In a year or two (or three), I'd expect that new cars would automatically detect that I've got a bluetooth phone, and use a standardized api to communicate back and forth. If a phone call comes in, the radio will turn itself down, and if I pull over to answer it, the radio will function as a speakerphone. What about if I have location services on my phone (and these are coming), and a GPRS net connection? I should be able to use voice command to tell the phone to download directions from here to X, and then playback those directions over the radio.
The problem is not that someone won't integrate it into a car, the problem is that it won't be done well. To give an example: when I get a hire car, I usually set up 6 radio stations that I can flip between before starting the journey. On most cars, it is the same as it has been for the past 10-15 years. On some, though, the multi-function display means that not only is setting up radio stations a pain, but changing from one to the other is also a pain, as you have to press the multi-function for "radio", then press the correct radio station before the display reverts back to the default.
The possibility for completely screwing up the interface to make downloading the directions easy, rather than menu>sub-menu>sub-sub-menu>choose option (while not driving off the raod) is too high to be comfortable.
Apart from answering your own question, it's probably because the fanbase knew more about the overall continuity than the writers -
For example, writer "A" only needs to write a story featuring Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a couple of expendable red-shirts. They weren't expected to check what addtional character traits writer "B" added to the main players.
Re:Sedna, Sedna, Sedna ...
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
(And my culture probably sounds funny in another language)
But where I come from, the name sounds like a combination of the names "Senga"* and "Edna", neither of which seem particularly goddess-like.
I would shell out some serious bucks for a printer that had a super-easy-to-clean paper path, that was liquid resistant (ever try to get orange juice or peanut butter out of a laser printer?!!) with liquid resistant ink.
Hrm... also maybe retractable cords, bluetooth to the computer, anything else that can keep kids from getting tangled in the wire jungle at the back of a PC.
First serious comment so far
For computer electronics to become true consumer electronics, it needs to be much easier to set up:
Unpack
plug in
(optional) connect it to other devices (if no Bluetooth)
switch on
The whole current nomenclature (install the software, initialise the device) is geared towards the people (like/.) who care about such stuff. As a previous poster said, KISS.
Come to think about it, why should there need to be a separate disk of driver software? For a USB device, it should mount like an external drive type device, and then be able to install its own drivers (first checking which OS it found) whn first run. then maybe people might actually want to carry their printer around from machine to machine.
The article states that it is based on the old game Breakout, and even gives a picture here
I don't remember Breakout being like Wallace and Gromit beating off the sheep in A close Shave, or am I showing my "We used to dream of Breakout against sheep. When I were a lad, all we had were a few blocks on a screen. And the colour was stuck on top. And we were grateful."
only accept virus-modules that are "signed" by the virus creators and cadre
How easy would it be to start a software company, get official enough to be a "trusted" source, and then bombard Longhorn users with "genuine, trusted code", that just happens to be a virus. In other words, the Trusted Computing will not get rid of viruses, only "unauthorised" ones
Re:Difficulties in planning space missions
on
Mars Rovers Update
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Until we do this a few more times and figure out a few more things, a manned mission will have to wait.
Excpet that with a manned misison, a quick way to wipe the solar panels would have been worked out at least as fast as the recent/. posts.
The more remote missions there are, the more the "just one more remote mission" feeling will accrue. If Apollo 11 had been a remote mission, the Eagle would have crashed, because of a rock in the (automated) landing zone. As it was, Armstrong did a quick manual burn to hop over the bad area, and landed safely (with fuel reserves probably below what an automated system would have worked well with)
Therefore, while the experience gained from a remote mission is valualble, it is no replcament for "hands on"
Perhaps I'm remembering it wrongly, but before a CRT became used for display, they were used as a form of memory. Not quite the same thing, but the delay time in the light decay of the phosphor coating was reckoned to have a higher memroy density than the standard ferrite cores then in use (provided it was refreshed fast enough). Of course, it all got overtaken by the introduction of Solid State memory...
