Seriously, I think there is too much stuff put on the web just because people can. Blogs are mostly narcissistic rantings, with no regard to what purpose they serve. I'm getting tired of googling for something, only to turn up a useless blog or forum discussion.
Actually, I had a funny experience with a blog recently. After the recent/. article about Google and a mention of "vanity Googling" I decided to google for my own name. I ended up seeing a friend comment about my dancing at a club recently (offering his compliments, saying he was amused), and went on to say other anecdotes about the night, and how it was all a lot of fun. I chuckled over his commentary and emailed the author saying I agreed we did have a blast, and we should do that again some time. At first I sorta rolled my eyes at the mention of another friend setting up a blog that I don't have time to ever read, but this made me think that there's some real entertainment and social value in them.
So are we going to see some concerted work on an open source alternative.
This doesn't sound like it's such an insurmountable open source project really. I mean, if you want to put your name on a project limited by only the sky, this seems like it. I mean, as far as the security design, that will take a security expert or two, but aside from that, isn't it a whole lot of busywork that amateur open-source programmers can probably handle? Is there a promising open-source eVoting project in development anywhere?
800 faculty years of almost anyone in the world, or one building. Good going UIUC.
That's not quite an accurate assessment I gather. A university does need a decent-sized networked building and good computer equipment. You have to subtract what an average configuration would run from the cost of the building, THEN divide that by $100,000. You might also want to account for the value of the publicity the building generates. The more good students that are attracted by something advanced and flashy, the more successful the school is.
Yeah, because every company that has gone public has stopped innovative R&D and constant steady growth. Look at some of the major public companies out there (3M and General Electric) to see what R&D can really accomplish. Add in the fact that Google will gain at least $2 billion that they can use towards more services, current research, and increasing infrastructure. Your comment is baseless
What I'm going to say I think is not much new, but here's a good place to say it. You're right, but I think what the original poster really had in mind was not necessarily innovation in terms of doing research. It was more along the lines of innovation in terms of risky undertakings paying off. Once a company goes public, you can't throw the basket of eggs at the wall and see what sticks anymore. You have to choose more dependable undertakings to convince your investors not to sell. While risky undertakings can lead to wildly successful innovations, there are plenty of less risky undertakings which I'm sure Google can handle. Google's future will look more dependable, which is good, because yes, they're a quality company.
While the nano-replicators Stephenson envisions in Diamond Age are pretty cool the two things not well discussed were the source of raw materials (glossed over) and the power source (not discussed at all). We've still got a long way to go before these things can be worked out.
Au contraire, we're well on our way to developing cold fusion very soon!:) And here's where the world is going to get our rawmaterials from. We're right on schedule!
Let me educate you on manners then. No it was not necessary. It not only makes you look like a jerk (which you are), but it makes people far less inclined to listen to your opinions. It's counterproductive.
Now I feel I'm stating the obvious again, but spam filters are not the answer. I use one, but I end up checking over all my filtered mail anyway, out of fear something important might get deleted. I don't know how fast a reader you are, and how fast your connection is, but it takes time and bandwidth every day to skim these over. Not everyone is even knowledgeable enough to set up a spam filter properly. They must read through each spam email. Are they not part of the same economy? For the ones that do sneak through, guess what? More time wasted filtering and deleting it. Even if this process takes a minute or two every day for the techie groups and as much as half an hour a day for the non-technically inclined (trying to find important emails within hundreds or thousands every day, desperately unsubscribing to some, only getting more), this becomes a significant portion of the 8-hour work day.
I'm sure you have an idea of how many people get spam. Everyone with a computer. Try hiring ALL of them every day for even 10 minutes a day. That's something that costs our economy money. I respect a reasonable business methodology that goes for a majority of consumer satisfaction. The spam business is inherently evil, and none of them are reputable. Spammers, and you, can go to hell. Don't bother replying, because I won't be reading it.
Well, I won't comment on WordPerfect for Linux not supporting dictionary definitions... okay, I guess I did. That stinks. But the Windows version, which supports dictionary definitions, requires you to pay for a complete dictionary.. it's the Oxford "concise" dictionary. If I'm paying for a dictionary service, I'd at least want the unabridged definitions, with an option to only see concise definitions. Also, it'd be nice if they offer a free alternative, allowing the user to specify a dictionary server and interfacing it using the DICT protocol. See RFC 2229 and dict.org for an example at what's available for free.
Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?
on
Robocones
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Are there statistics anywhere on how many workers are killed or injured while moving cones every year? The article mentions risk without refering to hard data so it seems like a solution in search of a problem. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just want to know how they qualify the risk they mention or if it's a neat university project solely for the sake of being a neat university project.
See, here's the disconnect between book smarts and street smarts, literally. Have you ever tried to cross the New Jersey Turnpike when dense traffic is going as high as 90mph? Ever play frogger? Having a way to move cones without risk is an obviously good idea. The only thing that worries me is a driver getting distracted from looking at the new technology.
Seriously, save jail for violent offenders. There's not enough room as it is. Spammers may be annoying, but they won't mug you on the street and rape your kids.
Umm, just because it's a white collar crime doesn't mean they shouldn't see a jail cell. With all that spamming, surely they can pay for their own jail cell. And while they won't rape your kids, they'll show them enough naked old men, kiddie porn, and animal lovin' to make them vomit. Not to mention how they outright hurt the economy. I would like to see them pick up the soap in prison a few times.
I used to LOVE to play The Legend of Zelda. As I recall, that game was made in Japan, by a Japanese developer, even based on many elements from his real life.
I wonder if a game popularity's diversity of region is based more on level of detail rather than what the game is based on. I read some of a book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud, and while I do think some of its contents is debatable, one thing I couldn't argue with was.. the more abstract a character, the easier it is to think of the abstraction as a representation of yourself, and thus relate to it. So with the older games such as Zelda, Metroid, Pac-Man, and even Space Invaders, I can see them having a region-independent fan base as opposed to more realistic games like John Madden Football or Lord of the Rings.
Umm, wouldn't this just turn into another class-action law suit accusing Microsoft of inadequately supporting 3rd party competition? That'd be great, because the schools out there need more free Windows machines to advertise to children and squash the competition further.
Yep, even the title of this paper is designed to make one stare blankly and nod. With such eloquent scientific lingo wrapped around such an outlandish subject matter, the end effect is comparable to drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
While I don't think it is bad idea to supply all students with laptops, I think this is a perfect opportunity for a next generation ebook reader. I have an Ebookman that is ok for reading text, but doesn't handle PDF's or graphics, has a small screen and eats batteries when backlit.
While I at first thought the same thing, those distractions you suggest such as IM and games could also include various IT tools, scientific applications, programming hobbies, artistic expression (graphics/music/video editing). I might not have ended up a successful programmer if I didn't get a computer to fool around with when I was younger. I think this is a brilliant opportunity for students to catch up to the world at a young age.
The thing I wonder about is.. $1350 per laptop seems a bit high. A good way to keep students from getting distracted with games, especially when the school pays for it, is to give them perhaps refurbished 500 Mhz computers. I remember being able to do a whole lot on my 266Mhz desktop computer back in the day. Also, it would inspire parents who can afford better to buy their children state of the art laptops. This would save the school some money. The only problem would be that there would be some compatibility issues, but as long as each application is reasonably tested and isn't too complicated, there shouldn't be a problem.
Well, first off, my Windows first 10 is:
Windows/Windows driver/IE Updates and plugins
Norton Antivirus
Ad-Aware
MS Office and Updates
GMud
Trillian
gvim
Adobe Photoshop
Alcohol
Snood
What I'd be more curious about is what the first 10 apps I should install under Linux are. I'm considering converting back to Linux after I learned about OpenOffice saving to PDF files for free in a recent/. article.
I think we all make mistakes like that now and then... and paying for them would be a very healthy reminder not to do it anymore.
Hey, wait a second. I was not advocating the fines, I was advocating the safety warning equipment. Let's say wheelchairs weren't available for people without legs. Would it be fair to sue those people when you trip over them? RFIDs used for safety acts as a wheelchair for people who aren't the most capable drivers.
