Why? because cooking is a fucking chore. No one is going to immerse themselves in a universe of feeding my goddamn face.
There's a lot of restaurants out there ready to do that. All you have to do is go to one.
Real adults are so lazy they DON'T GET OUT OF THEIR CARS IN ORDER TO CONSUME FOOD. It needs to be handed to us through a window pre-prepared. Do you think this same adult is going to buy a game where I have to engage in a motor skills learning curve just to figure out how to mimic in real life some lame activity?
I wouldn't call them "real adults" - but rather "lazy adults". Personally, it is very rare for me to go through the drive through - I usually park, get out, and go in - even if I am taking it with me.
Prior to that, gaming was a kids thing or a small segment of adutls thing. Now its huge and tons of people game. That's why Sony and Microsoft are #1 and #2, because they brought gaming to everyone and made a game for every type of person.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft did anything to bring gaming to the masses. It was primarily Atari, and Nintendo did that - yes, Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon late in the game (no pun intended) and took over the market as a generation of gamers grew up - and that "small adult" group became a rather large group. Sony and Microsoft have neither done much to innovate in the gaming market either - all they have really done is add more graphical features. In the process, they left a good majority of the masses behind, and targetted only on that "small adult" group.
Nintendo is instead taking a different approach by marketing their product...
Nintendo, on the other hand, has primarily focused more on the masses than on that "small adult" group - and the Wii/Revolution only goes to show that even more. The Wii/Revolution will be a revolution because it once again brings gaming back to the masses. Nintendo will take over because their games will appeal to a far wider audience than Sony or Microsoft are looking to appeal, and an audience that does not care so much about graphical quality as they do that the game is just plain fun and entertaining. Joe Shmoe does not want to have to learn how to play a game for 4 hours before playing the game - they want to just sit down, play, and have fun. That is certainly an aspect that Sony and Microsoft have forgotten - or never intended to remember to start with.
Want proof that controllers don't matter? Look at sales of racing games versus sales of racing wheel controllers.
The problem with this analogy is that the Wiimote will be provided with the Wii; where as you would have to go out and buy a racing wheel in addition to the system - no system has offered a wheel as its de facto controller. The Wiimote, on the other hand, it a very innovative device that captures the ease of using things in real life (a sword, a stick, a golf club, etc - things people already know how to use) and brings their normal, intuitive use into the gaming experience. Suddenly, it becomes a lot easier for real golfers to play Mario Golf - as golfing experience and a little gaming practice can make you very good; but a newbie to golfer, who may be able to hit the buttons at the right time on an NES, will have a learning curve just like in playing a real game of golf - they can practice and get it right - there will (of course) be slight differences, but it becomes a lot more natural to do various activities, such as playing golf, or playing the drums, or swinging a sword.
And best of all, the Wiimote is the default controller with the Wii - which means it will be widely accepted.
best looking cars, with real licensed brands, and actual recorded exhaust sounds, and ranking systems and online play
Ironically those are all gimmicks themselves. "Licensed brands" are just a way of aiding
However, software developers (though more likely PHB's of software companies) have instead tormented us by trying to obfuscate where things are stored.
Thats the issue.
As I said, it is standardized, but it's not MS's fault. There's not too much one can do about controlling that kind of behavior. And you get the same behaviour on the unix/linux conf file type systems - except now it is in files scattered across the hard drive that are just as hard to locate.
1. Migrating configs from one system to another system. On a *nix based system, I can simply copy the text configs and be on my way.. With the registry, there is no standard way to export the config of a given application easily and consistently.
Sure there is - select the key and go File->Export using regedit.exe - or write your own to do the same thing.
2. Organization - ties into #1 -- there are LOTS of programs that store/update/modify registry information in various parts of the registry. As a result, it is *VERY* difficult to track down configuration issues unless it has been previously documented (ie KB article). Outlook tops my list for aggervation with this one.
The Registry itself has a very strict organization that breaks down into both user and system configurations. However, software developers (though more likely PHB's of software companies) have instead tormented us by trying to obfuscate where things are stored. (Ex: trying to find a license key for a program in that is stored in the registry - it could be spread through several different keys, etc. depending on the program and company.) This is no more Microsoft's design fault than it is Microsoft's fault for the existenance of the IRS. Rather it is the fault of the programers (and PHB's) that try to use the registry for something it is not.
Lack of alternate configs.. as programs store their configs in the registry, it is not possible to point an app to a different configuration. Ie- in a *nix config, I can simply point my apps to different config files and this adjusts runtime accordingly. Pretty nice for testing as well (much easier than attempting to locate a config key, export from registry, make a change, run it.. see if it works, reimport the reg key, yada yada..).
The Registry is, at its simplest, two files - a system fail (system.dat on Win9x - I think it's the same on WinNT and later, but don't remember off-hand) and a user file (user.dat on Win9x). Win NT3.51 and NT4 actually used a multitude of Registry files (hives) to compose the registry, but that seems to have disappeared in 2k and later. Unfortunately, Microsoft stores these files on disk in binary, which makes loading them quick, but does not work well for backup purposes or portability.
While you can easily provide an alternate config in some respects (e.g. for user settings), it is very hard to provide an alternate config for most anything. It's even a decently hard task to keep one user from affecting another user, or even from a user messing up their registry during development and being able to restore it on logout.
Lots of data loaded un-necessarily. The registry contains a LOT of information. Configs for apps I use infrequently still are loaded and still need to be dealt with (a source of general slowdown).
No ability to add comments to particular settings (ie a comment line in a text config file).
AFAIK, no built-in versioning control (can't see how the registry has changed over time)
Very true. And there is no way to clean it all either.
I do like the fact the registry provides a standard interface for configuration data
The Win APIs have provided standard interfaces for config files for quite a while. There are APIs for the INI files and those too can even automagically switch from an INI to the Registry if used right. This is one nice thing about Windows - the APIs are not hard to use either.
