For a while, It seemed certain that Google would be the first to reach the goal of "organizing the world's information". But maybe IBM will get there first. And if you think about it, considering all that Google does, it DOES seem quite absurd that they don't have a powerful consumer-level A.I. system on offer. Even a very rudimentary system could grow to become enormously helpful, especially given the wealth of data they have.
The day Watson ever hits less than $5000 or so as a consumer offer (even a simplified home computer you can talk to, like Computer in Star Trek), is the day I'll admit The Future Has Come.
I think it's premature to assume the ubiquity of google glass. The Nokia Ngage failed, largely due to the highly negative social factor of holding an odd large plastic brick to your head in order to talk ("sidetalking").
According to the article: "However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method that is less toxic to replace phosphor powder. This is a major motivation for him to engage in the research at the first place."
Is gold really cheaper than phosphor powder? Chemists care to chime in? Is it the powder part that increases the price?
I mostly agree with you: ownership should mean total control, so I should have total freedom to do whatever I want with my physical property.
The part where I disagree with you, I nevertheless actually agree in spirit: the DMCA is bullshit. It's bullshit because it prohibits too much. IIRC, it makes tinkering with devices illegal, and that's just ridiculous.
The part where I disagree with you is that I think reasonable copyright laws are good. What if I wrote some songs or something, someone else stole the music, and became rich and famous by claiming my stuff as their original? That's just plain wrong, so I think reasonable copyright has it's place.
Unfortunately, the DMCA is not reasonable copyright.
It's not exactly great, but it's not all THAT bad. After all, it comes with a webcam and USB ports. Either one of those minor features alone add a huge boost in use value (I'd love to videochat while chilling on my couch with someone, then bring the tablet over to the kitchen and prop it up while I do dishes and keep talking! and the value of even a single USB port is pretty much self-evident!). Having both of these features for less price than an iPad is not something you can honestly ignore or dismiss.
Basically, it's 2 different products from totally different origins entering the same space: both are entering the above-smartphone-yet-under-netbook space. Both iPad and Eee are both awesome in their own way.
Nice article that made me very curious about one thing: why did the Newton fail? It seems like an amazingly useful and cutting-edge device that should have been snatched up by everybody.
Maybe it was just a little bit TOO new, so didn't fit well enough into people's existing workflows?
Culture is both a cause and a consequence. Parents might magically wake up and start talking to their children about the wonders of science. Or they might not. But culture can also be another tool in the government toolkit (e.g. religion).
Your fantasy of an evil controlling nanny state versus the rebellious freedom-fighter parents is just that: a fantasy. Sometimes the government is doing something that should be done, and sometimes not; sometimes parents are doing what should be done, and sometimes not. I think everyone recognizes by now that most people don't spend time exciting their kids about science, and so the ability to reason and think clearly is declining. Hence, it's forward-thinking for someone with the power and responsibility of the President of the US to increase science and mathematics education. I don't see how any clear-thinking person could be against this.
I agree with you Jonathan Ives is just as responsible as Jobs has been for Apple's financial (and especially cultural) resurgence.
However, do we really know whether he's qualified to run a large global business? Aesthetic vision is quite different from industry and business vision. I have no idea what he's like, but I could imagine him being a brilliant artistic recluse who myopically pursues excellence in his own aesthetic world.
I'm a Canadian, but I'm honestly more concerned than proud of this disparity between funding. This is Steven Hawking himself, so is this situation truly indicative of falling interest in science in the US? I mean, wouldn't Harvard or Yale or MIT be willing to shell out monster bucks to say they have him in their institution? He's gotta be a trophy of contemporary science right now, right? RIGHT?
What gives, US? Does it have something to do with the right-wing fundies somehow creating long-term political traction? I really wanna know...
A shell large enough to envelop the sun would be so exposed that there's no way to protect it from the hundreds or thousands of meteors and comets that would batter it every day. How would you go about maintaining such a behemoth?
