I guess you have never heard of SystemX at Virginia Tech. It is a supercomputer originally built with off the shelf Mac G5s. It was even written about in Slashdot when it made the #3 spot in the list of the fastest supercomputers.
I am also typing on a TouchStream. This technology was really not around long enough for really good applications to be developed with it, but all the things that are in the video would be possible with the API that FingerWorks shipped with the keyboard.
An example of the power of the API is a sample application, XWinder, that extends the gesture language of the keyboard to allow direct window manipulation. While running XWinder, I can put down three fingers on each surface, and then move my hands around to resize a window. There is another gesture that allows you to move windows around using only one hand.
I remember being impressed with the window manipulation in the movie Minority Report, but now I can actually do that with my Touch Stream.
Oh, and the TouchStream is able to tell each finger from one another as well. That is something that the researchers mention that they wish they could do.
Re:People are better teachers
on
Chess for Kids?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My father and I used to play often when I was little. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I was probably about 8. My father taught me how to play and payed enough attention to make sure that I did not cheat. He also tried to point out why some of my moves were not wise.
Even with the advice that he gave me, I am not sure that he ever went all that easy on me. Beating my father was my ultimate goal whenever we played. He would try to explain to me why I lost each time, turning the defeat into a lesson. I do not remember winning until I was at least 14. I lost the game right after that, however.:)
Now, my father is no master chess player, and for that matter, neither am I. But I think that I learned more from having him teach me than I think I would have learned from a computer. I also think that he taught me how to gracefully handle defeat as well.
The only thing that my console games taught me about defeat, was that I felt a lot better when the controller hit the wall. Damn you Pitfall. You drove me to break more Atari controllers.:)
Looking back, I am really fond of the time that I spent playing chess with my father. I bet that your daughter will as well.
I personally hope that Appple is spending money researching inovative ways to replace the traditional keyboard and mouse with a better input device. For this reason, I hope that Apple bought FingerWorks. I really enjoy using the TouchStream. I am typing on it right now, and I first read about it here on Slashdot.
The stair and truck dismount have been a long time favorite with me. I have spent hours hitting that poor lifeless figure with a truck. It is disturbing just how much fun it is.
This is probably the source of my frustrations. I type in the Dvorak layout. I assume that you are referring to Qwerty. But then again, if the keyboard is going to be a primary input device, then the user interface should better clearly indicate how the keyboard should be used.
Let them put the DRM in. It will just get cracked, and then we will use it like we want to anyway. It will be against the law, and the guy that cracks it will probably face a law suit. What we need to wait for is grandmother or a teacher getting sued for using the crack under what would normally be fair use. Then maybe the public notice how bad it is getting. Or maybe they will screw up the DRM and it will open the doors for display viruses. Screw pop up porn ads. How about in monitor ads. Little Billy will have a hard time why the naked women on the screen won't go away.
In short, I fear that DRM must first get worse before it will get any better.
You don't watch the SciFi channel all that much then. They would not shut up about it. I was trying to avoid seeing any more previews, but they started to resort to showing actual 30 second clips. These were playing almost every night between 7-10.
My wife would sometimes wait for me outside of some of my CS classes, and she said that the odor coming off of some of the students that went by, as they left the class, was repulsive. It has been her guess all along that poor hygiene among the male CS majors is a strong contributor to the low percentage of women in the program. Apparently, women are more sensitive to such things.
I never really noticed the body odor, but I wonder what that says about me. At least my wife has never complained about my body odor.
This has the potential to turn the Internet into a huge mess, especially as the telecoms continue to consolidate. I hope that Congress is not going to implement this. At least we have Google, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft sticking up for us, because we all know that their interests are much more pure.
I hope the Department of Homeland Security pulled the strings to her a DMCA exception. Although, it would be funny to see government research get nailed by this ridiculous law. Maybe then something would change.
Who has ever heard of this alleged musician in the first place?
Um, I have. It said down in the bottom of TFA that he is the lead singer for OK Go. I bought their first album while I was in college, but only after I had grabbed a few tracks off of Napster (the first one). That is the album that I listened to over and over while I was working on my compilers project.
So, to get to my point, I think that he knows what he is talking about, and maybe you should read the article before bitching next time.
Not only that, he is advocating that websites and even ISP are held accountable for what their user's do.
If this was printed on a flier and stapled to a telephone pole in a city, then his comments would be akin to the following.
The city should be held accountable for not preventing the stapling of the libelous flier to the telephone pole? The stapler manufacturer should be help accountable for allowing someone to use their products to commit libel. The printer manufacturer, the ink manufacturer and the paper manufacturer should all be accountable as well.
That is just ridiculous. You should not punish the product because it can be used to commit crime. I can kill someone with a spoon, if I try hard enough. Quick! Outlaw all the spoons!
I would like to think that I have started to do my part. I drive a motor scooter to work for about a 10 mile one way commute. I consume about 1 gallon of gas a week.
