If you were a little less ignorant, you might have left it at home where your privacy is more or less assured.
But isn't there a big difference between a 16-year-old who's in a position of learning being ignorant, and an adult in a position of power being ignorant and abusing that power?
Good to know. Personally I'll be happy to use ext4 on new disks or when I'm really doing a complete re-install, but I'm in no hurry to "upgrade", seeing as my current ext3 disks are working just fine. I played with different filesystems once until I got some corruption and realized that one of the advantages of ext3 is that it's been around long enough that there are lots of tools to help with recovery and checking. So I'll probably stick with what I know until I have an opportunity to try out ext4, but I'm not going to go and reformat my disks right away.
The IT people have it primarily so that if someone gets a document that doesn't work, they send it to IT to deal with it for them; usually to simply convert it to PDF.
That's interesting because I once had the idea that it might be useful to create a web app that would control a local copy of Word to open a document and re-save it as PDF or ODF, and provide it back to the user.
An office would then only need a single copy of Word, for pre-processing stubborn incoming documents!
Why did I quit? Time, and the fact that Nvidia basically abandoned stereo 3d for a while.
That's the problem. They always do. 3D glasses have been in and out of favour with manufacturers for years and years. They keep trying it, and then giving up. Maybe it's just too invasive to require people to use special glasses, but for whatever reason it never seems to catch on.
I remember that the Sega system had 3D glasses. I think there were about 2 games for them. I even bought (and still have) a pair for my Amiga computer. I literally only ever used them with the demo game that came with them. Nothing else was available, as far as I could tell.
Even earlier, stereoscopic movies were made in the 50's. It also turned out to be nothing but a passing fad.
I think stereoscopic vision adds a really cool level of detail to the 3D experience. Combine it with head tracking for *truly* impressive results. But unless the industry gets its act together and actually produces games and applications that use them, this technology will forever be doomed to last about a week and then disappear.
Maybe this time around it will be different: At least at this point we have many more games and applications that are actually rendered in 3D, which is a significant difference from the state of computing circa 1995. And the level of detail and realism in 3D rendering has increased dramatically. We also have operating systems that fully utilize 3D technology for day-to-day interaction, which might have interesting uses for depth perception.
Also, from a consumer point of view the glasses themselves seem to be quite a bit more stylish and less bulky, which should help quite a bit.
For those who say these will induce headaches: when I had the old glasses for the Amiga they refreshed at 30 Hz, alternating with the interlaced scanlines of the monitor display. Heck even just staring at a 30 Hz monitor without glasses will give you a headache. If these really update at 120 Hz, I don't think headaches will be a problem.
On the other hand, I was _pleasantly_ surprised to see that they'd changed "Documents and Settings/.../My Documents" into "Users/../Documents", finally making it unnecessary to deal with those damn spaces in every single file path in the home directory. *huge* improvement, or rather, finally a fix to a rather annoying screw-up (imho).
(sure, software should be able to handle the spaces, but if you do any amount of work on the command-line i'm sure you'll agree sometimes it doesn't seem worth the extra effort required)
Sometimes I wonder why Adobe don't just simply come out with a version of Photoshop for Linux. Considering the number of times that I read how badly people want this product, do you think there might be a market for it?
I'm sure it would be feasible, especially if they used the wine libraries to help port it faster. But how could they be convinced...
there isn't much depth in terms of software choice
I see what you're saying, but you have to admit something here: there isn't much depth in terms of software choice for graphics elsewhere, either. People pretty much use Adobe products, period. There may be other choices out there, but they aren't really used. When someone needs to do something, they use Photoshop and Illustrator.
and the software that does work is still immature.
It's getting better.:) Sometimes I wonder what would happen if every graphics studio in the world hired a single programmer for a single month to add a feature to GIMP or Inkscape. Of course this wouldn't happen, but it's fun to think about.
Anyways, I think there are a few options for Linux that you didn't list. Aren't there some more KDE-centric tools that are also pretty good, like Krita?
