I'm in my 40's and all the kits had instructions when I was a kid. There were odd kids that just built what was on the cover and then never took it apart. That singular lack of imagination had nothing to do with the Legos themselves - most of us dumped all our kits into a big bucket and then just created our own stuff...
However you could accuse them of selling out with all the co-branding. When I was a kid they were space sets and medieval sets, not Star Wars or LOTR sets. All the movie tie-in crap is annoying but a sign of the times I guess...
One way in which they can fail is, as other folks have mentioned, specialized parts. There's a fine line between making something new and different and cool, and making parts so specialized that it becomes hard to build other things out of them. But you know, I'm sure the purists were up in arms when my space kits in the 70's and 80's had wing-shaped parts and other such monstrosities. And maybe some proto-nerd of the era went on his local BBS and whined about how they were destroying Legos, that they weren't allowed to be anything other than cubes...
I'm not certain it's a question of it being justifiable - it might not have been possible for MS to go much cheaper...
* Even with Apple's notoriously generous margins, MS perhaps doesn't carry the same weight in the hardware world to get the types of deals Apple gets
* But even more importantly, if this is a "flagship" device that is supposed to show the way for OEMs, if MS undercut Apple by too much they would have left no room for OEMs to make their models, especially if Apple then matched their pricing...
What's not clear to me is how the Alibaba handset is positioned. Google is claiming it's an Android fork that will fragment the ecosystem, and Alibaba seems to be claiming it's not part of the ecosystem. Is Alibaba being disingenuous here?
While everyone's Microsoft analogies sound good, they don't really work - because if they were true Google would have kicked Acer out of the OHA for making a Windows phone...
Now if Acer and Alibaba were trying to position their device as an Android phone, and it broke the ecosystem in many ways I could understand Google's behavior. But if it's more of an Amazon thing and Alibaba doesn't want or need anything from Google, then Google really does come off as kind of an asshole by punishing Acer's other business which does comply. That's a classic monopolistic strategy.
In any I guess we all know there's a difference between being truly "Open" and just making the source code available...
No matter where you go here you usually don't have too much trouble finding unsecured wireless networks, often named "linksys" or something similar... =)
I feel for you. My company was a Netscape house for a long time, tried going to Mozilla because Netscape 4.X just wasn't cutting it, but around that time there was a sort of meltdown in IT and the new management pushed IE/Outlook on the company.
Now they wonder why the help desk is inundated with spyware calls.
Funny thing is the corporate mailserver is still IMAP. People who know use Firefox/Thunderbird and just keep quiet about it, but who knows how long that will last - more and more parts of the intranet are requiring IE, and I'm sure Exchange isn't that far off...
As other posters have pointed out, I think mice and keyboards have gotten to the point where companies are innovating for the sake of simply getting new product on the shelves every year.
There's a lot of stupid stuff coming out that maybe a few people like, but really. Vibrating mice? All these extra little buttons? Horizontal scrolling? Stupid software that eats up memory to add "extra features" you don't use?
Optical was good (and maybe laser is the way of the future, who knows). The scroll wheel is great. Cordless mice still suck (not responsive enough). Outside of that mice haven't really significantly changed in 20+ years whether you like 1, 2 or 3 buttons.
What is even more annoying is they all seem to arbitrarily change the "ergonomic" (whatever) design of their mice every year or two. Which means that when the mouse you love and are used to dies you won't be able to buy another one like it and will have to get used to whatever new design they have out there.
I've tried almost every wireless mouse that's come out in the hopes of finding one that doesn't suck, and haven't succeeded yet.
Not even counting the need for batteries or recharging that others have brought up, wireless mice have a couple big (to me) problems.
1) They're simply not as smooth or responsive as a corded mouse. Not a big deal for basic office type tasks, but makes them useless for gaming.
2) They're heavy! Not a huge issue, but any cordless mouse is at least 2 to 3 times as heavy as a corded mouse which, if you're used to a light mouse, makes it feel like you're sliding a lead brick around your desk.
Maybe someday, but for the time being I'll suffer the cord. =)
I know bashing MS is required on Slashdot, but whatever you think of their software and/or business practices, their hardware has always been great.
Personally their keyboards and mice are some of the best being made. Logitech isn't bad, but I haven't liked their last couple generations of mice and their keyboards have always been sub-par.
