According to the pictures I'd seen so far it doesn't seem to have any buttons, or any markings for buttons, or where they might be.
I've got my flame-retardant jumpsuit close to hand just in case, but... this does seem like more style at the expense of actual usability. You have learn where the buttons are in the same way as Das Keyboard, but with this mouse you first have to realise that there *are* buttons.
This is almost technically right except for "Atlas generates"... Atlas is only a huge capacitor bank, it does not magically "generate" energy, it only stores existing energy.
Maybe not, but it does generate current, which is what we're talking about here. No known system actually creates energy, it's just converted from one form to another.
"current equal to about four times all the electrical power on Earth" riiiight.
Experiments like this have been going on for a long time. For example, there's a z-pinch cold fusion experiment named Magpie (in the basement of the physics building at Imperial College) that creates a peak current of the same order of magnitude to the combined output of every power station on Earth. That's been around for years.
The trick is that these things take ages to charge up and only maintain peak current for a tiny fraction of a second.
This does not necessarily remove all of the effects of gravity upon the fluid.
In more extreme gravity wells there might be effects caused by things like the curvature of the gravity well, gravity waves. There may also be factors like aircraft vibration that are beyond the control of the people doing the experiment. However given the somewhat unprecise scope of this 'experiment' I doubt they're worth worrying about.
You mean compared to countries like Germany and France ? (Well known everywhere as bastions of conservative capitalism and mercifully free of the unionised workplace).
What, free from unions like this and this
and
this you mean?
... rather than focusing on making a product that appeals to the market (and watching as the content producers hop on board).
The trouble is that any solution not vetoed by the content producers will be structured in a way that favours them over consumers. I doubt they're that worried about consumer support; they take it for granted.
Content producers have a justifiable belief that any new services they allow will be lapped up straight away. Whatever they put out there, people will buy it because they don't know any better, 'legal', alternative (there wont be one).
...And governments are great at spending money to create that.
Luckily for the British taxpayer this project is never going to get off the ground. The quoted price is for the scanners alone. Add to that the cost of:
Renovating every station to funnel passengers through the scanning area
Manning the scanners (including security personel trained to confront terrorists) 19 hours a day
The extra delays caused by the queues to get scanned (consider what London earns in an hour, and the effect on that of delays and bad tempers)
Maintainance, service and training costs.
Add to that the expense, privacy concerns, and the fact that this wouldn't protect overground trains or buses, and you've got yourself a 'class A1' dead duck.
Assuming your figures are correct; of those 215 how many died of natural causes? It's a very different thing to be afraid of a bomb than it is to be afraid of old age.
While I agree that media coverage in the UK is a little excessive, this is a significant development in the on-going saga of the 'War on Terror' that's been shaping the military and diplomatic landscape of the world since 2001. It's by no means a "non-event".
The significant difference between construction and software is that laypeople have some level of understanding of the physical world.
If your builder leaves a hole in the wall, you can see it and get him to do the job properly, or take him to court. There's no thief as yet, so the blame can only land on the builder.
If your software vendor leaves a big hole in your software, most people have no idea it's there until they get screwed through it, at which point there's a criminal for the software company to blame.
It's simple profit over customer safety. They do what they think they can get away with without damaging their reputation too much.
...when VHS and Betamax were in fierce competition to win the status of industry standard for video recording systems...
I'm not a free-market obsessive, and I know the analogy isn't perfect, but if competition between companies is a good thing for consumers, then surely it's also a good thing for citizens to have a bit of competition between governments to keep them from stagnating.
Of course "good thing for citizens" often isn't a politician's main priority
Won't this build ill-will against the product/company being advertised?
I don't know if they do the same in the USA, but commercial TV stations in the UK now air adverts significantly louder than the programmes themselves. It annoys me so much I usually mute the adverts. I assume there are other people who either don't notice the increase or 'benefit' from it by being able to hear the TV from the kitchen while they make a cup of tea.
There's probably a similar trade-off with pop-ups. For example, aggressive and intrusive advertising may have a higher success rate with the "wanking off to Britney" demographic.
The only question that ever makes any sense at all is "is it good Art or bad Art in my opinion?".
