he he. Ya, good point. Beta was supposedly better and Sony killed it (from what I've read), and I hate Minidisk.
However, I don't think Blu-ray (spelled it right this time) is Sony's format. According to their site, http://www.blu-ray.com/info/, it is a partnership. Although, I wouldn't be supprised if one company (like Sony or maybe HP) had more control over production and the technology than the others. Some of these companys are probably just financing (like it says 20th Century Fox is on the board, what do they know about hardware?).
But don't forget Sony's business model in all of this. Sony makes high end audio and video equipment (HDTVs, amps, and the like), and will be making the BlueRay (spell?) drives and disks, all of which the PS3 will support the use and adoption of in a big way. More waiting time on the PS3 means that manufacturing prices may go down for the PS3's componets, and the TVs, amps, and other such componets which may be sold along side it. Of course, I would assume that Sony would start using BlueRay and Cell in their computers, so refining and making a good showing of these componets on the PS3 will also be good for business.
With or without the delay, Sony has set themselves up nice.
Ya, but who the hell puts FFX over FFVII, or Super Mario World 2 over Super Mario World? All respectibility was lost right there. Then I didn't see Mortal Kombat or Final Fight either. Damn, that is without a doubt the worst list I have ever seen. 'Best of' is just too hard to put together, and they always leave something out or out of order, in my opinion anyway.
The Most Influential list that 1up had a while back was good. That was kind of hard to argue with.
What good does freedom of speach do when the polititions pay us no mind, or find some reason to censor it?
Voteing is supposed to be a representation of ones voice, right? In my crap town, the city council will bring up proposals for the population to vote on. When they get shot down, the city council will just keep bringing it to vote until its passed. I think that there is one comming up thats been up for vote three times already! Try to get some of the council out, and, like you said, the good ol' boys just whip the new guys into shape.
A new American Revolution may not work in the long run, but it would defenatly get some of these assholes to sit up and take notice. Hell, if one damn state would attemt to succed from the union, and gave some reasons like the ones in the parent post, maybe that would be enough to get some people to say, "Hey, we really are getting fucked arn't we?".
Sorry about that. I took your post to be of a lot of the self-ritious crap I hear and read everyday and responded in kind, and from your reply I see that not to be the case. Also, when I said psychotic, I was refering more to individuals who are moraly and ethically squewed in comparison to the general populace, but are more or less sane in their general thinking and logic (very general). I, personally, find that interesting.
Which disturbs you more? That Rockstar makes the games, or that people buy them?
Humanities dark side is more intriguing to me and many other people. Sales show it. And when is the last time you saw a study on the behavior of people with the characteristics of a monk or saint as opposed to the severly depressed or psychotic?
In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well.
....But as few of them as we can.
Come on. Give me a break. It sounds to me like it will take a long time for the browser to be up to the standards. Is IE7 just a rewrite of IE6? If so, would it be faster to start from scratch if you wanted to make the browser compliant with all of the standards?
In the web platform team that I lead, our top priority is (and will likely always be) security - not just mechanical "fix buffer overruns" type stuff, but innovative stuff like the anti-phishing work and low-rights IE.
I'm also supprised that MS doesn't have a team that only works on security and leaves bugs and standards to a different team, considering how many updates we all get that are just for IE's security.
Then again, what the hell do I know? I don't write browsers. What does someone who does think of this?
I agree. More powerfull for what? Any CAD program has a mindboggling amount of mathimatical formula programmed into it. Also, if he is worried about LT's price, what would he have said to AutoCAD or any other full blown CAD program at a few grand a licence?
If we are counting CAD programs as something to be used as webpage design, then, ya, you missed a bunch.
Sounds like that this little debate is in how the contract is written and interprited. To me, a salery is granted for work done at the company (as in the guy's work was worth $1M a year). So when you leave your employing company, you should be further compensated for not being allowed to work in your respected feild (naturally the contract should say this).
When I see a company refusing to compensate a employee who can't work for a set period of time that is leaving, I think that the employee is getting the shaft. However, the argument that lantenon (the parent) makes seems to suggest that compensation for the time that one is not allowed to work is included in the sallery. So in this case, it would mean that Kai-Fu Lee's work was not worth $1M to Microsoft, but a figure less than $1M with the rest making up his compensation pay SHOULD he ever decide to leave MS employment before his retirement (which I don't see MS doing as it would mean that if he did not leave, then they just paid him a lot of extra cash, but...). Just like recieving compensation pay for time unemployed after one quits, this should also be CLEARLY expressed in the signed contract.
