Well, it's obvious why DARPA would care how quickly the internet can become aware of accurate and specific information such as 'where is unit X'.
What I'm curious about is how much mis-information could pop up. What if you mischievously set up your own balloon, that looks identical to the description, as a distraction to other teams/groups?
What if groups eventually find all the balloons - and there are 13 of them? Is it then time to unleash the perl scripts on DARPA's submission form? So many possible strategies and counter-strategies - but are they actually all just intellectual, or will they play a role in the challenge?
They send most of their data nationally, as they all speak Japanese, and Japanese content pretty much all comes from... Japan. Australia and New Zealand are English-speaking countries, so most of the content we want to access is overseas (US, and to a lesser extent, Europe). Korea's similar - a very introverted culture as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
Japan also has over 120 million people, New Zealand and Australia have around 4 and 22 million respectively. There's a simple economy of scale there - sure all of Japans metropolitan areas have 100mb Ethernet for cheap, but even their rural areas live on connections more similar to NZ/Aus.
Some of the cities in NZ/Aus have some OK competition (parts of my city have 10Mb Cable available - although where I live I only have the option of DSL). But yeah, we're always going to be fighting our scale and where a lot of our content comes from.
Luxury! Some open source projects have to run out of a paper bag in a septic tank. They get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the code room, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when they get home they get thrashed to sleep with a belt...
And imagine the hilarity when people put them on in the wrong order!
Waist band around your right arm, right arm band around your left leg - ahhh, I can just picture the legendary extensions to physics that the players' avatar will display...:D
I mean, I use banks all the time, but if you're going to go the self-sufficient route, you DO have to do your own risk mitigation. And for your entire lifes savings, the cost of this isn't too extreme...
It's like hosting your own email server vs. using a free provider like Gmail or paying for one like your ISP. Sure, go ahead - just remember to set up backups!
True, point taken. I guess we're lucky - we're big enough to have a couple of designers, couple of developers, and a project manager etc. Even though I'm also the 'IT guy' here for a lot of stuff, I only have to keep proceedures up to date for development - the designers look after the web design guidelines, etc.
conscientious adj: meticulous; careful; painstaking; particular From
Surely by definition, a conscientious web developer would be exactly the person who wouldn't, in fact, have all their heuristics and guidelines lying around on pieces of paper/mental notes/etc?
Not to discount the book, but I know in at least the case of the firm I work for, we wikify such matters, and they're regularly converted to a more formal procedures manual. Is this unusual for web development?
At least they're competing on open standards. Sort of like Opera's race to get support for SVG-(tiny/full) into their browser ahead of Gecko etc. No embrace and extend bollocks;).
I'm also pretty pleased to see another FOSS image editor doing well, competition does great things for the market, even when the market is free:). I'll definately be giving Krita a go soon.
...did he wind up getting any payment from the RBNZ/Telecom?
The decision by the judge would about make sense if he didn't. Namely - you weren't bad enough to get hammered, but you were stupid enough that shouldn't be rewarded.
I'm not sure why everyone here seems so harshly against this move from MS. Sure, it's a little pushy - but the world has just had a 5-year internet dark ages. And while it'd be nice to see competition return with strong market share going to all of IE7/Opera/KHTML/Gecko, that's just not going to happen.
IE7 will be a huge step forward. Not because of how good it will be - but because of how bad IE users won't be anymore (assuming MS get A into G and are planning an IE8 etc afterward...). We constantly come across annoyances with design work on our sites (things like position:fixed, PNG alpha) that actually hold back your abilities a lot. It's going to be great to slowly be able to start using those capabilities.
It's half a fix. Yes, it fixes alpha-PNG elements. However, it still DOESN'T fix alpha-PNG IMAGES. For a quick example - it doesn't correctly alpha any background-images. It also won't alpha list-style-image's. Which is why people don't do nav links as a simple |ul| of |a|'s, but rather a |table| of |a|'s with lots of javascript just for the rollovers... (well, that and the way IE can't do a:hover except over an |a|)
Re:Gimpshop!
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 2, Informative
While I don't find GIMP unusable, and while I recognise that most people like Photoshop because they're used to it (for much the same reason people use IE, Word, AOL, etc) - I must say that the GIMP UI has a long way to go.
The lack of a tabbed interface for example, breaks the now accepted model for interaction with many similar sub-task panes/windows. It's one of the big reasons Firefox/Opera/etc get pimped over IE, and with Windows XP's similar-window-grouping, it means sub-panes of GIMP are an extra click away. (and no, this argument is not going to go away. And no, GIMP's gazillion-windows strategy is not 'just different')
Having said that, I'm a coder and never use Photoshop unless I have to (mainly just cos I'm a g33k...). There's a lot of power in the GIMP when used right - recently I've been working on an icon library for my various code projects. So I've been drawing the icon's in SVG using Inkscape. Then running perl scripts to colorize them appropriately, convert them to PNG format (using a GIMP script), and scale them appropriately (again using a GIMP script). 30 minutes work on an icon and I have it available in as many colors, sizes and formats as I choose to run the scripts for:). 15000 final icons and counting - I'd hate to do them by hand.
...so it's not all doom and gloom. But there definately IS plenty of work for the GIMP team to tackle.
I know the Police here often have Rugby games with the local Motorcycle gangs for similar reasons. Computer games are a natural progression now they're played as much as more traditional sports.
After all, it's hard to commit felonies and pwnz the local copper at the same time - unless the trash talking counts...
I hear these so called 'skins' are only the tip of the iceberg.
There's an evil communist open-source program known as 'The GIMP' (coincidental naming? I think not!) which allows users to directly create images depicting sexual intercourse, paedophilia and more! Clearly, we must move to ban this insufferable cesspool!