I'm all for respecting other cultures, but this is Canada, not a gathering place for everyone and their brother who want to change the land from under me.
First, we "Canadians" stole the land from the first nations after we slaughtered them. Your righteous protectionist stance is hypocritical here.
Secondly, don't try to cover your bigoted intolerant stance with a tolerant tone: you're effectively saying: "i'm not racist, but i just don't think certain people should gather here".
Maybe if you don't like Canada's multicultural policy, YOU shouldn't gather here and should move down the US, instead of the US moving up here. Why should the entire country change for you?
Btw, my firefox is acting up for the very first time: it loads but shows nothing, not even the bookmarks toolbar. Nothing. But safe mode is ok (which is how i'm posting this), as is IE. Does anybody know wtf? Is this related? Thanks.
Yes, he did. However, quoting like that is problematic because it is decontextualized and so leaves out the sentiment behind the statement. Perhaps it should be something like:
"All life is pain. All life is also happiness. One cannot have one without the other, for the two are inextricably tied to one another. Recognize that life also means death, that happiness also means unhappiness, that joy also means suffering. Our attachment to something/someone causes us joy when it is fulfilled, but pain when it is taken away. Most people go through life alternating between extremes and never achieve balance, like a child who is gleeful for candy but cries when it is taken away. But there is a balance, and in this balance is not indifference but a kind of secret yet overflowing happiness to relish. If you wish to experience this stable, eternal, and enlightened "happiness", and if you want to pierce the illusion of reality, then you can study the Buddhist path if you so wish."
This is why Buddhism and Taoism go together so well. The Yin/Yang symbol is a Taoist symbol, but is also used in Buddhism. Note that I put quote marks around the second "happiness", because it is a higher order of happiness, so much so that it deserves another name. It is happiness and bliss, but also enlightened and unshakable, on a level where there is nothing that can overcome it. I wish there was a name for it. Oh wait, it does:
Did anyone else just learn about the "Go" menu right now? I'm not kidding, I've used Firefox back when it was still called Firebird, and I've somehow never noticed it. I was looking at the "Go" button in puzzlement, wondering what menu they were talking about. I saw that right-clicking it produces the Views -> Toolbar menu, but I thought what's the big deal?
If I'm not the only one, I guess they don't have to take it out as it doesn't make a difference.:P
"On the other hand, if you find yourself baffled by a login prompt then perhaps OS installation is not your bag."
That's my point right there. How many people in this world would be baffled by an unexpected and unmentioned login prompt when assured the installation process was a breeze? Your attitude is exactly what keeps people from adopting linux. "Linux installation is ez! Just pop in the Cd and go! What? Puzzled by the surprise login prompt? Well, maybe OS installation isn't for you!" Why don't you and everyone else who just made a dig about my linux-noobness just go right out and yell "Noob!"? Cuz that's what you're actually doing to beginners, even self-proclaimed ones such as I who don't mind doing a little bit of research in the name of tinkering around, which is far less than most typical computer users would do.
Go ahead, keep convincing yourself that linux will be a major widespread desktop os alternative (ignorant noobs aside, but they don't 'matter). If you were to take a different attitude, linux would take off much much sooner.
btw I'm not baffled by a login prompt or command prompt. At the very least, I used DOS before windows. However, I have no experience with linux, and I was not told about it. Is it unreasonable for me to be unpleasantly surprised both times by login prompt and command prompt? I was basically sitting there thinking "uhh... what next"? And c'mon, at least I know how to repartitioin my drives into 3 20gb partitions, so it's not like I'm so dumb I put my laptop into the dishwasher...
Anyway, this typical computer user and potential convert has just had his explorative hopes dashed.
