I mistakenly ordered a laptop with Vista and the new Microsoft Office installed. Both present a new user environment. I am a power user with Excel, and found it very difficult to use the new Excel. They replaced all of the menus with icon panels, with beautifully redrawn icons, and scrambled the locations up. I'm playing a game of guessing what the icon does, hovering, and reading the "tool tip" to be sure. Talk about an "unfamiliar environemnt".
My entreprenurial landlord teaches classes for small businesses on how to switch to Open Office instead of the new Microsoft Office. If they're going to have to retrain anyway, why not go to something that is free?
(Alternatively, it could just be that I am getting "old". When I was a teenager I shifted from WordPerfect to Emacs with less difficulty.)
This patent **application** was filed on March 19, 2007; it was just **published** on the 25th. At the present rate, it will be evaluated by USPTO in late 2009 or 2010.
I sincerely hope this isn't all that's in the patent. I wrote about this model for wireless network access about a year ago, and when I was researching the article I came across people with the same idea ten years earlier, who cited even earlier people.
If prior art is found, and it is truly prior art, then you are doing your employer a favor by finding it. Saves them the hassle of a search by a patent expert, which can cost thousands of dollars.
The text of the bill (1,2) also indicates that random manual recounts will be required to compare the computer tabulation with the paper record. The bill has the public support of the governor, but has not passed the senate.
The bill's main points: * Requires paper trail * Requires manual recounts of 5% of ballots, selected randomly. * Prohibits use of a specific Diebold system in 2006. * Requires use of a an 'optical scan system' (type unspecified) in 2006
The bill could still die in the senate. The last two points are expensive and controversial; they were added as amendments before the bill passed on Thursday. Those amendments also converted the bill to an emergency measure, which requires 3/5 of each house to pass.
In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was launched in freezing weather conditions. Engineers suggested that the materials used for the booster rockets would not perform properly at these temperatures. Indeed, evidence suggested that failure was narrowly avoided in previous launches at temperatures between 40 and 60 degrees Farenheit. Nevertheless, NASA administrators insisted that the launch go on. It has been suggested that the pressure to launch was greater because the school teacher aboard was to speak during the President's State of the Union address that evening.
Six astronauts and one school teacher died.
This account is based on a chapter in "Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative" by Edward R. Tufte, in which evidence from the Congressional hearings on the Challenger accident is presented.
Well since you jerks at Slashdot have stampeded all over our Forums and Wiki, depriving me of some late Friday afternoon entertainment before leaving work, I will have to comment on the "trader Malakai" event here.
Background. ATITD is an odd MMORPG of ~2000 players, English French and German speaking, from 6 continents (at least). The player base tends to be literate and older than usual MMO's. Roughly half of the attendees at our recent player meet were women. To Teppy's chagrin, many players do not distinguish between their real person and their avatar. According to an anonymous survey on the Forum, most players have the same gender as their avatar.
Event summary. A system-wide announcement that the trader Malakai from foreign lands is walking to a easily-accessible destination in the world. (Announcement implies that Malakai is being played by a game master.) Malakai has some useful, some unique, and some worthless items. Malakai is dishonest in trades. Further, he won't trade with women (avatars), calls them slaves and inquires about purchasing one. Egyptians become angry, handing Malakai dung and other items to prevent him from further trades. One citizen posts a very upset post to the Forums, stating that said citizen is a black woman and found the trader's behavior personally offensive. A debate ensues.
A noblewoman searching for Malakai arrives, claiming that Malakai has stolen the items he is trading from her family. Some people who have traded with the noblewoman give the stolen goods back. Now hunted by both Egypt's citizens and his countrymen, Malakai disappears.
Effects? A huge debate ensues on the Forum and in-game. Some women are absolutely offended by this event. The GM who ran Malakai gives a lame description of what was supposed to happen at this top-secret, hastily put-together event. Offended by this top-secret event, Egypt's best roll-playing GM quits the game. Perhaps three dozen others quit as well. Pharaoh ("Teppy") interviews one of the quitting players (who won't give her real identity). During the interview, Pharaoh fails to justify this event on any firmer ground than his whim.
My thoughts. Malakai was a poorly concieved character who would have been a lot more interesting had the whole events team been involved in creating it. The GM who ran Malakai is a great coder but a sadistic, yet dull role-player. I hope that in the future he asks for help in creating these evil characters. Sensitive and difficult issues are worthwhile to address in our little society, but hurting people in order to address these points should not be necessary. IMHO, the main problem with this event was that it hurt some people in order to make a larger point.
Another poster pointed this out, but it is sort of late to complain about sexism. Female avatars had a slight advantage before this event, now they are slightly adversely affected by this one event. I do hope this event brings these issues to the front, because there are some real issues of balance between the genders that should be addressed in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
I mistakenly ordered a laptop with Vista and the new Microsoft Office installed. Both present a new user environment. I am a power user with Excel, and found it very difficult to use the new Excel. They replaced all of the menus with icon panels, with beautifully redrawn icons, and scrambled the locations up. I'm playing a game of guessing what the icon does, hovering, and reading the "tool tip" to be sure. Talk about an "unfamiliar environemnt".