Microsoft as well as anyone knows they can't continue to be architecture dependent especially in this new world. AMD has quite a good 64 bit chip now, so does IBM (and from that, Apple). The beauty of killing the old 9x Kernel allows for this, as the NT kernel was designed originally to run on different kind of archetectures, even when the design of 9x was still going on.
Running old 9x software under emulation on new hardware (G5 powered XBox2, AMD64, Itanium, whatever the next big thing will be) was one of the reasons for buying Connectix. Virtual PC was available for Windows as well as Mac. That the MacBU is bringing out an updated version is a bonus.
It's probably more a British thing from a particular generation. For Example, the satirical show "That was the wee, that was", was commonly known as TW3. Whereas when I was at school when the radio series / books / TV series actually came out, everyone abbreviated it as "HHGttG".
The h2g2 website came later, but I think that Adams was doing the same kind of compression abbreviation used by TW3.
Oh, 6 x 9 = 42, if you use base 13. Douglas Adams was quite impressed when one of my friends (also called Douglas, which also made DNA laugh on the book signing - "to Douglas from Douglas") pointed this out to him. I think that that reference was subsequently mentioned in the complete radio scripts book.
I'm still trying to get that goddamned babelfish!!!!
You need to remember the junk mail on your doorstep. Hang your dressing gown on the hook, cover the drain with your towel, cover the panel with ford's satchel and put the junk mail on the satchel. Then press the Babel fish dispenser button. that should do it.
Since the current leader has displayed all the qualities of a petulant child throwing his teddy out of his pram, on a number of occasions, your point is what exactly?
For example say you have 2 graphics packages installed on your PC, A and B. Package A is able to export to a certain picture format, say JPEG2000, but package B isn't. Why? The instructions for writing out a JPEG2000 pic exists on the hard drive, the computer is able to follow them (as evidenced by package A). Why can't the computer simply follow the JPEG2000 instructions in package A when package B wants to write out a pic?
It is a better analogy if you consider the computer to be a library, and each program a separate book. Then it would be surprising if the Maeve Binchey started acting like the Dean R Koontz!
In other words, the two applications should be treated as entirely separate. However, if both applications used the same database engine to store their preferences, then a third (query) program, C, could learn to encode in the format of either A or B by reading from the data stores, even though they would be different tables. Thus program C would be a step closer to "intelligence", as it could learn from all around it, whereas A and B could only ever be self-referential.
Note that, for example, IBM's AS/400 has an in-built database, so the query tool can read the data that the commercial applications write to (comes in handy for weird queries that aren't part of the application's toolset)
You can show that sort tons o' data to prove that by every reasonable measure of usefulness for a laptop, including toughness, you get more for your money from Apple than from any Wintel vendor, and they still won't believe you.
Would they believe that their PC uses Apple patents?
I don't suppose that BSA have ever been given a software audit? I'm sure it would be easy to "give" them a copy of a file that you had already paid for. Then they would be in violation of their own rules. And just for fairness, have the TV cameras there when the pirate software is found on their own machines.
It ha been suggested (I can't remember where), that we are all actually in the techological Dark Ages, precisely because pretty much everything being recorded electronically will be unreadable RSN. Indeed, a colleague once said that data tapes had to be held for 30 years before they could be downgraded. The problem was that they inherited the tapes from another office, but not the hardware to read it...
Slashdot Mirror
Fundamental change would be something like a hologram.
Like this?
In a year or two (or three), I'd expect that new cars would automatically detect that I've got a bluetooth phone, and use a standardized api to communicate back and forth. If a phone call comes in, the radio will turn itself down, and if I pull over to answer it, the radio will function as a speakerphone. What about if I have location services on my phone (and these are coming), and a GPRS net connection? I should be able to use voice command to tell the phone to download directions from here to X, and then playback those directions over the radio.