I just bought my first laptop in Taiwan. It's an Acer Aspire 5502WXCi. It came with Windows Home Edition in Chinese, so I popped in my Windows XP Pro in English that I use for my desktop and installed it. Everything detected. Up and running as usual. But I left an extra 20 Gb to try out linux. This is my experience so far:
Suse: The default installation hanged (sorry, don't remember what point). But I remember you could hit a button (I think F2) for an options menu. I remember the choices there were highly technical, which is to be expected of course since I'm starting to dink around. But I randomly guessed fer-the-helluvit and because I had no idea what I was doing (and I already consider myself slightly more knowledgeable than most computer users--at least I have a certificate in Comp Sci from SFU!) Anyway, I chose Custom (I think it was), and that's when excitement finally happened: it started blitzing through hardware detection, and my joy was great indeed. Then, it gave an error message, and I was booted to a linux prompt (bash I think it's called?). All I knew what to do was type -ls (yes, laugh, I'm a total linux noob). So I did. After doing that four or five times more, the novelty was gone and I tried to go online and find out what to do (there's got to be something wrong). I found out I'm supposed to type 'StartX' or something like that. I tried it, but it said there was something wrong with my video mode (wasn't supported, it explicitly said). So I quit and tried the recently discussed Freespire edition of Linspire.
My Freespire installation seemed to go smoothly until I was presented with a login and password scenario. I thought maybe I had downloaded the wrong thing. As determined as I was, I went online to checkout what to do, and was taught I was supposed to enter "root" and login and something else as password (don't remember anymore). To be honest, I don't remember what happened after that, but it was enough to make me give up.
To be honest, I may have mixed the 2 problems up above because I don't remember exactly which errors happened to which (I know, just a week ago). The entire testing period was just a time of frustration for me. I even tried to get some of the basics online, and was baffled to be told that, while windows letters the drives, linux makes primary, secondary, etc. drives with names like '/hdav1" and "/ndev4" or some gibberish (to me) like that. And the counting would skip numbers sometimes, I believe?
The problem with your assertion is that linux is only easy to install if you're already familiar with it. But perhaps EASY TO USE should be defined to mean EASY TO LEARN HOW TO USE. Under this definition, I'm sorry my friend, but linux is therefore not easy to use.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I had to do basic research about which distros to use ("DON'T use Debian, it's not for noobs like you!", "omg installations a breeze: just make and mount drives, or make and compile, etc." -- um.. what is this "mount" thing you speak of? "how the hell do I compile an operating system itself?" etc.)
Oh yeah. For those who still give a shit, I also tried Debian, just becuase I remember reading that notebooks are not supported very well, and since Debian is supposed to be the pro's choice and the most tweakable, I figured it might have the mighty powers to save me. It might, but I'll maybe never be able to find out. It'd take me weeks just to learn everything in the introductory pages. Mother of god, like I don't already have enough stuff to read (MA in English). I guess it'd be ok if that was your passion and hobby (playing with computers is a minor passion and hobby for me), but for most people, I doubt they'd even bother googling for basic help the moment something went wrong.
It's low-cost, low-complexity, and low-power. There's already a large consortium here promoting Zigbee, which consists of big players such as Honeywell, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Samsung, Philips, Cisco, Texas Instruments, and much more. With such industry support I'm sure something good will happen (or at least, I HOPE so!)
For example, here's a company that seems to be furthering the ZigBee movement along the Zigbee (and Slashdot?) ideals: "a GNU open source development tool chain allow rapid porting of your C or C++ code to AMD's Au1000 processor". I'm surprised they used AMD and not a Transmeta processor, however, which is even more power-efficient, because that's supposedly one of the best things about Zigbee: you can have a tiny little Zigbee chip for which you only have to change the battery once a year or so.
"The technology is two generations ahead of the current 90nm."
If it's the technology that comes after this one, doesn't that make it by definition next-generation technology? Is there some scientific basis for this, or is this just more marketing? As if "next-generation" is just not hyped-up enough...
Slashdot Mirror
For a while, It seemed certain that Google would be the first to reach the goal of "organizing the world's information". But maybe IBM will get there first. And if you think about it, considering all that Google does, it DOES seem quite absurd that they don't have a powerful consumer-level A.I. system on offer. Even a very rudimentary system could grow to become enormously helpful, especially given the wealth of data they have.