Security issues aside, this is a great example of why we should be wary of software as a service, depending on some company to always have their servers up, their software ready and your documents available to you.
You never know when they'll decide it's no longer a money-maker and pull the plug on something you've come to depend on.
I think local apps will still always have a huge role to play in computing for the long haul.
In my experience, people tend to care more about things other than the video resolution when watching TV. Like, say, the plot, or the character development.
Watching hokey, on the other hand, I can understand why people would want to see the puck better, but in the general case I think no one gives a *** about resolution.
If it's a good movie I'll happily watch it at 320, blurry, at 15 FPS, if that's all I can get.
Frankly, when it comes down to it, the sound quality matters more than the video.
If you can't hear what the actors are saying you may as well turn it off, but if you can basically get the idea of what's going on, video isn't that critical.
Not to mention that granular synthesis dates back to at least the 70's*, and has already had time to go from "cool" to "that's what was popular 10 years ago".
While it's always cool to write new audio effects software, there are plenty of systems that can achieve the effect described in the summary today. No idea why this is on the front page.
*Roads, C., 1978. "Automated granular synthesis of sound." Computer Music Journal 2(2): 61-62.
It would be in the ISP's best interests to stick to layer 3, forwarding IP packets. As soon as you start analysing and filtering them, you're doing a lot more than just being a service provider. The latest trends of demanding packet inspection and performing traffic-based throttling are really destroying the classic model of networking that the internet is based on. It's got to stop, or we'll have something that just isn't recognizable as "the internet" any longer.
If they're smart, they'll just say that inspecting traffic and disallowing certain types of packets is not in their business plan, and they don't have the capability or reason to do it. Otherwise they'll open themselves up to a lot more lawsuits down the road, from both sides of the fence. They'll find themselves having to bend over again and again for anyone asking them for pretty much anything. Instead, the right answer is, "we just forward IP packets, we don't piece them together or look at what they contain."
I'd agree with you except that my Mom wrote her master's thesis on our C64 when I was 14 or 15. I don't think she could have done it on a Nintendo. (What was a it called? Speedscript?)
I'm curious whether they are using a common GUI toolkit for their local and web-based versions of these apps.
I'm beginning to like the idea of being able to write a locally-running app and also make it web-based in one swoop.
I guess MS wouldn't be the only ones going this way. Things like GWT and Google Gears and XULrunner make this quite possible. I'm just wondering if MS is uses similar in-house technology.
The various people I've managed to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox generally haven't experienced a virus since, despite not running anti-virus software. In particular if they also stop using Outlook Express.
In contrast, I know several instances of people getting viruses even though they _are_ running Norton or McAfee.
So yes, I recommend not using anti-virus software at all. Just use safer software when you access the internet.
To me the messed up thing in all this e-Voting stuff is that the counties are using e-Voting machines that are shown to be hackable... implying that they are using the machines without fully testing them. That is, they have decided on the machines (presumably after a convincing marketing presentation), and only *after* using them, have people come along and said, hey, these aren't safe.
In usual situations, a system would be tested for hacking *before* being deployed. Until such time as it can be independently declared safe, the old, trusted system would remain in place. This rule applies to every major server in the world, why does it not apply to something as fundamental as VOTING?
We shouldn't just be mad about hackable eVoting machines, we shouldn't just be mad at the companies that make them, we should be mad about bad decisions being made by those in power to use these machines without properly testing them.
(By "we" of course I mean people who actually have to use e-Voting machines.. myself, I'm from a place that banned them, thankfully.)
Slashdot Mirror
But isn't there a big difference between a 16-year-old who's in a position of learning being ignorant, and an adult in a position of power being ignorant and abusing that power?
Anyone know what the cheapest card I can get that supports (or will soon support) OpenGL 3.0 under Linux?