XP is a major upgrade in stability... over Windows 95/98/ME that is
XP is hardly a major upgrade in stability over the Win9x series. It is just as pathetic and broken and even more burdensome. However, it does a great job in hiding it.
Yes, it does not allow the software to talk directly to the hardware - neither did WinME, btw.
No, it still has a lot of the 16-bit stuff there. WinXP wouldn't be able to run the older software if it didn't. You can still program to the 16-bit APIs and run on WinXP as well. I don't know why you would want to - the 16-bit APIs are not very good. However, they are still there and they do cause a lot of problems still even on WinXP and will likely to do so in Vista as well.
XP really only does a good job of hiding how horrible it actually is.
Per WinME - if you had good hardware, it ran perfectly fine and was perhaps the best version of Windows ever released by Microsoft. The problem is that in the IBM/PC-clone world, most hardware is not good and standards conforming - even among the best of hardware. So having a system that had the right hardware was (from what I understand) rare. I happened to have a system that way, and no - DOS did not exist in WinME; there was no way of getting to it except through the command shell just like with WinNT/2k/XP - and most of the error message in WinME were from the WinNT kernel - not the Win9x kernel. (My suspicion is the WinME was Win2k CE (consumer edition), but was never really completed - it never had the holes punched in it for all the crap software and hardware that is out there, so crap hardware and software (hardware and software that did not follow the specs) did not work well, so it got a bad name.
Win9x/NT/ME/2k at least did not insult the user's intelligence like WinXP does. But that's a different issue. It is still a wonder though, that the older software (Win9x/NT4) was a lot more stable and better written than their current software (2k/XP, and likely Vista too)...I wonder, will Microsoft continue the trend in stability: 4% crashes with WinNT, 8% crashes with Win2k, and 12% crashes with WinXP - that would make Vista be 16% crashes if they do.
XP offered a major upgrade in stability, to the point where it's almost on par with most other operating systems
You sure about that? Really? Honestly? I mean - come on, XP only reboots without telling the user in order to maintain the "illusion" of stability. Why don't you see any BSOD's? Because it automagically reboots instead of showing them (except on rare occassion). (Though my favorite was changing the blue/white in the BSOD to red/black - gave it a more 'of death' feel to it.) XP stable? sure, and Bill Gates is your god.
While I have not RTFA'd...based on the summary I at least agree with it myself. I would love to have a phone that is nothing more than a phone, and possibly and address book. That's all I need - and that's all I use on my current phone (Motorola v180). Connectivity and calling people is all I need and want to do. And, based on the summary, I think that more and more people are getting to that point - they don't want all the features.
Now, reading through the/. responses, I think that the/. audience is generally an exception to this - most of/. readers are techo-geeks, so they'd be naturally drawn to phones with more features. But the average Joe probably just wants to be able to make a phone call and have it actually work.
Per work - I actually can't have a camera - not allowed.
And - just to note - about the only feature I would find useful besides basic phone/address book would be bluetooth, but only in so far as being able to use a bluetooth earpiece and syncing my phonebook with the computer. That's it.
As others have said - it's not in the telco's interest to provide a service like that - they make too much money off the other functions because they can charge different rates. Me - I turn off all the data features, and have instructed the provider to do so - only data feature is the old pager equivalent - not text messging, no internet, etc. Just phone, and paging. (Paging can be nice - but I only keep it since there is no charge for it. I imagine I'd do the same for other things too if it were free, but they're not and I'm not going to pay for them either; so I turn them off.)
Oh - and my parents and others I know are the same way about the phones. Some (my sister) might use a little more, but even the uses I am aware of can be done without Internet - and just 411 directory dialing.
Again, based on the summary (since I didn't RTFA) - I think the article is really just showing there are a lot more people out there like me than the/. audience and even the telco's thought.
Every company will be in the position to revoke its own keys to cover up any blunder they made. From "internal" spreadsheets that get leaked to rootkits that, when discovered, become a PR desaster.
Or just think of the position that companies will be putting themselve in if they use the TPM modules for the Trusted Computing stuff that's coming out...
Encrypt your hard drive using the TPM module on the motherboard; motherboard gets fried (overheat/laptop got dropped/whatever); data is gone.
In the case of TPM, there is no master key - that would defeat the entire system (especially if it got leaked). But TPM/TC is being sold to companies as a "way to protect your data" - great, but don't forget that it'll protect it against you too.
Despite Nintendo's adherence to disruptive-thinking, the company is clearly wedded to the concept of up-front single payments for product as its main revenue source.
The issue now is that single payments as the only real revenue stream IS dirsuptive thinking. More and more companies are looking at the 'pay now, then keep paying' school of design...
I think the really big thing is that Nintendo is looking to an entirely untapped market that Microsoft and Sony seem to be ignoring. One of the first things I heard about the Wii (when it was still 'Revolution') was that they were going to release all the games for prior Nintendo systems for it - don't know if its true, but it certainly grabbed my attention; and just looking at some of the stuff about the Wii it seems that are looking to follow through on that, but only time will tell.
The amazing thing is that Nintendo is looking to the normal person to be their game audience - the people that grew up on and are still using the NES, SNES, etc. I'm certainly in that boat - I have two NES systems (one original style, one upright/SNES style) that I still hook up to the TV from time to time and play. I have not yet bought a PSX/PS2/Xbox/Xbox360/GC - and in fact I won't buy a PSX - no need to, nor do I like Microsoft enough to buy a Xbox/Xbox360, and I don't have a desire to buy a PS2 (though I might as a DVD player and for my couple of PS2 games, and possibly a few other PS2 games that I _might_ buy...but that's unlikely now)...
Now, I never did buy a GC, but now - especially if Nintendo waits long enough to push out the Wii, which I doubt - I'd be a lot more likely to buy a GC knowing that my GC games, cards, and controllers will work on the Wii. That's actually quite a first for any console - PS2/Xbox360 had support for older games, but you still had to replace all your memory cards and controllers (AFIAK).
