Humans are supposed to be able to sense the patterns. You move the mouse, the cursor moves. Even a monkey could be trained (albeit it takes a few years) to do something like this. It's not like there is any special underlying logic behind computers. No, it's just patterns, like everywhere in our world. You take a metro in a different country. Everything is different and it's ok to feel lost initially. But you are supposed to be able to figure it all out - what types of tickets are there, how do you buy them, what's the pricing scheme, where do you put them, do you get them back, etc.
The problem with most old people is that they can't easily figure out new patterns. Being old today sucks. You feel inadequate and there is nothing you can do. Personally I hope that when I am old, I can take a pill, swallow a swarm of nanorobots or upload my mind into a computer. BTW, there already are some solutions to the problem. Check it out, may be your grandparents (and parent's grandparents) might use some of those.
Why not make a book about using a computer? I believe in the past it was called a "User's Manual" or something like that. My dad's 386 laptop came with a manual for MS-DOS and Windows 3.11. Unless those Asian people are retarded in some unique way, which seems to me unlikely, I don't see why they would not be able to understand how to use their new computer with the help of a book. And they certainly don't need a different operating system for that. A different shell? May be. Different default setup for Word? May be. Different applications? May be. But a different OS? WTF?
Gnumeric looks completely unapplelike (like shit). The whole UI would need to be redesigned (including the application icon). The charts would need to be redone. What is left? Printing? Saving as PDF? Formulas? It's not worth anything to Apple. Gnumeric may be valuable to Linux users, it may be valuable to proponents of Free software, but to Apple its value is ZERO. I think it's pretty obvious that the same team that created Keynote and Pages would simply work on a spreadsheet application from scratch, creating something slick and easy to use.
Look at Apple's screenies for Pages, and tell me that you'd want to try and use MS Word to create those documents.
It's easy. Apple is making a strong move with including great looking templates, while Microsoft seems to be stuck in the 90s. But almost everything (except rotated bitmaps) that I see on the Pages screenshots I can do in MS Word just as easily.
MS Word is known for having some annoying bugs, it doesn't handle huge complex documents very well, and its interface may not be the most refined, but all eye candy that Pages promises can be recreated with Word just as easily.
He took a known fact (well, a rumour, but a pretty solid one) that Apple plans to release a 500$ Mac. He can't get a credit for this, because it's not his prediction. That's what ThinkSecret told us based on leaked secret info.
Then Cringlely added a lot of his own unfounded speculation, which doesn't make any sense at all (Apple doesn't sell hardware at a loss, not even to piss off Bill). Almost everything he "predicted" was stupid, but he would probably still try to take credit for this one in a year.
Are you stupid or what? Everyone knows that objects in space are measured using Texas as a unit. As in "asteroid the size of Texas". These stars are about a teraTexas in size.
According to the image in the article, these starts are so heavy that they are flattened by their weight. Or are they rotating so fast that they are stretched? Seriously, I have no idea why the artist decided to draw the stars as ellipses as opposed to circles. Does anyone have any idea?
Overall it shouldn't, because software patents are abused more often than not. However, if this particular company published their code, allowed free decoders, allowed friendly licensing terms for encoding products and permitted free implementations for open-source and freeware products, then I would be willing to support their patent and would happily pay extra 1$ for a copy of graphics-related software I buy that includes this functionality.
I remember having dreams about GTA during playing and for about a month after completing Vice City. I also, like many others, was affected by the original Doom (strafing, being careful when opening a door, etc.).
But I don't think it's a problem yet. You are unlikely to be affected, unless you play a lot (I was playing GTA:VC on holidays, without other people at home, and I didn't really do anything else, except eating and sleeping). And even if you are affected, this will probably not have a negative effect on your life, as most people are capable of distinguishing between reality and virtuality.
However, as technology continues to develop, there will come a time (in less than 10 years) when the visuals are completely realistic. In about 10 years more there will come a time when we can be connected to VR somehow instead of watching the game on a screen. If someone was then to spend enough time playing a game, he might very well have problems realising which world is real, at least on a subconscious level.
