I work in an academic lab and we have a number of 3d pointing devices. The Logitech magellan that can simultaniously move through 6-degrees of freedom (translations rotations). As well as a spaceball thingy that also can rotate in 3d. They are out there, there just aren't many drivers for them. They also aren't quite as elegant as a mouse either, IMO. Mice are very "natural" feeling...
As a biologist and an avid believer in overpopulation issues, I totally disapprove of this outlook on our future. First of all, Yes, 1st world countries are seeing lowering population increases. Does this mean a population implosion is imminent? No, of course not. Most of the world isn't first world but third. Are third world countries moving toward first world status? No, many are not. So therefore, since the populations in third world countries are growing very fast, it is unreasonable to believe that the worlds population is going to decrease anytime soon with out major changes in world policy.
Also, we have a very real, serious population problem in many parts of the earth. To consider implicitly not addressing it because of a belief that the worlds population is going to decline, is silly.
I although these are to different concepts each within different contexts, I really don't see Open Source and Linux *not* going hand in hand. Open source has been around for a long time, GNU was big in its sector, but really didn't have an impact on areas where linux is moving to. Unix was also big but not moving into these sectors (ie windows users). Linux is simply the product that made open source move into the main stream.
I really don't think that open source would be today with out linux. I also don't feel unix would be to day without an open sourced linux. Certain aspects of this movement go from having a drive -- something to motivate people forward. Bill Gates and M$ have been that movement for them. Without that motivation, would linux really have as much support as it does?
I'm sorry, but I just can't see this succeeding with M$ hanging around. Big movement operations like this have a tendancy (as we all know) to get quickly dwarfed (or bought by) Microsoft. I'm curious if the Justice department stuff will have any effect on M$ jealous market agression.
This is great, nice to see a good search engine taking particular interest in such a cool subject.:) But, when Google crawls, it crawls alot. Over a couple days earlier this month Google went over my site 4-5 times which slightly skewed my stats. (I don't have a robots.txt file...)
This is just one of those things that bugs me about big bureaucracies, like large companies, universities, the government... When things don't follow the rules, often someone has to change the rules. Sometimes, nobody wants to take the initiative and there is often no one who will tell them to. This is a big reason why bureaucracies are so annoying, you go to one window and they tell you to go to another, etc. Sometimes defending the status quo is easier than changing the rules. I bet that is what is happening here.
I'm skeptical about cloning ancient things from their DNA. DNA, even more than most macromolecules, needs to be constantly repaired. If you leave DNA sitting around it will slowly lose its properties. For example, UV light causes a process called pyrimidine dimerization where adjacent pyrimidine bases fuse in a specific manner. It is estimated that we have over 10,000 pyrimidine dimerization events that happen every day in our bodies, all of which are quickly and systematically repaired. This is simply one example of a way in which DNA can become damaged if not fixed constantly -- there are others. Something I never hear from the proponents of such techniques is how they get the info INTACT.
Granted, the DNA may be good enough to do RFLiPs or other restriction enzyme digestion technique and get reasonable data. But, and this is a big but, for a diploid organism to work properly we need (two) copies of each gene that will be used to work. I, as a biochemist, don't believe that we have the ability to isolate two copies of nearly perfect DNA....
I agree life might be different but I'm not sure it will necessarily be bad. Corel isn't exactly tearing things up at the box office -- if you know what I mean. Perhaps a change for Corel would be a good thing anyway, to get a fresh perspective and a leader willing to make the difficult decisions.
Wow, this will be cool. Have the jacked up the rest of the unit as well? I assume it will have all the other components bandwith increased to deal with the new higher video demands?
Coming from a family of musicians (various symphonies in US), I gotta say this is pretty cool. But, I'm not sure how well it will sound, IMO. I think computers have a habit of exaggerating this sort of thing, just enough to make it sound 'synthed'. Wonder if it will work for voices too. No reason it shouldn't.
I completely agree. But here's a question: What constitutes a patentable intellectual property in software? I'm not even sure that I know what part of my code/products are patentable. Am I going to have to worry about companies swooping in and stealing my effort just because they had the resources to get the patent filled?
