Ah, I remember when I was thirteen, just like you. I do hope your acne problem subsides before your big date, which at this rate will probably not happen before your thirtieth birthday. Poor lad.
On a more serious note, I will say that the best approach to user interfaces I've yet encountered was, believe it or not, OS/2. They used the concept of a template-centric (using a stationery metaphor) paradigm instead of an application-centric one, just as one does in a real office environment. It was so easy to work with and relate to I've often wondered why it was never adopted outside OS/2.
But it was, in a half-assed sort of way, by Microsoft, such that one can't truly use the Windows interface fully for that sort of interaction with data and applications, but unfortunately the application-centric concept doesn't work smoothly enough for less computer-literate folks (such as yourself) to feel comfortable with the system without much experience.
OS X may be mature in many ways, but it's user interface sure as heck isn't. In fact it's so utterly primitive it's not to be believed. In so many ways it has failed to evolve beyond the original Mac paradigm I sometimes get the feeling I'm working on a "home computer" circa 1985.
Here's an interesting example: The Home and End keys.
On Windows, the home and end keys take me to the beginning and end of the line I'm editing, consistantly in every different app in which an editing window appears. Not so the Mac. Here I end up using a modifier key with the arrow keys... sometimes. Bizarre. The list goes on.
They really have to get away from the single menu at the top of the page thing as well - it only adds to the nostalgia for Z-80 based single-board computers.
Otherwise, I'd be dying to get my hands on one of the new Intel Macs.
What if... in the distant future the brain of a murder victim could be read by observing it's chemical state to determine all thoughts and state of mind at time of death, including what the victim saw as he/she was being killed.
I know, impossible, but I feel a bad Hollywood plot coming on with John Travolta in the starring role...
Actually, vinyl records will outlast *all* of the digital formats - about 100 or more years in fact.
Why is it that there are Edison Cylinders still listenable after over a century, yet I've heard lately so much talk about data obsolescence in both the entertainment and computer software fields? Perfect sound forever, anyone?
LP sales are growing in fact. And there's a large movement amongst 20-somethings towards playing vinyl, not just grumpy old men. The better quality turntable manufacturers can't keep up with production. Also, one of the most expensive audio items on the market today is a turntable. You can buy a certain phono preamp for $30,000 if you like, but the waiting list is rather long.
In addition to all the great software from past decades, you can find most recent top-40 releases on vinyl, if you look. And people do look.
So no, the LP isn't dead. But no, it will never be a "mainstream" format either. But at least it won't put any funky DRM on my 1975-vintage cassette deck when I try to make a backup of them;-)
Cheers
My point exactly; digital has all that, and adds the horrors of digital processing, with it's harsh, digital signature.
The art of great sound is to eliminate as many links in the chain, and digital processing is, well, processing. I don't want my music processed. I want it to play. Period.
This is also a bit off-topic, but the view of the oil-connected, "born-again christian" businessmen who run Washington is that the world is coming to an end soon anyways with the second coming of you-know-who. If you remember, James Watt, under the Reagan adiministration, made that very remark regarding the selling off of park lands to the big mining and oil conglomerates.
He-he! Brilliantly put.
Talking to the youth who download music illegally these days, that is the very reason they don't care to actually pay for their music - they think it's cool to listen to, but not worth the money to pay for.
Watching the movie The Last Waltz about The Band's final performance the other day, it really brought home the value for money proposition with music: There you had six or seven brilliant musicians giving it their all and producing some amazing stuff. With modern music you get one or two "producers" in a little room with a computer and some Cubase plugins churning out canned cut-and-paste samples. Or at best a group of "plastic-punk" rockers such as Green Day slapping together a bunch of generic power chords with not the slightest hint of musical challenge.
Sorry, I can do that myself for free...
I agree with the above entirely.
What is interesting is that with the old analog LP, no matter what you might say about it's sound quality (vastly better than CD or crackly, noisy annoyance), you actually get a copy of the sound waves as captured in the studio/stage as they happened. Pretty amazing if you ask me.
Not to mention the larger canvas for artwork and often some quite creative packaging concepts.