Is it just me who was worried about the illustrations? Do Americans really need an illustration to know how big Antarctica is? Couldn't all those NASA scientists, you know, put a scale on the photo instead? Like a small black bar saying "I am 100 km long" or something? Come on, I already accepted people using Texas as a non-SI unit of choice for measuring asteroids, but can't we do better than that with iceberg images? At least on nasa.gov?
And don't get me started with the gratitious use of metaphors, hyperboles and paraboles, not to mention good old cliches. "Largest Demolition Derby", "best seat in the house", "clash of the titans" and "dent their bumpers" - what's up with that? Is NASA writing for rednecks now? Do they feel they have to compete with wrestling for audience?
I thought an interesting science story can be exciting by itself, without using craptastic language like "the enormous piece of ice broke away". In the previous sentence they used perfectly concise "the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000", wasn't that enough? Are they afraid that some hillbilly didn't get it the first time? If I can no longer go to nasa.gov for decent science coverage... well, I am out of words then.
This is what brought down the Soviet Union. Not inherent inefficiencies of planned economy, not disrespect for some human rights, not lack of toilet paper, CIA secret plots or Reagan's Star Wars, but this. The lack of freedom to speak up, silencing criticism, blindly following the party line and don't you dare speak about it. Millions of people tried to make the system work, millions innovated, pointed out problems, criticised anyway and wrote angry letters to "Pravda". But the system was not designed for free feedback and eventually it stopped working.:-(
Every problem in the world can be solved if we just talk to each other frankly and openly, sincerely trying to work for the benefit of all. Unfortunaly, this doesn't seem to be the "approved way" anymore.
But then there is no added value in HD content. And don't forget the reason amateur porn is popular among producers - it's cheap to make. Making the film in HD would make it more expensive.
The problem is that many people have a very strong immune system in their brain. Just like we have leucocytes in our bloodstream protecting us from bacteria and viruses that our body deems harmful, those people have militant memocytes in their brain protecting them from new ideas and possibilities.
Come other to your grandma and ask what she thinks about adding a 3rd arm to a person so that he can be more productive at work, more proficient in his hobby, for aesthetical reasons or so that he can masturbate while groping his girlfriend's tits.:) No offence if you have a counterculture hippy grandma that is heavily in bodymods, but I bet an average person would be strongly averse to the idea of extra limbs.
This all can be very well structured in terms of Future Shock Levels as put forward by Eliezer Yudkowsky. "A Shock Level measures the high-tech concepts you can contemplate without being impressed, frightened, blindly enthusiastic - without exhibiting future shock." He suggests 5 levels (quoting):
SL0: The legendary average person is comfortable with modern technology - not so much the frontiers of modern technology, but the technology used in everyday life. Most people, TV anchors, journalists, politicians.
SL1: Virtual reality, living to be a hundred, "The Road Ahead", "To Renew America", "Future Shock", the frontiers of modern technology as seen by Wired magazine. Scientists, novelty-seekers, early-adopters, programmers, technophiles.
SL2: Medical immortality, interplanetary exploration, major genetic engineering, and new ("alien") cultures. The average SF fan.
SL3: Nanotechnology, human-equivalent AI, minor intelligence enhancement, uploading, total body revision, intergalactic exploration. Extropians and transhumanists.
SL4: The Singularity, Jupiter Brains, Powers, complete mental revision, ultraintelligence, posthumanity, Alpha-Point computing, Apotheosis, the total evaporation of "life as we know it." Singularitarians and not much else.
Speaking of implants, an SL0 person is probably comfortable with replacing a bone or a joint. SL1 is ok with artificial limbs for those who have something happen with the originals. SL2 would not mind replacing perfectly good natural hands. SL3 would agree with going away with the humanness requirement for the body and just using something that suits the task well. And an SL4 accepts we don't need a body at all.
