'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why Microsoft has always failed and always will fail at anything internet-related. They just can't help themselves; their entire business model is focused on using every single trick possible to lock people in. For Microsoft, evilness is ok if it locks in more people.
Fortunately for us, Microsoft, despite their desperate attempts, does not own the browser, or the web and can't lock us in how hard they try.
What is the business case for Sun open sourcing Java? Try as I might, I can't think of any strong reasons for it.
One might argue that open sourcing the JVM and/or the Java standard libraries might be useful to allow people to create their own distributions for their specific platform, rather than doing a complete rewrite. I can see that being useful for platforms that aren't a priority for Sun.
The question is, though how would Sun make money from any of this (mind you, I doubt they make any money from it right now). Can anyone explain how Sun could benefit from open sourcing Java?
Osama, is that you? So... um, hey I wanted to drop by and deliver a present for you. Can I have your address? It's a really nice present. Seriously. I promise, it's way better than that singing bass thing that Mullah gave you that time (although, you know, I still think you overracted to that - I mean, the poor bastard is blind now).
PS: Yes, I know this whole thread is off-topic, but the parent poster is a gullible apologist for terror. How did that post get modded up? Exactly?
Apparently a porn version of this is popular in some German nightclubs. Basically they play a scene from a porn movie with no sound and the participants on the stage have to provide the sound effects. The person who does the best sound effects wins ("best" being judged by audience reaction I guess?).
I think this would be great fun at parties - if this doesn't break the ice, nothing will (although a certain degree of inebriation might be required before getting things started).
When you watch the movie, keep an eye out for a bigger role for the Blue Sun corporation. The series merely hinted at their role, but I think we can expect to see Blue Sun emerging as the bad guys, rather than the Alliance.
The hints? In the original episodes, watch at how River reacts to anything with the Blue Sun logo on it - Jayne's shirt, labels on cans, and so on.
"I for one" post: +4 funny
IN SOVIET RUSSIA joke: +5 funny
Gratituous mention of Cowboy Neal: -1 troll.
For some things in life there's Karma. For everything else there is outsourcing to India.
Anyone who has spent time in extremely cold conditions can attest to the desire for warm gloves. The body just doesn't "do enough" to protect the extremities (at least at first - I find my fingers get so cold that I'm in severe pain, and then suddenly they warm up. There's probably some medical explanation for this - anyone?).
An interesting solution I heard about was conductive textiles - fabrics that act as heating elements (i.e. they're not simply a wire - wires break easily and consume a lot of current). These were apparently used for astronauts gloves. I haven't been able to find civilian gloves using this technology, despite the potential these seem to have for things like skiing and motorcycle riding.
The basic key to keeping your extremities warm is to keep your core body warm so that the blood circulation doesn't get reduced in your extremeties. The problem is - if you are doing anything active in cold weather - skiing, mountaineering, running, etc - you end up having to dress more lightly simply because otherwise you overheat and become sweat soaked and exhausted. Result shortly thereafter: hypothermia.
So that's why these, and the conductive textile gloves are interesting ideas; you can keep you fingers and toes warm without having to overdress. The big question though is - are they reliable? Will your decision to use the batteries that happened to be in your roomie's TV remote control cost you your fingers?
I played Prop Cycle once - the gameplay was pretty reasonable. The main problem was that the peddling required very little effort and there was no real sense of actually pedalling the aircraft. Something like Prop Cycle, but with more effort feeback to make it really feel like you're cycling with out be pretty neat.
I've always thought it would be really cool to have a game like that the involved trying to outrun bad things all the while, frantically flying through canyons, under bridges, between buildings, etc in a panicked attempt to escape.
In a society that strives to remove effort from anything that might seem like - the horror - work, we need every excuse to exercise that we can get (most people don't even get out their car to open the garage door, after the quick run down to McDonald's drive-thru two blocks down the street).
Let's face it - if we don't carefully diguise the exercise as fun, few people will do it. This is why obesity is a growing problem (pun intended). So game controllers that involve genuine exercise are definitely something we ant to see.
That said, the device in the article isn't going to help, and yes, I agree it has potential to cause injury.
This controller does not involve a significant range of motion - essentially the controller involves isometric holds. This is just a $10 word word meaning that you push against a static object as hard as you can (e.g pushing against a wall - it doesn't move, but it still requires effort on your part). Isometric training is sometimes incorporated as part of a controversial training style known as "super slow" (I can't say if it works or not - I get the impression that the evidence is that at best, it's not an efficient way to train).