I was thinking I would get a PS3, but then Sony killed that by making the price super high, and it just isn't worth it - I don't care enough, nor do I have that kind of money laying around.
But the Wii - if the rumor/analysts should be trusted - should be at a good price, and I don't have to worry about losing my current (though small) investment. But the really big killer is that I might get to get all those NES/SNES/N64 games that I wanted way back when and never got, and get them on the brand new Wii - that'd be a selling point in itself; not to mention that the controller can be turned 90 degrees and instantly you have the original NES controller - just brings back memories, good memories.
So yeah - I think Nintendo will make a real huge come back because they are looking to the rest of the market - where Sony and Microsoft are not paying attention. They're looking to the average person who does not want to spend a month or two playing the thousands and thousands of levels, but would rather take the next 10 years to play a little here and a little there, and may be eventually beat the game; or just pal-around with buddies over a beer while playing to have some fun, nothing serious - and they've made it simple enough that it really could be a source of family entertainment if everyone got together and played the games - I mean com'on, parents sitting down with their kids playing a game from their childhood (Duck Hunt anyone?) that has been updated enough that their kids won't realize that their parents actually use to play the game, what parent wouldn't want to play with them?
I'll get one - and it'll go with our non-HD TV, and my wife and I will be able to enjoy the game, without worrying about what little detail will kill us next, and in time we'd be able to enjoy with our kids, being able to play it just as easily as they - not something possible with the Sony/Microsoft consoles.
For example - anyone could sit down and play MarioKart and have fun; but NFS or GT or the likes - only the advanced players that played day-in-day-out co
you do become intersted in Blu-Ray, they'll be much cheaper as standalone players.
As I said earlier - I will not buy a standalone player any more because those guys have just gotten too greedy and are starting to foobar the players after software determined hour limits...so a PS3 or similar is the only way I could figure...other than getting a drive for the computer, which is my real plan in the long run. However, given the PS3's pricetag - I won't buy it for movies OR for games. It's just too expensive.
'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,'
Yeah, cuz he's got nothing to gain or lose in this battle... impartial my aunt Susie!
Probably not so much impartial in the area of the search business, though...more likely telling Microsoft that they have no chance of partnering with Yahoo - he doesn't have to think about it, and it's not about partiality - they're just not going to do it, so Microsoft should go pester someone else...Altavista, Lycos, Excite, Google...but someone else.
It's kinda like me when I get phone calls for donations - I let them say their little thing about who they are and wait for them to ask for money...then I say something to the extent of "Well...I can't at the moment, so I'll let you get on to someone else". He's kind of saying the same thing to Microsoft - we're not interested; we're not going to do it; so go on to someone - anyone - else. Don't waste your time, effort, or money on us - cause you're not going to get anywhere.
I actually disagree with the premise that "search is hard". Search at its core is exceedingly simple. Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines.
Search is quite hard as the engine has not only to interpret what the user is asking, but also interpret what the pages are trying to convey - thus, as fireboy1919 pointed out - it is very much AI, and a very problematic one at that.
Search would be a lot easier if we had linguistic AI's already worked out - but we don't...and that in itself is one of the hardest AI problems out there. I say it would be easier if we had linguistic AI's worked out only because that would solve half the problem - interpretting what the pages are trying to convey - it still doesn't solve the problem of interpretting what the user is asking, which is a far more complex problem than interpretting what the pages are trying to convey.
The hard part I assume you mean is the filtering and ranking of results. Even that isn't some magic vodoo anymore. There are many well known tools accomplishing this. From from more complex topics like Bayesian filtering, to simple use of web statistics, and even "trust measures"
There may be a number of tools - but they are not likely going to work. For example, Bayesian filters work because the community helps the AI learn what is valid and what is not - works great for spam control on large e-mail systems, but would suck for search results. Per fireboy1919's example of "explosive materials" - one person using it could mark something valid that another person would find invalid, it just doesn't work.
Web statistics don't generally work too well either, but at least they don't require user intervention to help the AI learn.
The problem is a long way from being solved. For example, when was the last time you didn't spend a lot of time searching for a file on your own hard drive (many magnitudes smaller than the Internet) and hit a bunch of things that are just not right? Even there at the simplest level of computer searches it's still being refined and worked on. Sure there are better tools now - Google Desktop, etc. - that do a lot better, but they still have a long way to go. When that problem is solved, then we can start thinking about how far along the "search the Internet" problem is to being solved - one this is for sure, it'll be years after.
Google certainly is the best out there to date, but even they have a long way to go - and they know it and working on it. Now, if the multi-billion dollar google has to keep refining their engine every day to make sure it stays at least as accurate - if not get more accurate - how much more would MS or Yahoo have to invest to do the same? They have never really had any where near as good results as Google does.
They day the search problem is solved, is the day that computers run the world and you're plugged into one via a brain tap device like in the Matrix. Until then, all they can do is refine the engines to do a little bit better and hope they are better enough than the majority of others to stay among the top. As one of the Google guys said - it really is best to have multiple choices to keep the competition up - something Microsoft doesn't really understand - in any of their business ventures.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185669&cid=153 24604
No one cares about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD except a few early adopters.
And most of those early adopters will be home theater buffs, who won't want to buy a player in the form of a game console.
I'm one of them. I'm excited about Blu-Ray, but I'll take a standalone DVD player, thankyouverymuch.