So what you are suggesting is completely impossible today and perfectly possible in the medium-term (10-50 years). However the reaction to your proposal is not determined by the feasibility of the idea, but by the population of anti-memes in the brain of the listener.
Because Idea Futures has a lame interface and failed to take off in more than a decade (that is attract sufficient interest from anyone but a small group of fans).
A Linux revolution is impossible if we are talking about it in the confines of one year. Heck, I predict 2005 won't even be the year of "Firefox on the desktop" (i.e. its share will remain 20%). Gradual improvement of Linux would NEVER EVER cause a rapid mass migration from MS Windows. Yes, Linux marketshare will continue to increase, but there won't be a year of "Linux on the desktop".
If you want a revolution, you need revolutionary technologies. A non WIMP interface, a port of KDE/Gnome/X to true 3D, an integrated office productivity application (word processing/spreadsheet/presentation/mind map/project management), an integrated communications applications (web/mail/IM/usenet/wiki/blog). Something that would make every CIO go "Wow! I want 10000 of these!". Working on better Outlook/Winamp clones would help only marginally. Do it if you want, but I don't see a point in switching when Windows has better GUI applications and Windows itself is good enough.
The popular articles are locked because vandals are willing to constantly vandalise them. Locking is a temporary measure to either persuade the vandals to stop, to block them or to wait until they go away.
A dedicated vandal can just refresh the article every minute and if anyone reverts him, he can revert it back. With controversial topics it's slightly different - people would start changing the article, while not understanding the topic and the controversy sufficiently, then become angry when someone reverts, complains or objects.
You are an idiot. It is an order of magnitude more likely that your child would be raped/coerced to sex by your brother, uncle, father, cousin or another relative. Not to mention that you are extremely likely to mess up the life of the child in the future with your paranoia. No, Cindy, you can't go on a hiking trip with your class, a pervert may be hiding in the woods. No, Cindy, you can't go to a prom, there might be a paedophile there. No, Cindy, I don't like that boyfriend of yours, he seems to be sexually attracted to young girls. Meanwhile you probably secretly fantasize about having sex with underage cheerleaders yourself...
I do realise the difference - what you called a map is just a subset of layers (streets, topography). GIS can contain these layers and many more, including power grid capacity and the ability to combine them all for processing, display, tracking, etc. But seriously, the prices for GIS data are astronomical. And because they are astronomical, they destroy the unborn mass market for geo data. Joel writes about the same problem for software pricing. Of course, there are some data sets for which there is no conceivable mass market, but overall there definitely is one for geo data/systems. But since it costs $1000s, only those who absolutely need them and can afford to pay insane proces become the clients, perpetrating this vicious circle.
Personally I found out (when making a city map for PDAs) that it's several orders of magnitued cheaper to hire a student to scan a folded map and create a vector map manually than to buy digital data.
The whole GIS thing is a huge con. When I remember the famous explorers that were sent by the kings to map the unknown lands, I am filled with disgust for the greedy bastards that seem to occupy this business today. And because these companies are so greedy, they are killing the huge market before it's born. There are practically no useful applications of maps used in practice. There are a few ad-supported online services (MapQuest, Yahoo, etc.) that are used for the lack of a better alternatives, there are expensive car navigation systems and huge companies, who can afford it, use GIS. But if you compare it with the potential, the current state of affairs is appalling.
In most places it's easier and cheaper to buy a paper map and digitize it manually than to buy GIS data.
But can we find enough interested people to run this huge "fact-checking", or "bias-checking" or "stupidity-checking" business? Jimmy mentions that there are 200-300 core contributors at Wikipedia. Let's say 20-30 core contributors for Wikinews, who all have day jobs. Can they really provide adequate coverage and adequate assurance that major blunders were caught?