I think that/. and the rest of the online geek community should just move on from caring about what MTV thinks. As this sort of lifestyle moves farther into the limelight, this sort of thing is just going to get worse. We don't post enquirer articles that say computer programs predict the future, why should we post this junk? But maybe if the Enquirer was online....
It really bugs me when confusion hits a company product like this, mistake or no. It so easy to pull a microsoft and promise something that isn't there to get orders and/or interest. But it is great that they are offering a replacement for the time being. This is something expensive hardware manufacturers do all the time but pc/mac venders don't do very often.
However, the interview has enlightened me as to Gates' motivations. Some people have said he's motivated by money. I don't think so. Others say that he's power-hungry. I don't think he comes across as the sort of person who's massively concerned about power.
I disagree with these statements for a couple of reasons. 1. For being as anti-social as he comes across as, Gates is very good at interviewing. He really knows how to get his point accross in a way that helps his company. So I don't think that this interview necessarily represents what he really thinks. 2. When I lived in Seattle (grew up there, moved at 21 in 94), there were numerous occasions when he proved he really was fairly arrogant and concerned with power. When he used to get tickets in his lexus in Medina, a famous speed trap near Bellevue, he have his lawyer argue, usually successfully, the ticket in court. The paper would cover it, making it a mini-media circus. The only reason that (at the time) one of the 3 or 4th richest man in America would argue tickets in court is out of pure testosterone induced power hunger (IMO). 3. I think he comes also comes accross as not being power hungry, because he is really (and perhaps he should be) convinced that he IS powerful. Those who come accross as needing to be in positions of power are the ones who really aren't in those positions.
Wonder if every scientist could do something like this? I'm a theoretical chemist, and know of a number of problems that are trivially parallelizable (sp?), that need a bunch of cpu time. At some point we are going to get saturated with these sorts of problems. Weather prediction is cool, SETI is cool. Drug discovery is also cool. Wonder if a distributed drug design project is in order? -- Moondog
Could someone please explain what constitutes insider trading and what securities violations are? I understand the terms just not the laws behind them.
Seems pretty stupid to be making that much money and get nailed for doing stupid moves. Someone, should have warned him. Wonder if it was an online trade? Could the online trading company be held liable for not warning about hte conflict of interest?
Competition is good. Mudslinging breeds competition. I'm all for companies bashing products like this, but I am a bit concerned that it may not be truthful.
My X doesn't crash at all anymore, but it use to. This adds claim, may be a bit out of date.
There is an interesting precedent here waiting to happen. I think that the site may have a point if it is a trademarked (either registered or no) phrase, or name. But to think any words would be pretty silly. Just wait until we until this thing backfires and a number of foreign sites start attempting to shut down their english counterparts.
/. took out my g. I meant that English thing as a joke....
Seriously though, having a universal translater might help curb the americanization of the world. Even though I strongly suspect it wont work very well.....
There is more to a language than just translating words, as any Babelfish user will tell you. My first problem is that it is so hard to get anybody to actually use it as a standard. It is very easy to come up with a standard. Even M$ with all their power have trouble trying to execute standards.
I happen to think that many information technology patents are pretty silly. Compare them to the original look-and-feel lawsuit by apple to M$. Look and Feel is ok to take and plagerize, but one click shopping is patentable?
It is funny that patents are made to protect the inventor, but these days they seem to only make the patent laywer and companies who can afford them rich. Do you think the originator of one click shopping has anything to do with Amazon?
The femptosecond reaction work he has done is truely revolutionary. I'd like it to see some more features in a scientific american-ish view of the work of all the awardees. Does such a place exist?
I just read the article, and am not sure anything was really learned from the whole test. Every bit of info was really stuff that we all should have known anyway. In the end, all I got was that if you ask for it, they will come. And come they did.
Slashdot Mirror
I work in an academic lab and we have a number of 3d pointing devices. The Logitech magellan that can simultaniously move through 6-degrees of freedom (translations rotations). As well as a spaceball thingy that also can rotate in 3d. They are out there, there just aren't many drivers for them. They also aren't quite as elegant as a mouse either, IMO. Mice are very "natural" feeling...