Good to know. Personally I'll be happy to use ext4 on new disks or when I'm really doing a complete re-install, but I'm in no hurry to "upgrade", seeing as my current ext3 disks are working just fine. I played with different filesystems once until I got some corruption and realized that one of the advantages of ext3 is that it's been around long enough that there are lots of tools to help with recovery and checking. So I'll probably stick with what I know until I have an opportunity to try out ext4, but I'm not going to go and reformat my disks right away.
That's interesting because I once had the idea that it might be useful to create a web app that would control a local copy of Word to open a document and re-save it as PDF or ODF, and provide it back to the user.
An office would then only need a single copy of Word, for pre-processing stubborn incoming documents!
Algorithms.
Why did I quit? Time, and the fact that Nvidia basically abandoned stereo 3d for a while.
That's the problem. They always do. 3D glasses have been in and out of favour with manufacturers for years and years. They keep trying it, and then giving up. Maybe it's just too invasive to require people to use special glasses, but for whatever reason it never seems to catch on.
I remember that the Sega system had 3D glasses. I think there were about 2 games for them. I even bought (and still have) a pair for my Amiga computer. I literally only ever used them with the demo game that came with them. Nothing else was available, as far as I could tell.
Even earlier, stereoscopic movies were made in the 50's. It also turned out to be nothing but a passing fad.
I think stereoscopic vision adds a really cool level of detail to the 3D experience. Combine it with head tracking for *truly* impressive results. But unless the industry gets its act together and actually produces games and applications that use them, this technology will forever be doomed to last about a week and then disappear.
Maybe this time around it will be different: At least at this point we have many more games and applications that are actually rendered in 3D, which is a significant difference from the state of computing circa 1995. And the level of detail and realism in 3D rendering has increased dramatically. We also have operating systems that fully utilize 3D technology for day-to-day interaction, which might have interesting uses for depth perception.
Also, from a consumer point of view the glasses themselves seem to be quite a bit more stylish and less bulky, which should help quite a bit.
For those who say these will induce headaches: when I had the old glasses for the Amiga they refreshed at 30 Hz, alternating with the interlaced scanlines of the monitor display. Heck even just staring at a 30 Hz monitor without glasses will give you a headache. If these really update at 120 Hz, I don't think headaches will be a problem.
On the other hand, I was _pleasantly_ surprised to see that they'd changed "Documents and Settings/.../My Documents" into "Users/../Documents", finally making it unnecessary to deal with those damn spaces in every single file path in the home directory. *huge* improvement, or rather, finally a fix to a rather annoying screw-up (imho).
(sure, software should be able to handle the spaces, but if you do any amount of work on the command-line i'm sure you'll agree sometimes it doesn't seem worth the extra effort required)
Sometimes I wonder why Adobe don't just simply come out with a version of Photoshop for Linux. Considering the number of times that I read how badly people want this product, do you think there might be a market for it?
I'm sure it would be feasible, especially if they used the wine libraries to help port it faster. But how could they be convinced...
I see what you're saying, but you have to admit something here: there isn't much depth in terms of software choice for graphics elsewhere, either. People pretty much use Adobe products, period. There may be other choices out there, but they aren't really used. When someone needs to do something, they use Photoshop and Illustrator.
It's getting better. :) Sometimes I wonder what would happen if every graphics studio in the world hired a single programmer for a single month to add a feature to GIMP or Inkscape. Of course this wouldn't happen, but it's fun to think about.
Anyways, I think there are a few options for Linux that you didn't list. Aren't there some more KDE-centric tools that are also pretty good, like Krita?
Security issues aside, this is a great example of why we should be wary of software as a service, depending on some company to always have their servers up, their software ready and your documents available to you.
You never know when they'll decide it's no longer a money-maker and pull the plug on something you've come to depend on.
I think local apps will still always have a huge role to play in computing for the long haul.
Just played a game of brick breaker on Ubuntu. It's Java folks, it runs fine. Nice to see a simple game not eating my CPU like Flash does, too.
In my experience, people tend to care more about things other than the video resolution when watching TV. Like, say, the plot, or the character development.