An alternative is to interest the bloggers. But I fail to see how this can be done in the (relatively) anonymous Wiki mode. If I am a blogger competent in some field, why would I submit a correction to a Wiki, where I won't get comments, won't get a feeling that someone reads MY thoughts. A few people might check what I changed and in the best case I would not get any reaction (just silent acceptance). The alternative is to maintain my own blog and know that there is MY audience, people coming to ready what I write (even if there are only a few tens or a hundred of them).
P.S. The success of wikipedia doesn't necessarily translate to Wikinews automatically.
Slashdot Mirror
Humans are supposed to be able to sense the patterns. You move the mouse, the cursor moves. Even a monkey could be trained (albeit it takes a few years) to do something like this. It's not like there is any special underlying logic behind computers. No, it's just patterns, like everywhere in our world. You take a metro in a different country. Everything is different and it's ok to feel lost initially. But you are supposed to be able to figure it all out - what types of tickets are there, how do you buy them, what's the pricing scheme, where do you put them, do you get them back, etc.
The problem with most old people is that they can't easily figure out new patterns. Being old today sucks. You feel inadequate and there is nothing you can do. Personally I hope that when I am old, I can take a pill, swallow a swarm of nanorobots or upload my mind into a computer. BTW, there already are some solutions to the problem. Check it out, may be your grandparents (and parent's grandparents) might use some of those.
Why not make a book about using a computer? I believe in the past it was called a "User's Manual" or something like that. My dad's 386 laptop came with a manual for MS-DOS and Windows 3.11. Unless those Asian people are retarded in some unique way, which seems to me unlikely, I don't see why they would not be able to understand how to use their new computer with the help of a book. And they certainly don't need a different operating system for that. A different shell? May be. Different default setup for Word? May be. Different applications? May be. But a different OS? WTF?
Check out this gem! This thing has Solitaire on the Start Menu!!!
No, he means that after years of being Beta Google Groups was suddenly downgraded to Alpha.
Gnumeric looks completely unapplelike (like shit). The whole UI would need to be redesigned (including the application icon). The charts would need to be redone. What is left? Printing? Saving as PDF? Formulas? It's not worth anything to Apple. Gnumeric may be valuable to Linux users, it may be valuable to proponents of Free software, but to Apple its value is ZERO. I think it's pretty obvious that the same team that created Keynote and Pages would simply work on a spreadsheet application from scratch, creating something slick and easy to use.
Look at Apple's screenies for Pages, and tell me that you'd want to try and use MS Word to create those documents.
It's easy. Apple is making a strong move with including great looking templates, while Microsoft seems to be stuck in the 90s. But almost everything (except rotated bitmaps) that I see on the Pages screenshots I can do in MS Word just as easily.
MS Word is known for having some annoying bugs, it doesn't handle huge complex documents very well, and its interface may not be the most refined, but all eye candy that Pages promises can be recreated with Word just as easily.
Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
This is not a disclaimer, this is called disclosure.
He took a known fact (well, a rumour, but a pretty solid one) that Apple plans to release a 500$ Mac. He can't get a credit for this, because it's not his prediction. That's what ThinkSecret told us based on leaked secret info.
Then Cringlely added a lot of his own unfounded speculation, which doesn't make any sense at all (Apple doesn't sell hardware at a loss, not even to piss off Bill). Almost everything he "predicted" was stupid, but he would probably still try to take credit for this one in a year.
Are you stupid or what? Everyone knows that objects in space are measured using Texas as a unit. As in "asteroid the size of Texas". These stars are about a teraTexas in size.
According to the image in the article, these starts are so heavy that they are flattened by their weight. Or are they rotating so fast that they are stretched? Seriously, I have no idea why the artist decided to draw the stars as ellipses as opposed to circles. Does anyone have any idea?
Overall it shouldn't, because software patents are abused more often than not. However, if this particular company published their code, allowed free decoders, allowed friendly licensing terms for encoding products and permitted free implementations for open-source and freeware products, then I would be willing to support their patent and would happily pay extra 1$ for a copy of graphics-related software I buy that includes this functionality.