I live in a very old house with windows that bleed heat and walls with no insulation. I have replaced all of the windows in two of the bedrooms. Also in those two rooms, I have installed insulation in the walls and upgraded the insulation in the ceiling. I have already noticed a significant change in my home energy bills. As soon as I have the funds to do so, I will finish upgrading the rest of the house.
Now, will this solve all of the worlds problems? No, I am only one person, and my impact on global energy consumption is not all that significant. But it definitely can't hurt. However, if more and more people did as I have done, then maybe things would start to change.
Many of the myths that they tackle on the show involve trying to recreate an event to ascertain if it is possible that the event ever took place. Do you ever feel uncomfortable about doing that? This does not disprove that the event ever happened. I will try to explain.
You are making many assumptions about the event's preconditions and then trying to recreate them based on your assumptions in hopes that it will cause the event to happen. When the event does not happen, you conclude that the myth is "busted". But all you have really shown is that it is hard to recreate, that you did not know of all of the preconditions or that you failed to create the preconditions. This does not *prove* that the event *never* happened. All you have proved is that *you* were unable to recreate it.
Are you ever worried that your less educated viewers will confuse your "busting" a myth as proof that it is not possible?
Even if it were free to me, by using such a product, I would be providing funding for a monopolistic corporate empire. And that I will not do. I do not use Windows for daily use at home, and I long for the day when I do not use it at work either.
I suggest a recommended standard from the top, but it is important to give each team the flexibility to reject parts of the standard or the include things that are not part of the standard.
Why should anyone expect that AOL can protect a file sharing network from viruses any better than they protect their content and access subscribers from viruses? Furthermore, what is wrong with bit torrent? This is just what the world needs another file sharing network.
Part of the trouble in France is that the government is prohibited from keeping any race/ethnicity related statistics. While this is a nice ethical stance to take, if there is a real discrimination problem, the government have no data to help determine how bad the problem is, or if it is getting better or worse.
Even using a web browser involves copying. Does that mean that we should shut down the web, because it violates copyright law? Just because the implementation of the technology does not conform to the letter of the law does not mean that technology needs to be destroyed, it means that the law needs to be reexamined. It is more important for society to ensure that people have easy access to their culture than it is to ensure that the author is paid every time her content is read or copied.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you have never heard of SystemX at Virginia Tech. It is a supercomputer originally built with off the shelf Mac G5s. It was even written about in Slashdot when it made the #3 spot in the list of the fastest supercomputers.
I am also typing on a TouchStream. This technology was really not around long enough for really good applications to be developed with it, but all the things that are in the video would be possible with the API that FingerWorks shipped with the keyboard.
An example of the power of the API is a sample application, XWinder, that extends the gesture language of the keyboard to allow direct window manipulation. While running XWinder, I can put down three fingers on each surface, and then move my hands around to resize a window. There is another gesture that allows you to move windows around using only one hand.
I remember being impressed with the window manipulation in the movie Minority Report, but now I can actually do that with my Touch Stream.
Oh, and the TouchStream is able to tell each finger from one another as well. That is something that the researchers mention that they wish they could do.
My father and I used to play often when I was little. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I was probably about 8. My father taught me how to play and payed enough attention to make sure that I did not cheat. He also tried to point out why some of my moves were not wise.
:)
:)
Even with the advice that he gave me, I am not sure that he ever went all that easy on me. Beating my father was my ultimate goal whenever we played. He would try to explain to me why I lost each time, turning the defeat into a lesson. I do not remember winning until I was at least 14. I lost the game right after that, however.
Now, my father is no master chess player, and for that matter, neither am I. But I think that I learned more from having him teach me than I think I would have learned from a computer. I also think that he taught me how to gracefully handle defeat as well.
The only thing that my console games taught me about defeat, was that I felt a lot better when the controller hit the wall. Damn you Pitfall. You drove me to break more Atari controllers.
Looking back, I am really fond of the time that I spent playing chess with my father. I bet that your daughter will as well.
You stole my joke! I was so going to say that. At least I searched for it before I did. :)
I personally hope that Appple is spending money researching inovative ways to replace the traditional keyboard and mouse with a better input device. For this reason, I hope that Apple bought FingerWorks. I really enjoy using the TouchStream. I am typing on it right now, and I first read about it here on Slashdot.
The stair and truck dismount have been a long time favorite with me. I have spent hours hitting that poor lifeless figure with a truck. It is disturbing just how much fun it is.
This is probably the source of my frustrations. I type in the Dvorak layout. I assume that you are referring to Qwerty. But then again, if the keyboard is going to be a primary input device, then the user interface should better clearly indicate how the keyboard should be used.