The problem is not that someone won't integrate it into a car, the problem is that it won't be done well. To give an example: when I get a hire car, I usually set up 6 radio stations that I can flip between before starting the journey. On most cars, it is the same as it has been for the past 10-15 years. On some, though, the multi-function display means that not only is setting up radio stations a pain, but changing from one to the other is also a pain, as you have to press the multi-function for "radio", then press the correct radio station before the display reverts back to the default.
The possibility for completely screwing up the interface to make downloading the directions easy, rather than menu>sub-menu>sub-sub-menu>choose option (while not driving off the raod) is too high to be comfortable.
Dood. It's just a TV show.
Apart from answering your own question, it's probably because the fanbase knew more about the overall continuity than the writers -
For example, writer "A" only needs to write a story featuring Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a couple of expendable red-shirts. They weren't expected to check what addtional character traits writer "B" added to the main players.
(And my culture probably sounds funny in another language)
But where I come from, the name sounds like a combination of the names "Senga"* and "Edna", neither of which seem particularly goddess-like.
* and yes, "Senga" really is "Agnes" backwards
So I've been told...
Q: "What's the penalty for bigamy?"
A: "Having two wives."
Other A: "Two mothers in law"
Still a pathetic joke, though
I would shell out some serious bucks for a printer that had a super-easy-to-clean paper path, that was liquid resistant (ever try to get orange juice or peanut butter out of a laser printer?!!) with liquid resistant ink. Hrm... also maybe retractable cords, bluetooth to the computer, anything else that can keep kids from getting tangled in the wire jungle at the back of a PC.
/.) who care about such stuff. As a previous poster said, KISS.
First serious comment so far
For computer electronics to become true consumer electronics, it needs to be much easier to set up:
Unpack
plug in
(optional) connect it to other devices (if no Bluetooth)
switch on
The whole current nomenclature (install the software, initialise the device) is geared towards the people (like
Come to think about it, why should there need to be a separate disk of driver software? For a USB device, it should mount like an external drive type device, and then be able to install its own drivers (first checking which OS it found) whn first run. then maybe people might actually want to carry their printer around from machine to machine.
And of course, the recursive version that leads to an exclamation of surprise...
eieio
The article states that it is based on the old game Breakout, and even gives a picture here
I don't remember Breakout being like Wallace and Gromit beating off the sheep in A close Shave, or am I showing my "We used to dream of Breakout against sheep. When I were a lad, all we had were a few blocks on a screen. And the colour was stuck on top. And we were grateful."
only accept virus-modules that are "signed" by the virus creators and cadre
How easy would it be to start a software company, get official enough to be a "trusted" source, and then bombard Longhorn users with "genuine, trusted code", that just happens to be a virus. In other words, the Trusted Computing will not get rid of viruses, only "unauthorised" ones
Until we do this a few more times and figure out a few more things, a manned mission will have to wait.
/. posts.
Excpet that with a manned misison, a quick way to wipe the solar panels would have been worked out at least as fast as the recent
The more remote missions there are, the more the "just one more remote mission" feeling will accrue. If Apollo 11 had been a remote mission, the Eagle would have crashed, because of a rock in the (automated) landing zone. As it was, Armstrong did a quick manual burn to hop over the bad area, and landed safely (with fuel reserves probably below what an automated system would have worked well with)
Therefore, while the experience gained from a remote mission is valualble, it is no replcament for "hands on"
Perhaps I'm remembering it wrongly, but before a CRT became used for display, they were used as a form of memory. Not quite the same thing, but the delay time in the light decay of the phosphor coating was reckoned to have a higher memroy density than the standard ferrite cores then in use (provided it was refreshed fast enough). Of course, it all got overtaken by the introduction of Solid State memory...
"Dad, I'm tired of my old console. It's not cutting edge any more!"
"No problem, son. Give it to me, and I'll turn it into neat server"
So, after things like C64 servers, and various other Linux on console builds, what's the next challenge? A Sinclair ZX81 (Timex 1000) server?
Microsoft as well as anyone knows they can't continue to be architecture dependent especially in this new world. AMD has quite a good 64 bit chip now, so does IBM (and from that, Apple). The beauty of killing the old 9x Kernel allows for this, as the NT kernel was designed originally to run on different kind of archetectures, even when the design of 9x was still going on.