Well....I was considering buying a PS3 - partially because I could then play my PS2 games (I have yet to buy a PS2, but got a couple games to play at friend's houses), and also for the blue-ray and hoping to get some really cool new games on the PS3. However...(a) I really don't care for HDTV - I wanted the blue-ray because it is likely going to stick and become the replacement for DVD (I really don't think HD-DVD will stick). (b) I could care less about large screens, and super high-res graphics, it's more about forward compatibility that I wanted the blue-ray; however, (c) I'm not going to pay more than $300 for the thing - I figured I'd get the PS3 for blueray because I'm not going to buy another standalone player - DVD or otherwise - after the crap that the manufacturers are doing with software date bombs, etc. so that the players only work for a certain time period and then crap out for no good reason; I figure a game console maker does not have any desire to do that as they are more wanting to sell games or get the royalties off others making games for their console, not selling the console; so the more people that have it the better they are in the end, and since they generally lose money on each sale, they don't have a reason to screw over the customer with date bombs or anything programmed in.
However, seeing that Nintendo's Wii will have combatibility with the GameCube (didn't buy that either...but I do have some games for it...may be now I'll get more...), I'm even more likely to get the Wii...I was planning on it any way, but if their price is right (and the rumored $150-$200 would be great!), then I'll probably preorder it...if my wife will let me...I'm sure we'll both enjoy it for year...heck...I've still got 2 NES systems (one original, and one of the newer/1995 era design) that still work perfectly great...so here's hoping Nintendo's price is a lot better...and boy...I can't wait to see one of those Wii's sitting in my living room...they just look the coolest...oh, and I'll just stick to my computers for the DVD action...
Simple, use something familiar to whoever you are trying to reach. For a business person, talk about how programming is similar to a business process; for a teacher, talk about how it is like putting together their teaching plans; etc. You will never reach anyone if you don't illustrate it with something that is familiar to them - it also helps to be generally familiar yourself too, though you can always get them to help fill in the details of how whatever it is they do works. Basically - relate it to their job.
However, that would only work for describing how a program in general works and is put together (i.e. inc ax; mov [ebx+4], cx; etc.). When it comes to other kinds of concepts (Design, requirements, etc.) you need to still use something familiar to them, but perhaps something other than their job - though that might still work in some cases. For example, in describing how one project does its job but could really stand a lot of improvement in its design, I described the original version of the project as a 'tape player' and the new version as what we wanted - a 'cd player' - but it pulled a lot from the old version, so we made the 'cd player' understand "tapes"; however, what we really want is the 'dvd player' that can play the "cd's" and do more too. Make it connect, and make it make sense.
A good reminder might be - if a 5 year old can't understand what you're saying, then you need a different analogy. Not perfectly true, but something that works. Alternatively (if you don't like 5 year olds), one of my teachers use to say to document our programs like his grandmother would be reading them - if she couldn't understand it, don't expect him to either. In the end, just remember to keep it simple - apples vs. oranges type simple.
If you couldn't understand what my point was WRT biological evolution theory vs. technological evolution, I'll try to explain differently. There is no reason to settle for JGE when we have the resources and ability to work on other dev lines that may yield better than current 'JGE' results. Or, rather, it would raise the bar of 'Just Good Enough'.
However, JGE will always be JGE - and regardless, people will buy JGE when it works instead of paying more for the better than. For example - this is how Microsoft became so large - they produced a lot of products that were intertwined that were all JGE. Microsoft has not desire to be better than because better than costs a lot more, and they want the money. It's a capitalist economy (pure/partial/whatever) and that how a capitalist economy works.
Now, if you could create a business case for the 'better than' being better business and reaping in more money than the JGE effort, then you may get enough money...but you'd have to make the better than cheap enough so people will buy it instead...which since it is better than will be hard to do because better than is almost always more expensive.
Per your biology example - that doesn't work either, and is quite flawed. The animals in the Americas survived quite fine with humans for thousands of years prior to the European Colonization; it was the rapid advance of technology due to the European Colonization that is what lead to the mass destruction of many species - and many humans too. And - FYI - that's not evolution in any sense - no two "species" or groups of humans "evolved" beyond any other, it was purely a knowledge growth of one group of humans being beyond that of another simply because the other had not been introduced to it - not that they were not capable of it (obviously they were capable of it as many that were introduced to it used it very well...sometimes too well...). It's politics and academics, nothing more.
I know this from...a trainer, we'll leave it at that. They have ways to make dogs indicate a "hit", using body language or subtle hand movements, etc., that part varies. They use that "technique" all the time when they want to search a car for instance even when the dog doesn't have a legit "hit".
Actually, no - a real trainer does not teach them anything that way. Rather...they basically get the dogs addicted to the various substances they want them to look for, or related substances (.e.g cocaine, lsd, gunpowder, etc.). I know this from a trainer that is a friend of my family who has trained a number of police dogs for various purposes for years.
Now if a dog's human partner gives them additional "training" to do so - then that cop is looking for trouble and will eventually end up with all kinds of legal matters of his/her own.
Point is - unless the trainer is corrupt (possible), it's not the trainer training them to do that - it's the corrupt officer.
I wasn't speaking about hardware. That 5-10 year timespan is to find efficient ways of modeling the capability based security that I described earlier.
It still won't hold. Security always comes at a cost of performance as it takes more instructions to verify. It doesn't matter whether the security is in hardware or software, it will cost performance. As with Java, they may find ways to make it more efficient, but it won't get much better.
As with most things there are a handful of practical barriers to overcome (primarily performance related), but another 5-10 years and those problems should be sorted out.
I would hardly call more powerful hardware being made available 'sorting out' the problem.
Agreed. Just because more powerful computers come around does not mean that the performance problems will be solved. They may be minimalized, but for an OS it is even more critical that performance gains be achieved and not winnowed (sp?) away by how some theoretical (sp?) solution works when better solutions are available.
For example - Java runs just as slow as it always has. Some improvements have been made, but not by much. Take a version of Java and put it on an older system (say PII/233) and compare todays versions to that of a version from when the system was released. The performance difference will not be very different. Move to newer machines, and they will still not be very different; but it will seem different to the user because of the faster processor - though even that may not help the program much.
