I'd saved enough money to get it fixed (which was months, at minimum wage).
You'll undoubtedly the specs for each individual device. The only way to get them is pull the LCD out of whatever device it's in so that you can see who made, then either search their website for engineering specs or call them and have them e-mailed/faxed to you. Specs can be hard to find on manufacturer's website; they're not something that most end-users ever want and the manufacturer's usually don't like giving out engineering information to anyone who isn't going to place a large quantity order. (It was *real* easy for me to get specs when I worked for Teradyne...it was rare for them to place an order for less than 1000 of anything, and things in smaller quantity tended to be expensive custom components anyway.)
A "wave" style (think Microsoft Natural) keyboard, without the stuff off to the right of the main keyboard; but with two analog controllers for your thumbs below the spacebar. The analog controllers would be similar to the dual analog controllers for the PS2 - combination analog directional and single button. One would move the pointer, the other would act in a similar fashion to the scroll wheel on a regular mouse. Left and right click would be available by pushing in the analog controllers.
Obviously, the analog sticks would need to be smaller than the PS2 ones...but probably larger than IBM's trackpoint.
I think I'll mock up a photo of this in the GIMP when I get home tonight; it might explain it better...
As a portable computing junky, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what would make the "perfect PDA/Cell phone". This article has actually caused me to add a couple of things to it. Here's what I've come up with so far:
Flip phone design similar to Kyocera's 7135 smartphone
Total of 3 LCD screens:
Color LCD screen (inside) for main display, on the top half
Monochrome LCD that covers only an area big enough for handwriting recognition or virtual keyboard or status messages for games/integrated debuggers/whatever
Monochrome LCD screen along the top when closed, used for caller ID and alerts
MP3 capability
Some sort of wireless connection
Integrated web server for entering data when there's a computer around, and a Java interface similar to VNCs for creating a virtual screen so that other programs can be used on other computers
Capability to communicate with USB or serial for those who want it
GPS-based alerts - these come two ways, "remind me to pick up my prescription when I'm near my drugstore" and "remind me about the meeting in time for me to get there"
Massive amounts of storage for a PDA (for this type of device, I'd say 10 GB is "massive" enough)
Two versions: one with an optical mouse on one side and buttons on the other and a built in thumb operated keyboard that uses a pointer to "tap" on things for those who don't like the stylus or can't/won't learn to deal with handwriting recognition, and one with a 4-way jog dial for scrolling through documents.
Expandability - I feel that the CompactFlash+ format would be best (most room for additional electronics), but I haven't really looked deeply into it.
Of course, there are going to be some things I missed - feel free to point them out.
Because unlike the iPod, it stays put in the car's dashboard, doesn't need an adapter to be used in the car, and you can add a TV/FM tuner card without much difficulty. (You would lose the ability to listen to AM stations, but I have a feeling that that wouldn't bother too many people.) Oh, and in some cars, you would be able to hook up a USB CD-ROM drive to use for file transfers and playing CDs - In my car, I'd probably take out the ashtray (I don't smoke, so there's no point to having one, and I think it's the right size - I'd have to go out and measure it to be sure) and replace it with the optical drive.
Actually, I think that someone with small hands would be far more likely to have that problem. I have a Logitech Wingman Gaming mouse (the classic Logitech 3-button shape - you can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers) and rather large hands. My thumb goes to the left of it, my pinky to the right, and the remaining fingers get a button each. (Note that this is the only shape of mouse I have found for which this is comfortable.) With my pinky to hold it, and decent feel to the button, I don't think a thumb button using a thumb button would cause the pointer to move. But if someone with hands so small that they couldn't use their pinky (or ring finger for a two-button mouse) to hold it, I could envision there being a problem. But then, I don't have a thumb button to try this with.
Ender
Kzinti behavior and plots
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Reading any of your works that involve the kzinti, and then reading the Man-Kzin Wars stories, I was struck by the difference in in behavior of the alien characters between your own work and that of others. (For example, Speaker-to-Animals takes the variable sword back from Louis at a time when Louis expected curiosity to distract him - I don't think any other author would have thought of that.) How do you get inside the minds of aliens in order to understand what their reactions to a given situation will be? You seem to be considerably better at this than most other SF authors out there.