I just installed an 800Gb hard disk in my system.
Wow? Who's the manufacturer? What's the model? How much did it cost? Is it available outside of your imagination?
I remember having dreams about GTA during playing and for about a month after completing Vice City. I also, like many others, was affected by the original Doom (strafing, being careful when opening a door, etc.).
But I don't think it's a problem yet. You are unlikely to be affected, unless you play a lot (I was playing GTA:VC on holidays, without other people at home, and I didn't really do anything else, except eating and sleeping). And even if you are affected, this will probably not have a negative effect on your life, as most people are capable of distinguishing between reality and virtuality.
However, as technology continues to develop, there will come a time (in less than 10 years) when the visuals are completely realistic. In about 10 years more there will come a time when we can be connected to VR somehow instead of watching the game on a screen. If someone was then to spend enough time playing a game, he might very well have problems realising which world is real, at least on a subconscious level.
Is it just me who was worried about the illustrations? Do Americans really need an illustration to know how big Antarctica is? Couldn't all those NASA scientists, you know, put a scale on the photo instead? Like a small black bar saying "I am 100 km long" or something? Come on, I already accepted people using Texas as a non-SI unit of choice for measuring asteroids, but can't we do better than that with iceberg images? At least on nasa.gov?
And don't get me started with the gratitious use of metaphors, hyperboles and paraboles, not to mention good old cliches. "Largest Demolition Derby", "best seat in the house", "clash of the titans" and "dent their bumpers" - what's up with that? Is NASA writing for rednecks now? Do they feel they have to compete with wrestling for audience?
I thought an interesting science story can be exciting by itself, without using craptastic language like "the enormous piece of ice broke away". In the previous sentence they used perfectly concise "the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000", wasn't that enough? Are they afraid that some hillbilly didn't get it the first time? If I can no longer go to nasa.gov for decent science coverage... well, I am out of words then.
This is what brought down the Soviet Union. Not inherent inefficiencies of planned economy, not disrespect for some human rights, not lack of toilet paper, CIA secret plots or Reagan's Star Wars, but this. The lack of freedom to speak up, silencing criticism, blindly following the party line and don't you dare speak about it. Millions of people tried to make the system work, millions innovated, pointed out problems, criticised anyway and wrote angry letters to "Pravda". But the system was not designed for free feedback and eventually it stopped working. :-(
Every problem in the world can be solved if we just talk to each other frankly and openly, sincerely trying to work for the benefit of all. Unfortunaly, this doesn't seem to be the "approved way" anymore.
But then there is no added value in HD content. And don't forget the reason amateur porn is popular among producers - it's cheap to make. Making the film in HD would make it more expensive.
Come other to your grandma and ask what she thinks about adding a 3rd arm to a person so that he can be more productive at work, more proficient in his hobby, for aesthetical reasons or so that he can masturbate while groping his girlfriend's tits.
This all can be very well structured in terms of Future Shock Levels as put forward by Eliezer Yudkowsky. "A Shock Level measures the high-tech concepts you can contemplate without being impressed, frightened, blindly enthusiastic - without exhibiting future shock." He suggests 5 levels (quoting):
Speaking of implants, an SL0 person is probably comfortable with replacing a bone or a joint. SL1 is ok with artificial limbs for those who have something happen with the originals. SL2 would not mind replacing perfectly good natural hands. SL3 would agree with going away with the humanness requirement for the body and just using something that suits the task well. And an SL4 accepts we don't need a body at all.
So what you are suggesting is completely impossible today and perfectly possible in the medium-term (10-50 years). However the reaction to your proposal is not determined by the feasibility of the idea, but by the population of anti-memes in the brain of the listener.
Their desktop search is good. Not the first, but probably the best at the moment.
Because Idea Futures has a lame interface and failed to take off in more than a decade (that is attract sufficient interest from anyone but a small group of fans).