Unfortunately you don't get DRM protection, which I know we'll all miss. (Note for the Anonymous Coward above: This is also sarcasm. Just in case you were wondering.)
Cheers
When it comes to audio, the best way to prevent distortion is to get rid of any computerised anything in the signal chain; keep it pure analog all the way, with as few wires in the signal chain as possible, with good quality, well matched components and listen at levels which represent that which you would expect to hear in a particular venue.
Also, the laws of physics will render the computerised speaker concept a non-starter unfortunately.
Cheers
Fer chrissakes just pick up a guitar, plug it into a big ol' amp and get with your friends on bass and drums. Then crank it to the max.
Downloading a MIDI file and poking around with it in Gargeband is boooooring as hell. The real fun comes with you get your mates together and do the song on *real* instruments. *That* is fun.
Rock on people. Frikkin' computers have no place in the making of great music.
Cheers
The information on my vinyl record collection doesn't want to be encrypted.
I just hope they don't find a way to do this to new vinyl releases (and yes, you can get vinyl versions of most new popular music titles).
Cheers
Those who seem to object most to the use of human stem cells are the self-styled "born again" Christian Right, championed by the likes of GW Bush and his cronies. Their arguement is that the process of harvesting immature stem cells kills a human being with a God-given soul, making it an unspeakable act of murder. However, the ultimate outcome of this harvesting is saved or greately improved human lives.
However, these same Christian Right-to-lifers seem not at all fazed by the fact that, in their zeal to target terrorists in far-flung corners of the globe occasionally innocent human lives (with God-given souls and all) are sacrificed. In this instance, the outcome of these actions can only be death and suffering, whether they manage to precisely hit their targets or not.
Am I off-base/off-topic here? I look forward to replies...
Cheers
You know, maybe, just maybe there might be one or two people who *are* smart enough to figure out those programs. And hey, they might just be smart enough to start some consulting firms, software development companies, and all manner of great projects which will push the African continent ahead and create opportunity for more. Heaven forbid we may see a middle class emerge to stabilise some otherwise dodgy and delicate democracies.
You know it's times like this which make me start to wonder if those old tales about the industrialised nations wishing to keep the "third world" as backward as possible are true...
Indeed. In my opionion there should be a completely separate, parallel computer industry, producing computer equipment and software for educational institions only. This would be a completely independant and non-profit, generic set of hard and software which bears no markings or resemblance to any commercial product, so that no child is unduly influenced by a particular manufacturer's product.
And, of course, no educational institution should be allowed to take one cent from any individual or company which has any dealings or association with any private computer product manufacturer. Nope, those underfunded inner-city schools will just have to find some other way to fund computer purchases from Generic Computer Industries Inc.;
On a more serious note, keep in mind that this is a practice which goes way back. IBM, DEC, et al were giving tonnes of big iron to major institutions for the very same reason as Gates' largesse. And because of that, perhaps some of slashdot's readers got a good start on their lucrative careers. Hmmm...
But there is one more boo-boo by Mr. Gates. In the mid-80's he was part of a panel game-type thing, for charity I believe. He was asked if there was such a thing as an erase command in S&M-DOS (or is that MS-DOS?;-). He stated "No", however that is one of the original commands within command.com.
In fact, it's in XP as well;-)
Cheers
Silly Slashdot poster, don't you know that Wang has been out of business for some time now? Sheesh. Next you'll be asking for a special adapter to hook it up to a paper TTY.
Oy.
Interestingly, if you remember, they didn't get the Hubble right the first time - they had to repair the danged thing in space shortly after it was launched.
However I did read about the polishing of the lense, which was quite amazing.
Cheers
I don't want any bloody computer program to "recommend" anything to me.
This is the way I work:
I find a cache of LPs at a local thrift shop/house sale/friend's house/whatever.
I rifle through and see if there's anything I think might be worth listening to. If it's a Blue Note label or Decca classical or Everest 50's era release, I don't think twice - it comes home with me.
If it looks wierd/different/otherwise interesting, I'll go for it because frankly it's either free or little more than a dollar for a whole album's worth of great music which will invariably sound vastly better than any Compact Disc release, even *if* I could find one (which in many cases I can't).
