F) He sounds like he believes and means what he says.
Clinton is smart but he lies when he opens his mouth. Obama somehow gives off credibility and authenticity... one would hope by being credible and authentic, but we shall see. Integrity is rare anywhere, and you don't expect to see it in politicians anymore, at least not at the P level, because we've had a bad run of those here lately.
IIRC the Kennedy election events were very similar in tone (rock starish). More swooning girls then. Media was slow but there was less of it, so speeches were broadcast and people listened to them. Rhetoric was more formal and poetic then, but less reality based perhaps.
Then, as now, there was a renewed hope for dramatic change for the better, an end to the war maybe, a generational shift to the younger, more progressive culture. The euphoria in these hopeful elections arises from the unexpected possibility that we (well, many of we) just might find ourselves in a world that better reflects our own values and priorities.
Both then and now opportunities opened up for women and minorities to move closer to parity with WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant) men and to have a chance to have our issues raised. Again, after years of corporate greed and government spying, the people today have more common ground than they did in the Kennedy era though, whether they realize it or not. Interesting times.
I'm in the midst of hooking up a security camera system at home that will feed into a Mac mini which will serve out the cameras' pictures like a webcam--so with my iPhone, I'll be able to check on my house at any time from anywhere.
Oh man, I need one of those too. Any chance you'll share your solution? Pleeeeze?
Shocking as it is to contemplate, most teens and young adults I know who say they'll mail/msg me in Myspace do not have email addresses. Many of them also don't have their own computers or data storage yet except (for some) a thumb drive, phone or their digital cameras.
So it really is like saying I'll give you a shout but only when I'm in the library or at Bill's house. No wonder texting is a killer app with that crowd.
I noticed twice in the last week some strange ad behavior on Amazon.
The first time, I'd been looking at DVD players via search on Google (FireFox on OSX, not logged in), then later that day when I went to Amazon (not logged in) the front page of Amazon showed me DVD players. I thought perhaps there was some unhealthy cookie sharing going on.
Then later in the week I'd been at Amazon (not logged in) looking at books on a topic I didn't want in my recent history or interested-in lists. I left Amazon, used FF to "clear private data" and went back to Amazon and logged in. There were my dang recent searches. So what's up with that? Have they added IP matching, or is FF OSX not as good at dumping my personal data as I'd like?
Once upon a time Comcast ate my broadband provider. It took only a month for me to switch away, because:
1. Comcast would not allow me to send mail with the "from" line of any of my pre-existing email accounts.And this in the SF Bay Area, where nearly everyone has multiple email addresses going back decades.
2. Comcast service would quit abruptly and the tech support swore it was because I had a printer on my home LAN, and LANs were not supported with their service.
3. Comcast locked me out with no warning, then after a long long wait in phone jail, they told me that their automated password checker determined that my 7-character password was insecure since they required 8-character passwords, so they had changed it to..... "password". I am not kidding. I told them then that they were too stupid to be my ISP.
Unbelievably bad service. Hopelessly stupid policies, and them with the worst case of unrestricted zombie spambots at that time. The idea that they suddenly care enough about spam to block the WELL is laughable indeed. I would rather dial up than use their "services."
First let me say, Eudora rules.
It has great filtering and automation features, saving me years of my life,
It allows me to edit the subject line.
But, when I'm on the road it's all about ssh to pine. Then I POP when I get back home.
What I need:
* standardized mailbox format that really works (pine -> eudora)
* I don't want threading, I want (optionally) to look up the last 2 messages in a thread, hers and mine.
* tagging (my keywords)
* a persistent flag for replied, forwarded, read (pine-> eudora)
* and last BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST hotel networks that don't freak out and block ports when I ssh.
The dental use, incidentally, is for cleaning cavities, not drilling them. The plasma can kill the bacteria that live in the cavity, at least, in theory.
Good, but I want prevention. I'm ready for the anticavity vaccine. Now there's another worthy project for the betterment of humankind, Mr Gates.
MIT Press has just released a new book on this subject by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave:
"Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and advances the Human-Computer Relationship." ($21.45 at huge online bookstore near you).
It presents research on voice interaction and gives advice about how to do voice without annoying people so much. I've not read it yet but it's on my list.
My theory: It's the human who brings the food and beverages to the table that makes such a place successful.
Think about it. Are you going to leave your laptop on the table to go juggle wet and sticky stuff across the room? Might you lose your seat if you take the Powerbook with you? Can you get coffee, sugar, your bag and your laptop back to the table easily? And now what about that sandwich?
You might not think about it consciously, but it's a lot easier just to sit there and continue playing. Wouldn't it be great if someone brought you some pie?
Clue: this topic comes up periodically simply to out the grrls.