The day Watson ever hits less than $5000 or so as a consumer offer (even a simplified home computer you can talk to, like Computer in Star Trek), is the day I'll admit The Future Has Come.
I think it's premature to assume the ubiquity of google glass. The Nokia Ngage failed, largely due to the highly negative social factor of holding an odd large plastic brick to your head in order to talk ("sidetalking").
Keepass? That is an... err.. unfortunate name.
Robots dehumanize war, but if war shifts away from human casualties, isn't this a good thing?
Will drones ever be cheaper than training a grunt?
According to the article: "However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method that is less toxic to replace phosphor powder. This is a major motivation for him to engage in the research at the first place."
Is gold really cheaper than phosphor powder? Chemists care to chime in? Is it the powder part that increases the price?
I mostly agree with you: ownership should mean total control, so I should have total freedom to do whatever I want with my physical property.
The part where I disagree with you, I nevertheless actually agree in spirit: the DMCA is bullshit. It's bullshit because it prohibits too much. IIRC, it makes tinkering with devices illegal, and that's just ridiculous.
The part where I disagree with you is that I think reasonable copyright laws are good. What if I wrote some songs or something, someone else stole the music, and became rich and famous by claiming my stuff as their original? That's just plain wrong, so I think reasonable copyright has it's place.
Unfortunately, the DMCA is not reasonable copyright.
It's not exactly great, but it's not all THAT bad. After all, it comes with a webcam and USB ports. Either one of those minor features alone add a huge boost in use value (I'd love to videochat while chilling on my couch with someone, then bring the tablet over to the kitchen and prop it up while I do dishes and keep talking! and the value of even a single USB port is pretty much self-evident!). Having both of these features for less price than an iPad is not something you can honestly ignore or dismiss.
Basically, it's 2 different products from totally different origins entering the same space: both are entering the above-smartphone-yet-under-netbook space. Both iPad and Eee are both awesome in their own way.
tldr: competition = yay!
Nice article that made me very curious about one thing: why did the Newton fail? It seems like an amazingly useful and cutting-edge device that should have been snatched up by everybody.
Maybe it was just a little bit TOO new, so didn't fit well enough into people's existing workflows?
Culture is both a cause and a consequence. Parents might magically wake up and start talking to their children about the wonders of science. Or they might not. But culture can also be another tool in the government toolkit (e.g. religion).
Your fantasy of an evil controlling nanny state versus the rebellious freedom-fighter parents is just that: a fantasy. Sometimes the government is doing something that should be done, and sometimes not; sometimes parents are doing what should be done, and sometimes not. I think everyone recognizes by now that most people don't spend time exciting their kids about science, and so the ability to reason and think clearly is declining. Hence, it's forward-thinking for someone with the power and responsibility of the President of the US to increase science and mathematics education. I don't see how any clear-thinking person could be against this.
Simplified models beget simplified thinking.
I agree with you Jonathan Ives is just as responsible as Jobs has been for Apple's financial (and especially cultural) resurgence.
However, do we really know whether he's qualified to run a large global business? Aesthetic vision is quite different from industry and business vision. I have no idea what he's like, but I could imagine him being a brilliant artistic recluse who myopically pursues excellence in his own aesthetic world.
I'm a Canadian, but I'm honestly more concerned than proud of this disparity between funding. This is Steven Hawking himself, so is this situation truly indicative of falling interest in science in the US? I mean, wouldn't Harvard or Yale or MIT be willing to shell out monster bucks to say they have him in their institution? He's gotta be a trophy of contemporary science right now, right? RIGHT?
What gives, US? Does it have something to do with the right-wing fundies somehow creating long-term political traction? I really wanna know...
You should donate to whichever group creates free software you truly enjoy and want to support.
A shell large enough to envelop the sun would be so exposed that there's no way to protect it from the hundreds or thousands of meteors and comets that would batter it every day. How would you go about maintaining such a behemoth?
