It always amuses me when people dismiss social networking sites by saying, "If I want a presence on the internet, I'll use a site that I built myself". Using a personal site/blog to keep in touch with people only works if all your friends read/write blogs and check their friends personal sites regularly.
To quote one of my roommates, "Blogs? Aren't those something high school kids do?".
But she checks Facebook several times a day. If you want to stay in touch with people you have to use the medium that the people you want to stay in touch with use. Sure there's a pretty bad signal/noise ratio on all of these social networking sites. Not wanting to use a (non special interest based) social networking platform because too many people use it, seems a little self defeating.
Also, the OP has obviously not been in college in the past 5 years. They practically give you a Facebook account with your student ID these days.
You're right nobody would stop playing sports or music if the professional framework were gone, but would it be at the same level it is today? If artists (or athletes) can't live off their work, they are dividing their time between staying alive and working on their art. Yea, lots of bands make great albums while holding day jobs, but if your art is supporting you, then you can devote 100% of your time to making it.
Think about all the after work/after school/in your free time projects you do. Imagine how much more you could do with them if you didn't have to rely on an external source of income.
I agree that trying to work while on a treadmill probably wouldn't work, but a stationary bike probably would. Also, it would be cool if it could be set up so that your exercise would recharge the laptop at the workstation.
"Better pedal faster! You're gonna run out of power before you can send that important email!"
"Think of the kids!" seems to be what people say when they are really excited about something fun, but aren't sure if they're too old to enjoy it on their own.... Lets build a big elaborate fort in the back yard!....for the kids..... Lets have fun making our computer make neat noises!... ummm... to entice kids to learn more....
The more we understand how the universe works, the more we can manipulate it. It is paradigm shifts that lead to major advancements.
While I am by no means an expert on this sort of thing (far from it!) but something I read recently brought up an obvious point that the reason we can move forwards and backwards in spacial dimensions is because we have more than one (make 2 right turns and you're going the opposite direction). If multiple time dimensions work analogously, then an understanding of them could open up interesting possibilities.
Apart from the issues of semantic web relying on people to be unbiased, honest, and smart it seems like using this semantic idea to catalog everything is like using high school level general mechanics to describe the universe.
It all works just fine as long as you don't want to talk about incline planes that have friction or springs that have mass. Describing lots of real things is messy.
I think at this point we'd have a better shot at making machines think like people rather than trying to get people to think like machines.
Exactly. It's like trying to teach a kid not to drink or smoke. If every time some 14 year old kid was handed a beer he was asked "Are you sure you want to drink that?" The answer will always be "Sure" if he's had no other guidance regarding what to do in the situation. Besides, all the cool kids are installing spyware....
I'm a guitar player and I also love playing Guitar Hero. Having some finger dexterity probably helped a bit when I was getting started but pushing 5 buttons is not the same as playing a guitar. It's fun and thats all it's supposed to be.
Guitar Hero is to guitar playing as DDR is to dancing.
I notice one flaw in Swordfish everybody has let slide.... the fact that Halle Barry would hit on the geek.
Maybe if people would write some flashier looking worms, it would be much easier to impress the ladies with hacking skills.... just a thought....
1) the ability to drag a number of files/folders onto a spot and facilitate transfer via method specified by the web page: one file at a time, all files in parallel up to X simultaneous uploads, or the whole shebang as a single tar file (filenames in UTF8 or MIME encoded). All those cool photo sites and people still have to upload one photo at a time, that's dumb.
I believe Flock (http://www.flock.com/) has some features similar to this for certain sites.
A student organization I am in built something similar to this "webOS" idea. It was called ChimpOS (our organization is called Webmoneys, a SIG of our ACM chapter). Our reasoning behind creating this, apart from the fun academic aspect, was its usuability for distributing specific envirenments to groups that wanted to work together, small companies, traveling businessmen who wanted a constant envirenment with out worrying about remote desktop or remote network login, and students who use have to use lab computers all the time. We have been working out an API for devoping applictions and the idea is that most of this stuff could be done in some other way allready, but people, real END USERS, know how to open a browser, know how to login to a web page, and know how to use a standard desktop interface w/ icons and such. I don't see this whole "webOS" as a total desktop replacement, it just seems like there would be uses for it.
I think it will be hard (or at least take a loooooong time) to over throw Google as a search engine for the masses even if a better engine comes along. There is really something to be said for people recognizing the phrose "Google it". This is similar to the reason that msn.com is one of the top 10 (or 20?) visited sites, simply because it's the default homepage in Windows IE. There is a huge number of people who don't care enough about a "better product" and will just stick with what is standard. The phrase "Google it" is one of their biggest assests as a company. For a lot of people Google = search and thats invaluable.