The closest I ever came to nurturing something in a game was when I played Defender. I'm not sure about gathering and relationships either, although I'll agree that the male reward path is different than the female for evolutionary reasons and that acquisition could be seen as a form of gathering.
Let's see what other motivations and rewards there might have been in it for me, given my game history. Computer-based games I played and liked:
Pong Defender Duke Nukem (in color!) MOOs Myst Riven Freecell solitaire
Analysis: all skill/learning/puzzle/solitary (no adversary) except for MOO. Interesting but not very engaging overall. I played Defender a lot because I was good at it, which was the reward.]
Games I've devoted serious time to (in the B.C. era)
Analysis: competition with other people, involving skills, luck, strategies and complex rules -- can complete one in an afternoon, can try before you buy. I was definitely in it for the thrill of flexing skills, but I guess there were some other pleasant social aspects to the card games besides crushing the opponent utterly.
I haven't been all that interested in games lately so I'm not really up on what's happening in the massively multiplayer universe, but I read about new games fairly regularly and find most of them not even remotely interesting. Freak Show was an exception, but I didn't want to buy it to try it.
I can imagine enjoying one-on-one competitions of skill or solitary games of exploration. I like a little chance with my skills too.
I can't imagine playing sims myself (although the concept is interesting from a number of angles, so I can imagine enjoying watching other people play sims), and I have completely satisfied my curiosity about MOO, chess, quests and games with only one path through the maze.
* Choice is best.
* If it looks broken, they'll notice and hate it.
* The first few lines and the subject/sender have to make the case for reading it at all in the age of spam.
These reports cost money but they are still much cheaper than losing customers.
This page at the microwave your boomer site is even funnier.
But beware, the Thumpmobile Zapper is a dangerous beast. The full elephant details follow:
"Now the moment comes, where the elephant leaves the water: Magnetron as to the remaining microwave furnace circuit attach before (use high voltage-firm cable - the Magnetron cooperates over 2000 V!) and SHORT switch on. In the case of correct adjustment the valuable transistors in the bass output stage of the victim will fuse within fractions of a second . In the case of not correct adjustment also engine electronics of the vehicle is destroyed. But you do not want that nevertheless, or? Effects on the brain of the driver are not to be feared after my experiences. But you do not let arrive it better on it, perhaps are with it nevertheless still vestiges of brain cells present: If the victim scharrt afterwards in the sand and shits into the yard, the adjustment was wrong or the dose too high."
1. I tilted the keyboard away, not toward me. I pushed that wrist rest under the closest edge of the kb so now it's maybe 5 degrees of tilt toward the monitor. this flattens the wrist like piano playing would and keeps me from anchoring the heel of my hand to the wrist rest anymore (which led to more twisting from the wrist). (I got this tilt tip from an RSI USENet post.) Pain in wrists and elbows got better in a matter of days. VHS tapes, paperback books, and my current 2-inch empty ring binder all work pretty well for this purpose.
2. Bought 2 Perfit mice, one for each hand. Every 3-6 months i switch mouse hands. This helped wrists and top of shoulders. The deal here is tilt and getting the right size for your hand so you can't so easily plant the heel of your hand on the mousepad. It takes some getting used to, but you can program the 3 buttons to do whatever you like, and I like them so well i've bought 4 of them over the years for various systems. (it works on lots of platforms.)
I tried a graphics tablet as a mouse replacement for many years. I liked it because I was doing a lot of drawing and photo editing and it gave me a lot more precision. But I kept having to put the dang stylus down (it would then dutifully roll onto the floor) and make a keyboard command, then go get the stylus and continue. Even after I eventually trained myself to put the stylus down in a better place, this device switching cost me a lot of time, and the stylus was a right-hand-only device for me.
Eventually I turned the tabet upside down and used it for a mouse pad, at lap level. That helped quite a bit, but it interrupted cat visitations, so it could not continue.
3. I finally cut a T-shaped board out of plywood that fits into my desk drawer slot but sticks out a foot. It gives me enough room, at the right level, for my kb, mice, AND the occasional cat and/or dinner.
YMMV, but these three types of modifications (kb tilt, mouse size, kb/mouse level) cost only about $150 or so to try.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a Treaddesk(tm) http://www.treaddesk.com/ which was only USD$ 800ish, and I love it.
See also http://www.meedan.net/
Also, Google has a translation widget that might be a reasonable stop-gap measure.
http://translate.google.com/translate_tools?hl=en
D, E, and
F) He sounds like he believes and means what he says.
Clinton is smart but he lies when he opens his mouth. Obama somehow gives off credibility and authenticity ... one would hope by being credible and authentic, but we shall see. Integrity is rare anywhere, and you don't expect to see it in politicians anymore, at least not at the P level, because we've had a bad run of those here lately.