In terms of innovation, MS released its first mouse in 1983, one year before the Mac was launched. Though I don't know if they invented the mouse wheel and optical mice, but they were the first major manufacturer to promote the technology. And though I personally don't like the "natural" keyboards, I know a lot of people that swear by them.
And even though I love Apple's industrial design, their mice are utterly useless. I use an MS mouse with my Mac.
That said, the Starck mouse looks more like an executive desk decoration than a useful mouse. =)
I find it quite common that people that really liked Snow Crash dislike his current work, especially the Baroque Cycle.
Conversely, from someone who doesn't read much Sci-Fi, I found Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle much more interesting than Snow Crash which seems such a bit of Cyberpunk fluff.
While he still has technology and its role in history and human lives as a pervading theme, he's pretty much stopped writing Sci-Fi in the narrowest definition.
Though it's a tough transition - Sci-Fi fans dislike his current work, and yet he still has to shed that pulpy Sci-Fi stigma that would keep his books from reaching a larger audience - i.e. in most bookstores he's still in the Sci-Fi section...
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Catch-22 by Joseph Heller The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
All classics and all conspicuously absent! There are some good books on the Army's list, but it's rather... lopsided? And really, really dry.
Except that that picture is of *new* cranes arriving from China, which was in 2000 or 2002, which makes it about 20 years too late. That doesn't mean older cranes couldn't have influenced Lucas - the Port of Oakland is (AFAIK) the largest on the West Coast and has been handling those giant container ships since the 60s, so there were no doubt cranes of some kind.
When I was unemployed I had lots of time to play games but little money to buy them. Now that I'm gainfully employed I have money to buy lots of games but no time to play them.
Same with this stack of books I'm going to get around to reading when I have the time.
The only solution I've discovered is winning the lottery, but that hasn't happened yet. But some day!
One of the things about Apple is that they love to have complete control over everything they produce. Part of this is for a good reason - tight hardware/software integration has led to a much smoother user experience and interoperability, albeit amongst a limited amount of hardware and software. This goes for everything from Macs and OS X to iPods and iTunes.
It also works well as a business model, because Apple customers tend to stick with using all Apple hardware, software and peripherals to get the best user experience. Talking general users here, not power users. =)
It largely works for Apple because they make good stuff, but it's one of the reasons they're loathe to open up things like the iPod - because once you do you have to start worrying about Real and whoever else comes along, you increase the complexity, introduce compatibility issues, and you can no longer control that smooth user experience - i.e. it starts looking like the chaotic x86 world. =)
This is probably the same reason they haven't done OGG support yet as well, not necessarily because they want to stuff AAC down your throat like MS does with their Windows Media formats, but simply because it's not something over which they have control.
Well, there are plenty of us that use the iPod simply because it's a great piece of hardware, and when it was first released there was nothing that could touch it.
I dislike a lot of Apple's heavy-handed tactics, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a great device.
And if you want to, you can easily use it just as an MP3 player - you aren't required to convert everything to AAC or buy DRM files from ITMS or even use iTunes. I don't. There's a lot of third party applications and utilities that let you use your iPod on its own or with popular apps such as WinAmp.
Outside of that, if you've been here long enough you'll have noticed a certain element of Apple zealotry has a strong presence on Slashdot now. Which is why you'll often see anything praising Apple modded up and anything critical of Apple modded down. But that's another issue... =)
For the most part, if you're a savvy user you already have firewall software or are protected in some other fashion. What SP2 is aimed at is the unwashed masses who just have their Best Buy and Walmart boxes directly connected to the Internet with no protection at all.
If anyone reading Slashdot *needed* SP2 to make their XP system secure you should be ashamed of yourself. =)
So while it's not perfect, it's a situation where anything helps.
This also leaves the door open for other vendors who want to provide better or different firewall solutions. Ditto with not adding AV software.
Remember, unlike Apple and Linux distros MS can't bundle much into their OS unless they want to get dragged back to court...