In short - sure, it's better than nothing, but it's a LONG way from being a device that seriously combines gaming and fitness.
For years, I have dreamed of combining fitness and gaming (particuly for FPS games and side-scrolling arcade games). I believe it can be done, and have some strong ideas to make it work.
PS: Does anyone know who might be hiring in this field? (I'm a software guy - I need to work with mechanical engineers and EE guys - building these devices is very much a multi-discplinary team effort)
The only conclusion you can really make from this article is: If you want productive use of IM in your workplace, then it must be restricted to intra-company use only.
The article involved a proprietary IM system - I very much doubt that usage patterns of ordinary IM (i.e. standard IM client with unrestricted acess to the internet) is even remotely the same.
In this sense, IM is quite similar to the phone - it's just that many employers haven't caught onto abuse of IM yet, simply because the issue of persnal use isn't highly visible (unlike the phone - if you spend all day chatting with your friends on the phone, people become aware of it very quickly).
I've seen absolutely unbelievable abuse of personal IM in some workplaces. It can be a real productivity killer - but then, so can the phone, or meetings, etc if abused.
The solution? Make IM traffic as visible as phone usage (eg. usage statistics could be on an intranet page somewhere perhaps?)
Most phones are already fitted with an induction coil in the handset - these are there to work with hearing aids (I wear one myself).
In older phones, and certain new-ish payphones these induction coils work extremely well - good clear sound, and they couple with the hearing aid well. But the vast majority of modern phones - including those labelled "hearing aid compatible" have induction coils that barely work at all.
It's impossible to find a phone that works with a PABX system that has an adequate induction coil that works with a hearing aid. I looked far and wide and tried a few devices, but in the end I had to give up - there is literally no such thing as a phone or device that works with a PABX system that approaches the effectiveness of my home phone, in terms of being able to hear it.
There is a third-party handset sold for this purpose (IIRC, the brand is "Walker"), but its induction coil is very weak too -- all they did was to to put a very cheap and nasty amplifier in the handset - and we all know exactly how much THAT benefits the sound quality.
It would make my life a lot easier to be able to find a phone for the office that I can use. I wonder if this new gizmo could be adapted somehow...
It's named after a bar in Whistler, BC (no, seriously).
There are two ski hills at Whistler, Whistler mountain itself, and Blackcomb mountain. The village is at the foot of these two mountains and the bar "Longhorn" is a place where you might stop on the way from Whistler mountain to Blackcomb. XP (or was it Windows 2000?) was code-named "Whistler" and "Blackcomb" is the code name for the version of Windows after Longhorn.
As a former Whistler resident (practically still am, really), I can only wonder what they were thinking - there are much, much better pubs in Whistler than the Longhorn (any Microsofties wanting advice on good places in Whistler: email me).
Rob
Re:Java Data Objects are nice but Hibernate is Bet
on
Java Data Objects
·
· Score: 1
In EJB there are many many things that can go wrong during deployment of beans... It seems to take a while to debug.
EJB development doesn't have to be that way. I agree, without the right tools, EJB development can be a painfully laborious exercise in bitter profanity - and that's just the "hello world" EJB.
There's generally two reasons for this - firstly, there's a lot of classes to create (and more importantly maintain). This is where XDoclet comes into its own. XDoclet is a real labour-saver and I recommend every EJB developer add this tool to their bag of tricks.
The second thing that can be painful about the EJB development process is that the edit-compile-test loop can be maddeningly slow. To run your application you generally need to set up an EJB container, configure it and then ou have to package the app in an EAR and then deploy your app to the container and... you get the idea. Some vendors have integrated EJB containers with their IDEs, but they still run at the speed of diseased livestock.
There's a couple of solutons to this - the free solution is to run JBoss and deploy your app to it (JBoss's hot deploy feature is nice for this sort of thing). I am one of the developers working on a better, albeit - commercial (but fairly inexpensive) - solution, Glider. The key thing about Glider is that it has an EJB container simulator so there's no separate deployment step, so you can compile and run/debug your code very quickly. Obviously, I'm biased, but I can honestly say I would use it even if I wasn't one of the developers who has worked on it.
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Does this mean we'll start seeing MS pop-ups, interstitials and spam? "Click here to ENLARGE your DANCING MONKEY BOY with MS Windows XP!!!!"