-- Moondog
As a biologist and an avid believer in overpopulation issues, I totally disapprove of this outlook on our future. First of all, Yes, 1st world countries are seeing lowering population increases. Does this mean a population implosion is imminent? No, of course not. Most of the world isn't first world but third. Are third world countries moving toward first world status? No, many are not. So therefore, since the populations in third world countries are growing very fast, it is unreasonable to believe that the worlds population is going to decrease anytime soon with out major changes in world policy.
Also, we have a very real, serious population problem in many parts of the earth. To consider implicitly not addressing it because of a belief that the worlds population is going to decline, is silly.
-- Moondog
I although these are to different concepts each within different contexts, I really don't see Open Source and Linux *not* going hand in hand. Open source has been around for a long time, GNU was big in its sector, but really didn't have an impact on areas where linux is moving to. Unix was also big but not moving into these sectors (ie windows users). Linux is simply the product that made open source move into the main stream.
I really don't think that open source would be today with out linux. I also don't feel unix would be to day without an open sourced linux. Certain aspects of this movement go from having a drive -- something to motivate people forward. Bill Gates and M$ have been that movement for them. Without that motivation, would linux really have as much support as it does?
-- Moondog
I'm sorry, but I just can't see this succeeding with M$ hanging around. Big movement operations like this have a tendancy (as we all know) to get quickly dwarfed (or bought by) Microsoft. I'm curious if the Justice department stuff will have any effect on M$ jealous market agression.
Why should Marc's company be any different?
-- Moondog
This is great, nice to see a good search engine taking particular interest in such a cool subject. :) But, when Google crawls, it crawls alot. Over a couple days earlier this month Google went over my site 4-5 times which slightly skewed my stats. (I don't have a robots.txt file...)
-- Moondog
This is just one of those things that bugs me about big bureaucracies, like large companies, universities, the government... When things don't follow the rules, often someone has to change the rules. Sometimes, nobody wants to take the initiative and there is often no one who will tell them to. This is a big reason why bureaucracies are so annoying, you go to one window and they tell you to go to another, etc. Sometimes defending the status quo is easier than changing the rules. I bet that is what is happening here.
-- Moondog
I'm skeptical about cloning ancient things from their DNA. DNA, even more than most macromolecules, needs to be constantly repaired. If you leave DNA sitting around it will slowly lose its properties. For example, UV light causes a process called pyrimidine dimerization where adjacent pyrimidine bases fuse in a specific manner. It is estimated that we have over 10,000 pyrimidine dimerization events that happen every day in our bodies, all of which are quickly and systematically repaired. This is simply one example of a way in which DNA can become damaged if not fixed constantly -- there are others. Something I never hear from the proponents of such techniques is how they get the info INTACT.
Granted, the DNA may be good enough to do RFLiPs or other restriction enzyme digestion technique and get reasonable data. But, and this is a big but, for a diploid organism to work properly we need (two) copies of each gene that will be used to work. I, as a biochemist, don't believe that we have the ability to isolate two copies of nearly perfect DNA....
-- Moondog
I agree life might be different but I'm not sure it will necessarily be bad. Corel isn't exactly tearing things up at the box office -- if you know what I mean. Perhaps a change for Corel would be a good thing anyway, to get a fresh perspective and a leader willing to make the difficult decisions.
-- Moondog
Wow, this will be cool. Have the jacked up the rest of the unit as well? I assume it will have all the other components bandwith increased to deal with the new higher video demands?
-- Moondog
Coming from a family of musicians (various symphonies in US), I gotta say this is pretty cool. But, I'm not sure how well it will sound, IMO. I think computers have a habit of exaggerating this sort of thing, just enough to make it sound 'synthed'. Wonder if it will work for voices too. No reason it shouldn't.
-- Moondog
Sounds pretty good, perhaps I'll pick it up. There is so much junk in this genre it is really hard to know what to get.
-- Moondog
I completely agree. But here's a question: What constitutes a patentable intellectual property in software? I'm not even sure that I know what part of my code/products are patentable. Am I going to have to worry about companies swooping in and stealing my effort just because they had the resources to get the patent filled?