"Minor leak in the ISS Being Investigated" actually says what the subby is trying to say...
Minor Leak Being Investigated Aboard the ISS suggests they're investigating from space, which would be cool too I guess...
I'm all for respecting other cultures, but this is Canada, not a gathering place for everyone and their brother who want to change the land from under me.
First, we "Canadians" stole the land from the first nations after we slaughtered them. Your righteous protectionist stance is hypocritical here.
Secondly, don't try to cover your bigoted intolerant stance with a tolerant tone: you're effectively saying: "i'm not racist, but i just don't think certain people should gather here".
Maybe if you don't like Canada's multicultural policy, YOU shouldn't gather here and should move down the US, instead of the US moving up here. Why should the entire country change for you?
Another unqualified doosh resigned from his job.
yaya, tasteless
What about Firefox Safe Mode? Does that help?
Btw, my firefox is acting up for the very first time: it loads but shows nothing, not even the bookmarks toolbar. Nothing. But safe mode is ok (which is how i'm posting this), as is IE. Does anybody know wtf? Is this related? Thanks.
Yes, he did. However, quoting like that is problematic because it is decontextualized and so leaves out the sentiment behind the statement. Perhaps it should be something like:
"All life is pain. All life is also happiness. One cannot have one without the other, for the two are inextricably tied to one another. Recognize that life also means death, that happiness also means unhappiness, that joy also means suffering. Our attachment to something/someone causes us joy when it is fulfilled, but pain when it is taken away. Most people go through life alternating between extremes and never achieve balance, like a child who is gleeful for candy but cries when it is taken away. But there is a balance, and in this balance is not indifference but a kind of secret yet overflowing happiness to relish. If you wish to experience this stable, eternal, and enlightened "happiness", and if you want to pierce the illusion of reality, then you can study the Buddhist path if you so wish."
This is why Buddhism and Taoism go together so well. The Yin/Yang symbol is a Taoist symbol, but is also used in Buddhism. Note that I put quote marks around the second "happiness", because it is a higher order of happiness, so much so that it deserves another name. It is happiness and bliss, but also enlightened and unshakable, on a level where there is nothing that can overcome it. I wish there was a name for it. Oh wait, it does:
nirvana
Did anyone else just learn about the "Go" menu right now? I'm not kidding, I've used Firefox back when it was still called Firebird, and I've somehow never noticed it. I was looking at the "Go" button in puzzlement, wondering what menu they were talking about. I saw that right-clicking it produces the Views -> Toolbar menu, but I thought what's the big deal?
:P
If I'm not the only one, I guess they don't have to take it out as it doesn't make a difference.
"On the other hand, if you find yourself baffled by a login prompt then perhaps OS installation is not your bag."
That's my point right there. How many people in this world would be baffled by an unexpected and unmentioned login prompt when assured the installation process was a breeze? Your attitude is exactly what keeps people from adopting linux. "Linux installation is ez! Just pop in the Cd and go! What? Puzzled by the surprise login prompt? Well, maybe OS installation isn't for you!" Why don't you and everyone else who just made a dig about my linux-noobness just go right out and yell "Noob!"? Cuz that's what you're actually doing to beginners, even self-proclaimed ones such as I who don't mind doing a little bit of research in the name of tinkering around, which is far less than most typical computer users would do.
Go ahead, keep convincing yourself that linux will be a major widespread desktop os alternative (ignorant noobs aside, but they don't 'matter). If you were to take a different attitude, linux would take off much much sooner.
btw I'm not baffled by a login prompt or command prompt. At the very least, I used DOS before windows. However, I have no experience with linux, and I was not told about it. Is it unreasonable for me to be unpleasantly surprised both times by login prompt and command prompt? I was basically sitting there thinking "uhh... what next"? And c'mon, at least I know how to repartitioin my drives into 3 20gb partitions, so it's not like I'm so dumb I put my laptop into the dishwasher...