A Linux revolution is impossible if we are talking about it in the confines of one year. Heck, I predict 2005 won't even be the year of "Firefox on the desktop" (i.e. its share will remain 20%). Gradual improvement of Linux would NEVER EVER cause a rapid mass migration from MS Windows. Yes, Linux marketshare will continue to increase, but there won't be a year of "Linux on the desktop".
If you want a revolution, you need revolutionary technologies. A non WIMP interface, a port of KDE/Gnome/X to true 3D, an integrated office productivity application (word processing/spreadsheet/presentation/mind map/project management), an integrated communications applications (web/mail/IM/usenet/wiki/blog). Something that would make every CIO go "Wow! I want 10000 of these!". Working on better Outlook/Winamp clones would help only marginally. Do it if you want, but I don't see a point in switching when Windows has better GUI applications and Windows itself is good enough.
The popular articles are locked because vandals are willing to constantly vandalise them. Locking is a temporary measure to either persuade the vandals to stop, to block them or to wait until they go away.
A dedicated vandal can just refresh the article every minute and if anyone reverts him, he can revert it back. With controversial topics it's slightly different - people would start changing the article, while not understanding the topic and the controversy sufficiently, then become angry when someone reverts, complains or objects.
You are an idiot. It is an order of magnitude more likely that your child would be raped/coerced to sex by your brother, uncle, father, cousin or another relative. Not to mention that you are extremely likely to mess up the life of the child in the future with your paranoia. No, Cindy, you can't go on a hiking trip with your class, a pervert may be hiding in the woods. No, Cindy, you can't go to a prom, there might be a paedophile there. No, Cindy, I don't like that boyfriend of yours, he seems to be sexually attracted to young girls. Meanwhile you probably secretly fantasize about having sex with underage cheerleaders yourself...
I do realise the difference - what you called a map is just a subset of layers (streets, topography). GIS can contain these layers and many more, including power grid capacity and the ability to combine them all for processing, display, tracking, etc. But seriously, the prices for GIS data are astronomical. And because they are astronomical, they destroy the unborn mass market for geo data. Joel writes about the same problem for software pricing. Of course, there are some data sets for which there is no conceivable mass market, but overall there definitely is one for geo data/systems. But since it costs $1000s, only those who absolutely need them and can afford to pay insane proces become the clients, perpetrating this vicious circle.
Personally I found out (when making a city map for PDAs) that it's several orders of magnitued cheaper to hire a student to scan a folded map and create a vector map manually than to buy digital data.
The whole GIS thing is a huge con. When I remember the famous explorers that were sent by the kings to map the unknown lands, I am filled with disgust for the greedy bastards that seem to occupy this business today. And because these companies are so greedy, they are killing the huge market before it's born. There are practically no useful applications of maps used in practice. There are a few ad-supported online services (MapQuest, Yahoo, etc.) that are used for the lack of a better alternatives, there are expensive car navigation systems and huge companies, who can afford it, use GIS. But if you compare it with the potential, the current state of affairs is appalling.
In most places it's easier and cheaper to buy a paper map and digitize it manually than to buy GIS data.
But can we find enough interested people to run this huge "fact-checking", or "bias-checking" or "stupidity-checking" business? Jimmy mentions that there are 200-300 core contributors at Wikipedia. Let's say 20-30 core contributors for Wikinews, who all have day jobs. Can they really provide adequate coverage and adequate assurance that major blunders were caught?
An alternative is to interest the bloggers. But I fail to see how this can be done in the (relatively) anonymous Wiki mode. If I am a blogger competent in some field, why would I submit a correction to a Wiki, where I won't get comments, won't get a feeling that someone reads MY thoughts. A few people might check what I changed and in the best case I would not get any reaction (just silent acceptance). The alternative is to maintain my own blog and know that there is MY audience, people coming to ready what I write (even if there are only a few tens or a hundred of them).
P.S. The success of wikipedia doesn't necessarily translate to Wikinews automatically.