"Google Scholar certainly isn't a tool that any self-respecting scholar would use all or most of the time to find information."
Certainly not. However, I'm currently doing some pretty heavy research and have found Google Scholar to be an invaluable tool in looking up references I already know exist. Frequently after reading a paper I'll want to fish its references list for more reading, and a simple Google Scholar search of a few key words in the title and the author's last name brings up a direct link to a PDF of the paper almost every time. Now that's useful!
I'm not sure about Longhorn's search, but for me the main attraction of Tiger's search is that it searches *inside* documents (including email, text documents, and most importantly for me, PDF). I frequently download published scientific papers in PDF format, and if I want to know which of the files contain information about Single Oscillator Tempo Tracking (for instance), with Tiger I can simply search for "single oscillator tempo tracking" and find all the pdf's containing that phrase. That's a big step over any current find technology I've seen.
This dissapointment feels similar to the season 4/season 5 fiasco. For those of you unfamiliar, the show was planned as 5 seasons, but the network told them near the beginning of 4 that the show was being cancelled. In response, they crammed all the plot for both seasons into season 4. Of course, when the season was over, the network uncancelled the show, allowing for a 5th, and somewhat mediocre, season. Oh well. The movie will happen some day.
If the anti-spyware software is somehow faulty (in a way that Microsoft already has knowledge of), this could be Microsoft's way of covering their proverbial behinds. It's possible that already providing monetary compensation to wronged users will strengthen their case in any class-actions against them. I'm not a lawyer, so this is mere speculation. Anybody care to confirm (or contradict) this claim?
"maybe a dollar more here" may not be a big deal for individual users, but it's a very big deal for eBay. Even if it is a bug, it makes a huge monetary difference for them. On their site they boast over 100 million registered users. If we assume that each user has had this happen once to them (it probably averages near there), then that's a third of eBay's revenue last year made over the years due to a "bug."
Exactly. This is a small enough move not to get too many people upset, but
a) gets rid of the need to box platform specific iPods (which is a hassle for retail department stores selling iPods)
b) makes the "standard issue" iPod more universally compliant. My iPod has a firewire cable, which I love, but I tried plugging it into a freind's windows box (to copy songs he'd written) and was unable to since he didn't have firewire
c) lets Apple pull in a (very) little more revenue from the people for whom it's still worth it to buy the firewire cable.
Sony has released a new devixe, tentatively dubbed the "CD Burner," capable of burning the first second of any of your music CDs! Programmers hope some day to move to the entire first track.
In some ways, this an interesting choice on Cory's part for the genre of SF. It seems that Cory is deliberatly attempting to "folk-song" SF; that is, it seems that Cory wants give Sci-Fi the communal aspects of folk music. Just in the way that folk and blues music is a evolutionary genre handed down from generation to generation, Cory wants to hand down Sci-Fi gems down the generations. Whether this is even remotely feasible (or desirable) is a matter for debate, but it seems he's doing this fully aware of its implications.
From the article: "If digital organisms cooperate, Ofria thinks it may be possible to get them working together to solve real-world computing problems in the same way Myxococcus swarms attack their prey. "I think we'll be able to solve much more complex problems, because we won't have to know how to break them down. The organisms will have to figure it out for themselves," says Ofria. "We could really change the face of a lot of computing.""
It seems to me that this claim could never be fulfilled. Even if computer organisms could figure out how to break down problems, Amdahl's law (A program can only broken down up to the point that it is serial) will still hold, resulting in problem solving power no more efficient than the multiple CPU computing that exists today.
"With passphrases, there are too many GRAMMATICAL RULES and PATTERNS that make it simple to crack."
This is true until you use random capitalization. Suddenly each word has its number of characters to the power of two possible configurations, making cracking extremely difficult.
Of course, convincing the average user to insert random changes in capitalization...
Slashdot Mirror
"Google Scholar certainly isn't a tool that any self-respecting scholar would use all or most of the time to find information."