OS kernels by nature have to work with dangerous languages and do things out of the ordinary for the OS to even work. VM'ing the kernel does not solve anything, or moving the kernel to a "type safe" language. (Yes, those kinds of things can work for limited scenerios, but not for general computer operating systems - like Windows, Linux, etc - the performance just will never be there.)
And if you really think that these performance issues would be solved by faster processors - think again. Many devices (USB Scanners, Printers, Audio Devices, Video Devices, PVRs, etc) rely on near real-time performance of the OS to work the way we want them to work so that we can't hear/see the difference, etc. The scenerio your imposing to "solve" (which it won't do) the problem will create other problems for these kinds of devices. Think webcasting is bad now? Try it with your solution. You'd move back to the current OS very quickly.
When the western part of the Roman Empire collapsed, it definitely could be considered a massive collapse of civilization and loss of knowledge. It took Europeans over a thousand years to recover even a portion of what was lost.
Quite wrong. Modern historians have been striving for half a century now to correct the urban myth of a "Dark Ages". Not much changed at all after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
However, there is still a good deal of lost technology from the "Middle East"/Roman Empire area - namely how much of the monuments were built. We still can't figure it out, though there have been a good number of attempts in recent years. Granted, that's still not on the scale the original parent (gp? ggp?) was referring, but it has happened.
but economic considerations tend to apply a lot more pressure than the toothless protests of environmental protection groups.
Except that it is precisely because of those "environmental protection groups" that a gas refinery (sp?) has not been built in decades, and because the current refineries are becoming hard to operate/less efficient (because they need technology updates or need to be replaced) or shutting down, the prices are going up.
The price does not have much to do with availability of oil/raw petro, but rather our ability to refine it, which is deminishing. (FYI - from what I've heard, it takes about 10 years to properly build a refinery.)
BTW, ethanol is not a solution either. It typically will aid in burning through gas roughly twice as fast, and many new cars are still not designed for it. So chalk up some of the rising prices to gas going fast due to ethanol usage too.
Longhorn is the biggest failed project in software development history, at least in the private sector. The previous record holder would be IBM Office Vision.
What about Bob?
I wouldn't consider MS Bob to be that big of a failure - after all, it yielded Clippy and all the other "agent" assistance things throughout Windows and Office. So while the program itself was a huge failure, it yielded technology that was actually usable - so, in the end, it wasn't really a failure. (Note: I'm not saying anything about the likeability of the agents...we all know how much everyone hates Clippy in Office 97->XP.)
As per Vista/Longhorn - yeah, that's a big failure. I remember first hearing about Longhorn back around 1998 or 1999, when 2000 was upcoming. So even a 6 year delay is off - it's more like 8 or 10, perhaps more. They've been pretty much promising everything that was suppose to be in Longhorn since about 1995 or so - and every time they make a release its "we had to drop this" and "we couldn't do that".
He was probably right to oppose nuclear power. Certainly we have better technology today to make safer nuclear power. Again, nuclear power will never be completely safe, but neither is wind, hydro, nor coal. Conservation, both thru individual action and thru technology are probably the safest 'forms of power', but they would never be enough.
Actually, if you RTFA'd you'd notice that he scolds himself for being against nuclear power 30 years ago and cites how the safety aspects of the US nuclear power facilities - only major incident in US nuclear power history is PA's Three-Mile Island, which - as he states was a success, not a failure, since it completely contained the incident as it was designed to do.
Why does he scold himself? Because, as he says in the article, the techology could be a lot further along if it was allowed to develop instead of being put on the side-burner for nearly 30 years where it got little development, at least in the US markets.
From the article, I'm sure he'd agree that we need to get underway with starting to build new nuclear plants now.
My point being that there are plenty of interesting tastes in the world which don't involve alcohol, so if you do drink then you must do so for the mind altering effects, therefore the person you were replying to is right.
One of the reasons I rarely drink more than one drink a night? I don't particularly like feeling drunk. I assure you, taste is by far the primary reason I consume alcoholic beverages (if I do). That wasn't always the case, but I'm past that stage of my life now.
Agreed. While I am younger than thou, I have never had a desire to get "drunk" or "out of control"; however, I do like the taste of alcohol - but that doesn't mean I will drink just anything. For instance, I like my "three wisemen", "liquid cocaine", "white russians" and other such drinks, but can't stand beer - won't get near the stuff - and can enjoy a little bit of wine - but the large bulb glasses at restaurants are just way too much.
And no, its not the "side effects" that I am after (as someone else was talking about) - I simply like the taste itself - just like I like sugar, chocolate, ice cream, steak, etc.
That also doesn't mean that I don't understand why people at times would drink for the "side effects" - it can be quite relaxing after a stressful day when done right.
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of factors. However, something to consider is what do you want to support? If you want to support DRM and such technologies, then go ahead and buy it. The media companies will eventually look and say "hey there's all the TPM chips out there. let's use them" and then the world is screwed over as they won't let their stuff play on something without it or with TPM disabled. So personally, I try to get something without it.
Now, I do have an AMD64 system that has on in it - but I run Linux on that system (for now, my fiance wants Windows so it might be Windows in the future...not sure) and I have the chip disabled. I bought the system from a friend, so didn't have much say. However, any system I do buy I will look at that very closely.
Also, if you are looking for one without, I helped my sister buy an AMD64-based HP laptop a few months ago. After we go it, I found out that it didn't have TPM at all. I think it was like a z6000 or something. Any how...it's a good laptop, and doesn't have it.
But to the point, consider what you want to support and where you want the industry to go. Because the only way to get them to listen is through your wallet - $$ is your voting power. I chose not to buy it. Others may chose to buy it, but most that get it probably don't know about it. And, as has been pointed out, TPM can really screw you over if its part of your backup authentication mechanisms or similar (encryption, authentication, DRM, etc.).
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There's a lot of restaurants out there ready to do that. All you have to do is go to one.