I have never seen one of these non-compete contracts before. Therefore, I ask, how does your contract, lantenon, and anyone else who has signed one of these, read? Does it state that part of your salery is for if you should ever decide to leave? Also, does anyone have a non-compete contract that agrees to pay compensation during or for the time you may not work after you quit?
I have a Sharp Wizard OZ-730 (http://www.epinions.com/Sharp_OZ_730PC_Electronic _Organizer__PDAs___Handhelds_OZ730PC) and it has a nice size QWERTY keyboard on it. Sadly, it is now outdated, and can not even dream of doing most of the things that this artical speaks of. When the Wizard line went to the stylus pen, I swore it off. Looking again at Sharp's site, I found this product (http://www.sharpusa.com/products/TypeLanding/0,10 56,74,00.html) that looks more like my beloved OZ-730, upgraded to more modern specifications (although it runs damn windows). Its called a Mobilion, and the website makes it seem as if the product is discontinued.
Does anyone have one of these Mobilions, or ever seen/used one? If not, does anyone know of a good replacement for the Wizard OZ-700 series that has some of the features that newer PDAs have? I would like for one that would be able to keep a schedule, take notes or memos, keep birthdays and anniversaries, store telephone and adress information, keep user files (like databasing to keep an index of things like my CD collection), and light web features (e-mail and light web-browsing would be nice, but not a nessesity). If anyone has any information/suggestions, I would really appreciate a reply.
can a person under the legal drinking age purchase these ingrediants without anyone asking for ID?
I know that malt can be used for other things (although I doubt lager malt has other uses), and hops have properties that stop bacterial reaction (although I have never heard of their use for anything else). Yeast, of course, is used for bread. So for thoes with experience in home bewing, what's the verdict?
Another solution may be to compleatly get rid of the gloves, and extened the sleves beyond the hand to have an 'nub' of sorts. This could have some sort of edge connectors that would allow attachments to the suit, which are controlled by buttons, switches, sensors, etc. inside of the extended sleve. Attachments could be anything from robotic hands, to welding torches, to high-pressure grip claws.
Or, you could slap a chainsaw on the end and go Bruce Campbell style at 300 miles up.
this might seem like a good idea, but if they're not using their muscles anymore and this thing does all the work what happens when they take this machine off? Or do they become so dependent on it they can't function without it?
While your point is valid, it doesn't seem like this problem would be too hard to remidy. I'm sure that there is a way to make the motors do only some of the work. For example, the user starts out with the full load, and then the motors activate as nessisary (although should the motors or software fail, the user would be royly boned). Also, if the suit could be broken down into compoents (arms, legs, back, or maybe even single arms and legs), it could be distributed as nessisary without risking the otherwise healthy body of the user. Another option may be to use some kind of muscle massager/stimulator device within the suit, sort of like hospitals use on bedridden patients.
Another thing, if the elderly person in question has already deteriorated to the point where they are living in an assisted living home, and need to be picked out of bed and placed in a wheelchair, what would the difference between that and their use of some robotic legs be? Seems to me that this invention could give thoes people a few more years of life outside of a nursing or assisted living home.
Like any new technology, there is sure to be flaws. Lets give the inventors a little time and see what they come up with.
These are all non-haggled prices, too. There is nothing on there for $99, and I wouldn't think that they would be buying new servers just to change over the OS. Elseware I saw that these prices are supposed to include one year of matenence as well. Either I really missed something, or there is a flaw in Mr. Schwarz's journalism. Anybody have any insite into this little paradox?
Suing over employee "poaching" is pretty common business practice in some countries.
When you say this, are you refering to the suing of the second company to hire the employee, or the suing of the employee in question. I understand that he may have broken some kind of contract, which in some way, that I find very strange, must remain valid after he quits, but how can another company that had nothing to do with the origonal contract be held responsible for a breach by a newly hired employee? I would think that it would be the responsibility of the employee to refuse employment offers.
One question I wonder about, if Google wanted this guy so bad before another company picked him up, could they put this guy on a salery and have him sit at home untill his 'Microsoft year' is up?