'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why Microsoft has always failed and always will fail at anything internet-related. They just can't help themselves; their entire business model is focused on using every single trick possible to lock people in. For Microsoft, evilness is ok if it locks in more people.
Fortunately for us, Microsoft, despite their desperate attempts, does not own the browser, or the web and can't lock us in how hard they try.
Bye, bye Microsoft. It's been nice knowing you.
What is the business case for Sun open sourcing Java? Try as I might, I can't think of any strong reasons for it.
One might argue that open sourcing the JVM and/or the Java standard libraries might be useful to allow people to create their own distributions for their specific platform, rather than doing a complete rewrite. I can see that being useful for platforms that aren't a priority for Sun.
The question is, though how would Sun make money from any of this (mind you, I doubt they make any money from it right now). Can anyone explain how Sun could benefit from open sourcing Java?
Osama, is that you? So... um, hey I wanted to drop by and deliver a present for you. Can I have your address? It's a really nice present. Seriously. I promise, it's way better than that singing bass thing that Mullah gave you that time (although, you know, I still think you overracted to that - I mean, the poor bastard is blind now).
PS: Yes, I know this whole thread is off-topic, but the parent poster is a gullible apologist for terror. How did that post get modded up? Exactly?
Apparently a porn version of this is popular in some German nightclubs. Basically they play a scene from a porn movie with no sound and the participants on the stage have to provide the sound effects. The person who does the best sound effects wins ("best" being judged by audience reaction I guess?).
I think this would be great fun at parties - if this doesn't break the ice, nothing will (although a certain degree of inebriation might be required before getting things started).
When you watch the movie, keep an eye out for a bigger role for the Blue Sun corporation. The series merely hinted at their role, but I think we can expect to see Blue Sun emerging as the bad guys, rather than the Alliance.
The hints? In the original episodes, watch at how River reacts to anything with the Blue Sun logo on it - Jayne's shirt, labels on cans, and so on.
"I for one" post: +4 funny IN SOVIET RUSSIA joke: +5 funny Gratituous mention of Cowboy Neal: -1 troll. For some things in life there's Karma. For everything else there is outsourcing to India.
...leaf nodes?
Or are they root nodes?
Anyone who has spent time in extremely cold conditions can attest to the desire for warm gloves. The body just doesn't "do enough" to protect the extremities (at least at first - I find my fingers get so cold that I'm in severe pain, and then suddenly they warm up. There's probably some medical explanation for this - anyone?).
An interesting solution I heard about was conductive textiles - fabrics that act as heating elements (i.e. they're not simply a wire - wires break easily and consume a lot of current). These were apparently used for astronauts gloves. I haven't been able to find civilian gloves using this technology, despite the potential these seem to have for things like skiing and motorcycle riding.
The basic key to keeping your extremities warm is to keep your core body warm so that the blood circulation doesn't get reduced in your extremeties. The problem is - if you are doing anything active in cold weather - skiing, mountaineering, running, etc - you end up having to dress more lightly simply because otherwise you overheat and become sweat soaked and exhausted. Result shortly thereafter: hypothermia.
So that's why these, and the conductive textile gloves are interesting ideas; you can keep you fingers and toes warm without having to overdress. The big question though is - are they reliable? Will your decision to use the batteries that happened to be in your roomie's TV remote control cost you your fingers?
This informative comment was lifted from a comment made the last time aerogels were discussed on slashdot (see the original comment here).
I played Prop Cycle once - the gameplay was pretty reasonable. The main problem was that the peddling required very little effort and there was no real sense of actually pedalling the aircraft. Something like Prop Cycle, but with more effort feeback to make it really feel like you're cycling with out be pretty neat.
I've always thought it would be really cool to have a game like that the involved trying to outrun bad things all the while, frantically flying through canyons, under bridges, between buildings, etc in a panicked attempt to escape.
In a society that strives to remove effort from anything that might seem like - the horror - work, we need every excuse to exercise that we can get (most people don't even get out their car to open the garage door, after the quick run down to McDonald's drive-thru two blocks down the street).
Let's face it - if we don't carefully diguise the exercise as fun, few people will do it. This is why obesity is a growing problem (pun intended). So game controllers that involve genuine exercise are definitely something we ant to see.
That said, the device in the article isn't going to help, and yes, I agree it has potential to cause injury.