I wouldn't call them "real adults" - but rather "lazy adults". Personally, it is very rare for me to go through the drive through - I usually park, get out, and go in - even if I am taking it with me.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft did anything to bring gaming to the masses. It was primarily Atari, and Nintendo did that - yes, Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon late in the game (no pun intended) and took over the market as a generation of gamers grew up - and that "small adult" group became a rather large group. Sony and Microsoft have neither done much to innovate in the gaming market either - all they have really done is add more graphical features. In the process, they left a good majority of the masses behind, and targetted only on that "small adult" group.
Nintendo, on the other hand, has primarily focused more on the masses than on that "small adult" group - and the Wii/Revolution only goes to show that even more. The Wii/Revolution will be a revolution because it once again brings gaming back to the masses. Nintendo will take over because their games will appeal to a far wider audience than Sony or Microsoft are looking to appeal, and an audience that does not care so much about graphical quality as they do that the game is just plain fun and entertaining. Joe Shmoe does not want to have to learn how to play a game for 4 hours before playing the game - they want to just sit down, play, and have fun. That is certainly an aspect that Sony and Microsoft have forgotten - or never intended to remember to start with.
The problem with this analogy is that the Wiimote will be provided with the Wii; where as you would have to go out and buy a racing wheel in addition to the system - no system has offered a wheel as its de facto controller. The Wiimote, on the other hand, it a very innovative device that captures the ease of using things in real life (a sword, a stick, a golf club, etc - things people already know how to use) and brings their normal, intuitive use into the gaming experience. Suddenly, it becomes a lot easier for real golfers to play Mario Golf - as golfing experience and a little gaming practice can make you very good; but a newbie to golfer, who may be able to hit the buttons at the right time on an NES, will have a learning curve just like in playing a real game of golf - they can practice and get it right - there will (of course) be slight differences, but it becomes a lot more natural to do various activities, such as playing golf, or playing the drums, or swinging a sword.
And best of all, the Wiimote is the default controller with the Wii - which means it will be widely accepted.
Ironically those are all gimmicks themselves. "Licensed brands" are just a way of aiding
While you can easily provide an alternate config in some respects (e.g. for user settings), it is very hard to provide an alternate config for most anything. It's even a decently hard task to keep one user from affecting another user, or even from a user messing up their registry during development and being able to restore it on logout. Very true. And there is no way to clean it all either. The Win APIs have provided standard interfaces for config files for quite a while. There are APIs for the INI files and those too can even automagically switch from an INI to the Registry if used right. This is one nice thing about Windows - the APIs are not hard to use either.
Yes, it does not allow the software to talk directly to the hardware - neither did WinME, btw.
No, it still has a lot of the 16-bit stuff there. WinXP wouldn't be able to run the older software if it didn't. You can still program to the 16-bit APIs and run on WinXP as well. I don't know why you would want to - the 16-bit APIs are not very good. However, they are still there and they do cause a lot of problems still even on WinXP and will likely to do so in Vista as well.
XP really only does a good job of hiding how horrible it actually is.
Per WinME - if you had good hardware, it ran perfectly fine and was perhaps the best version of Windows ever released by Microsoft. The problem is that in the IBM/PC-clone world, most hardware is not good and standards conforming - even among the best of hardware. So having a system that had the right hardware was (from what I understand) rare. I happened to have a system that way, and no - DOS did not exist in WinME; there was no way of getting to it except through the command shell just like with WinNT/2k/XP - and most of the error message in WinME were from the WinNT kernel - not the Win9x kernel. (My suspicion is the WinME was Win2k CE (consumer edition), but was never really completed - it never had the holes punched in it for all the crap software and hardware that is out there, so crap hardware and software (hardware and software that did not follow the specs) did not work well, so it got a bad name.
Win9x/NT/ME/2k at least did not insult the user's intelligence like WinXP does. But that's a different issue. It is still a wonder though, that the older software (Win9x/NT4) was a lot more stable and better written than their current software (2k/XP, and likely Vista too)...I wonder, will Microsoft continue the trend in stability: 4% crashes with WinNT, 8% crashes with Win2k, and 12% crashes with WinXP - that would make Vista be 16% crashes if they do.
While I have not RTFA'd...based on the summary I at least agree with it myself. I would love to have a phone that is nothing more than a phone, and possibly and address book. That's all I need - and that's all I use on my current phone (Motorola v180). Connectivity and calling people is all I need and want to do. And, based on the summary, I think that more and more people are getting to that point - they don't want all the features.
/. responses, I think that the /. audience is generally an exception to this - most of /. readers are techo-geeks, so they'd be naturally drawn to phones with more features. But the average Joe probably just wants to be able to make a phone call and have it actually work.
/. audience and even the telco's thought.
Now, reading through the
Per work - I actually can't have a camera - not allowed.
And - just to note - about the only feature I would find useful besides basic phone/address book would be bluetooth, but only in so far as being able to use a bluetooth earpiece and syncing my phonebook with the computer. That's it.
As others have said - it's not in the telco's interest to provide a service like that - they make too much money off the other functions because they can charge different rates. Me - I turn off all the data features, and have instructed the provider to do so - only data feature is the old pager equivalent - not text messging, no internet, etc. Just phone, and paging. (Paging can be nice - but I only keep it since there is no charge for it. I imagine I'd do the same for other things too if it were free, but they're not and I'm not going to pay for them either; so I turn them off.)
Oh - and my parents and others I know are the same way about the phones. Some (my sister) might use a little more, but even the uses I am aware of can be done without Internet - and just 411 directory dialing.
Again, based on the summary (since I didn't RTFA) - I think the article is really just showing there are a lot more people out there like me than the
Encrypt your hard drive using the TPM module on the motherboard; motherboard gets fried (overheat/laptop got dropped/whatever); data is gone.
In the case of TPM, there is no master key - that would defeat the entire system (especially if it got leaked). But TPM/TC is being sold to companies as a "way to protect your data" - great, but don't forget that it'll protect it against you too.