If it already doesn't do it by design, maybe Fujitsu should build in a static discharge to the 'paper' (Is that what we are really going to call it? Better name needed...) like monitors and televisions. That way you get that "static-y" feeling when you put your hand down on it, preventing you from writing on it by mistake. Besides, you probably shouldn't touch anything but the edges anyway.
Glad you caught it. I was refering to Linux desktop swiching with Ctrl-Tab. Also, you can run multiple X services on the same computer? Is that like starting X in one of the Virtual terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F* on my comp)? How is the resource use if that's possible? I'm kind of pushing my 500Mhz PIII as it is.
What are they going to do when they bring this to Monitors? Are they expecting me to grab the screen and turn my monitor 45 degrees (or whatever it ends up being) to show a new desktop?
Motorize it and link it to a keyboard button, and maybe then well talk (probably not though, as this thing will probably cost more than two monitors anyway). Untill then, I'm sticking to Ctrl-Tab.
How about the Bill-Borg "laser-eyeing" Tux untill he bursts into flames? That way we can have an icon to know there is a problem, and still blame Windows!
While Dotzler makes a few good points, I don't entirly agree with most of them. These in particular.
And what is a Regular Person to think when confronted with a choice between Helix Player, CD Player, and Music Player? Does the Music Player not understand CDs? What's "Helix" mean?
I threw this argument right out the fucking window. Anyone bought a Dell Computer lately? Ye Gods! You get Dell Musicmatch Jukebox (which has explorer controll over the music files), Windows Media Player (Movie control, I think), and Dell Media Experience. All of these play audio. Movies are Dell Media Experience, Windows Media Player, and the Start menu yeilds Power DVD by Cyberlink. Futher investigation would yeild that the Dell Media Experience seems to be nothing more than a front end for other programs, but is our so called "average user" going to be able to deduce that? Moving on to burning software, two icons were on my Dell Laptop desktop by default. "Burn CDs & DVDs with Sonic DigitalMedia LE" and "MyDVD LE". [Average User time] "So, lets see. Sonic does DVDs, so why is there another DVD program right next to it?" [Dummy mode is now on!]. And then we have 3 ISPs to choose from; AOL, Earthlink, and NetZero. Bah!
I don't want to start a desktop war but I really gotta say to the distros, pick a desktop and be happy. Regular People shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product.
This also irked me a bit. How many of the average users actually install windows now? Going back to my Dell Laptop I just got, WinXP was already installed on it, so much that I didn't have to activate the installation. If a computer company like Dell, IBM, Compaq, Sony, etc. were to preinstall Linux on their machines instead, would they allow the user to select the desktop on bootup? Personally, I think they would choose one and have you be stuck with it. The "average user" probably would not know the difference.
Meh. I liked the idea of Raskin with the Archy OS (http://rchi.raskincenter.org/aboutrchi/index.php) . Give the average users something simplistic and good enough to do what the average user wants, and leave the complex systems (Linux and, dare I say it, Windows) to those of us who know a little bit about what the box under the desk is and are willing to learn a little more.
I had the same thought. At first glance, the plastic disk of the normal touchsensitive wheel looks like an ordinary piece of thin plastic. Does anyone know if it has some sort of electrostatic properties?
If not, then I would think that any material would work, as long as it was not so heavy that a slight jerk would register as 'contact' on the iPod.
Although, the origonal disk could have been stuck on the back of the wood wheel if it is needed, as well.
I've said this before, but I'll repeate it. My parents did exactly what you described to me. As soon as I started watching TV, they explained the difference between fantasy and reallity, as well as that what was acceptible behavior on TV, was usually not acceptible in real life. When I got my SNES, they repeated themselves for this new medium and made sure I understood.
I am now a bit of a pessimist with a moderate ammount of apathy for mankind, but I would not chalk that up to video games, movies, TV, music, or whatever the new congresional target is this week. I'd say most of that attitude came from history, and I don't see the History Channel being taken off the air. Someone invented the rack, guillitine, water-torture, drawing-and-quartering, the one with the rat in the burning box on your stomache, etc. And this was way before videogames. With that in mind, everything that comes out of the 'save the poor little children from (insert target of the week here)' assholes kinda loses all its power.
While I agree with you that it is on the childish side to download Kazaa and emulators on a school computer (how long could you be on a computer for? 2 or three hours?), I must dissagree with your conclusion on the 'spy' programs.