Well, BitTorrent is open source so there's quite a few other clients out there that won't make you look at the creator's picture. =)
As for anonymity with BitTorrent, there isn't any, and I remember reading an interview with the creator who was amused it had become the piracy tool of choice. I'm sure if someone wanted to they could write a utility to download torrents of pirated software or media and log the IP addresses of others doing the same...
which sounds like it uses technologies very similar to the Hush case, though the Hush case is impressively quite a bit smaller. Tom's has a review of the Zalman case here:
In any case, neat idea, but I don't think I'm alone in balking at spending over $1000 on the case alone... =)
Happens with Websites too...
on
P2P vs. The Clones
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Everyone's favorite torrent site suprnova.org has two knockoffs - suprnova.com and suprnova.net (both seem to be the same ripoff site) that want you to sign up with an email address before using them, past which who knows? I'm not gonna check.
Maybe they have spyware laden versions of the BitTorrent client and who knows if they just steal listings from suprnova.org or link there directly...
I can see your point, but I think teaching someone to type CORRECTLY has its place. I know there's plenty of people that can hunt and peck pretty fast, and are too stubborn to learn how to type correctly, and you don't know what you're missing.
Let's be honest, if you hunt and peck you don't know how to type. =)
It's like instead of teaching people how to swim you just let them doggy paddle around the pool and call it a day.
Knowing how to type well is such a basic skill when it comes to using a computer, especially as it becomes more a medium of communication.
Ever had to IM with someone that doesn't know how to type? It's... like... talking... to... someone... that... talks... really... really... slow. Or people that don't talk in online games because they have to stop and look down at their keyboard and peck something out.
Let's not even get into IRC and chat rooms where being able to type fast and not have to look away from the screen is handy.
Perhaps it doesn't warrant an entire class any more, but I think it should still be offered to the students in some form.
Less so that previous versions, but it's still almost viral in its behavior. It has a component that checks for messages and "special offers" that it puts in the Registry to run when Windows runs. If you kill it off and remove it from the registry Real Player just starts it up and puts it back in the registry every time it runs.
Unless of course you manage to find the secret setting buried in the options dialogs to turn it off, though when you try to do so there's a popup "strongly" warning you that it's a bad idea. Ha!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in my 40's and all the kits had instructions when I was a kid. There were odd kids that just built what was on the cover and then never took it apart. That singular lack of imagination had nothing to do with the Legos themselves - most of us dumped all our kits into a big bucket and then just created our own stuff...
However you could accuse them of selling out with all the co-branding. When I was a kid they were space sets and medieval sets, not Star Wars or LOTR sets. All the movie tie-in crap is annoying but a sign of the times I guess...
One way in which they can fail is, as other folks have mentioned, specialized parts. There's a fine line between making something new and different and cool, and making parts so specialized that it becomes hard to build other things out of them. But you know, I'm sure the purists were up in arms when my space kits in the 70's and 80's had wing-shaped parts and other such monstrosities. And maybe some proto-nerd of the era went on his local BBS and whined about how they were destroying Legos, that they weren't allowed to be anything other than cubes...
I'm not certain it's a question of it being justifiable - it might not have been possible for MS to go much cheaper...
* Even with Apple's notoriously generous margins, MS perhaps doesn't carry the same weight in the hardware world to get the types of deals Apple gets
* But even more importantly, if this is a "flagship" device that is supposed to show the way for OEMs, if MS undercut Apple by too much they would have left no room for OEMs to make their models, especially if Apple then matched their pricing...
More people would drive if we repealed seatbelt laws?
Or...
Maybe if we pass a law that requires people to wear helmets while driving we can get cars off the road and reduce pollution and congestion?
What's not clear to me is how the Alibaba handset is positioned. Google is claiming it's an Android fork that will fragment the ecosystem, and Alibaba seems to be claiming it's not part of the ecosystem. Is Alibaba being disingenuous here?
While everyone's Microsoft analogies sound good, they don't really work - because if they were true Google would have kicked Acer out of the OHA for making a Windows phone...
Now if Acer and Alibaba were trying to position their device as an Android phone, and it broke the ecosystem in many ways I could understand Google's behavior. But if it's more of an Amazon thing and Alibaba doesn't want or need anything from Google, then Google really does come off as kind of an asshole by punishing Acer's other business which does comply. That's a classic monopolistic strategy.
In any I guess we all know there's a difference between being truly "Open" and just making the source code available...