This controller does not involve a significant range of motion - essentially the controller involves isometric holds. This is just a $10 word word meaning that you push against a static object as hard as you can (e.g pushing against a wall - it doesn't move, but it still requires effort on your part). Isometric training is sometimes incorporated as part of a controversial training style known as "super slow" (I can't say if it works or not - I get the impression that the evidence is that at best, it's not an efficient way to train). In short - sure, it's better than nothing, but it's a LONG way from being a device that seriously combines gaming and fitness. For years, I have dreamed of combining fitness and gaming (particuly for FPS games and side-scrolling arcade games). I believe it can be done, and have some strong ideas to make it work. PS: Does anyone know who might be hiring in this field? (I'm a software guy - I need to work with mechanical engineers and EE guys - building these devices is very much a multi-discplinary team effort)
The only conclusion you can really make from this article is: If you want productive use of IM in your workplace, then it must be restricted to intra-company use only. The article involved a proprietary IM system - I very much doubt that usage patterns of ordinary IM (i.e. standard IM client with unrestricted acess to the internet) is even remotely the same. In this sense, IM is quite similar to the phone - it's just that many employers haven't caught onto abuse of IM yet, simply because the issue of persnal use isn't highly visible (unlike the phone - if you spend all day chatting with your friends on the phone, people become aware of it very quickly). I've seen absolutely unbelievable abuse of personal IM in some workplaces. It can be a real productivity killer - but then, so can the phone, or meetings, etc if abused. The solution? Make IM traffic as visible as phone usage (eg. usage statistics could be on an intranet page somewhere perhaps?)
Most phones are already fitted with an induction coil in the handset - these are there to work with hearing aids (I wear one myself). In older phones, and certain new-ish payphones these induction coils work extremely well - good clear sound, and they couple with the hearing aid well. But the vast majority of modern phones - including those labelled "hearing aid compatible" have induction coils that barely work at all. It's impossible to find a phone that works with a PABX system that has an adequate induction coil that works with a hearing aid. I looked far and wide and tried a few devices, but in the end I had to give up - there is literally no such thing as a phone or device that works with a PABX system that approaches the effectiveness of my home phone, in terms of being able to hear it. There is a third-party handset sold for this purpose (IIRC, the brand is "Walker"), but its induction coil is very weak too -- all they did was to to put a very cheap and nasty amplifier in the handset - and we all know exactly how much THAT benefits the sound quality. It would make my life a lot easier to be able to find a phone for the office that I can use. I wonder if this new gizmo could be adapted somehow...
It's named after a bar in Whistler, BC (no, seriously). There are two ski hills at Whistler, Whistler mountain itself, and Blackcomb mountain. The village is at the foot of these two mountains and the bar "Longhorn" is a place where you might stop on the way from Whistler mountain to Blackcomb. XP (or was it Windows 2000?) was code-named "Whistler" and "Blackcomb" is the code name for the version of Windows after Longhorn. As a former Whistler resident (practically still am, really), I can only wonder what they were thinking - there are much, much better pubs in Whistler than the Longhorn (any Microsofties wanting advice on good places in Whistler: email me). Rob
In EJB there are many many things that can go wrong during deployment of beans ... It seems to take a while to debug.
EJB development doesn't have to be that way. I agree, without the right tools, EJB development can be a painfully laborious exercise in bitter profanity - and that's just the "hello world" EJB.
There's generally two reasons for this - firstly, there's a lot of classes to create (and more importantly maintain). This is where XDoclet comes into its own. XDoclet is a real labour-saver and I recommend every EJB developer add this tool to their bag of tricks.
The second thing that can be painful about the EJB development process is that the edit-compile-test loop can be maddeningly slow. To run your application you generally need to set up an EJB container, configure it and then ou have to package the app in an EAR and then deploy your app to the container and... you get the idea. Some vendors have integrated EJB containers with their IDEs, but they still run at the speed of diseased livestock.
There's a couple of solutons to this - the free solution is to run JBoss and deploy your app to it (JBoss's hot deploy feature is nice for this sort of thing). I am one of the developers working on a better, albeit - commercial (but fairly inexpensive) - solution, Glider. The key thing about Glider is that it has an EJB container simulator so there's no separate deployment step, so you can compile and run/debug your code very quickly. Obviously, I'm biased, but I can honestly say I would use it even if I wasn't one of the developers who has worked on it.
Rob