Impoved support for several of those is also scheduled for IE7. (We'll have to see how much improved when it is actually out, of course, but the reports at the moment are promising.)
Microsoft has proven it can make a good web browser. When they are backed into a corner.
That'll probably have to wait until Apple is selling an Intel-compatible version of OS X. At the moment they sell machines with one loaded, but they only come with recovery disks, not full installers. (And the recovery disks are probably locked to that particular model, which limits your options when you hack.)
The next version of OS X will have it on the DVDs, and that is when the real hacking will commence...
Because they have to think about it and click on a link. Which takes time and effort. This new layout gives it a little more prominence, and reduces the amount of work needed to know if there is something that you might be interested in.
The cost is a minimal amount of visual clutter, or a small one-time effort to turn it off. Probably not a bad trade.
As I said, not necessarily. In fact, this algorythm specifically damages the average wait time in order to reduce trip time.
As an extreme example: Let's assume we come up with a new elevator that can transport people instantly, but needs a cool-down period in between transports. Trip time is now the time it takes for the mechanism to cool down for you to use it. If that time is less than the time it used to take you to wait and get transported (on average) then your trip time is less. Even if you have to wait longer than you used to, it can be less total time because there is no transport time.
This elevator reduces transport time. It specifically makes people wait longer on occasion to do that. If the result lowers the total usage of the elevator enough that it is ready to transport you immediately more often, it may reduce wait time. Otherwise, it is likely to increase it.
No, the trip time, including both waiting and riding, is shorter. Maybe enough shorter that both will reduce, but the emphasis is on reducing the riding time, in most cases.
Actually, what I'd expect is for people just to take the first elevator that comes. Regardless of it's destination. (And then, of course, complain when it doesn't stop at their floor!)
I see people all the time who hit both the down and up buttons on an elevator, just to get the car to come faster. Given that people don't wait for a two-state system to cycle to their state, why are they going to wait for a $floor_count state system?
This is a great idea, in theory. Tell me in a year how well it worked.
Forget chloroplasts. The average person posting on Slashdot has not problem with feeding themselves, or their family. In fact, they are probably overweight. A more useful change would be to speed up their metabolism, or reduce the inclination to snack on fatty foods.
Night vision would likely be a trade-off: increase night vision and you'll probably harm color. (Though there are a few things you could do that would increase both first. Reflective retina backs and larger pupil ranges come to mind.)
You probably could increase strength/reflexes a bit fairly easily. If you don't mind problems in low-food situations. (Again, not that big a problem.)
For some useful improvements, how about strengthing the back muscles? Or redesigning the backbone-ribcage entirely? It's not a particularly good design for an upright being.
That depends, of course, on what they are researching. Perhaps they are researching Wikipeida itself, or the social construct that supports collaborative systems.
Both would make valid, and interesting, topics for a Masters/Phd thesis.
Actually, I think the renaming it so they can unify their product lines. This is the 'MacBook Pro', which would then mean there is a 'MacBook (Standard/Consumer)' as well. Given that the pro replaces the PowerBook, that one would replace the iBook and then any Apple laptop would be a MacBook. One unified product line.
You need two things: a way to talk scsi on your computer. (PCI cards, USB/Firewire converters are all avalible.) And an adaptor to put the PowerBook into SCSI disk mode.
I think I've still got my adaptor around here somewhere... (Though I think it still has shoe polish on the pins.)
Why not? If they are starving (and most africans aren't, you know) they can look up what is edible in their area. (Or how to prepare what they have to make it last.) If they are farmers, they can look up farming techniques. (A lot of africa is at the subsitance level: a little better farming techniques would be all they need to start generating wealth.)
As for AIDs... A large portion of the problem with AID/HIV in africa is education. People don't know what to do to protect themselves from it, how they can get it, etc. With an internet connection they can look all that up.
This is the 'teach a man to fish' principle: If they are starving today, they need a fish. If they are likely to be starving soon, they need fishing lessons. A cheap internet connected laptop would allow them to look up the best way to fish. Or whatever else they need.
(Also: cheap laptops mean cheap teaching of basic computer skills. Which means the students are more employable, in more jobs, with less on-the-job training. Which is better for the economies of the countries.)
These can help. Don't doubt it. Don't assume Africa is in the stone age.
When they stopped working on it, IE/Mac was decent. Not the best, but decent.
When it first came out, the most recent version of IE/Mac was the best browser on the planet: fast, with great standards support (for the time), and fit in well with the OS. Against Safari, Firefox or Opera it is definately second rate, but none of them existed when it came out. Test it against NS4, if you want to see what its compitition was.