Watching hokey, on the other hand, I can understand why people would want to see the puck better, but in the general case I think no one gives a *** about resolution.
If it's a good movie I'll happily watch it at 320, blurry, at 15 FPS, if that's all I can get.
Frankly, when it comes down to it, the sound quality matters more than the video.
If you can't hear what the actors are saying you may as well turn it off, but if you can basically get the idea of what's going on, video isn't that critical.
Maybe I just have low standards.
I understand what you're saying, but if motion blur is used to render a frame, doesn't that count for 1 frame?
Semantics, I guess.
Not to mention that granular synthesis dates back to at least the 70's*, and has already had time to go from "cool" to "that's what was popular 10 years ago".
While it's always cool to write new audio effects software, there are plenty of systems that can achieve the effect described in the summary today. No idea why this is on the front page.
*Roads, C., 1978. "Automated granular synthesis of sound." Computer Music Journal 2(2): 61-62.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/20/1633231
It would be in the ISP's best interests to stick to layer 3, forwarding IP packets. As soon as you start analysing and filtering them, you're doing a lot more than just being a service provider. The latest trends of demanding packet inspection and performing traffic-based throttling are really destroying the classic model of networking that the internet is based on. It's got to stop, or we'll have something that just isn't recognizable as "the internet" any longer.
If they're smart, they'll just say that inspecting traffic and disallowing certain types of packets is not in their business plan, and they don't have the capability or reason to do it. Otherwise they'll open themselves up to a lot more lawsuits down the road, from both sides of the fence. They'll find themselves having to bend over again and again for anyone asking them for pretty much anything. Instead, the right answer is, "we just forward IP packets, we don't piece them together or look at what they contain."
Wouldn't that be a breach of the GPL? If they are distributing a product based on GPL code but not distributing the source with it...
As far as I remember, the GPL can't be "time shifted" like that.
Well, I guess like everything else in business, things are interpreted in units of "time-to-sue".
So what stops someone *other* than Microsoft going ahead and doing this?
I'd agree with you except that my Mom wrote her master's thesis on our C64 when I was 14 or 15. I don't think she could have done it on a Nintendo.
(What was a it called? Speedscript?)
I'm curious whether they are using a common GUI toolkit for their local and web-based versions of these apps.
I'm beginning to like the idea of being able to write a locally-running app and also make it web-based in one swoop.
I guess MS wouldn't be the only ones going this way. Things like GWT and Google Gears and XULrunner make this quite possible. I'm just wondering if MS is uses similar in-house technology.
I thought Quartz was the name of the graphics / drawing API, not the windowing system..
And Aqua is just the name of the theme, isn't it? What is the name of the actual windowing system?
The various people I've managed to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox generally haven't experienced a virus since, despite not running anti-virus software. In particular if they also stop using Outlook Express.
In contrast, I know several instances of people getting viruses even though they _are_ running Norton or McAfee.
So yes, I recommend not using anti-virus software at all. Just use safer software when you access the internet.
To me the messed up thing in all this e-Voting stuff is that the counties are using e-Voting machines that are shown to be hackable... implying that they are using the machines without fully testing them. That is, they have decided on the machines (presumably after a convincing marketing presentation), and only *after* using them, have people come along and said, hey, these aren't safe.
In usual situations, a system would be tested for hacking *before* being deployed. Until such time as it can be independently declared safe, the old, trusted system would remain in place. This rule applies to every major server in the world, why does it not apply to something as fundamental as VOTING?
We shouldn't just be mad about hackable eVoting machines, we shouldn't just be mad at the companies that make them, we should be mad about bad decisions being made by those in power to use these machines without properly testing them.
(By "we" of course I mean people who actually have to use e-Voting machines.. myself, I'm from a place that banned them, thankfully.)
This was on reddit the other day..
http://www.p01.org/releases/Demoscene/files/mars_canvas_256b.htm
Hahah.
Anyways yes I use flashblock.
And I still click on videos when I want to watch them.
And they still use too much CPU.