IIRC the Kennedy election events were very similar in tone (rock starish). More swooning girls then. Media was slow but there was less of it, so speeches were broadcast and people listened to them. Rhetoric was more formal and poetic then, but less reality based perhaps.
Then, as now, there was a renewed hope for dramatic change for the better, an end to the war maybe, a generational shift to the younger, more progressive culture. The euphoria in these hopeful elections arises from the unexpected possibility that we (well, many of we) just might find ourselves in a world that better reflects our own values and priorities.
Both then and now opportunities opened up for women and minorities to move closer to parity with WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant) men and to have a chance to have our issues raised. Again, after years of corporate greed and government spying, the people today have more common ground than they did in the Kennedy era though, whether they realize it or not. Interesting times.
http://www.mvo.ms/ Pictures and info about the volcano, official site.
Smartnav uses head movements for mouse control. http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/products/compare.html
Shocking as it is to contemplate, most teens and young adults I know who say they'll mail/msg me in Myspace do not have email addresses. Many of them also don't have their own computers or data storage yet except (for some) a thumb drive, phone or their digital cameras. So it really is like saying I'll give you a shout but only when I'm in the library or at Bill's house. No wonder texting is a killer app with that crowd.
I noticed twice in the last week some strange ad behavior on Amazon.
The first time, I'd been looking at DVD players via search on Google (FireFox on OSX, not logged in), then later that day when I went to Amazon (not logged in) the front page of Amazon showed me DVD players. I thought perhaps there was some unhealthy cookie sharing going on.
Then later in the week I'd been at Amazon (not logged in) looking at books on a topic I didn't want in my recent history or interested-in lists. I left Amazon, used FF to "clear private data" and went back to Amazon and logged in. There were my dang recent searches. So what's up with that? Have they added IP matching, or is FF OSX not as good at dumping my personal data as I'd like?
Heh. If you really really want to get searched, try taking a hair blowdryer with you. It works every single time for me.
Once upon a time Comcast ate my broadband provider. It took only a month for me to switch away, because:
..... "password". I am not kidding. I told them then that they were too stupid to be my ISP.
1. Comcast would not allow me to send mail with the "from" line of any of my pre-existing email accounts.And this in the SF Bay Area, where nearly everyone has multiple email addresses going back decades.
2. Comcast service would quit abruptly and the tech support swore it was because I had a printer on my home LAN, and LANs were not supported with their service.
3. Comcast locked me out with no warning, then after a long long wait in phone jail, they told me that their automated password checker determined that my 7-character password was insecure since they required 8-character passwords, so they had changed it to
Unbelievably bad service. Hopelessly stupid policies, and them with the worst case of unrestricted zombie spambots at that time. The idea that they suddenly care enough about spam to block the WELL is laughable indeed. I would rather dial up than use their "services."
First let me say, Eudora rules. It has great filtering and automation features, saving me years of my life, It allows me to edit the subject line. But, when I'm on the road it's all about ssh to pine. Then I POP when I get back home.
What I need:
* standardized mailbox format that really works (pine -> eudora)
* I don't want threading, I want (optionally) to look up the last 2 messages in a thread, hers and mine.
* tagging (my keywords)
* a persistent flag for replied, forwarded, read (pine-> eudora)
* and last BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST hotel networks that don't freak out and block ports when I ssh.
* Rainwater catchment system feeds into landscape irrigation system.
* Solarium/greenhouse, passive solar, with hot tub (tankless hot water heater). Hot tub water recycles to plants after chlorine evaps.
* CCTV -> webcam/floodlights for outside of house (motion detector) and cat cam inside (motion detector) for peace of mind when traveling.
* Smart heat/air exchanger in bathroom with timer.
* Timers on simple control panel for various lights.
MIT Press has just released a new book on this subject by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave:
"Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and advances the Human-Computer Relationship." ($21.45 at huge online bookstore near you).
It presents research on voice interaction and gives advice about how to do voice without annoying people so much. I've not read it yet but it's on my list.
Okay, but
a) If the web is really much bigger than the indexed web, then might not these two indices overlap rather than one being a subset of the other?
b) Couldn't someone just measure the size of each index and know?
c) Shouldn't we care more about inflation claims on results returned? Since when are these called "estimates"?
My theory: It's the human who brings the food and beverages to the table that makes such a place successful.
Think about it. Are you going to leave your laptop on the table to go juggle wet and sticky stuff across the room? Might you lose your seat if you take the Powerbook with you? Can you get coffee, sugar, your bag and your laptop back to the table easily? And now what about that sandwich?
You might not think about it consciously, but it's a lot easier just to sit there and continue playing. Wouldn't it be great if someone brought you some pie?
Oh my.
Clue: this topic comes up periodically simply to out the grrls.
n gupcontentsunderpressure/news_6127526.html even though I'll have to use a non-Macintosh to play it.