Also, you mention - I believe in the introduction to a section of Ringworld in either N-Space or Playgrounds of the Mind - that a student had written a paper based on the thesis that the novel Ringworld was a sci-fi rehash of the plot of the The Wizard of Oz. You denied having done this intentionally, but have you ever "borrowed" a plot from a work in another genre and attempted to adapt it to a sci-fi setting? If so, what work did you borrow the plot from, and how do you feel the story turned out?
Slashdot Mirror
Pre-installed Firefox would be oh so sweet.
Especially if it was with a major manufacturer (Dell, Compaq/HP, or Gateway). I bet IE's marketshare would plummet.
--Ender
But unless you use it, how will you know if they are continuing to do it?
...it was just a thought.
--Ender
Damn right.
Google, and only Google, so far, has realised this. It comes down to an analysis of the last source of the money that you can control. Web sites get money from advertisers; so most web sites try to keep their advertisers happy. But Google realised that in order for advertisers to make money off by advertising on their website, the website's users had to be happy. (Okay, this explanation may be a bit oversimplified, but I was up at 4:00 AM to roll new software to production systems so don't ask for better.) That is why Google doesn't have big-ass banner/skyscraper style advertisements: They would drive users away, which would make advertising on the site worth less.
--Ender
No.
The basic problem is not that we do not have enough power, it is that we have too many people stuffed in a limited volume (I'm going to avoid having to have two meanings of "space" in this comment, dammit!). Getting to space efficiently allows us to have a larger volume in which humanity can live.
It doesn't solve every problem in the world, but being to run very very far away from your problems helps. It's how the U.S.A. got started.
--Ender
1) This a web site, not a "board".
2) Did you even stop to think that the original poster might have thought this through instead of having a knee-jerk anti-Lucas reaction to anything? No, you didn't, because if you had, you would have realized that a knee jerk reaction would have the OP not seeing the film AT ALL.
3A) I'm not going to go see it, and that reduces the number who see it by at least one. One person is probably not enough to change the numbers that will be reported for how many people see it, but it's still a change in the number who see it.
3B) There's going to be more than three people who were so unhappy with the last two movies that they won't go see it.
4) Whoever the asshole that modded this "Insightful" is, he should have his moderation privileges removed.
--Ender
I'm not only going to wait one week to see; I'm not going to bother watching it all. Okay, I might watch it when it comes out on TV, or if a group of people get together to watch it after the DVD comes out, but I'm definitely not spending my hard-earned (hah, I'm posting this from work) money to watch what I'm certain will be complete drivel.
Unfortunately, I'm sure most of the American Sheeple will succumb to the "ooo, shiny!" syndrome and going see it on opening night. They've lost the ability to tell drivel from good storytelling and will just be shocked at how good the special effects are.
Is it just me, or have special effects not gotten visibly better for a couple of years now?
--Ender
Episode I was bad, just barely watchable. Episode II was so terrible that I sat through it once. My girlfriend bought the DVD as soon as it came out and it has *NEVER* been in the DVD player.
I can only imagine how incredibly bad Episode III will be.
--Ender
Actually, I think it would be quite expensive. Album art is for a large number of albums is already scanned and available digitally. (Go to MyMusic.com and browse around to see examples.) But as far as I know, the rest of the insert, the back cover, and the lyrics are not available digitally from a reliable source. (Yes, I know you can find lyrics in dozens of places on the internet. The internet is not a reliable source.)
So the price for this information would probably be prohibitively high.
--Ender
...is going to play video, not on an on-board screen, but via RCA (or similar) output built into the player. Bringing movies with me ain't so good if the ten people I want to share it with all have to their heads in the same two cubic feet in order to see it.
Libertarians would fix it.
Not too mention that they would fix a lot of other broken laws, too.
--Ender
(Oh, and John McCain. He'd probably vote against it, too. Anyone know if he did the first time around?)
Some ridiculous percentage of a rocket's lift-off mass is fuel needed to get it to the correct altitude. (The Space Shuttle jettisons the solid rocket boosters and the big fuel tank before it reaches orbit. The boosters crash into the ocean and get re-used; the fuel tank burns) Anything delivered to low Earth orbit will no doubt have its own engine(s) for manuvering. These will simply have to be large to propel it to velocities where it can maintain orbit as well. They'll still be considerably smaller and cheaper than current multi-stage-to-orbit craft.
--Ender
Wrap the damn thing in solar panels. This would cover power for whatever needed to be run in onboard, and, once you got out of this thick soup we humans breathe, you'd probably be producing so much power that if you had a way to store it, you could pump it back into the power grid and get California to pay you for preventing rolling blackouts.