I then clean and play those vinyl treasures that the drooling masses will never enjoy as they spend more time boasting about how many bleeding songs they've sucked into their feeble souding iPods than actually listening to them.
I also find I *listen* to whole albums at one go, as opposed to putting an iPod on random play and half ignore the music. (But hell, you've got ten thousand songs on it - *that's* the important thing! Who cares about the music!).
. Sorry, but the current music scene and the means of playing it back just makes me physically ill, to be frank.
Get yourself a great turntable, hit the yard sales and find some *real* musical treasures. Sheesh.
Cheers
It will be interesting to watch the cell co.'s
on
VoIP Going Wireless
·
· Score: 1
How will the hardware manufacturers and service providers react? Will they do an RIAA and attempt to keep wirless VOIP out of the mobile game (i.e. keep the status quo), or will they embrace it and go full tilt at it, inventing new strategies to make money? I guess it's pretty much accepted that VOIP will be the way forward however.
Oddly, I've been thinking about how cell phones will be wifi capable in the near future, so that you can use it in a hotspot as a wifi device, and that the cell service will eventually succumb to an all-wifi, IP based future.
As a closing note, I find it amazing that no-one is giving credit to net2phone, the original VOIP company. They had exactly the same product as far as I can tell.
Cheers
Now I can use my cell phone as really small computer. Except that the keyboard and screen are real big. And the computer itself has the power and speed of a Commodore 128.
Wheeee!
Seriously, I know that the latest phones have much more capable processors memory than the 128, but I'll be really impressed when they have a system the size of a cell phone which can perform all the functions of my desktop. Frankly, most cell phones' user interfaces and capabilities have seriously failed to impress me.
But damn I look cool yakking on them, which is the important thing:-)
It seems that web geeks are so pleased with themselves that they can now have web applications which dynamically update, without having to redload the page.
Now, I may be dim, but I understood that most computer applications could achieve this around thirty years ago??
Consider the following bit of text from the article:
Cox said. "In a sense we are fortunate that most attackers want to control and use systems they attack rather than destroy them."
That is a bit of a catch-22 for the virus/worm authors. They need living hosts in order to redistribute the worm, so it's not in their interest to kill the host. And most virii are of the worm variety - they want their little code critter to distribute as far and wide as possible.
So it's very unlikely that a BIOS killer worm would get very far even if it were released into the wild.
Slashdot Mirror
On a more serious note, I will say that the best approach to user interfaces I've yet encountered was, believe it or not, OS/2. They used the concept of a template-centric (using a stationery metaphor) paradigm instead of an application-centric one, just as one does in a real office environment. It was so easy to work with and relate to I've often wondered why it was never adopted outside OS/2.
But it was, in a half-assed sort of way, by Microsoft, such that one can't truly use the Windows interface fully for that sort of interaction with data and applications, but unfortunately the application-centric concept doesn't work smoothly enough for less computer-literate folks (such as yourself) to feel comfortable with the system without much experience.
Cheers
Here's an interesting example: The Home and End keys.
On Windows, the home and end keys take me to the beginning and end of the line I'm editing, consistantly in every different app in which an editing window appears. Not so the Mac. Here I end up using a modifier key with the arrow keys... sometimes. Bizarre. The list goes on.
They really have to get away from the single menu at the top of the page thing as well - it only adds to the nostalgia for Z-80 based single-board computers.
Otherwise, I'd be dying to get my hands on one of the new Intel Macs.
Cheers
What if... in the distant future the brain of a murder victim could be read by observing it's chemical state to determine all thoughts and state of mind at time of death, including what the victim saw as he/she was being killed. I know, impossible, but I feel a bad Hollywood plot coming on with John Travolta in the starring role...
Actually, vinyl records will outlast *all* of the digital formats - about 100 or more years in fact. Why is it that there are Edison Cylinders still listenable after over a century, yet I've heard lately so much talk about data obsolescence in both the entertainment and computer software fields? Perfect sound forever, anyone?