Anyway, this typical computer user and potential convert has just had his explorative hopes dashed.
I just bought my first laptop in Taiwan. It's an Acer Aspire 5502WXCi. It came with Windows Home Edition in Chinese, so I popped in my Windows XP Pro in English that I use for my desktop and installed it. Everything detected. Up and running as usual. But I left an extra 20 Gb to try out linux. This is my experience so far:
Suse: The default installation hanged (sorry, don't remember what point). But I remember you could hit a button (I think F2) for an options menu. I remember the choices there were highly technical, which is to be expected of course since I'm starting to dink around. But I randomly guessed fer-the-helluvit and because I had no idea what I was doing (and I already consider myself slightly more knowledgeable than most computer users--at least I have a certificate in Comp Sci from SFU!) Anyway, I chose Custom (I think it was), and that's when excitement finally happened: it started blitzing through hardware detection, and my joy was great indeed. Then, it gave an error message, and I was booted to a linux prompt (bash I think it's called?). All I knew what to do was type -ls (yes, laugh, I'm a total linux noob). So I did. After doing that four or five times more, the novelty was gone and I tried to go online and find out what to do (there's got to be something wrong). I found out I'm supposed to type 'StartX' or something like that. I tried it, but it said there was something wrong with my video mode (wasn't supported, it explicitly said). So I
quit and tried the recently discussed Freespire edition of Linspire.
My Freespire installation seemed to go smoothly until I was presented with a login and password scenario. I thought maybe I had downloaded the wrong thing. As determined as I was, I went online to checkout what to do, and was taught I was supposed to enter "root" and login and something else as password (don't remember anymore). To be honest, I don't remember what happened after that, but it was enough to make me give up.
To be honest, I may have mixed the 2 problems up above because I don't remember exactly which errors happened to which (I know, just a week ago). The entire testing period was just a time of frustration for me. I even tried to get some of the basics online, and was baffled to be told that, while windows letters the drives, linux makes primary, secondary, etc. drives with names like '/hdav1" and "/ndev4" or some gibberish (to me) like that. And the counting would skip numbers sometimes, I believe?
The problem with your assertion is that linux is only easy to install if you're already familiar with it. But perhaps EASY TO USE should be defined to mean EASY TO LEARN HOW TO USE. Under this definition, I'm sorry my friend, but linux is therefore not easy to use.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I had to do basic research about which distros to use ("DON'T use Debian, it's not for noobs like you!", "omg installations a breeze: just make and mount drives, or make and compile, etc." -- um.. what is this "mount" thing you speak of? "how the hell do I compile an operating system itself?" etc.)
Oh yeah. For those who still give a shit, I also tried Debian, just becuase I remember reading that notebooks are not supported very well, and since Debian is supposed to be the pro's choice and the most tweakable, I figured it might have the mighty powers to save me. It might, but I'll maybe never be able to find out. It'd take me weeks just to learn everything in the introductory pages. Mother of god, like I don't already have enough stuff to read (MA in English). I guess it'd be ok if that was your passion and hobby (playing with computers is a minor passion and hobby for me), but for most people, I doubt they'd even bother googling for basic help the moment something went wrong.
For example, here's a company that seems to be furthering the ZigBee movement along the Zigbee (and Slashdot?) ideals: "a GNU open source development tool chain allow rapid porting of your C or C++ code to AMD's Au1000 processor". I'm surprised they used AMD and not a Transmeta processor, however, which is even more power-efficient, because that's supposedly one of the best things about Zigbee: you can have a tiny little Zigbee chip for which you only have to change the battery once a year or so.
"The technology is two generations ahead of the current 90nm."
If it's the technology that comes after this one, doesn't that make it by definition next-generation technology? Is there some scientific basis for this, or is this just more marketing? As if "next-generation" is just not hyped-up enough...
you mean innovators like Dr Kai-Fu Lee?
First google result I found.
Ooh-wee, eye candy!
;)
>They're just copying from Apple.
Candy apples? Yum!