Gotta admit, they have some smart people there. Yes, firefox is a superior browser, technologically. Yes, it's open source. Yes, it supports CSS2 a little better and yes, it supports alpha channel in PNGs. Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned? Not a bit!
But Joe Sixpack isn't an early adopter. The early adopters (i.e. web developers) DO care about CSS2, the PNG alpha channel, and (maybe) open source.
....which race has, on average, the biggest brain? Any talk of brain size vs intelligence always leads to this question. It will be interesting to see what kind of conclusions are drawn, and how they will be interpreted by the general public.
The National Archives is building the "Electronic Record Archives" to solve this exact problem. The ERA is going to be much more sophisticated than this LOC thing mentioned in the article above.
Something I never understood: in the first movie, the Death Star blows up Alderaan. Then at the end, the Death Star is moving in on Yavin. How did the Death Star get to the Yazin system? Are we to assume that it can movie around at light speed?
the classic hollywood ripped six pack look is impossible to maintain,
No it isn't, since a lot of people apparently do it. To get a six pack, your body fat needs to be somewhere in the 10% range. It's a challenge, but not impossible.
Doesn't look like 1.0.1 to me, either. I can't find 1.0.1 on the site. They get an "F" for usability, since I was not able to complete my task of upgrading.
Where do you live? I'm in the DC metro area. I've been a Netflix customer for over a year, and have been amazed by their quick turnaround the entire time. If I mail a movie on Monday, they'll receive it and ship my next choice on Tuesday, and I'll get it Wednesday. That's about as quick as it gets. Sometimes, there will be an extra day here or there if it's an obscure movie and the hub it's shipping from is far away. But in general, they are very good if you live near a city.
My only complaint about Netflix is that they don't ship out movies on Saturdays. So, if you sent something in on a Friday, they won't ship out your next film until Monday at the earliest.
Although, the 25 million downloads doesn't actually equate to 25 million users.
True. I've downloaded it about 3 times. BUT, at work, we also burned a copy to put under configuration management. Now anyone who installs it does so from that CD, not the website. So there could be some installations that aren't accounted for in the 25 million number.
No, I've noticed the 2-day lag problem, and it's becoming an issue. Boing Boing publishes a lot of these stories days earlier. In fact, I think most Slashdot readers get their submission ideas from Boing Boing. Glancing at Slashdot's front page, I see a story called "Computer-Edited Photos Lead To Child-Porn Locale", which was already covered by Boing Boing. This is becoming a regular occurence.
Well, in TFA, it says that the program was contracted out to a company named Science Applications.
It's impossible to tell what the problem was until we learn more. As someone who works in government contracting, I know that it can be like pulling teeth trying to figure out WTF the government actually wants. I'm sure a typical requirements review went something like:
ScienceApps: So, what do you guys want?
FBI: You know, a case management system that does stuff.
I've found Listmania to be a good way to browse books. For example, if you're looking at a Chess book, you'll see a Listmania link. If you click on it, you'll see some user's list of recommended chess books. It's a very useful feature.
The most interesting thing about Amazon is that whenever you are searching for books on a particular topic, you can easily find the cream-of-the-crop within minutes. Reviews for books inevitably talk about other good books in the field, and it doesn't take long before you find out what's the most popular.
If a resolution of a little less than 60 microns is sufficient, you really can't beat the price
Hmmm. This inspired me to try to see if I could move my optical mouse without moving the cursor. It's possible, but very difficult. It obviously depends on the sensitivity setting.
GIMP's layout is fine on Linux, where you can just put it on a separate desktop. But it's hell in Windows. I agree completely with this complaint; there are too many windows, and it doesn't feel like they're all tied together in a common program.
Picture this: You log onto your bank's website. You see the following programs:
Rain Cloud Butterfly Catcher Instant ATM Haunted House Kid Sister
You'd say to yourself, "WTF? 'Instant ATM' makes the most sense. I'll click on that." What do those other things do? Who the hell knows? If I have to think, you've failed.
Now picture a user that logs onto a computer. There are a TON of icons (have you ever seen the avergae user's desktop? Everyone I've seen has about twenty "Free 30 Day Trial For Slowass(tm) Internet Service!" icons on it). They just want to use the internet. What are they going to use? Firefox? Or Internet Explorer?
The name "Firefox" isn't that great. Geeks love it because, hey, fire and foxes are cool. A much better name would have been something relating to the browser domain. Something that conveys travel and exploration. Why do you think they called it "Netscape NAVIGATOR", or "Internet EXPLORER", or "SAFARI", or "KONQUERER."
Firefox should have been called something like "Web Racer", or "Web Cruiser" or something. They could have done so much with a good analogy.
But it's quite disconcerting to think that corporate America has thrown us into this "worker bee, sit at your desk and produce" model.
As opposed to the "worker bee, stand in the coal mine and shovel" model, or the "worker bee, operate the metal press and pray you don't lose an arm" model of yesteryear?
JPEG is an open, documented, standard file format.
Documented where? And don't say "do a Google search". The government needs to know that information will still be around in 50 years. And they need to store it themselves.
The real issue here isn't physically storing data. The issue is, will anyone know WTF a JPEG is in 50 years, and how to read one? Or a Visio Diagram? Or a.xyz file? I was surprised at how little the article talked about the National Archives initiative to solve this very problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Since the article earlier today said they were "about to" release the toolbar.
Feynman isn't credited with that or indeed a lot of things in "Surely you're joking Mr Feynman" and the other one the title of which escapes me.
I think it was called "Mr. Feynman, How Come You're So Awesome?"
Gotta admit, they have some smart people there. Yes, firefox is a superior browser, technologically. Yes, it's open source. Yes, it supports CSS2 a little better and yes, it supports alpha channel in PNGs. Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned? Not a bit!