The tedious debate as to what Art is is perpetuated by those who gain from telling people what they should like, or from charging them to see it.
As soon as people open their eyes to the rich tapestry of life going on all around them they'll recognise a lot of the puerile, sterile rubbish that they're spoon-fed by the Art establishment for what it is.
Rant over. Sorry about that. I'm not being a troll, even if this post reads like I am.
An interesting combination of fully 3D and the currently common 2D windowing system is the ZUI (Zoomable User Interface, as I'm sure many know).
Full 3D is disorientating since we don't have an extra dimension spare with which to observe the system. Viewing a 2D system in 3D space enables you to keep you bearings better, especially when your view is always fixed perpendicular to the viewable plane.
Many ZUIs also support the ability to stretch that 2D plane to make contextually relevent areas easier to access.
Apple amongst others have implemented a ZUI components (that dock thingy), but I haven't seen any full ZUI desktops yet. Speak up if you know of a decent one, you hosers.
The concept of votes to smaller candidates being 'wasted' is what keeps the USA in it's closed two party system.
It's true that a vote for a smaller candidate is less likely to result in a win, but that doesn't make it a waste. The more votes go to smaller candidates, the more the major candidates will take notice and change their policies to take advantage of public opinion.
Not only is no vote wasted, I'd actually argue that votes for smaller candidates had a larger effect than votes for mainstream candidates.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the pictures I'd seen so far it doesn't seem to have any buttons, or any markings for buttons, or where they might be.
I've got my flame-retardant jumpsuit close to hand just in case, but... this does seem like more style at the expense of actual usability. You have learn where the buttons are in the same way as Das Keyboard, but with this mouse you first have to realise that there *are* buttons.
Very stylish. Nil point for usability.
This is almost technically right except for "Atlas generates"... Atlas is only a huge capacitor bank, it does not magically "generate" energy, it only stores existing energy.
Maybe not, but it does generate current, which is what we're talking about here. No known system actually creates energy, it's just converted from one form to another.
"current equal to about four times all the electrical power on Earth" riiiight.
Experiments like this have been going on for a long time. For example, there's a z-pinch cold fusion experiment named Magpie (in the basement of the physics building at Imperial College) that creates a peak current of the same order of magnitude to the combined output of every power station on Earth. That's been around for years.
The trick is that these things take ages to charge up and only maintain peak current for a tiny fraction of a second.
Tabbed browsing has been added, dropdown search, add-on manager. Now where have I seen those all before?
The add-on manager isn't a new feature in IE7. It was included in IE6 (probably a sub-version since 6.0, not sure).
There are many things that you can't hold in your hand that have intrinsic value, moron.
I was about to suggest that it's possible to hold a mechanic in your hand, but it'd just sound dirty, so I wont.
It'd be pretty awesome to set up a ring of cameras around the launch and watch it in Matrix-style 'bullet-time'.
What if the Pringles Antenna is not assembled, but all the necessary parts are in your possession?
I think it's legal until you open the Pringles tube. Law enforcement officers worldwide know that once you pop you can't stop.
This does not necessarily remove all of the effects of gravity upon the fluid.
In more extreme gravity wells there might be effects caused by things like the curvature of the gravity well, gravity waves. There may also be factors like aircraft vibration that are beyond the control of the people doing the experiment. However given the somewhat unprecise scope of this 'experiment' I doubt they're worth worrying about.
You mean compared to countries like Germany and France ? (Well known everywhere as bastions of conservative capitalism and mercifully free of the unionised workplace).
What, free from unions like this and this and this you mean?
This is the point: Atom is just a fork. RSS is a real concept. Forks come and go, a concept stands.
Personally I always "use the forks".
On a serious note though, where does it say that forks by definition have less impact than trunks? Was Firefox not a fork from the Mozilla browser?
The trouble is that any solution not vetoed by the content producers will be structured in a way that favours them over consumers. I doubt they're that worried about consumer support; they take it for granted.
Content producers have a justifiable belief that any new services they allow will be lapped up straight away. Whatever they put out there, people will buy it because they don't know any better, 'legal', alternative (there wont be one).