-- Moondog
I think that /. and the rest of the online geek community should just move on from caring about what MTV thinks. As this sort of lifestyle moves farther into the limelight, this sort of thing is just going to get worse. We don't post enquirer articles that say computer programs predict the future, why should we post this junk? But maybe if the Enquirer was online....
-- Moondog
It really bugs me when confusion hits a company product like this, mistake or no. It so easy to pull a microsoft and promise something that isn't there to get orders and/or interest. But it is great that they are offering a replacement for the time being. This is something expensive hardware manufacturers do all the time but pc/mac venders don't do very often.
-- Moondog
True. Except Washington doesn't use points....
-- Moondog
However, the interview has enlightened me as to Gates' motivations. Some people have said he's motivated by money. I don't think so. Others say that he's power-hungry. I don't think he comes across as the sort of person who's massively concerned about power.
I disagree with these statements for a couple of reasons. 1. For being as anti-social as he comes across as, Gates is very good at interviewing. He really knows how to get his point accross in a way that helps his company. So I don't think that this interview necessarily represents what he really thinks. 2. When I lived in Seattle (grew up there, moved at 21 in 94), there were numerous occasions when he proved he really was fairly arrogant and concerned with power. When he used to get tickets in his lexus in Medina, a famous speed trap near Bellevue, he have his lawyer argue, usually successfully, the ticket in court. The paper would cover it, making it a mini-media circus. The only reason that (at the time) one of the 3 or 4th richest man in America would argue tickets in court is out of pure testosterone induced power hunger (IMO). 3. I think he comes also comes accross as not being power hungry, because he is really (and perhaps he should be) convinced that he IS powerful. Those who come accross as needing to be in positions of power are the ones who really aren't in those positions.
-- Moondog
Wonder if every scientist could do something like this? I'm a theoretical chemist, and know of a number of problems that are trivially parallelizable (sp?), that need a bunch of cpu time. At some point we are going to get saturated with these sorts of problems. Weather prediction is cool, SETI is cool. Drug discovery is also cool. Wonder if a distributed drug design project is in order?
-- Moondog
Could someone please explain what constitutes insider trading and what securities violations are? I understand the terms just not the laws behind them.
Seems pretty stupid to be making that much money and get nailed for doing stupid moves. Someone, should have warned him. Wonder if it was an online trade? Could the online trading company be held liable for not warning about hte conflict of interest?
-- Moondog
Competition is good. Mudslinging breeds competition. I'm all for companies bashing products like this, but I am a bit concerned that it may not be truthful.
My X doesn't crash at all anymore, but it use to. This adds claim, may be a bit out of date.
-- Moondog
There is an interesting precedent here waiting to happen. I think that the site may have a point if it is a trademarked (either registered or no) phrase, or name. But to think any words would be pretty silly. Just wait until we until this thing backfires and a number of foreign sites start attempting to shut down their english counterparts.
-- Moondog
/. took out my g. I meant that English thing as a joke....
Seriously though, having a universal translater might help curb the americanization of the world. Even though I strongly suspect it wont work very well.....
-- Moondog
There is more to a language than just translating words, as any Babelfish user will tell you. My first problem is that it is so hard to get anybody to actually use it as a standard. It is very easy to come up with a standard. Even M$ with all their power have trouble trying to execute standards.
Teach'em all english. Thats my solution.
-- Moondog
I happen to think that many information technology patents are pretty silly. Compare them to the original look-and-feel lawsuit by apple to M$. Look and Feel is ok to take and plagerize, but one click shopping is patentable?
It is funny that patents are made to protect the inventor, but these days they seem to only make the patent laywer and companies who can afford them rich. Do you think the originator of one click shopping has anything to do with Amazon?
-- Moondog
The femptosecond reaction work he has done is truely revolutionary. I'd like it to see some more features in a scientific american-ish view of the work of all the awardees. Does such a place exist?
-- Moondog
I just read the article, and am not sure anything was really learned from the whole test. Every bit of info was really stuff that we all should have known anyway. In the end, all I got was that if you ask for it, they will come. And come they did.
-- Moondog