Having graduated from HS this year, a rather populated school ('A' sports class, I believe) with older computers (PII's and PIII's), and a staff that *did* use the SynchrinEyes program frequently, I can assure you that you would always know when you were being monitored. The computer would suddenly slow to a crawl, the mouse would 'jump' in gaps on the screen, and web pages would take five times longer to load (and our network was already slower than 56K speed on most occasions due to its usage). Even using Word would become a pain.
I don't particularly care how you justify it (not held liable for bad content), anything that makes the computers less usable than a 386 is not a piece of software/equipment that should be used. This is not the only thing that is a problem with it. There is that feeling of annoyance that comes from someone watching you; a feeling which (believe it or not) decreases productivity even more. It is essentaly no different than a person standing over you while you are reading a book, and reading over your shoulder. In my case, I was always worried that the Librarian at my school (real Drac of a lady and the worst of the SynchronEyes monitors) would be monitoring me and look away for a moment, only to look back just as I would encounter a pop-up of questionable material (tig o' bitties!), which has happened to almost eveyone I know at school at least once.
This program is so much of a pain in the ass, that I have had some of the most timmid, straight-arrows of the school approach me asking if I knew how to dissable or even BREAK the stupid thing. It didn't take all that long to find a few ways around it, but it generally was a big risk to shut the thing off, as the monitor could tell if the program was disabled. We got warned the first few times, but then we were getting kicked out of the Library or computer lab and threatened with disiplinary action.
Our charge? Wanting to get our work done. SychronEyes (and I'm assuming most 'spy' programs) is a total piece of shit, which, in the wrong hands, decreases productivity and, overall, totaly fucks up an otherwise useable computer. Afterall, a computer is not truly obsolete until it can no longer due what you require of it.
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Ok, perhaps they face a brighter future than I imagined. Where can I get this clicker retraining, and is there a clicker conference soon?
Click!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
he he. Ya, good point. Beta was supposedly better and Sony killed it (from what I've read), and I hate Minidisk.
However, I don't think Blu-ray (spelled it right this time) is Sony's format. According to their site, http://www.blu-ray.com/info/, it is a partnership. Although, I wouldn't be supprised if one company (like Sony or maybe HP) had more control over production and the technology than the others. Some of these companys are probably just financing (like it says 20th Century Fox is on the board, what do they know about hardware?).
But don't forget Sony's business model in all of this. Sony makes high end audio and video equipment (HDTVs, amps, and the like), and will be making the BlueRay (spell?) drives and disks, all of which the PS3 will support the use and adoption of in a big way. More waiting time on the PS3 means that manufacturing prices may go down for the PS3's componets, and the TVs, amps, and other such componets which may be sold along side it. Of course, I would assume that Sony would start using BlueRay and Cell in their computers, so refining and making a good showing of these componets on the PS3 will also be good for business.
With or without the delay, Sony has set themselves up nice.
Ya, but who the hell puts FFX over FFVII, or Super Mario World 2 over Super Mario World? All respectibility was lost right there. Then I didn't see Mortal Kombat or Final Fight either. Damn, that is without a doubt the worst list I have ever seen. 'Best of' is just too hard to put together, and they always leave something out or out of order, in my opinion anyway.
The Most Influential list that 1up had a while back was good. That was kind of hard to argue with.
What good does freedom of speach do when the polititions pay us no mind, or find some reason to censor it?
Voteing is supposed to be a representation of ones voice, right? In my crap town, the city council will bring up proposals for the population to vote on. When they get shot down, the city council will just keep bringing it to vote until its passed. I think that there is one comming up thats been up for vote three times already! Try to get some of the council out, and, like you said, the good ol' boys just whip the new guys into shape.
A new American Revolution may not work in the long run, but it would defenatly get some of these assholes to sit up and take notice. Hell, if one damn state would attemt to succed from the union, and gave some reasons like the ones in the parent post, maybe that would be enough to get some people to say, "Hey, we really are getting fucked arn't we?".
"Halleluiah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?!?!"
Sorry about that. I took your post to be of a lot of the self-ritious crap I hear and read everyday and responded in kind, and from your reply I see that not to be the case. Also, when I said psychotic, I was refering more to individuals who are moraly and ethically squewed in comparison to the general populace, but are more or less sane in their general thinking and logic (very general). I, personally, find that interesting.