I've fallen asleep on the road before.. woke up just in time to avoid a head-on-head high speed collision with a weighty Buick. An 18-wheeler truck nearly drifted into my bus as I was commuting up to NYC one morning..then the driver woke up..steered away, then fell asleep again and almost hit us a second time. How many people forget to look left pulling into an intersection? How many bad cell phone drivers are out there? Even if this system is abused and I end up paying $5000 in traffic fines down the road because of it, I would go for this in a second. Driving is dangerous. Not everyone is physically capable of driving safely all the time. Not nearly enough people realize this.
I've rarely seen where the designers aren't the programmers as well, at least somewhat. If there are people doing the design for a software, they're generally the lead developers and have a better chance at coming up with an intelligible, well-crafted set of UML diagrams than the programmers not involved in software architecting. When you say "better ways to express themselves", what ways are you referring to? While UML can be considered overkill, it certainly covers the bases.
Perhaps this is not a notion of Michael Hart selling out, but perhaps Michael Hart plotting an ingenious and elaborate money-making scheme from the very beginning. Pose as a free organization.. own rights to the trademark... then make money off the trademark, and all the volunteers' hard work. I haven't contributed to Project Gutenberg personally, but I'd be outright pissed if I did.
Well, I haven't touched Haskell but I read the description provided in the link. The "size of code" example is silly. For implementing quick sort, good programmers would use componentized logic, a good deal of which has been written for you. As for the pointer safety, Java or managed C++ handles that. Haskell curiously reminds me of prolog though. As for performance, it is very much still important in my opinion. Code for the usual ecommerce form and non realtime messaging apps I would think can use Haskell, but multimedia networking, game programming, and any form of high-volume content processing apps has to choose the higher performance language. I'm guessing though that Haskell supports linking C++ code just fine.. someone want to confirm this so I don't have to read more? Thanks:)
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, I think there is too much stuff put on the web just because people can. Blogs are mostly narcissistic rantings, with no regard to what purpose they serve. I'm getting tired of googling for something, only to turn up a useless blog or forum discussion.
Actually, I had a funny experience with a blog recently. After the recent /. article about Google and a mention of "vanity Googling" I decided to google for my own name. I ended up seeing a friend comment about my dancing at a club recently (offering his compliments, saying he was amused), and went on to say other anecdotes about the night, and how it was all a lot of fun. I chuckled over his commentary and emailed the author saying I agreed we did have a blast, and we should do that again some time. At first I sorta rolled my eyes at the mention of another friend setting up a blog that I don't have time to ever read, but this made me think that there's some real entertainment and social value in them.
So are we going to see some concerted work on an open source alternative.
This doesn't sound like it's such an insurmountable open source project really. I mean, if you want to put your name on a project limited by only the sky, this seems like it. I mean, as far as the security design, that will take a security expert or two, but aside from that, isn't it a whole lot of busywork that amateur open-source programmers can probably handle? Is there a promising open-source eVoting project in development anywhere?
Well, I don't know about quiet computers, but the best way to silence a web site seems to be to post it on /.
800 faculty years of almost anyone in the world, or one building. Good going UIUC.
That's not quite an accurate assessment I gather. A university does need a decent-sized networked building and good computer equipment. You have to subtract what an average configuration would run from the cost of the building, THEN divide that by $100,000. You might also want to account for the value of the publicity the building generates. The more good students that are attracted by something advanced and flashy, the more successful the school is.
There will be war between computers and all of humanity until Keanu Reeves shows up in the building to negotiate terms!
Yeah, because every company that has gone public has stopped innovative R&D and constant steady growth. Look at some of the major public companies out there (3M and General Electric) to see what R&D can really accomplish. Add in the fact that Google will gain at least $2 billion that they can use towards more services, current research, and increasing infrastructure. Your comment is baseless
What I'm going to say I think is not much new, but here's a good place to say it. You're right, but I think what the original poster really had in mind was not necessarily innovation in terms of doing research. It was more along the lines of innovation in terms of risky undertakings paying off. Once a company goes public, you can't throw the basket of eggs at the wall and see what sticks anymore. You have to choose more dependable undertakings to convince your investors not to sell. While risky undertakings can lead to wildly successful innovations, there are plenty of less risky undertakings which I'm sure Google can handle. Google's future will look more dependable, which is good, because yes, they're a quality company.