No matter where you go here you usually don't have too much trouble finding unsecured wireless networks, often named "linksys" or something similar... =)
I feel for you. My company was a Netscape house for a long time, tried going to Mozilla because Netscape 4.X just wasn't cutting it, but around that time there was a sort of meltdown in IT and the new management pushed IE/Outlook on the company.
Now they wonder why the help desk is inundated with spyware calls.
Funny thing is the corporate mailserver is still IMAP. People who know use Firefox/Thunderbird and just keep quiet about it, but who knows how long that will last - more and more parts of the intranet are requiring IE, and I'm sure Exchange isn't that far off...
As other posters have pointed out, I think mice and keyboards have gotten to the point where companies are innovating for the sake of simply getting new product on the shelves every year.
There's a lot of stupid stuff coming out that maybe a few people like, but really. Vibrating mice? All these extra little buttons? Horizontal scrolling? Stupid software that eats up memory to add "extra features" you don't use?
Optical was good (and maybe laser is the way of the future, who knows). The scroll wheel is great. Cordless mice still suck (not responsive enough). Outside of that mice haven't really significantly changed in 20+ years whether you like 1, 2 or 3 buttons.
What is even more annoying is they all seem to arbitrarily change the "ergonomic" (whatever) design of their mice every year or two. Which means that when the mouse you love and are used to dies you won't be able to buy another one like it and will have to get used to whatever new design they have out there.
Bah! =)
I've tried almost every wireless mouse that's come out in the hopes of finding one that doesn't suck, and haven't succeeded yet.
Not even counting the need for batteries or recharging that others have brought up, wireless mice have a couple big (to me) problems.
1) They're simply not as smooth or responsive as a corded mouse. Not a big deal for basic office type tasks, but makes them useless for gaming.
2) They're heavy! Not a huge issue, but any cordless mouse is at least 2 to 3 times as heavy as a corded mouse which, if you're used to a light mouse, makes it feel like you're sliding a lead brick around your desk.
Maybe someday, but for the time being I'll suffer the cord. =)
I know bashing MS is required on Slashdot, but whatever you think of their software and/or business practices, their hardware has always been great.
Personally their keyboards and mice are some of the best being made. Logitech isn't bad, but I haven't liked their last couple generations of mice and their keyboards have always been sub-par.
In terms of innovation, MS released its first mouse in 1983, one year before the Mac was launched. Though I don't know if they invented the mouse wheel and optical mice, but they were the first major manufacturer to promote the technology. And though I personally don't like the "natural" keyboards, I know a lot of people that swear by them.
And even though I love Apple's industrial design, their mice are utterly useless. I use an MS mouse with my Mac.
That said, the Starck mouse looks more like an executive desk decoration than a useful mouse. =)
I find it quite common that people that really liked Snow Crash dislike his current work, especially the Baroque Cycle.
Conversely, from someone who doesn't read much Sci-Fi, I found Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle much more interesting than Snow Crash which seems such a bit of Cyberpunk fluff.
While he still has technology and its role in history and human lives as a pervading theme, he's pretty much stopped writing Sci-Fi in the narrowest definition.
Though it's a tough transition - Sci-Fi fans dislike his current work, and yet he still has to shed that pulpy Sci-Fi stigma that would keep his books from reaching a larger audience - i.e. in most bookstores he's still in the Sci-Fi section...
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
All classics and all conspicuously absent! There are some good books on the Army's list, but it's rather... lopsided? And really, really dry.
Maybe some of these are older?
More pics of cranes
And, as many have mentioned, Carmack really should have named his rocket company Union Aerospace Corporation. I mean, how cool would that be? =)
When I was unemployed I had lots of time to play games but little money to buy them. Now that I'm gainfully employed I have money to buy lots of games but no time to play them.
Same with this stack of books I'm going to get around to reading when I have the time.
The only solution I've discovered is winning the lottery, but that hasn't happened yet. But some day!
One of the things about Apple is that they love to have complete control over everything they produce. Part of this is for a good reason - tight hardware/software integration has led to a much smoother user experience and interoperability, albeit amongst a limited amount of hardware and software. This goes for everything from Macs and OS X to iPods and iTunes.