IE/Mac's been in matainence mode a long time. It shipped as the default browser on Mac OS 8, (IIRC) and has only had a few bug-fixes since, really. (The 2003 update basically was a recompile to Carbon, so that it would run natively under OS X. Beyond that, it was unchanged.)
Is Microsoft the only player in town, in the EU or the US?
According to the courts in both legal spheres yes, in at least some markets.
Why does the EU get to tell Microsoft to spill what MS wants kept secret? If the idea is to help MS's competition, how can you then say MS is an anticompetitve monopoly?
In this case, the monopoly is on desktop operating systems, and the market in question is desktop applications. Microsoft has been convicted of using the monopoly in the former to (attempt to) create a monopoly in the latter. They did this (according to the EU courts) by hiding necessary API's that they used from the general public, making it hard or impossible for competitors to do what MS was doing with their own apps.
This would be fine, if the other apps did not have to play on Microsoft's terf, but since they do the courts said MS had to use the same interfaces as everyone else. (This is the same play-fair mentality that means most games switch directions on the field at halftime.) The courts decided the best way assure that was to make MS publish the interfaces they were using.
If MS keeps this secret, it is preventing others from using a system MS controls in the same manner that MS does. By keeping it secret, MS is being anti-competative. If MS releases it, they are not being anti-competative. If MS do not release it, they will pay a fine.
This is actually a capitalistic policy: Compatition is good, so if someone is preventing compition from happening you give them an incentive to change their minds. In this case, a punishment incentive.
Capitalism does not like monopolies. It is the government's job to make sure they don't get out of hand.
I do agree that his reform sounds hard on the little guys. I'm not sure is actually any worse than the current system on them though, and there is a good chance it would be better. (They just don't bother with patents, secure in the knowledge that no one else's patent will cover their work.)
The idea behind allowing private companies to buy the patents on federally funded research came from the fact that there were so many projects with great ideas, and very few actually turning into products that people could use. So, a law was passed to let companies get patents on the ideas; then they would have the field to themselves for a little while, and could (therefore) hopefully have an incentive to actually look at the ideas, and turn them into real products.
It all sounded nice, and like it should work.
What's actually happened is now every research idea gets a patent by some big company, which then ignores it just as they did before. Only now there's a patent saying everyone else has to ignore it as well...
I'll agree with all the rest, but there is an automatic solution to the 'super-fetus' part of the problem: The kid needs yellow sunlight, in fairly large amounts, to power up the first time. He's not going to get that inside a woman's uterus. Even if she decided to go nudist in the Sahara, the human body is not transparent to visible wavelengths. As it is a yellow sun needed for the superpowers, we can assume the relevant wavelengths are probably in the high visible range. (Blue, violet, maybe even ultraviolet.)
The kid wouldn't be any stronger than any other baby, until it was born. I just pity their babysitter...
The new-aged GOP is actually a very old American party: It's the Jacksonian party. Their core values haven't really changed (there's no mention of slavery, and they talk about the Arab Terrorists instead of the Indians, but that's just sematics).
Yes and no: first off, you are assuming this will only get applied to text displayed in browsers. It could just as easily be applied to text in online logo (images) or to text used in PDFs for various purposes.
Secondly, most users don't even realize they can change the font in their browsers, and a smaller percentage actually do. Asking for a good font will help all of them.
Thirdly, sometimes part of a design should be in a different font from the rest, to help set it off, or just to help the asthetic. Knowing how to choose a good font is helpful here. (In these cases you probably should leave the main text as 'sans-serif', and just apply the font to auxilliary text.)
Lastly, the choice of font can help differentiate your brand, and so gets used to do so.
If 'readable' is your only consideration, and you can let the user specify, use 'sans-serif'. Otherwise knowing how to pick a good font is useful knowledge.
(Which doesn't even touch on the question of what should be the default default font in a web browser...)
That's basically all pearLyrics does to look them up. The advantage of using the program is: it gets the song name automatically from iTunes (what's currently playing), and can automatically store it in the song's metadata. It's a little quicker and easier than opening a browser, typing it in, then copying that into the song by hand.
This is actually a fairly standard article format: they asked the head of a succesful company to write an article on what he thinks makes that company succesful. It's not meant to be an in-depth analysis, just a highlight of what they think is important/different about their company.
It gives some idea of how the management thinks of the company, and what they try to work on. Sure, it's a fluff piece, the equivilent of the society column for businesses, but it's a moderately useful fluff peice. And it can help some people, espcially if you want to understand how Google thinks about itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Impoved support for several of those is also scheduled for IE7. (We'll have to see how much improved when it is actually out, of course, but the reports at the moment are promising.)