Which disturbs you more? That Rockstar makes the games, or that people buy them?
Humanities dark side is more intriguing to me and many other people. Sales show it. And when is the last time you saw a study on the behavior of people with the characteristics of a monk or saint as opposed to the severly depressed or psychotic?
In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well.
....But as few of them as we can.
Come on. Give me a break. It sounds to me like it will take a long time for the browser to be up to the standards. Is IE7 just a rewrite of IE6? If so, would it be faster to start from scratch if you wanted to make the browser compliant with all of the standards?
In the web platform team that I lead, our top priority is (and will likely always be) security - not just mechanical "fix buffer overruns" type stuff, but innovative stuff like the anti-phishing work and low-rights IE.
I'm also supprised that MS doesn't have a team that only works on security and leaves bugs and standards to a different team, considering how many updates we all get that are just for IE's security.
Then again, what the hell do I know? I don't write browsers. What does someone who does think of this?
I agree. More powerfull for what? Any CAD program has a mindboggling amount of mathimatical formula programmed into it. Also, if he is worried about LT's price, what would he have said to AutoCAD or any other full blown CAD program at a few grand a licence?
If we are counting CAD programs as something to be used as webpage design, then, ya, you missed a bunch.
Anvil, CADvance, all the ones on this page http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm, and many more.
Sounds like that this little debate is in how the contract is written and interprited. To me, a salery is granted for work done at the company (as in the guy's work was worth $1M a year). So when you leave your employing company, you should be further compensated for not being allowed to work in your respected feild (naturally the contract should say this).
When I see a company refusing to compensate a employee who can't work for a set period of time that is leaving, I think that the employee is getting the shaft. However, the argument that lantenon (the parent) makes seems to suggest that compensation for the time that one is not allowed to work is included in the sallery. So in this case, it would mean that Kai-Fu Lee's work was not worth $1M to Microsoft, but a figure less than $1M with the rest making up his compensation pay SHOULD he ever decide to leave MS employment before his retirement (which I don't see MS doing as it would mean that if he did not leave, then they just paid him a lot of extra cash, but...). Just like recieving compensation pay for time unemployed after one quits, this should also be CLEARLY expressed in the signed contract.
I have never seen one of these non-compete contracts before. Therefore, I ask, how does your contract, lantenon, and anyone else who has signed one of these, read? Does it state that part of your salery is for if you should ever decide to leave? Also, does anyone have a non-compete contract that agrees to pay compensation during or for the time you may not work after you quit?
I have a Sharp Wizard OZ-730 (http://www.epinions.com/Sharp_OZ_730PC_Electronic _Organizer__PDAs___Handhelds_OZ730PC) and it has a nice size QWERTY keyboard on it. Sadly, it is now outdated, and can not even dream of doing most of the things that this artical speaks of. When the Wizard line went to the stylus pen, I swore it off. Looking again at Sharp's site, I found this product (http://www.sharpusa.com/products/TypeLanding/0,10 56,74,00.html) that looks more like my beloved OZ-730, upgraded to more modern specifications (although it runs damn windows). Its called a Mobilion, and the website makes it seem as if the product is discontinued.
Does anyone have one of these Mobilions, or ever seen/used one? If not, does anyone know of a good replacement for the Wizard OZ-700 series that has some of the features that newer PDAs have? I would like for one that would be able to keep a schedule, take notes or memos, keep birthdays and anniversaries, store telephone and adress information, keep user files (like databasing to keep an index of things like my CD collection), and light web features (e-mail and light web-browsing would be nice, but not a nessesity). If anyone has any information/suggestions, I would really appreciate a reply.
can a person under the legal drinking age purchase these ingrediants without anyone asking for ID?
I know that malt can be used for other things (although I doubt lager malt has other uses), and hops have properties that stop bacterial reaction (although I have never heard of their use for anything else). Yeast, of course, is used for bread. So for thoes with experience in home bewing, what's the verdict?
Another solution may be to compleatly get rid of the gloves, and extened the sleves beyond the hand to have an 'nub' of sorts. This could have some sort of edge connectors that would allow attachments to the suit, which are controlled by buttons, switches, sensors, etc. inside of the extended sleve. Attachments could be anything from robotic hands, to welding torches, to high-pressure grip claws.