Running old 9x software under emulation on new hardware (G5 powered XBox2, AMD64, Itanium, whatever the next big thing will be) was one of the reasons for buying Connectix. Virtual PC was available for Windows as well as Mac. That the MacBU is bringing out an updated version is a bonus.
It's probably more a British thing from a particular generation. For Example, the satirical show "That was the wee, that was", was commonly known as TW3. Whereas when I was at school when the radio series / books / TV series actually came out, everyone abbreviated it as "HHGttG". The h2g2 website came later, but I think that Adams was doing the same kind of compression abbreviation used by TW3. Oh, 6 x 9 = 42, if you use base 13. Douglas Adams was quite impressed when one of my friends (also called Douglas, which also made DNA laugh on the book signing - "to Douglas from Douglas") pointed this out to him. I think that that reference was subsequently mentioned in the complete radio scripts book.
I'm still trying to get that goddamned babelfish!!!!
You need to remember the junk mail on your doorstep. Hang your dressing gown on the hook, cover the drain with your towel, cover the panel with ford's satchel and put the junk mail on the satchel. Then press the Babel fish dispenser button. that should do it.
Although some of those "mud huts" had lasted around 2000 years, so earthquakes probably weren't uppermost in their minds when building.
this seems like a really childish behaviour
Since the current leader has displayed all the qualities of a petulant child throwing his teddy out of his pram, on a number of occasions, your point is what exactly?
Not sure about US airlines, but they still have them in the UK. Handy when flying with a bad hangover...
In fact, the only modern airliner that is pure fly-by-wire without the possibility of direct manual intervention is the 777
which, of course, came after the A320, A330, A340...
For example say you have 2 graphics packages installed on your PC, A and B. Package A is able to export to a certain picture format, say JPEG2000, but package B isn't. Why? The instructions for writing out a JPEG2000 pic exists on the hard drive, the computer is able to follow them (as evidenced by package A). Why can't the computer simply follow the JPEG2000 instructions in package A when package B wants to write out a pic?
It is a better analogy if you consider the computer to be a library, and each program a separate book. Then it would be surprising if the Maeve Binchey started acting like the Dean R Koontz!
In other words, the two applications should be treated as entirely separate. However, if both applications used the same database engine to store their preferences, then a third (query) program, C, could learn to encode in the format of either A or B by reading from the data stores, even though they would be different tables. Thus program C would be a step closer to "intelligence", as it could learn from all around it, whereas A and B could only ever be self-referential.
Note that, for example, IBM's AS/400 has an in-built database, so the query tool can read the data that the commercial applications write to (comes in handy for weird queries that aren't part of the application's toolset)
I thought on Slashdot we're supposed to wait for someone to mention Chess before we bring up Go?
Ah yes, but with the Kasparov reversal, you can jump from "Go" straight to "Mornington Crescent"
You can show that sort tons o' data to prove that by every reasonable measure of usefulness for a laptop, including toughness, you get more for your money from Apple than from any Wintel vendor, and they still won't believe you.
= PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1='free+fall'.TTL.&OS= TTL/%22free+fall%22&RS=TTL/%22free+fall%22
Would they believe that their PC uses Apple patents?
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1
(Thanks to an article in Macformat for the clue)
Today's kids might not know what 12x12 is.
Not knowing what 12x12 is? That's gross!
I don't suppose that BSA have ever been given a software audit? I'm sure it would be easy to "give" them a copy of a file that you had already paid for. Then they would be in violation of their own rules. And just for fairness, have the TV cameras there when the pirate software is found on their own machines.
It ha been suggested (I can't remember where), that we are all actually in the techological Dark Ages, precisely because pretty much everything being recorded electronically will be unreadable RSN. Indeed, a colleague once said that data tapes had to be held for 30 years before they could be downgraded. The problem was that they inherited the tapes from another office, but not the hardware to read it...