Microsoft has proven it can make a good web browser. When they are backed into a corner.
That'll probably have to wait until Apple is selling an Intel-compatible version of OS X. At the moment they sell machines with one loaded, but they only come with recovery disks, not full installers. (And the recovery disks are probably locked to that particular model, which limits your options when you hack.)
The next version of OS X will have it on the DVDs, and that is when the real hacking will commence...
Because they have to think about it and click on a link. Which takes time and effort. This new layout gives it a little more prominence, and reduces the amount of work needed to know if there is something that you might be interested in.
The cost is a minimal amount of visual clutter, or a small one-time effort to turn it off. Probably not a bad trade.
To me, they are more reminiscent of Orwellian DoubleSpeak.
As I said, not necessarily. In fact, this algorythm specifically damages the average wait time in order to reduce trip time.
As an extreme example: Let's assume we come up with a new elevator that can transport people instantly, but needs a cool-down period in between transports. Trip time is now the time it takes for the mechanism to cool down for you to use it. If that time is less than the time it used to take you to wait and get transported (on average) then your trip time is less. Even if you have to wait longer than you used to, it can be less total time because there is no transport time.
This elevator reduces transport time. It specifically makes people wait longer on occasion to do that. If the result lowers the total usage of the elevator enough that it is ready to transport you immediately more often, it may reduce wait time. Otherwise, it is likely to increase it.
No, the trip time, including both waiting and riding, is shorter. Maybe enough shorter that both will reduce, but the emphasis is on reducing the riding time, in most cases.
Actually, what I'd expect is for people just to take the first elevator that comes. Regardless of it's destination. (And then, of course, complain when it doesn't stop at their floor!)
I see people all the time who hit both the down and up buttons on an elevator, just to get the car to come faster. Given that people don't wait for a two-state system to cycle to their state, why are they going to wait for a $floor_count state system?
This is a great idea, in theory. Tell me in a year how well it worked.
Where oh where are my mod points when I need them...
Forget chloroplasts. The average person posting on Slashdot has not problem with feeding themselves, or their family. In fact, they are probably overweight. A more useful change would be to speed up their metabolism, or reduce the inclination to snack on fatty foods.
Night vision would likely be a trade-off: increase night vision and you'll probably harm color. (Though there are a few things you could do that would increase both first. Reflective retina backs and larger pupil ranges come to mind.)
You probably could increase strength/reflexes a bit fairly easily. If you don't mind problems in low-food situations. (Again, not that big a problem.)
For some useful improvements, how about strengthing the back muscles? Or redesigning the backbone-ribcage entirely? It's not a particularly good design for an upright being.
Because the lawmakers want to show they are doing something about it. All they can do is write a new law, so that's what they want to do.
That depends, of course, on what they are researching. Perhaps they are researching Wikipeida itself, or the social construct that supports collaborative systems.
Both would make valid, and interesting, topics for a Masters/Phd thesis.
Actually, I think the renaming it so they can unify their product lines. This is the 'MacBook Pro', which would then mean there is a 'MacBook (Standard/Consumer)' as well. Given that the pro replaces the PowerBook, that one would replace the iBook and then any Apple laptop would be a MacBook. One unified product line.
It's still a horrible name though.
You need two things: a way to talk scsi on your computer. (PCI cards, USB/Firewire converters are all avalible.) And an adaptor to put the PowerBook into SCSI disk mode.
I think I've still got my adaptor around here somewhere... (Though I think it still has shoe polish on the pins.)
Why not? If they are starving (and most africans aren't, you know) they can look up what is edible in their area. (Or how to prepare what they have to make it last.) If they are farmers, they can look up farming techniques. (A lot of africa is at the subsitance level: a little better farming techniques would be all they need to start generating wealth.)
As for AIDs... A large portion of the problem with AID/HIV in africa is education. People don't know what to do to protect themselves from it, how they can get it, etc. With an internet connection they can look all that up.
This is the 'teach a man to fish' principle: If they are starving today, they need a fish. If they are likely to be starving soon, they need fishing lessons. A cheap internet connected laptop would allow them to look up the best way to fish. Or whatever else they need.
(Also: cheap laptops mean cheap teaching of basic computer skills. Which means the students are more employable, in more jobs, with less on-the-job training. Which is better for the economies of the countries.)
These can help. Don't doubt it. Don't assume Africa is in the stone age.
When they stopped working on it, IE/Mac was decent. Not the best, but decent.