The closest I ever came to nurturing something in a game was when I played Defender. I'm not sure about gathering and relationships either, although I'll agree that the male reward path is different than the female for evolutionary reasons and that acquisition could be seen as a form of gathering.
Let's see what other motivations and rewards there might have been in it for me, given my game history.
Computer-based games I played and liked:
Pong
Defender
Duke Nukem (in color!)
MOOs
Myst
Riven
Freecell solitaire
Analysis: all skill/learning/puzzle/solitary (no adversary) except for MOO. Interesting but not very engaging overall. I played Defender a lot because I was good at it, which was the reward.]
Games I've devoted serious time to (in the B.C. era)
chess
cribbage
8-Ball (pool)
canasta
rummy
spades
crazy 8 (Mississippi rules)
ping pong
badminton
croquet
Monopoly
Battleship
Analysis: competition with other people, involving skills, luck, strategies and complex rules -- can complete one in an afternoon, can try before you buy. I was definitely in it for the thrill of flexing skills, but I guess there were some other pleasant social aspects to the card games besides crushing the opponent utterly.
I haven't been all that interested in games lately so I'm not really up on what's happening in the massively multiplayer universe, but I read about new games fairly regularly and find most of them not even remotely interesting. Freak Show was an exception, but I didn't want to buy it to try it.
I can imagine enjoying one-on-one competitions of skill or solitary games of exploration. I like a little chance with my skills too.
I can't imagine playing sims myself (although the concept is interesting from a number of angles, so I can imagine enjoying watching other people play sims), and I have completely satisfied my curiosity about MOO, chess, quests and games with only one path through the maze.
The next game I'll buy is the Ecko graffiti thang, http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/marceckosgetti
I would probably never buy a dedicated game machine unless it involved physical exercise or was a pool table.
Rule number one: you are not your user.
Don't ask us geeks. Ask normal people.
Nielsen Norman Group publishes two sets of guidelines for email usability.
http://www.nngroup.com/reports/newsletters/
http://www.nngroup.com/reports/confirmation/
* Choice is best.
* If it looks broken, they'll notice and hate it.
* The first few lines and the subject/sender have to make the case for reading it at all in the age of spam.
These reports cost money but they are still much cheaper than losing customers.
This page at the microwave your boomer site is even funnier.
But beware, the Thumpmobile Zapper is a dangerous beast. The full elephant details follow:
"Now the moment comes, where the elephant leaves the water: Magnetron as to the remaining microwave furnace circuit attach before (use high voltage-firm cable - the Magnetron cooperates over 2000 V!) and SHORT switch on. In the case of correct adjustment the valuable transistors in the bass output stage of the victim will fuse within fractions of a second . In the case of not correct adjustment also engine electronics of the vehicle is destroyed. But you do not want that nevertheless, or? Effects on the brain of the driver are not to be feared after my experiences. But you do not let arrive it better on it, perhaps are with it nevertheless still vestiges of brain cells present: If the victim scharrt afterwards in the sand and shits into the yard, the adjustment was wrong or the dose too high."
1. I tilted the keyboard away, not toward me. I pushed that wrist rest under the closest edge of the kb so now it's maybe 5 degrees of tilt toward the monitor. this flattens the wrist like piano playing would and keeps me from anchoring the heel of my hand to the wrist rest anymore (which led to more twisting from the wrist). (I got this tilt tip from an RSI USENet post.) Pain in wrists and elbows got better in a matter of days. VHS tapes, paperback books, and my current 2-inch empty ring binder all work pretty well for this purpose.
2. Bought 2 Perfit mice, one for each hand. Every 3-6 months i switch mouse hands. This helped wrists and top of shoulders. The deal here is tilt and getting the right size for your hand so you can't so easily plant the heel of your hand on the mousepad. It takes some getting used to, but you can program the 3 buttons to do whatever you like, and I like them so well i've bought 4 of them over the years for various systems. (it works on lots of platforms.)
I tried a graphics tablet as a mouse replacement for many years. I liked it because I was doing a lot of drawing and photo editing and it gave me a lot more precision. But I kept having to put the dang stylus down (it would then dutifully roll onto the floor) and make a keyboard command, then go get the stylus and continue. Even after I eventually trained myself to put the stylus down in a better place, this device switching cost me a lot of time, and the stylus was a right-hand-only device for me.
Eventually I turned the tabet upside down and used it for a mouse pad, at lap level. That helped quite a bit, but it interrupted cat visitations, so it could not continue.
3. I finally cut a T-shaped board out of plywood that fits into my desk drawer slot but sticks out a foot. It gives me enough room, at the right level, for my kb, mice, AND the occasional cat and/or dinner.
YMMV, but these three types of modifications (kb tilt, mouse size, kb/mouse level) cost only about $150 or so to try.