Or, you could slap a chainsaw on the end and go Bruce Campbell style at 300 miles up.
this might seem like a good idea, but if they're not using their muscles anymore and this thing does all the work what happens when they take this machine off? Or do they become so dependent on it they can't function without it?
While your point is valid, it doesn't seem like this problem would be too hard to remidy. I'm sure that there is a way to make the motors do only some of the work. For example, the user starts out with the full load, and then the motors activate as nessisary (although should the motors or software fail, the user would be royly boned). Also, if the suit could be broken down into compoents (arms, legs, back, or maybe even single arms and legs), it could be distributed as nessisary without risking the otherwise healthy body of the user. Another option may be to use some kind of muscle massager/stimulator device within the suit, sort of like hospitals use on bedridden patients.
Another thing, if the elderly person in question has already deteriorated to the point where they are living in an assisted living home, and need to be picked out of bed and placed in a wheelchair, what would the difference between that and their use of some robotic legs be? Seems to me that this invention could give thoes people a few more years of life outside of a nursing or assisted living home.
Like any new technology, there is sure to be flaws. Lets give the inventors a little time and see what they come up with.
The Novell deals lets schools buy software for the same cost as Microsoft products, about $99 per product per server for a year-long licence.
v er/pricing.html
This is a strange statement, due to TFA later saying the following:
The ministry won't comment on the cost of the contract.
Further investigation to this shows the following server costs from Novell's site:
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxenterpriseser
These are all non-haggled prices, too. There is nothing on there for $99, and I wouldn't think that they would be buying new servers just to change over the OS. Elseware I saw that these prices are supposed to include one year of matenence as well. Either I really missed something, or there is a flaw in Mr. Schwarz's journalism. Anybody have any insite into this little paradox?
Suing over employee "poaching" is pretty common business practice in some countries.
When you say this, are you refering to the suing of the second company to hire the employee, or the suing of the employee in question. I understand that he may have broken some kind of contract, which in some way, that I find very strange, must remain valid after he quits, but how can another company that had nothing to do with the origonal contract be held responsible for a breach by a newly hired employee? I would think that it would be the responsibility of the employee to refuse employment offers.
One question I wonder about, if Google wanted this guy so bad before another company picked him up, could they put this guy on a salery and have him sit at home untill his 'Microsoft year' is up?
If it already doesn't do it by design, maybe Fujitsu should build in a static discharge to the 'paper' (Is that what we are really going to call it? Better name needed...) like monitors and televisions. That way you get that "static-y" feeling when you put your hand down on it, preventing you from writing on it by mistake. Besides, you probably shouldn't touch anything but the edges anyway.
Thanks for the reply. That is an interesting little piece of info that may be worth looking into. Appreciate it.
Glad you caught it. I was refering to Linux desktop swiching with Ctrl-Tab. Also, you can run multiple X services on the same computer? Is that like starting X in one of the Virtual terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F* on my comp)? How is the resource use if that's possible? I'm kind of pushing my 500Mhz PIII as it is.
What are they going to do when they bring this to Monitors? Are they expecting me to grab the screen and turn my monitor 45 degrees (or whatever it ends up being) to show a new desktop?
Motorize it and link it to a keyboard button, and maybe then well talk (probably not though, as this thing will probably cost more than two monitors anyway). Untill then, I'm sticking to Ctrl-Tab.
How about the Bill-Borg "laser-eyeing" Tux untill he bursts into flames? That way we can have an icon to know there is a problem, and still blame Windows!
While Dotzler makes a few good points, I don't entirly agree with most of them. These in particular.
) . Give the average users something simplistic and good enough to do what the average user wants, and leave the complex systems (Linux and, dare I say it, Windows) to those of us who know a little bit about what the box under the desk is and are willing to learn a little more.
And what is a Regular Person to think when confronted with a choice between Helix Player, CD Player, and Music Player? Does the Music Player not understand CDs? What's "Helix" mean?