When it first came out, the most recent version of IE/Mac was the best browser on the planet: fast, with great standards support (for the time), and fit in well with the OS. Against Safari, Firefox or Opera it is definately second rate, but none of them existed when it came out. Test it against NS4, if you want to see what its compitition was.
IE/Mac's been in matainence mode a long time. It shipped as the default browser on Mac OS 8, (IIRC) and has only had a few bug-fixes since, really. (The 2003 update basically was a recompile to Carbon, so that it would run natively under OS X. Beyond that, it was unchanged.)
According to the courts in both legal spheres yes, in at least some markets.
In this case, the monopoly is on desktop operating systems, and the market in question is desktop applications. Microsoft has been convicted of using the monopoly in the former to (attempt to) create a monopoly in the latter. They did this (according to the EU courts) by hiding necessary API's that they used from the general public, making it hard or impossible for competitors to do what MS was doing with their own apps.
This would be fine, if the other apps did not have to play on Microsoft's terf, but since they do the courts said MS had to use the same interfaces as everyone else. (This is the same play-fair mentality that means most games switch directions on the field at halftime.) The courts decided the best way assure that was to make MS publish the interfaces they were using.
If MS keeps this secret, it is preventing others from using a system MS controls in the same manner that MS does. By keeping it secret, MS is being anti-competative. If MS releases it, they are not being anti-competative. If MS do not release it, they will pay a fine.
This is actually a capitalistic policy: Compatition is good, so if someone is preventing compition from happening you give them an incentive to change their minds. In this case, a punishment incentive.
Capitalism does not like monopolies. It is the government's job to make sure they don't get out of hand.
My guess is that it is so you won't revolt.
Lawyers can be good people, on occasion...
I do agree that his reform sounds hard on the little guys. I'm not sure is actually any worse than the current system on them though, and there is a good chance it would be better. (They just don't bother with patents, secure in the knowledge that no one else's patent will cover their work.)
The idea behind allowing private companies to buy the patents on federally funded research came from the fact that there were so many projects with great ideas, and very few actually turning into products that people could use. So, a law was passed to let companies get patents on the ideas; then they would have the field to themselves for a little while, and could (therefore) hopefully have an incentive to actually look at the ideas, and turn them into real products.
It all sounded nice, and like it should work.
What's actually happened is now every research idea gets a patent by some big company, which then ignores it just as they did before. Only now there's a patent saying everyone else has to ignore it as well...
I'll agree with all the rest, but there is an automatic solution to the 'super-fetus' part of the problem: The kid needs yellow sunlight, in fairly large amounts, to power up the first time. He's not going to get that inside a woman's uterus. Even if she decided to go nudist in the Sahara, the human body is not transparent to visible wavelengths. As it is a yellow sun needed for the superpowers, we can assume the relevant wavelengths are probably in the high visible range. (Blue, violet, maybe even ultraviolet.)
The kid wouldn't be any stronger than any other baby, until it was born. I just pity their babysitter...
The new-aged GOP is actually a very old American party: It's the Jacksonian party. Their core values haven't really changed (there's no mention of slavery, and they talk about the Arab Terrorists instead of the Indians, but that's just sematics).
Yes and no: first off, you are assuming this will only get applied to text displayed in browsers. It could just as easily be applied to text in online logo (images) or to text used in PDFs for various purposes.
Secondly, most users don't even realize they can change the font in their browsers, and a smaller percentage actually do. Asking for a good font will help all of them.
Thirdly, sometimes part of a design should be in a different font from the rest, to help set it off, or just to help the asthetic. Knowing how to choose a good font is helpful here. (In these cases you probably should leave the main text as 'sans-serif', and just apply the font to auxilliary text.)
Lastly, the choice of font can help differentiate your brand, and so gets used to do so.
If 'readable' is your only consideration, and you can let the user specify, use 'sans-serif'. Otherwise knowing how to pick a good font is useful knowledge.
(Which doesn't even touch on the question of what should be the default default font in a web browser...)
That's basically all pearLyrics does to look them up. The advantage of using the program is: it gets the song name automatically from iTunes (what's currently playing), and can automatically store it in the song's metadata. It's a little quicker and easier than opening a browser, typing it in, then copying that into the song by hand.
This is actually a fairly standard article format: they asked the head of a succesful company to write an article on what he thinks makes that company succesful. It's not meant to be an in-depth analysis, just a highlight of what they think is important/different about their company.
It gives some idea of how the management thinks of the company, and what they try to work on. Sure, it's a fluff piece, the equivilent of the society column for businesses, but it's a moderately useful fluff peice. And it can help some people, espcially if you want to understand how Google thinks about itself.