I think the really big thing is that Nintendo is looking to an entirely untapped market that Microsoft and Sony seem to be ignoring. One of the first things I heard about the Wii (when it was still 'Revolution') was that they were going to release all the games for prior Nintendo systems for it - don't know if its true, but it certainly grabbed my attention; and just looking at some of the stuff about the Wii it seems that are looking to follow through on that, but only time will tell.
The amazing thing is that Nintendo is looking to the normal person to be their game audience - the people that grew up on and are still using the NES, SNES, etc. I'm certainly in that boat - I have two NES systems (one original style, one upright/SNES style) that I still hook up to the TV from time to time and play. I have not yet bought a PSX/PS2/Xbox/Xbox360/GC - and in fact I won't buy a PSX - no need to, nor do I like Microsoft enough to buy a Xbox/Xbox360, and I don't have a desire to buy a PS2 (though I might as a DVD player and for my couple of PS2 games, and possibly a few other PS2 games that I _might_ buy...but that's unlikely now)...
Now, I never did buy a GC, but now - especially if Nintendo waits long enough to push out the Wii, which I doubt - I'd be a lot more likely to buy a GC knowing that my GC games, cards, and controllers will work on the Wii. That's actually quite a first for any console - PS2/Xbox360 had support for older games, but you still had to replace all your memory cards and controllers (AFIAK).
I was thinking I would get a PS3, but then Sony killed that by making the price super high, and it just isn't worth it - I don't care enough, nor do I have that kind of money laying around.
But the Wii - if the rumor/analysts should be trusted - should be at a good price, and I don't have to worry about losing my current (though small) investment. But the really big killer is that I might get to get all those NES/SNES/N64 games that I wanted way back when and never got, and get them on the brand new Wii - that'd be a selling point in itself; not to mention that the controller can be turned 90 degrees and instantly you have the original NES controller - just brings back memories, good memories.
So yeah - I think Nintendo will make a real huge come back because they are looking to the rest of the market - where Sony and Microsoft are not paying attention. They're looking to the average person who does not want to spend a month or two playing the thousands and thousands of levels, but would rather take the next 10 years to play a little here and a little there, and may be eventually beat the game; or just pal-around with buddies over a beer while playing to have some fun, nothing serious - and they've made it simple enough that it really could be a source of family entertainment if everyone got together and played the games - I mean com'on, parents sitting down with their kids playing a game from their childhood (Duck Hunt anyone?) that has been updated enough that their kids won't realize that their parents actually use to play the game, what parent wouldn't want to play with them?
I'll get one - and it'll go with our non-HD TV, and my wife and I will be able to enjoy the game, without worrying about what little detail will kill us next, and in time we'd be able to enjoy with our kids, being able to play it just as easily as they - not something possible with the Sony/Microsoft consoles.
For example - anyone could sit down and play MarioKart and have fun; but NFS or GT or the likes - only the advanced players that played day-in-day-out co
It's kinda like me when I get phone calls for donations - I let them say their little thing about who they are and wait for them to ask for money...then I say something to the extent of "Well...I can't at the moment, so I'll let you get on to someone else". He's kind of saying the same thing to Microsoft - we're not interested; we're not going to do it; so go on to someone - anyone - else. Don't waste your time, effort, or money on us - cause you're not going to get anywhere.
Search would be a lot easier if we had linguistic AI's already worked out - but we don't...and that in itself is one of the hardest AI problems out there. I say it would be easier if we had linguistic AI's worked out only because that would solve half the problem - interpretting what the pages are trying to convey - it still doesn't solve the problem of interpretting what the user is asking, which is a far more complex problem than interpretting what the pages are trying to convey.
There may be a number of tools - but they are not likely going to work. For example, Bayesian filters work because the community helps the AI learn what is valid and what is not - works great for spam control on large e-mail systems, but would suck for search results. Per fireboy1919's example of "explosive materials" - one person using it could mark something valid that another person would find invalid, it just doesn't work.
Web statistics don't generally work too well either, but at least they don't require user intervention to help the AI learn.
The problem is a long way from being solved. For example, when was the last time you didn't spend a lot of time searching for a file on your own hard drive (many magnitudes smaller than the Internet) and hit a bunch of things that are just not right? Even there at the simplest level of computer searches it's still being refined and worked on. Sure there are better tools now - Google Desktop, etc. - that do a lot better, but they still have a long way to go. When that problem is solved, then we can start thinking about how far along the "search the Internet" problem is to being solved - one this is for sure, it'll be years after.
Google certainly is the best out there to date, but even they have a long way to go - and they know it and working on it. Now, if the multi-billion dollar google has to keep refining their engine every day to make sure it stays at least as accurate - if not get more accurate - how much more would MS or Yahoo have to invest to do the same? They have never really had any where near as good results as Google does.
They day the search problem is solved, is the day that computers run the world and you're plugged into one via a brain tap device like in the Matrix. Until then, all they can do is refine the engines to do a little bit better and hope they are better enough than the majority of others to stay among the top. As one of the Google guys said - it really is best to have multiple choices to keep the competition up - something Microsoft doesn't really understand - in any of their business ventures. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185669&cid=15
DOPA...er...DOPe A...yeah...that's it...really dopey...
However, seeing that Nintendo's Wii will have combatibility with the GameCube (didn't buy that either...but I do have some games for it...may be now I'll get more...), I'm even more likely to get the Wii...I was planning on it any way, but if their price is right (and the rumored $150-$200 would be great!), then I'll probably preorder it...if my wife will let me...I'm sure we'll both enjoy it for year...heck...I've still got 2 NES systems (one original, and one of the newer/1995 era design) that still work perfectly great...so here's hoping Nintendo's price is a lot better...and boy...I can't wait to see one of those Wii's sitting in my living room...they just look the coolest...oh, and I'll just stick to my computers for the DVD action...