Okay, it's a silly idea; but the point is that there are ways to use this other than the stated intent in order to seperate suckers from^W^W^Wmake money from it.
--Ender
Well, if I remember correctly (from an episode of DS9 I think), Ferengi females are always supposed to be naked. (The one in the episode wasn't, that's why a I "supposed to".)
Granted, Ferengi are pretty ugly, and being female wouldn't help much...I'm sure someone could come up with a joke based on those facts.
--Ender
From your comments, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of experience with TUIs. I work for a company that does credit card processing on Tandem computers (that's a brand name, not just a funny name for an SMP system (although it's that too)), and we have text-based interfaces to *everything*. ...and here's why you're wrong:
* "Must fit on a standard console (24x80)" and "Use of more input elements per screen". Any decent TUI will allow you create multi-page interfaces. Some of our TUI screens have 32 pages worth of data! (Granted, those are the inefficiently-built, difficult-to-use ones; but they are definitely still useful.)
* "Familiarity to users". Not really a big deal. TUIs tend to be very simple, and a lot of things that work in [insert your favorite GUI] work in TUIs as well - tab to move between fields, there's a standardized help key, etc.
* "Windowed interfaces". There are plenty of systems out there that let you work on multiple sessions through a single screen. And we've still got several people from the Old Skool Daze when "personal computer" was an oxymoron and access to the Tandem meant that you had a Tandem-built dumb terminal on your desk (they've got some weird protocol they use) who, even in a windowed MDI environment will have no more than two terminal sessions open.
I can't argue about the "able to display images" part though.
--Ender
I've thought about doing this, actually. It's just too complex to offer Real Choices to the consumer. Not to mention that the consumer would need to make too many choices!
First you need to offer a range of frame lengths; then a range of crossmember widths; then you need to match all possible combinations of frame and crossmember to appropriate suspension and drivetrain options; then you need to figure out what kind of steering system you can wrap around the stuff you've already got in thee; then you need to match all of those with all possible body styles...you end up having forty different driver's side front doors to match different combination of height, body style, and power/manual windows.
It could be done, but I think the barrier to entry is a currently a little too high. Of course, if you combined this with simple diagnostic tools that allowed the owner to replace modular compenents easily with just a 10mm socket wrench, you might have a change of actually surviving in the market.
--Ender
Well, if you've got a '77 Caprice (as it happens, I do), you can literally put a bicycle in the trunk, which I find a lot easier to get around on than a skateboard. (I haven't actually tried this, but I have no doubt that it would work - I might have to take the spare tire out for it to work, though.)
And if you have a station wagon, everyone can see what's in your trunk, so I wouldn't recommend keeping anything there. (My other car is a '94 Ford Escort wagon, so I've got experience with this one as well.)
--Ender
There weren't any buses that came through the area I lived in when I was a suburban teenager with a POS minimum wage job.
That said: When the car I was driving broke down (between my sister and I, it had been pretty much driven to its grave), I rode my bicycle to work until I'd saved enough money to get it fixed (which was months, at minimum wage).
--Ender
You'll undoubtedly the specs for each individual device. The only way to get them is pull the LCD out of whatever device it's in so that you can see who made, then either search their website for engineering specs or call them and have them e-mailed/faxed to you. Specs can be hard to find on manufacturer's website; they're not something that most end-users ever want and the manufacturer's usually don't like giving out engineering information to anyone who isn't going to place a large quantity order. (It was *real* easy for me to get specs when I worked for Teradyne...it was rare for them to place an order for less than 1000 of anything, and things in smaller quantity tended to be expensive custom components anyway.)
--Ender
Yeah, yeah, yeah, bad form replying to myself and all....
I finally did something I said I would.
GIMPed mockup and explanation of my idea.
--Ender
What I'd like is the following:
A "wave" style (think Microsoft Natural) keyboard, without the stuff off to the right of the main keyboard; but with two analog controllers for your thumbs below the spacebar. The analog controllers would be similar to the dual analog controllers for the PS2 - combination analog directional and single button. One would move the pointer, the other would act in a similar fashion to the scroll wheel on a regular mouse. Left and right click would be available by pushing in the analog controllers.
Obviously, the analog sticks would need to be smaller than the PS2 ones...but probably larger than IBM's trackpoint.