It also works well as a business model, because Apple customers tend to stick with using all Apple hardware, software and peripherals to get the best user experience. Talking general users here, not power users. =)
It largely works for Apple because they make good stuff, but it's one of the reasons they're loathe to open up things like the iPod - because once you do you have to start worrying about Real and whoever else comes along, you increase the complexity, introduce compatibility issues, and you can no longer control that smooth user experience - i.e. it starts looking like the chaotic x86 world. =)
This is probably the same reason they haven't done OGG support yet as well, not necessarily because they want to stuff AAC down your throat like MS does with their Windows Media formats, but simply because it's not something over which they have control.
Well, there are plenty of us that use the iPod simply because it's a great piece of hardware, and when it was first released there was nothing that could touch it.
I dislike a lot of Apple's heavy-handed tactics, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a great device.
And if you want to, you can easily use it just as an MP3 player - you aren't required to convert everything to AAC or buy DRM files from ITMS or even use iTunes. I don't. There's a lot of third party applications and utilities that let you use your iPod on its own or with popular apps such as WinAmp.
Outside of that, if you've been here long enough you'll have noticed a certain element of Apple zealotry has a strong presence on Slashdot now. Which is why you'll often see anything praising Apple modded up and anything critical of Apple modded down. But that's another issue... =)
For the most part, if you're a savvy user you already have firewall software or are protected in some other fashion. What SP2 is aimed at is the unwashed masses who just have their Best Buy and Walmart boxes directly connected to the Internet with no protection at all.
If anyone reading Slashdot *needed* SP2 to make their XP system secure you should be ashamed of yourself. =)
So while it's not perfect, it's a situation where anything helps.
This also leaves the door open for other vendors who want to provide better or different firewall solutions. Ditto with not adding AV software.
Remember, unlike Apple and Linux distros MS can't bundle much into their OS unless they want to get dragged back to court...
Well, BitTorrent is open source so there's quite a few other clients out there that won't make you look at the creator's picture. =)
As for anonymity with BitTorrent, there isn't any, and I remember reading an interview with the creator who was amused it had become the piracy tool of choice. I'm sure if someone wanted to they could write a utility to download torrents of pirated software or media and log the IP addresses of others doing the same...
Tom's Hardware Review
Yeah, they use the Zalman case here:
d x= 64
x .h tml
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?i
which sounds like it uses technologies very similar to the Hush case, though the Hush case is impressively quite a bit smaller. Tom's has a review of the Zalman case here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/inde
In any case, neat idea, but I don't think I'm alone in balking at spending over $1000 on the case alone... =)
Everyone's favorite torrent site suprnova.org has two knockoffs - suprnova.com and suprnova.net (both seem to be the same ripoff site) that want you to sign up with an email address before using them, past which who knows? I'm not gonna check.
Maybe they have spyware laden versions of the BitTorrent client and who knows if they just steal listings from suprnova.org or link there directly...
Well, it's just one of those things. You can be a good programmer and not know how to type. It's not absolutely required.
But you will be a better programmer (fewer erros, more efficient) if you also know how to type well.
But knowing how to type won't make a bad programmer any better - they'll just be more efficient at churning out crappy code. =)
I can see your point, but I think teaching someone to type CORRECTLY has its place. I know there's plenty of people that can hunt and peck pretty fast, and are too stubborn to learn how to type correctly, and you don't know what you're missing.
Let's be honest, if you hunt and peck you don't know how to type. =)
It's like instead of teaching people how to swim you just let them doggy paddle around the pool and call it a day.
Knowing how to type well is such a basic skill when it comes to using a computer, especially as it becomes more a medium of communication.
Ever had to IM with someone that doesn't know how to type? It's... like... talking... to... someone... that... talks... really... really... slow. Or people that don't talk in online games because they have to stop and look down at their keyboard and peck something out.
Let's not even get into IRC and chat rooms where being able to type fast and not have to look away from the screen is handy.
Perhaps it doesn't warrant an entire class any more, but I think it should still be offered to the students in some form.
Flamebait? I guess someone from Real has some mod points. =)
Less so that previous versions, but it's still almost viral in its behavior. It has a component that checks for messages and "special offers" that it puts in the Registry to run when Windows runs. If you kill it off and remove it from the registry Real Player just starts it up and puts it back in the registry every time it runs.
Unless of course you manage to find the secret setting buried in the options dialogs to turn it off, though when you try to do so there's a popup "strongly" warning you that it's a bad idea. Ha!