LP sales are growing in fact. And there's a large movement amongst 20-somethings towards playing vinyl, not just grumpy old men. The better quality turntable manufacturers can't keep up with production. Also, one of the most expensive audio items on the market today is a turntable. You can buy a certain phono preamp for $30,000 if you like, but the waiting list is rather long. In addition to all the great software from past decades, you can find most recent top-40 releases on vinyl, if you look. And people do look. So no, the LP isn't dead. But no, it will never be a "mainstream" format either. But at least it won't put any funky DRM on my 1975-vintage cassette deck when I try to make a backup of them ;-)
Cheers
I did and I do ;-)
My point exactly; digital has all that, and adds the horrors of digital processing, with it's harsh, digital signature.
The art of great sound is to eliminate as many links in the chain, and digital processing is, well, processing. I don't want my music processed. I want it to play. Period.
Cheers
This is also a bit off-topic, but the view of the oil-connected, "born-again christian" businessmen who run Washington is that the world is coming to an end soon anyways with the second coming of you-know-who. If you remember, James Watt, under the Reagan adiministration, made that very remark regarding the selling off of park lands to the big mining and oil conglomerates.
He-he! Brilliantly put. Talking to the youth who download music illegally these days, that is the very reason they don't care to actually pay for their music - they think it's cool to listen to, but not worth the money to pay for. Watching the movie The Last Waltz about The Band's final performance the other day, it really brought home the value for money proposition with music: There you had six or seven brilliant musicians giving it their all and producing some amazing stuff. With modern music you get one or two "producers" in a little room with a computer and some Cubase plugins churning out canned cut-and-paste samples. Or at best a group of "plastic-punk" rockers such as Green Day slapping together a bunch of generic power chords with not the slightest hint of musical challenge. Sorry, I can do that myself for free...
I agree with the above entirely. What is interesting is that with the old analog LP, no matter what you might say about it's sound quality (vastly better than CD or crackly, noisy annoyance), you actually get a copy of the sound waves as captured in the studio/stage as they happened. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Not to mention the larger canvas for artwork and often some quite creative packaging concepts. Unfortunately you don't get DRM protection, which I know we'll all miss. (Note for the Anonymous Coward above: This is also sarcasm. Just in case you were wondering.) Cheers
When it comes to audio, the best way to prevent distortion is to get rid of any computerised anything in the signal chain; keep it pure analog all the way, with as few wires in the signal chain as possible, with good quality, well matched components and listen at levels which represent that which you would expect to hear in a particular venue. Also, the laws of physics will render the computerised speaker concept a non-starter unfortunately. Cheers
Fer chrissakes just pick up a guitar, plug it into a big ol' amp and get with your friends on bass and drums. Then crank it to the max. Downloading a MIDI file and poking around with it in Gargeband is boooooring as hell. The real fun comes with you get your mates together and do the song on *real* instruments. *That* is fun. Rock on people. Frikkin' computers have no place in the making of great music. Cheers
The information on my vinyl record collection doesn't want to be encrypted. I just hope they don't find a way to do this to new vinyl releases (and yes, you can get vinyl versions of most new popular music titles). Cheers
Those who seem to object most to the use of human stem cells are the self-styled "born again" Christian Right, championed by the likes of GW Bush and his cronies. Their arguement is that the process of harvesting immature stem cells kills a human being with a God-given soul, making it an unspeakable act of murder. However, the ultimate outcome of this harvesting is saved or greately improved human lives. However, these same Christian Right-to-lifers seem not at all fazed by the fact that, in their zeal to target terrorists in far-flung corners of the globe occasionally innocent human lives (with God-given souls and all) are sacrificed. In this instance, the outcome of these actions can only be death and suffering, whether they manage to precisely hit their targets or not. Am I off-base/off-topic here? I look forward to replies... Cheers
You know, maybe, just maybe there might be one or two people who *are* smart enough to figure out those programs. And hey, they might just be smart enough to start some consulting firms, software development companies, and all manner of great projects which will push the African continent ahead and create opportunity for more. Heaven forbid we may see a middle class emerge to stabilise some otherwise dodgy and delicate democracies. You know it's times like this which make me start to wonder if those old tales about the industrialised nations wishing to keep the "third world" as backward as possible are true...