My entreprenurial landlord teaches classes for small businesses on how to switch to Open Office instead of the new Microsoft Office. If they're going to have to retrain anyway, why not go to something that is free?
(Alternatively, it could just be that I am getting "old". When I was a teenager I shifted from WordPerfect to Emacs with less difficulty.)
This patent **application** was filed on March 19, 2007; it was just **published** on the 25th. At the present rate, it will be evaluated by USPTO in late 2009 or 2010.
I sincerely hope this isn't all that's in the patent. I wrote about this model for wireless network access about a year ago, and when I was researching the article I came across people with the same idea ten years earlier, who cited even earlier people.
Could you please provide your references?
Does this mean they have a functioning model of such a data center? I imagine they'd need one to get a patent on this...
If prior art is found, and it is truly prior art, then you are doing your employer a favor by finding it. Saves them the hassle of a search by a patent expert, which can cost thousands of dollars.
...already use metric. Pick up a copy of a journal from this century.
The text of the bill (1,2) also indicates that random manual recounts will be required to compare the computer tabulation with the paper record. The bill has the public support of the governor, but has not passed the senate.
m
d f
The bill's main points:
* Requires paper trail
* Requires manual recounts of 5% of ballots, selected randomly.
* Prohibits use of a specific Diebold system in 2006.
* Requires use of a an 'optical scan system' (type unspecified) in 2006
The bill could still die in the senate. The last two points are
expensive and controversial; they were added as amendments before the
bill passed on Thursday. Those amendments also converted the bill to
an emergency measure, which requires 3/5 of each house to pass.
(1) Current status in the Maryland Senate: http://mlis.state.md.us/2006rs/billfile/hb0244.ht
(2) Text of bill: http://mlis.state.md.us/2006rs/bills/hb/hb0244t.p
In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was launched in freezing weather conditions. Engineers suggested that the materials used for the booster rockets would not perform properly at these temperatures. Indeed, evidence suggested that failure was narrowly avoided in previous launches at temperatures between 40 and 60 degrees Farenheit. Nevertheless, NASA administrators insisted that the launch go on. It has been suggested that the pressure to launch was greater because the school teacher aboard was to speak during the President's State of the Union address that evening.
Six astronauts and one school teacher died.
This account is based on a chapter in "Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative" by Edward R. Tufte, in which evidence from the Congressional hearings on the Challenger accident is presented.
Well since you jerks at Slashdot have stampeded all over our Forums and Wiki, depriving me of some late Friday afternoon entertainment before leaving work, I will have to comment on the "trader Malakai" event here.
Background. ATITD is an odd MMORPG of ~2000 players, English French and German speaking, from 6 continents (at least). The player base tends to be literate and older than usual MMO's. Roughly half of the attendees at our recent player meet were women. To Teppy's chagrin, many players do not distinguish between their real person and their avatar. According to an anonymous survey on the Forum, most players have the same gender as their avatar.
Event summary. A system-wide announcement that the trader Malakai from foreign lands is walking to a easily-accessible destination in the world. (Announcement implies that Malakai is being played by a game master.) Malakai has some useful, some unique, and some worthless items. Malakai is dishonest in trades. Further, he won't trade with women (avatars), calls them slaves and inquires about purchasing one. Egyptians become angry, handing Malakai dung and other items to prevent him from further trades. One citizen posts a very upset post to the Forums, stating that said citizen is a black woman and found the trader's behavior personally offensive. A debate ensues.
A noblewoman searching for Malakai arrives, claiming that Malakai has stolen the items he is trading from her family. Some people who have traded with the noblewoman give the stolen goods back. Now hunted by both Egypt's citizens and his countrymen, Malakai disappears.
Effects? A huge debate ensues on the Forum and in-game. Some women are absolutely offended by this event. The GM who ran Malakai gives a lame description of what was supposed to happen at this top-secret, hastily put-together event. Offended by this top-secret event, Egypt's best roll-playing GM quits the game. Perhaps three dozen others quit as well. Pharaoh ("Teppy") interviews one of the quitting players (who won't give her real identity). During the interview, Pharaoh fails to justify this event on any firmer ground than his whim.
My thoughts. Malakai was a poorly concieved character who would have been a lot more interesting had the whole events team been involved in creating it. The GM who ran Malakai is a great coder but a sadistic, yet dull role-player. I hope that in the future he asks for help in creating these evil characters. Sensitive and difficult issues are worthwhile to address in our little society, but hurting people in order to address these points should not be necessary. IMHO, the main problem with this event was that it hurt some people in order to make a larger point.
Another poster pointed this out, but it is sort of late to complain about sexism. Female avatars had a slight advantage before this event, now they are slightly adversely affected by this one event. I do hope this event brings these issues to the front, because there are some real issues of balance between the genders that should be addressed in the game.
--Erika