Let them put the DRM in. It will just get cracked, and then we will use it like we want to anyway. It will be against the law, and the guy that cracks it will probably face a law suit. What we need to wait for is grandmother or a teacher getting sued for using the crack under what would normally be fair use. Then maybe the public notice how bad it is getting. Or maybe they will screw up the DRM and it will open the doors for display viruses. Screw pop up porn ads. How about in monitor ads. Little Billy will have a hard time why the naked women on the screen won't go away. In short, I fear that DRM must first get worse before it will get any better.
You don't watch the SciFi channel all that much then. They would not shut up about it. I was trying to avoid seeing any more previews, but they started to resort to showing actual 30 second clips. These were playing almost every night between 7-10.
My wife would sometimes wait for me outside of some of my CS classes, and she said that the odor coming off of some of the students that went by, as they left the class, was repulsive. It has been her guess all along that poor hygiene among the male CS majors is a strong contributor to the low percentage of women in the program. Apparently, women are more sensitive to such things.
I never really noticed the body odor, but I wonder what that says about me. At least my wife has never complained about my body odor.
That is because we live in pre-Magna Carta England. The King, I mean the President, is above the law.
This has the potential to turn the Internet into a huge mess, especially as the telecoms continue to consolidate. I hope that Congress is not going to implement this. At least we have Google, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft sticking up for us, because we all know that their interests are much more pure.
Holy shit. Graphics? She is sure to convince them with pictures.
I hope the Department of Homeland Security pulled the strings to her a DMCA exception. Although, it would be funny to see government research get nailed by this ridiculous law. Maybe then something would change.
Um, I have. It said down in the bottom of TFA that he is the lead singer for OK Go. I bought their first album while I was in college, but only after I had grabbed a few tracks off of Napster (the first one). That is the album that I listened to over and over while I was working on my compilers project.
So, to get to my point, I think that he knows what he is talking about, and maybe you should read the article before bitching next time.
Not only that, he is advocating that websites and even ISP are held accountable for what their user's do.
If this was printed on a flier and stapled to a telephone pole in a city, then his comments would be akin to the following.
The city should be held accountable for not preventing the stapling of the libelous flier to the telephone pole? The stapler manufacturer should be help accountable for allowing someone to use their products to commit libel. The printer manufacturer, the ink manufacturer and the paper manufacturer should all be accountable as well.
That is just ridiculous. You should not punish the product because it can be used to commit crime. I can kill someone with a spoon, if I try hard enough. Quick! Outlaw all the spoons!
I would like to think that I have started to do my part. I drive a motor scooter to work for about a 10 mile one way commute. I consume about 1 gallon of gas a week.
I live in a very old house with windows that bleed heat and walls with no insulation. I have replaced all of the windows in two of the bedrooms. Also in those two rooms, I have installed insulation in the walls and upgraded the insulation in the ceiling. I have already noticed a significant change in my home energy bills. As soon as I have the funds to do so, I will finish upgrading the rest of the house.
Now, will this solve all of the worlds problems? No, I am only one person, and my impact on global energy consumption is not all that significant. But it definitely can't hurt. However, if more and more people did as I have done, then maybe things would start to change.
Many of the myths that they tackle on the show involve trying to recreate an event to ascertain if it is possible that the event ever took place. Do you ever feel uncomfortable about doing that? This does not disprove that the event ever happened. I will try to explain. You are making many assumptions about the event's preconditions and then trying to recreate them based on your assumptions in hopes that it will cause the event to happen. When the event does not happen, you conclude that the myth is "busted". But all you have really shown is that it is hard to recreate, that you did not know of all of the preconditions or that you failed to create the preconditions. This does not *prove* that the event *never* happened. All you have proved is that *you* were unable to recreate it. Are you ever worried that your less educated viewers will confuse your "busting" a myth as proof that it is not possible?
Reading this story reminded my of this User Friendly strip.
Even if it were free to me, by using such a product, I would be providing funding for a monopolistic corporate empire. And that I will not do. I do not use Windows for daily use at home, and I long for the day when I do not use it at work either.
I suggest a recommended standard from the top, but it is important to give each team the flexibility to reject parts of the standard or the include things that are not part of the standard.
Why should anyone expect that AOL can protect a file sharing network from viruses any better than they protect their content and access subscribers from viruses? Furthermore, what is wrong with bit torrent? This is just what the world needs another file sharing network.
Part of the trouble in France is that the government is prohibited from keeping any race/ethnicity related statistics. While this is a nice ethical stance to take, if there is a real discrimination problem, the government have no data to help determine how bad the problem is, or if it is getting better or worse.
You should be more sensitive. Even bytes get lonely for a little bit.
Even using a web browser involves copying. Does that mean that we should shut down the web, because it violates copyright law? Just because the implementation of the technology does not conform to the letter of the law does not mean that technology needs to be destroyed, it means that the law needs to be reexamined. It is more important for society to ensure that people have easy access to their culture than it is to ensure that the author is paid every time her content is read or copied.