While the nano-replicators Stephenson envisions in Diamond Age are pretty cool the two things not well discussed were the source of raw materials (glossed over) and the power source (not discussed at all). We've still got a long way to go before these things can be worked out.
Au contraire, we're well on our way to developing cold fusion very soon! :) And here's where the world is going to get our raw materials from. We're right on schedule!
Yes, it was necessary.
Let me educate you on manners then. No it was not necessary. It not only makes you look like a jerk (which you are), but it makes people far less inclined to listen to your opinions. It's counterproductive.
Now I feel I'm stating the obvious again, but spam filters are not the answer. I use one, but I end up checking over all my filtered mail anyway, out of fear something important might get deleted. I don't know how fast a reader you are, and how fast your connection is, but it takes time and bandwidth every day to skim these over. Not everyone is even knowledgeable enough to set up a spam filter properly. They must read through each spam email. Are they not part of the same economy? For the ones that do sneak through, guess what? More time wasted filtering and deleting it. Even if this process takes a minute or two every day for the techie groups and as much as half an hour a day for the non-technically inclined (trying to find important emails within hundreds or thousands every day, desperately unsubscribing to some, only getting more), this becomes a significant portion of the 8-hour work day.
I'm sure you have an idea of how many people get spam. Everyone with a computer. Try hiring ALL of them every day for even 10 minutes a day. That's something that costs our economy money. I respect a reasonable business methodology that goes for a majority of consumer satisfaction. The spam business is inherently evil, and none of them are reputable. Spammers, and you, can go to hell. Don't bother replying, because I won't be reading it.
I hate spam as much as the next person, but PLEASE explain how it outright hurts the economy.
Time wasted sifting through spam every day instead of useful email means lost money. This is obvious to most who complain about spam.
Your ignorance is just mind numbing.
Was that comment really necessary?
Well, I won't comment on WordPerfect for Linux not supporting dictionary definitions... okay, I guess I did. That stinks. But the Windows version, which supports dictionary definitions, requires you to pay for a complete dictionary.. it's the Oxford "concise" dictionary. If I'm paying for a dictionary service, I'd at least want the unabridged definitions, with an option to only see concise definitions. Also, it'd be nice if they offer a free alternative, allowing the user to specify a dictionary server and interfacing it using the DICT protocol. See RFC 2229 and dict.org for an example at what's available for free.
Are there statistics anywhere on how many workers are killed or injured while moving cones every year? The article mentions risk without refering to hard data so it seems like a solution in search of a problem. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just want to know how they qualify the risk they mention or if it's a neat university project solely for the sake of being a neat university project.
See, here's the disconnect between book smarts and street smarts, literally. Have you ever tried to cross the New Jersey Turnpike when dense traffic is going as high as 90mph? Ever play frogger? Having a way to move cones without risk is an obviously good idea. The only thing that worries me is a driver getting distracted from looking at the new technology.Seriously, save jail for violent offenders. There's not enough room as it is. Spammers may be annoying, but they won't mug you on the street and rape your kids.
Umm, just because it's a white collar crime doesn't mean they shouldn't see a jail cell. With all that spamming, surely they can pay for their own jail cell. And while they won't rape your kids, they'll show them enough naked old men, kiddie porn, and animal lovin' to make them vomit. Not to mention how they outright hurt the economy. I would like to see them pick up the soap in prison a few times.So they've taken "We all scream for ice cream!" literally?
I used to LOVE to play The Legend of Zelda. As I recall, that game was made in Japan, by a Japanese developer, even based on many elements from his real life.
I wonder if a game popularity's diversity of region is based more on level of detail rather than what the game is based on. I read some of a book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud, and while I do think some of its contents is debatable, one thing I couldn't argue with was.. the more abstract a character, the easier it is to think of the abstraction as a representation of yourself, and thus relate to it. So with the older games such as Zelda, Metroid, Pac-Man, and even Space Invaders, I can see them having a region-independent fan base as opposed to more realistic games like John Madden Football or Lord of the Rings.Umm, wouldn't this just turn into another class-action law suit accusing Microsoft of inadequately supporting 3rd party competition? That'd be great, because the schools out there need more free Windows machines to advertise to children and squash the competition further.