But Joe Sixpack isn't an early adopter. The early adopters (i.e. web developers) DO care about CSS2, the PNG alpha channel, and (maybe) open source.
Awesome site. This one still blows me away every time.
....which race has, on average, the biggest brain? Any talk of brain size vs intelligence always leads to this question. It will be interesting to see what kind of conclusions are drawn, and how they will be interpreted by the general public.
The National Archives is building the "Electronic Record Archives" to solve this exact problem. The ERA is going to be much more sophisticated than this LOC thing mentioned in the article above.
Something I never understood: in the first movie, the Death Star blows up Alderaan. Then at the end, the Death Star is moving in on Yavin. How did the Death Star get to the Yazin system? Are we to assume that it can movie around at light speed?
The Clone Wars cartoons are freaking awesome. THAT is what the movies should have been. I'd love to see a full blown TV series based on them.
the classic hollywood ripped six pack look is impossible to maintain,
No it isn't, since a lot of people apparently do it. To get a six pack, your body fat needs to be somewhere in the 10% range. It's a challenge, but not impossible.
How about a text field where you have to re-type the warning message in order to proceed? If you get one letter wrong, you have to do it again.
Doesn't look like 1.0.1 to me, either. I can't find 1.0.1 on the site. They get an "F" for usability, since I was not able to complete my task of upgrading.
Were did the shot of Anakin all burned up come from?
BTW, I saw these pics last night when Boing Boing linked to them first, like so much of what appears on Slashdot these days.
Where do you live? I'm in the DC metro area. I've been a Netflix customer for over a year, and have been amazed by their quick turnaround the entire time. If I mail a movie on Monday, they'll receive it and ship my next choice on Tuesday, and I'll get it Wednesday. That's about as quick as it gets. Sometimes, there will be an extra day here or there if it's an obscure movie and the hub it's shipping from is far away. But in general, they are very good if you live near a city.
My only complaint about Netflix is that they don't ship out movies on Saturdays. So, if you sent something in on a Friday, they won't ship out your next film until Monday at the earliest.
Although, the 25 million downloads doesn't actually equate to 25 million users.
True. I've downloaded it about 3 times. BUT, at work, we also burned a copy to put under configuration management. Now anyone who installs it does so from that CD, not the website. So there could be some installations that aren't accounted for in the 25 million number.
No, I've noticed the 2-day lag problem, and it's becoming an issue. Boing Boing publishes a lot of these stories days earlier. In fact, I think most Slashdot readers get their submission ideas from Boing Boing. Glancing at Slashdot's front page, I see a story called "Computer-Edited Photos Lead To Child-Porn Locale", which was already covered by Boing Boing. This is becoming a regular occurence.
Well, in TFA, it says that the program was contracted out to a company named Science Applications.
It's impossible to tell what the problem was until we learn more. As someone who works in government contracting, I know that it can be like pulling teeth trying to figure out WTF the government actually wants. I'm sure a typical requirements review went something like:
ScienceApps: So, what do you guys want?
FBI: You know, a case management system that does stuff.
ScienceApps: Care to elaborate?
FBI: Sorry, gotta go.
I've found Listmania to be a good way to browse books. For example, if you're looking at a Chess book, you'll see a Listmania link. If you click on it, you'll see some user's list of recommended chess books. It's a very useful feature.
The most interesting thing about Amazon is that whenever you are searching for books on a particular topic, you can easily find the cream-of-the-crop within minutes. Reviews for books inevitably talk about other good books in the field, and it doesn't take long before you find out what's the most popular.
If a resolution of a little less than 60 microns is sufficient, you really can't beat the price
Hmmm. This inspired me to try to see if I could move my optical mouse without moving the cursor. It's possible, but very difficult. It obviously depends on the sensitivity setting.
GIMP's layout is fine on Linux, where you can just put it on a separate desktop. But it's hell in Windows. I agree completely with this complaint; there are too many windows, and it doesn't feel like they're all tied together in a common program.
In the article, Mandelbrot says it's simple to understand how some spaces can be more empty than others, once it is explained. Can someone explain it?
Picture this: You log onto your bank's website. You see the following programs:
Rain Cloud
Butterfly Catcher
Instant ATM
Haunted House
Kid Sister
You'd say to yourself, "WTF? 'Instant ATM' makes the most sense. I'll click on that." What do those other things do? Who the hell knows? If I have to think, you've failed.
Now picture a user that logs onto a computer. There are a TON of icons (have you ever seen the avergae user's desktop? Everyone I've seen has about twenty "Free 30 Day Trial For Slowass(tm) Internet Service!" icons on it). They just want to use the internet. What are they going to use? Firefox? Or Internet Explorer?
The name "Firefox" isn't that great. Geeks love it because, hey, fire and foxes are cool. A much better name would have been something relating to the browser domain. Something that conveys travel and exploration. Why do you think they called it "Netscape NAVIGATOR", or "Internet EXPLORER", or "SAFARI", or "KONQUERER."
Firefox should have been called something like "Web Racer", or "Web Cruiser" or something. They could have done so much with a good analogy.
But it's quite disconcerting to think that corporate America has thrown us into this "worker bee, sit at your desk and produce" model.
As opposed to the "worker bee, stand in the coal mine and shovel" model, or the "worker bee, operate the metal press and pray you don't lose an arm" model of yesteryear?
JPEG is an open, documented, standard file format.
Documented where? And don't say "do a Google search". The government needs to know that information will still be around in 50 years. And they need to store it themselves.
The real issue here isn't physically storing data. The issue is, will anyone know WTF a JPEG is in 50 years, and how to read one? Or a Visio Diagram? Or a .xyz file? I was surprised at how little the article talked about the National Archives initiative to solve this very problem.
Did you read the article? Care to cite what was factually incorrect?