"Why didn't a site with better code and features get the spot?"
Spoken like a true geek. The general public doesn't care about good code and things that tacky designs are cool. All people want to do is tell everybody else their favorite movies, bands, quotes, deepest secrets, and post half naked pictures of themselves and have other people comments telling them that they're "soooooo h0t!!!11!!!" MySpace has all the people and people are what make a site like that apealing, not how well the site itself is built.
I think that the Beatles were brilliant in their pop senseablity. I think they can be compaired to calculus. Most high school students are aware of the basics of calculus and know how do it (basicly), but it took a brilliant mind to come up with these basic ideas at one point. Most high school students (with any interest in songwriting) know the basics of music (early Beatles in INCREADIBLY basic), but it took someone to acctualy show the world these basics. Maybe the Beatles just happened to be the band that made it big by doing this (I'm sure there were other bands around the same time that were doing things that could have been equaly revolutionary, but just never got a break), but the fact is that they were the ones who did.
There is no possible way I could do my job (internship as a developer) without access to forums and various online help sites. I have to work in.NET all the time... (ehhh.....) and if I couldn't get to MSDN or devShed I would have no way of learning how to do what I'm supposed to be doing.
P.S. Like most people responding to this article.. I'm posting from work.
I saw these guys (this guy?) once. It was a great show, and the guy has no technical training, he just taught himself how to build all these crazy robots! It was alot of fun to see.
Having poor security on your website is like leaving your car unlocked in a bad neighborhood. Yea. you shouldnt have to do it, but if you don't and you get get your car stolen, your going to feel pretty stupid. Lets face it, the web is a bad neighbor hood, and unless your website is a Yugo, theres a chance sombody might try to break into it.
I have been deloping in PHP for a few years and I LOVE it. For my job this summer I may have to do some ASP stuff, so I was doing some research and looking for a site like php.net but theres just nothing like that out there for ASP (at least nothing I've found yet).
Slashdot Mirror
The American Autumn follows Reznor & Radiohead, Offers Free Album!
Oh... this isn't news when anybody does it?
As your president, I solemnly swear to goof off and eat candy!
It always amuses me when people dismiss social networking sites by saying, "If I want a presence on the internet, I'll use a site that I built myself". Using a personal site/blog to keep in touch with people only works if all your friends read/write blogs and check their friends personal sites regularly.
To quote one of my roommates, "Blogs? Aren't those something high school kids do?".
But she checks Facebook several times a day. If you want to stay in touch with people you have to use the medium that the people you want to stay in touch with use. Sure there's a pretty bad signal/noise ratio on all of these social networking sites. Not wanting to use a (non special interest based) social networking platform because too many people use it, seems a little self defeating.
Also, the OP has obviously not been in college in the past 5 years. They practically give you a Facebook account with your student ID these days.
You're right nobody would stop playing sports or music if the professional framework were gone, but would it be at the same level it is today? If artists (or athletes) can't live off their work, they are dividing their time between staying alive and working on their art. Yea, lots of bands make great albums while holding day jobs, but if your art is supporting you, then you can devote 100% of your time to making it.
Think about all the after work/after school/in your free time projects you do. Imagine how much more you could do with them if you didn't have to rely on an external source of income.
Human knowledge is infinite, but notable human knowledge is but a small percentage of that!
Now that I've correctly read the title of this article I'm very disappointed that 8 million year old barracuda hasn't been brought back to life.
I agree that trying to work while on a treadmill probably wouldn't work, but a stationary bike probably would. Also, it would be cool if it could be set up so that your exercise would recharge the laptop at the workstation.
"Better pedal faster! You're gonna run out of power before you can send that important email!"
"Think of the kids!" seems to be what people say when they are really excited about something fun, but aren't sure if they're too old to enjoy it on their own.... Lets build a big elaborate fort in the back yard!....for the kids..... Lets have fun making our computer make neat noises!... ummm... to entice kids to learn more....
The more we understand how the universe works, the more we can manipulate it. It is paradigm shifts that lead to major advancements. While I am by no means an expert on this sort of thing (far from it!) but something I read recently brought up an obvious point that the reason we can move forwards and backwards in spacial dimensions is because we have more than one (make 2 right turns and you're going the opposite direction). If multiple time dimensions work analogously, then an understanding of them could open up interesting possibilities.