I only wish Microsoft cared about how long I've held down Control-Alt-Delete.
Yep, even the title of this paper is designed to make one stare blankly and nod. With such eloquent scientific lingo wrapped around such an outlandish subject matter, the end effect is comparable to drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
While I don't think it is bad idea to supply all students with laptops, I think this is a perfect opportunity for a next generation ebook reader. I have an Ebookman that is ok for reading text, but doesn't handle PDF's or graphics, has a small screen and eats batteries when backlit.
While I at first thought the same thing, those distractions you suggest such as IM and games could also include various IT tools, scientific applications, programming hobbies, artistic expression (graphics/music/video editing). I might not have ended up a successful programmer if I didn't get a computer to fool around with when I was younger. I think this is a brilliant opportunity for students to catch up to the world at a young age.
The thing I wonder about is.. $1350 per laptop seems a bit high. A good way to keep students from getting distracted with games, especially when the school pays for it, is to give them perhaps refurbished 500 Mhz computers. I remember being able to do a whole lot on my 266Mhz desktop computer back in the day. Also, it would inspire parents who can afford better to buy their children state of the art laptops. This would save the school some money. The only problem would be that there would be some compatibility issues, but as long as each application is reasonably tested and isn't too complicated, there shouldn't be a problem.
Well, first off, my Windows first 10 is: Windows/Windows driver/IE Updates and plugins Norton Antivirus Ad-Aware MS Office and Updates GMud Trillian gvim Adobe Photoshop Alcohol Snood What I'd be more curious about is what the first 10 apps I should install under Linux are. I'm considering converting back to Linux after I learned about OpenOffice saving to PDF files for free in a recent /. article.
I think we all make mistakes like that now and then... and paying for them would be a very healthy reminder not to do it anymore.
Hey, wait a second. I was not advocating the fines, I was advocating the safety warning equipment. Let's say wheelchairs weren't available for people without legs. Would it be fair to sue those people when you trip over them? RFIDs used for safety acts as a wheelchair for people who aren't the most capable drivers.I've fallen asleep on the road before.. woke up just in time to avoid a head-on-head high speed collision with a weighty Buick. An 18-wheeler truck nearly drifted into my bus as I was commuting up to NYC one morning..then the driver woke up..steered away, then fell asleep again and almost hit us a second time. How many people forget to look left pulling into an intersection? How many bad cell phone drivers are out there? Even if this system is abused and I end up paying $5000 in traffic fines down the road because of it, I would go for this in a second. Driving is dangerous. Not everyone is physically capable of driving safely all the time. Not nearly enough people realize this.
I've rarely seen where the designers aren't the programmers as well, at least somewhat. If there are people doing the design for a software, they're generally the lead developers and have a better chance at coming up with an intelligible, well-crafted set of UML diagrams than the programmers not involved in software architecting. When you say "better ways to express themselves", what ways are you referring to? While UML can be considered overkill, it certainly covers the bases.
Check out the auction. I wonder who bid $100 million for a beta test account. I ask you, is this WoW, or is it really LoL?
Perhaps this is not a notion of Michael Hart selling out, but perhaps Michael Hart plotting an ingenious and elaborate money-making scheme from the very beginning. Pose as a free organization.. own rights to the trademark... then make money off the trademark, and all the volunteers' hard work. I haven't contributed to Project Gutenberg personally, but I'd be outright pissed if I did.
Well, I haven't touched Haskell but I read the description provided in the link. The "size of code" example is silly. For implementing quick sort, good programmers would use componentized logic, a good deal of which has been written for you. As for the pointer safety, Java or managed C++ handles that. Haskell curiously reminds me of prolog though. As for performance, it is very much still important in my opinion. Code for the usual ecommerce form and non realtime messaging apps I would think can use Haskell, but multimedia networking, game programming, and any form of high-volume content processing apps has to choose the higher performance language. I'm guessing though that Haskell supports linking C++ code just fine.. someone want to confirm this so I don't have to read more? Thanks :)