Luckily for the British taxpayer this project is never going to get off the ground. The quoted price is for the scanners alone. Add to that the cost of:
Add to that the expense, privacy concerns, and the fact that this wouldn't protect overground trains or buses, and you've got yourself a 'class A1' dead duck.
* Average deaths per day: 215
Assuming your figures are correct; of those 215 how many died of natural causes? It's a very different thing to be afraid of a bomb than it is to be afraid of old age.
While I agree that media coverage in the UK is a little excessive, this is a significant development in the on-going saga of the 'War on Terror' that's been shaping the military and diplomatic landscape of the world since 2001. It's by no means a "non-event".
The significant difference between construction and software is that laypeople have some level of understanding of the physical world.
If your builder leaves a hole in the wall, you can see it and get him to do the job properly, or take him to court. There's no thief as yet, so the blame can only land on the builder.
If your software vendor leaves a big hole in your software, most people have no idea it's there until they get screwed through it, at which point there's a criminal for the software company to blame.
It's simple profit over customer safety. They do what they think they can get away with without damaging their reputation too much.
Here's hoping Tony Blair does something useful (a.k.a. returning the EU to being just a free trade zone) before he goes.
And what of other stuff like taste and smell?
Remember this is is a simulation of a real brain. They'll almost certainly be able to simulate a variety of sensory input.
I'm not sure how useful a brain devoid of any input would be.
Glieder, Fantibag, Mitglieder?
These guys shouldn't be writing code, they should be writing Harry Potter novels.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I tried posting Post Humously. I found my post lacked flavour.
I'm not a free-market obsessive, and I know the analogy isn't perfect, but if competition between companies is a good thing for consumers, then surely it's also a good thing for citizens to have a bit of competition between governments to keep them from stagnating.
Of course "good thing for citizens" often isn't a politician's main priority
Won't this build ill-will against the product/company being advertised?
I don't know if they do the same in the USA, but commercial TV stations in the UK now air adverts significantly louder than the programmes themselves. It annoys me so much I usually mute the adverts. I assume there are other people who either don't notice the increase or 'benefit' from it by being able to hear the TV from the kitchen while they make a cup of tea.
There's probably a similar trade-off with pop-ups. For example, aggressive and intrusive advertising may have a higher success rate with the "wanking off to Britney" demographic.
Some of it, maybe. Pr0n, definitely (although some might plead otherwise).
However there is a strong public service argument when it comes to free access to information, educational resources, basic communication.
In the information age, access to information is not a luxury, because to go without it puts you at a severe disadvantage.
That said, this will only be of use to people who have an internet-ready computer system.
The only question that ever makes any sense at all is "is it good Art or bad Art in my opinion?".
The tedious debate as to what Art is is perpetuated by those who gain from telling people what they should like, or from charging them to see it.
As soon as people open their eyes to the rich tapestry of life going on all around them they'll recognise a lot of the puerile, sterile rubbish that they're spoon-fed by the Art establishment for what it is.
Rant over. Sorry about that. I'm not being a troll, even if this post reads like I am.
An interesting combination of fully 3D and the currently common 2D windowing system is the ZUI (Zoomable User Interface, as I'm sure many know).
Full 3D is disorientating since we don't have an extra dimension spare with which to observe the system. Viewing a 2D system in 3D space enables you to keep you bearings better, especially when your view is always fixed perpendicular to the viewable plane.
Many ZUIs also support the ability to stretch that 2D plane to make contextually relevent areas easier to access.
Apple amongst others have implemented a ZUI components (that dock thingy), but I haven't seen any full ZUI desktops yet. Speak up if you know of a decent one, you hosers.
So that makes two of us who are opposed to a unified world government. [un.org]
Don't you mean unified world government [halliburton.com]?
The concept of votes to smaller candidates being 'wasted' is what keeps the USA in it's closed two party system.
It's true that a vote for a smaller candidate is less likely to result in a win, but that doesn't make it a waste. The more votes go to smaller candidates, the more the major candidates will take notice and change their policies to take advantage of public opinion.
Not only is no vote wasted, I'd actually argue that votes for smaller candidates had a larger effect than votes for mainstream candidates.