I think I'll mock up a photo of this in the GIMP when I get home tonight; it might explain it better...
--Ender
- Flip phone design similar to Kyocera's 7135 smartphone
- Total of 3 LCD screens:
- Color LCD screen (inside) for main display, on the top half
- Monochrome LCD that covers only an area big enough for handwriting recognition or virtual keyboard or status messages for games/integrated debuggers/whatever
- Monochrome LCD screen along the top when closed, used for caller ID and alerts
- MP3 capability
- Some sort of wireless connection
- Integrated web server for entering data when there's a computer around, and a Java interface similar to VNCs for creating a virtual screen so that other programs can be used on other computers
- Capability to communicate with USB or serial for those who want it
- GPS-based alerts - these come two ways, "remind me to pick up my prescription when I'm near my drugstore" and "remind me about the meeting in time for me to get there"
- Massive amounts of storage for a PDA (for this type of device, I'd say 10 GB is "massive" enough)
- Two versions: one with an optical mouse on one side and buttons on the other and a built in thumb operated keyboard that uses a pointer to "tap" on things for those who don't like the stylus or can't/won't learn to deal with handwriting recognition, and one with a 4-way jog dial for scrolling through documents.
- Expandability - I feel that the CompactFlash+ format would be best (most room for additional electronics), but I haven't really looked deeply into it.
Of course, there are going to be some things I missed - feel free to point them out.--Ender
Because unlike the iPod, it stays put in the car's dashboard, doesn't need an adapter to be used in the car, and you can add a TV/FM tuner card without much difficulty. (You would lose the ability to listen to AM stations, but I have a feeling that that wouldn't bother too many people.) Oh, and in some cars, you would be able to hook up a USB CD-ROM drive to use for file transfers and playing CDs - In my car, I'd probably take out the ashtray (I don't smoke, so there's no point to having one, and I think it's the right size - I'd have to go out and measure it to be sure) and replace it with the optical drive.
Which finger do you use to click the middle button?
/. post entirely out of questions?
Middle finger, middle button.
Me I use the index finger and move it back and forth between the left button and the scroll wheel how about you?
When forced to use one of those stupid scroll wheel mice, I use the middle finger for scrolling and right clicking. Just personal preference, YMMV.
I use the middle finger for right clicking, is it out of habit?
If you're using a three-button, it's either out of habit or having a mouse that's too narrow.
Is there a new breed of mouse users that grew up with three buttons and so use the index, middle AND ring finger for clicking?
No, it's an old breed of mouse users that grew up using the early Logitech MouseMan.
A single finger for each button?
Yup. MouseMan classic again ' same design as the early cordless and WingMan Gaming mouse - all sadly discontinued.
Is there grant money available to research this?
Probably. You can get grant money for just about anything if you know the right people.
Is it possible to create a
Absolutely. You're just too stupid to do it.
Actually, I think that someone with small hands would be far more likely to have that problem. I have a Logitech Wingman Gaming mouse (the classic Logitech 3-button shape - you can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers) and rather large hands. My thumb goes to the left of it, my pinky to the right, and the remaining fingers get a button each. (Note that this is the only shape of mouse I have found for which this is comfortable.) With my pinky to hold it, and decent feel to the button, I don't think a thumb button using a thumb button would cause the pointer to move. But if someone with hands so small that they couldn't use their pinky (or ring finger for a two-button mouse) to hold it, I could envision there being a problem. But then, I don't have a thumb button to try this with.
Ender
Reading any of your works that involve the kzinti, and then reading the Man-Kzin Wars stories, I was struck by the difference in in behavior of the alien characters between your own work and that of others. (For example, Speaker-to-Animals takes the variable sword back from Louis at a time when Louis expected curiosity to distract him - I don't think any other author would have thought of that.) How do you get inside the minds of aliens in order to understand what their reactions to a given situation will be? You seem to be considerably better at this than most other SF authors out there.
Also, you mention - I believe in the introduction to a section of Ringworld in either N-Space or Playgrounds of the Mind - that a student had written a paper based on the thesis that the novel Ringworld was a sci-fi rehash of the plot of the The Wizard of Oz. You denied having done this intentionally, but have you ever "borrowed" a plot from a work in another genre and attempted to adapt it to a sci-fi setting? If so, what work did you borrow the plot from, and how do you feel the story turned out?
-Ender