I threw this argument right out the fucking window. Anyone bought a Dell Computer lately? Ye Gods! You get Dell Musicmatch Jukebox (which has explorer controll over the music files), Windows Media Player (Movie control, I think), and Dell Media Experience. All of these play audio. Movies are Dell Media Experience, Windows Media Player, and the Start menu yeilds Power DVD by Cyberlink. Futher investigation would yeild that the Dell Media Experience seems to be nothing more than a front end for other programs, but is our so called "average user" going to be able to deduce that? Moving on to burning software, two icons were on my Dell Laptop desktop by default. "Burn CDs & DVDs with Sonic DigitalMedia LE" and "MyDVD LE". [Average User time] "So, lets see. Sonic does DVDs, so why is there another DVD program right next to it?" [Dummy mode is now on!]. And then we have 3 ISPs to choose from; AOL, Earthlink, and NetZero. Bah!
I don't want to start a desktop war but I really gotta say to the distros, pick a desktop and be happy. Regular People shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product.
This also irked me a bit. How many of the average users actually install windows now? Going back to my Dell Laptop I just got, WinXP was already installed on it, so much that I didn't have to activate the installation. If a computer company like Dell, IBM, Compaq, Sony, etc. were to preinstall Linux on their machines instead, would they allow the user to select the desktop on bootup? Personally, I think they would choose one and have you be stuck with it. The "average user" probably would not know the difference.
Meh. I liked the idea of Raskin with the Archy OS (http://rchi.raskincenter.org/aboutrchi/index.php
I had the same thought. At first glance, the plastic disk of the normal touchsensitive wheel looks like an ordinary piece of thin plastic. Does anyone know if it has some sort of electrostatic properties?
If not, then I would think that any material would work, as long as it was not so heavy that a slight jerk would register as 'contact' on the iPod.
Although, the origonal disk could have been stuck on the back of the wood wheel if it is needed, as well.
Fantastic annalysis.
I've said this before, but I'll repeate it. My parents did exactly what you described to me. As soon as I started watching TV, they explained the difference between fantasy and reallity, as well as that what was acceptible behavior on TV, was usually not acceptible in real life. When I got my SNES, they repeated themselves for this new medium and made sure I understood.
I am now a bit of a pessimist with a moderate ammount of apathy for mankind, but I would not chalk that up to video games, movies, TV, music, or whatever the new congresional target is this week. I'd say most of that attitude came from history, and I don't see the History Channel being taken off the air. Someone invented the rack, guillitine, water-torture, drawing-and-quartering, the one with the rat in the burning box on your stomache, etc. And this was way before videogames. With that in mind, everything that comes out of the 'save the poor little children from (insert target of the week here)' assholes kinda loses all its power.
While I agree with you that it is on the childish side to download Kazaa and emulators on a school computer (how long could you be on a computer for? 2 or three hours?), I must dissagree with your conclusion on the 'spy' programs.
Having graduated from HS this year, a rather populated school ('A' sports class, I believe) with older computers (PII's and PIII's), and a staff that *did* use the SynchrinEyes program frequently, I can assure you that you would always know when you were being monitored. The computer would suddenly slow to a crawl, the mouse would 'jump' in gaps on the screen, and web pages would take five times longer to load (and our network was already slower than 56K speed on most occasions due to its usage). Even using Word would become a pain.
I don't particularly care how you justify it (not held liable for bad content), anything that makes the computers less usable than a 386 is not a piece of software/equipment that should be used. This is not the only thing that is a problem with it. There is that feeling of annoyance that comes from someone watching you; a feeling which (believe it or not) decreases productivity even more. It is essentaly no different than a person standing over you while you are reading a book, and reading over your shoulder. In my case, I was always worried that the Librarian at my school (real Drac of a lady and the worst of the SynchronEyes monitors) would be monitoring me and look away for a moment, only to look back just as I would encounter a pop-up of questionable material (tig o' bitties!), which has happened to almost eveyone I know at school at least once.
This program is so much of a pain in the ass, that I have had some of the most timmid, straight-arrows of the school approach me asking if I knew how to dissable or even BREAK the stupid thing. It didn't take all that long to find a few ways around it, but it generally was a big risk to shut the thing off, as the monitor could tell if the program was disabled. We got warned the first few times, but then we were getting kicked out of the Library or computer lab and threatened with disiplinary action.
Our charge? Wanting to get our work done. SychronEyes (and I'm assuming most 'spy' programs) is a total piece of shit, which, in the wrong hands, decreases productivity and, overall, totaly fucks up an otherwise useable computer. Afterall, a computer is not truly obsolete until it can no longer due what you require of it.