Indeed. In my opionion there should be a completely separate, parallel computer industry, producing computer equipment and software for educational institions only. This would be a completely independant and non-profit, generic set of hard and software which bears no markings or resemblance to any commercial product, so that no child is unduly influenced by a particular manufacturer's product. And, of course, no educational institution should be allowed to take one cent from any individual or company which has any dealings or association with any private computer product manufacturer. Nope, those underfunded inner-city schools will just have to find some other way to fund computer purchases from Generic Computer Industries Inc.; On a more serious note, keep in mind that this is a practice which goes way back. IBM, DEC, et al were giving tonnes of big iron to major institutions for the very same reason as Gates' largesse. And because of that, perhaps some of slashdot's readers got a good start on their lucrative careers. Hmmm...
But there is one more boo-boo by Mr. Gates. In the mid-80's he was part of a panel game-type thing, for charity I believe. He was asked if there was such a thing as an erase command in S&M-DOS (or is that MS-DOS? ;-). He stated "No", however that is one of the original commands within command.com.
In fact, it's in XP as well ;-)
Cheers
Ah yes, but don't forget so many other un-visionaries: Steve Jobs declaring that he sees no possible want or need for a colour version of the Mac...
Silly Slashdot poster, don't you know that Wang has been out of business for some time now? Sheesh. Next you'll be asking for a special adapter to hook it up to a paper TTY. Oy.
Interestingly, if you remember, they didn't get the Hubble right the first time - they had to repair the danged thing in space shortly after it was launched. However I did read about the polishing of the lense, which was quite amazing. Cheers
I don't want any bloody computer program to "recommend" anything to me. This is the way I work: I find a cache of LPs at a local thrift shop/house sale/friend's house/whatever. I rifle through and see if there's anything I think might be worth listening to. If it's a Blue Note label or Decca classical or Everest 50's era release, I don't think twice - it comes home with me. If it looks wierd/different/otherwise interesting, I'll go for it because frankly it's either free or little more than a dollar for a whole album's worth of great music which will invariably sound vastly better than any Compact Disc release, even *if* I could find one (which in many cases I can't). I then clean and play those vinyl treasures that the drooling masses will never enjoy as they spend more time boasting about how many bleeding songs they've sucked into their feeble souding iPods than actually listening to them. I also find I *listen* to whole albums at one go, as opposed to putting an iPod on random play and half ignore the music. (But hell, you've got ten thousand songs on it - *that's* the important thing! Who cares about the music!). . Sorry, but the current music scene and the means of playing it back just makes me physically ill, to be frank. Get yourself a great turntable, hit the yard sales and find some *real* musical treasures. Sheesh. Cheers
How will the hardware manufacturers and service providers react? Will they do an RIAA and attempt to keep wirless VOIP out of the mobile game (i.e. keep the status quo), or will they embrace it and go full tilt at it, inventing new strategies to make money? I guess it's pretty much accepted that VOIP will be the way forward however. Oddly, I've been thinking about how cell phones will be wifi capable in the near future, so that you can use it in a hotspot as a wifi device, and that the cell service will eventually succumb to an all-wifi, IP based future. As a closing note, I find it amazing that no-one is giving credit to net2phone, the original VOIP company. They had exactly the same product as far as I can tell. Cheers
Now I can use my cell phone as really small computer. Except that the keyboard and screen are real big. And the computer itself has the power and speed of a Commodore 128. Wheeee! Seriously, I know that the latest phones have much more capable processors memory than the 128, but I'll be really impressed when they have a system the size of a cell phone which can perform all the functions of my desktop. Frankly, most cell phones' user interfaces and capabilities have seriously failed to impress me. But damn I look cool yakking on them, which is the important thing :-)
It seems that web geeks are so pleased with themselves that they can now have web applications which dynamically update, without having to redload the page.
Now, I may be dim, but I understood that most computer applications could achieve this around thirty years ago??
Doh!