Apart from the issues of semantic web relying on people to be unbiased, honest, and smart it seems like using this semantic idea to catalog everything is like using high school level general mechanics to describe the universe.
It all works just fine as long as you don't want to talk about incline planes that have friction or springs that have mass. Describing lots of real things is messy.
I think at this point we'd have a better shot at making machines think like people rather than trying to get people to think like machines.
Would this affect something like Last.fm, where users have uploaded all the music that's streamed by their radio station?
Exactly. It's like trying to teach a kid not to drink or smoke. If every time some 14 year old kid was handed a beer he was asked "Are you sure you want to drink that?" The answer will always be "Sure" if he's had no other guidance regarding what to do in the situation. Besides, all the cool kids are installing spyware....
I'm a guitar player and I also love playing Guitar Hero. Having some finger dexterity probably helped a bit when I was getting started but pushing 5 buttons is not the same as playing a guitar. It's fun and thats all it's supposed to be. Guitar Hero is to guitar playing as DDR is to dancing.
I notice one flaw in Swordfish everybody has let slide.... the fact that Halle Barry would hit on the geek. Maybe if people would write some flashier looking worms, it would be much easier to impress the ladies with hacking skills.... just a thought....
A student organization I am in built something similar to this "webOS" idea. It was called ChimpOS (our organization is called Webmoneys, a SIG of our ACM chapter). Our reasoning behind creating this, apart from the fun academic aspect, was its usuability for distributing specific envirenments to groups that wanted to work together, small companies, traveling businessmen who wanted a constant envirenment with out worrying about remote desktop or remote network login, and students who use have to use lab computers all the time. We have been working out an API for devoping applictions and the idea is that most of this stuff could be done in some other way allready, but people, real END USERS, know how to open a browser, know how to login to a web page, and know how to use a standard desktop interface w/ icons and such. I don't see this whole "webOS" as a total desktop replacement, it just seems like there would be uses for it.
I think it will be hard (or at least take a loooooong time) to over throw Google as a search engine for the masses even if a better engine comes along. There is really something to be said for people recognizing the phrose "Google it". This is similar to the reason that msn.com is one of the top 10 (or 20?) visited sites, simply because it's the default homepage in Windows IE. There is a huge number of people who don't care enough about a "better product" and will just stick with what is standard. The phrase "Google it" is one of their biggest assests as a company. For a lot of people Google = search and thats invaluable.
"Why didn't a site with better code and features get the spot?" Spoken like a true geek. The general public doesn't care about good code and things that tacky designs are cool. All people want to do is tell everybody else their favorite movies, bands, quotes, deepest secrets, and post half naked pictures of themselves and have other people comments telling them that they're "soooooo h0t!!!11!!!" MySpace has all the people and people are what make a site like that apealing, not how well the site itself is built.
I think that the Beatles were brilliant in their pop senseablity. I think they can be compaired to calculus. Most high school students are aware of the basics of calculus and know how do it (basicly), but it took a brilliant mind to come up with these basic ideas at one point. Most high school students (with any interest in songwriting) know the basics of music (early Beatles in INCREADIBLY basic), but it took someone to acctualy show the world these basics. Maybe the Beatles just happened to be the band that made it big by doing this (I'm sure there were other bands around the same time that were doing things that could have been equaly revolutionary, but just never got a break), but the fact is that they were the ones who did.
There is no possible way I could do my job (internship as a developer) without access to forums and various online help sites. I have to work in .NET all the time... (ehhh.....) and if I couldn't get to MSDN or devShed I would have no way of learning how to do what I'm supposed to be doing.
P.S. Like most people responding to this article.. I'm posting from work.
I saw these guys (this guy?) once. It was a great show, and the guy has no technical training, he just taught himself how to build all these crazy robots! It was alot of fun to see.
Having poor security on your website is like leaving your car unlocked in a bad neighborhood. Yea. you shouldnt have to do it, but if you don't and you get get your car stolen, your going to feel pretty stupid. Lets face it, the web is a bad neighbor hood, and unless your website is a Yugo, theres a chance sombody might try to break into it.
Strangely, we don't see many people shouting "save the corn!". Look, I go to school in central Illinois.... theres no shortage of corn.
I'm pretty sure that one of the 'P's in PHP stands for PHP. Its a recursive accronym. PHP Hypertext Preprocesser.
I have been deloping in PHP for a few years and I LOVE it. For my job this summer I may have to do some ASP stuff, so I was doing some research and looking for a site like php.net but theres just nothing like that out there for ASP (at least nothing I've found yet).