Certainly not. However, I'm currently doing some pretty heavy research and have found Google Scholar to be an invaluable tool in looking up references I already know exist. Frequently after reading a paper I'll want to fish its references list for more reading, and a simple Google Scholar search of a few key words in the title and the author's last name brings up a direct link to a PDF of the paper almost every time. Now that's useful!
I'm not sure about Longhorn's search, but for me the main attraction of Tiger's search is that it searches *inside* documents (including email, text documents, and most importantly for me, PDF). I frequently download published scientific papers in PDF format, and if I want to know which of the files contain information about Single Oscillator Tempo Tracking (for instance), with Tiger I can simply search for "single oscillator tempo tracking" and find all the pdf's containing that phrase. That's a big step over any current find technology I've seen.
This dissapointment feels similar to the season 4/season 5 fiasco. For those of you unfamiliar, the show was planned as 5 seasons, but the network told them near the beginning of 4 that the show was being cancelled. In response, they crammed all the plot for both seasons into season 4. Of course, when the season was over, the network uncancelled the show, allowing for a 5th, and somewhat mediocre, season. Oh well. The movie will happen some day.
If the anti-spyware software is somehow faulty (in a way that Microsoft already has knowledge of), this could be Microsoft's way of covering their proverbial behinds. It's possible that already providing monetary compensation to wronged users will strengthen their case in any class-actions against them. I'm not a lawyer, so this is mere speculation. Anybody care to confirm (or contradict) this claim?
"maybe a dollar more here" may not be a big deal for individual users, but it's a very big deal for eBay. Even if it is a bug, it makes a huge monetary difference for them. On their site they boast over 100 million registered users. If we assume that each user has had this happen once to them (it probably averages near there), then that's a third of eBay's revenue last year made over the years due to a "bug."
Actually, according to the actual page, the inspiration came from these guys. The link is down at the bottom of the page.
"If they want the opposite, they have to buy it."
Exactly. This is a small enough move not to get too many people upset, but
a) gets rid of the need to box platform specific iPods (which is a hassle for retail department stores selling iPods)
b) makes the "standard issue" iPod more universally compliant. My iPod has a firewire cable, which I love, but I tried plugging it into a freind's windows box (to copy songs he'd written) and was unable to since he didn't have firewire
c) lets Apple pull in a (very) little more revenue from the people for whom it's still worth it to buy the firewire cable.
Good move on Apple's part.
Sony has released a new devixe, tentatively dubbed the "CD Burner," capable of burning the first second of any of your music CDs! Programmers hope some day to move to the entire first track.
In some ways, this an interesting choice on Cory's part for the genre of SF. It seems that Cory is deliberatly attempting to "folk-song" SF; that is, it seems that Cory wants give Sci-Fi the communal aspects of folk music. Just in the way that folk and blues music is a evolutionary genre handed down from generation to generation, Cory wants to hand down Sci-Fi gems down the generations. Whether this is even remotely feasible (or desirable) is a matter for debate, but it seems he's doing this fully aware of its implications.
From the article: "If digital organisms cooperate, Ofria thinks it may be possible to get them working together to solve real-world computing problems in the same way Myxococcus swarms attack their prey. "I think we'll be able to solve much more complex problems, because we won't have to know how to break them down. The organisms will have to figure it out for themselves," says Ofria. "We could really change the face of a lot of computing.""
It seems to me that this claim could never be fulfilled. Even if computer organisms could figure out how to break down problems, Amdahl's law (A program can only broken down up to the point that it is serial) will still hold, resulting in problem solving power no more efficient than the multiple CPU computing that exists today.
"With passphrases, there are too many GRAMMATICAL RULES and PATTERNS that make it simple to crack."
This is true until you use random capitalization. Suddenly each word has its number of characters to the power of two possible configurations, making cracking extremely difficult.
Of course, convincing the average user to insert random changes in capitalization...