Simple, use something familiar to whoever you are trying to reach. For a business person, talk about how programming is similar to a business process; for a teacher, talk about how it is like putting together their teaching plans; etc. You will never reach anyone if you don't illustrate it with something that is familiar to them - it also helps to be generally familiar yourself too, though you can always get them to help fill in the details of how whatever it is they do works. Basically - relate it to their job.
However, that would only work for describing how a program in general works and is put together (i.e. inc ax; mov [ebx+4], cx; etc.). When it comes to other kinds of concepts (Design, requirements, etc.) you need to still use something familiar to them, but perhaps something other than their job - though that might still work in some cases. For example, in describing how one project does its job but could really stand a lot of improvement in its design, I described the original version of the project as a 'tape player' and the new version as what we wanted - a 'cd player' - but it pulled a lot from the old version, so we made the 'cd player' understand "tapes"; however, what we really want is the 'dvd player' that can play the "cd's" and do more too. Make it connect, and make it make sense.
A good reminder might be - if a 5 year old can't understand what you're saying, then you need a different analogy. Not perfectly true, but something that works. Alternatively (if you don't like 5 year olds), one of my teachers use to say to document our programs like his grandmother would be reading them - if she couldn't understand it, don't expect him to either. In the end, just remember to keep it simple - apples vs. oranges type simple.
Now, if you could create a business case for the 'better than' being better business and reaping in more money than the JGE effort, then you may get enough money...but you'd have to make the better than cheap enough so people will buy it instead...which since it is better than will be hard to do because better than is almost always more expensive.
Per your biology example - that doesn't work either, and is quite flawed. The animals in the Americas survived quite fine with humans for thousands of years prior to the European Colonization ; it was the rapid advance of technology due to the European Colonization that is what lead to the mass destruction of many species - and many humans too. And - FYI - that's not evolution in any sense - no two "species" or groups of humans "evolved" beyond any other, it was purely a knowledge growth of one group of humans being beyond that of another simply because the other had not been introduced to it - not that they were not capable of it (obviously they were capable of it as many that were introduced to it used it very well...sometimes too well...). It's politics and academics, nothing more.
Now if a dog's human partner gives them additional "training" to do so - then that cop is looking for trouble and will eventually end up with all kinds of legal matters of his/her own.
Point is - unless the trainer is corrupt (possible), it's not the trainer training them to do that - it's the corrupt officer.
For example - Java runs just as slow as it always has. Some improvements have been made, but not by much. Take a version of Java and put it on an older system (say PII/233) and compare todays versions to that of a version from when the system was released. The performance difference will not be very different. Move to newer machines, and they will still not be very different; but it will seem different to the user because of the faster processor - though even that may not help the program much.
OS kernels by nature have to work with dangerous languages and do things out of the ordinary for the OS to even work. VM'ing the kernel does not solve anything, or moving the kernel to a "type safe" language. (Yes, those kinds of things can work for limited scenerios, but not for general computer operating systems - like Windows, Linux, etc - the performance just will never be there.)
And if you really think that these performance issues would be solved by faster processors - think again. Many devices (USB Scanners, Printers, Audio Devices, Video Devices, PVRs, etc) rely on near real-time performance of the OS to work the way we want them to work so that we can't hear/see the difference, etc. The scenerio your imposing to "solve" (which it won't do) the problem will create other problems for these kinds of devices. Think webcasting is bad now? Try it with your solution. You'd move back to the current OS very quickly.
The price does not have much to do with availability of oil/raw petro, but rather our ability to refine it, which is deminishing. (FYI - from what I've heard, it takes about 10 years to properly build a refinery.)
BTW, ethanol is not a solution either. It typically will aid in burning through gas roughly twice as fast, and many new cars are still not designed for it. So chalk up some of the rising prices to gas going fast due to ethanol usage too.
As per Vista/Longhorn - yeah, that's a big failure. I remember first hearing about Longhorn back around 1998 or 1999, when 2000 was upcoming. So even a 6 year delay is off - it's more like 8 or 10, perhaps more. They've been pretty much promising everything that was suppose to be in Longhorn since about 1995 or so - and every time they make a release its "we had to drop this" and "we couldn't do that".
Why does he scold himself? Because, as he says in the article, the techology could be a lot further along if it was allowed to develop instead of being put on the side-burner for nearly 30 years where it got little development, at least in the US markets.
From the article, I'm sure he'd agree that we need to get underway with starting to build new nuclear plants now.
And no, its not the "side effects" that I am after (as someone else was talking about) - I simply like the taste itself - just like I like sugar, chocolate, ice cream, steak, etc.
That also doesn't mean that I don't understand why people at times would drink for the "side effects" - it can be quite relaxing after a stressful day when done right.
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of factors. However, something to consider is what do you want to support? If you want to support DRM and such technologies, then go ahead and buy it. The media companies will eventually look and say "hey there's all the TPM chips out there. let's use them" and then the world is screwed over as they won't let their stuff play on something without it or with TPM disabled. So personally, I try to get something without it.
Now, I do have an AMD64 system that has on in it - but I run Linux on that system (for now, my fiance wants Windows so it might be Windows in the future...not sure) and I have the chip disabled. I bought the system from a friend, so didn't have much say. However, any system I do buy I will look at that very closely.
Also, if you are looking for one without, I helped my sister buy an AMD64-based HP laptop a few months ago. After we go it, I found out that it didn't have TPM at all. I think it was like a z6000 or something. Any how...it's a good laptop, and doesn't have it.
But to the point, consider what you want to support and where you want the industry to go. Because the only way to get them to listen is through your wallet - $$ is your voting power. I chose not to buy it. Others may chose to buy it, but most that get it probably don't know about it. And, as has been pointed out, TPM can really screw you over if its part of your backup authentication mechanisms or similar (encryption, authentication, DRM, etc.).