While we're at it, I have been informed by my crack team of sleuths that a binary application using the name 'Word' allows the writing of....
etc etc ad nauseum. Gotta love the whole 'EA is doing nothing' angle. Cos you know - they clearly control Teh Interwebs.
They do? While a dictionary would support that view on first glance, it's interesting to note how dictionaries note the relationship between a game and a sport.
I'd define a sport as any game taken seriously (competitively). Which would include things such as poker tournaments, chess tournaments and golf - none of which require physical exertion. (*pokes golfers*)
Do we really think we'll be dragging windows around a 2D desktop in 30 years time?
See, now that's a really interesting question. There's actually been a huge amount of research in 3D interfaces on the desktop. But remarkably, the most defining characteristic is the totally underwhelming nature of the results. In fact, the results tend to suggest that 3D interfaces are slower than 2D interfaces.
Of course, much of this is related to the way in which both our common input devices (mice especially), and common output devices (monitors and printers) are all essentially 2-dimensional. But I wouldn't be surprised if this were the next 'cone trees' example (a 3D interface that generated a lot of excitement, but was ultimately found to be slower than the old 2D way of doing things...)
While I agree that having somebody to yell at is bizarre - I think it may be you that has missed the point.
I know (being a sys admin myself) that we don't pay for (normally minimal, but often at least some) support so we can yell at the support from vendors. We pay for support so that we can access their knowledge and resources - tips on installation and configuration issues that would otherwise just add hours here and there (costing money); as well as somebody that's probably heard of most of the common issues and solutions with the device/software/etc - including those that aren't easily googleable/findable in the docs etc.
I guess it's only a matter of time before people overseas start hiring out their services as TK'ers in FPS games:|. $10 and you can have somebody you dislike followed and TK'd for a couple hours...
According to TFA here: http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/creating/"The theme of your film should be about how intellectual property theft affects both individuals and society. Think about it: what would a world look like without protection for intellectual property?"
(emphasis mine)
So why not make a positive film showing how free information exchange could improve everyone around the globes' access to vital information?:)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's obvious why DARPA would care how quickly the internet can become aware of accurate and specific information such as 'where is unit X'.
What I'm curious about is how much mis-information could pop up. What if you mischievously set up your own balloon, that looks identical to the description, as a distraction to other teams/groups?
What if groups eventually find all the balloons - and there are 13 of them? Is it then time to unleash the perl scripts on DARPA's submission form? So many possible strategies and counter-strategies - but are they actually all just intellectual, or will they play a role in the challenge?
They send most of their data nationally, as they all speak Japanese, and Japanese content pretty much all comes from... Japan. Australia and New Zealand are English-speaking countries, so most of the content we want to access is overseas (US, and to a lesser extent, Europe). Korea's similar - a very introverted culture as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
Japan also has over 120 million people, New Zealand and Australia have around 4 and 22 million respectively. There's a simple economy of scale there - sure all of Japans metropolitan areas have 100mb Ethernet for cheap, but even their rural areas live on connections more similar to NZ/Aus.
Some of the cities in NZ/Aus have some OK competition (parts of my city have 10Mb Cable available - although where I live I only have the option of DSL). But yeah, we're always going to be fighting our scale and where a lot of our content comes from.
Luxury! Some open source projects have to run out of a paper bag in a septic tank. They get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the code room, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when they get home they get thrashed to sleep with a belt...
And imagine the hilarity when people put them on in the wrong order!
Waist band around your right arm, right arm band around your left leg - ahhh, I can just picture the legendary extensions to physics that the players' avatar will display... :D
Maybe they should have bought gold and a safe.
I mean, I use banks all the time, but if you're going to go the self-sufficient route, you DO have to do your own risk mitigation. And for your entire lifes savings, the cost of this isn't too extreme...
It's like hosting your own email server vs. using a free provider like Gmail or paying for one like your ISP. Sure, go ahead - just remember to set up backups!
Karma what?
You must be new here, this is Slashdot, we whore Karma, but not like that...
...gives several examples on the first hit ;)
True, point taken. I guess we're lucky - we're big enough to have a couple of designers, couple of developers, and a project manager etc. Even though I'm also the 'IT guy' here for a lot of stuff, I only have to keep proceedures up to date for development - the designers look after the web design guidelines, etc.
Surely by definition, a conscientious web developer would be exactly the person who wouldn't, in fact, have all their heuristics and guidelines lying around on pieces of paper/mental notes/etc?
Not to discount the book, but I know in at least the case of the firm I work for, we wikify such matters, and they're regularly converted to a more formal procedures manual. Is this unusual for web development?
At least they're competing on open standards. Sort of like Opera's race to get support for SVG-(tiny/full) into their browser ahead of Gecko etc. No embrace and extend bollocks ;).
I'm also pretty pleased to see another FOSS image editor doing well, competition does great things for the market, even when the market is free :). I'll definately be giving Krita a go soon.
Assuming all other things equal - surely that actually WOULD make you a better person...
...did he wind up getting any payment from the RBNZ/Telecom?
The decision by the judge would about make sense if he didn't. Namely - you weren't bad enough to get hammered, but you were stupid enough that shouldn't be rewarded.
Yeah - it's bad enough trying to define something less subjective, like say - what is a planet... ;)
Unfortunately, I have a sinking feeling their 'fix' may just be to ensure that:
MeanWritesBeforeFailure / AverageWriteRate > WarrantyPeriod
...here's to hoping the longevity of flash memory being produced is improving with time.
Amen
I'm not sure why everyone here seems so harshly against this move from MS. Sure, it's a little pushy - but the world has just had a 5-year internet dark ages. And while it'd be nice to see competition return with strong market share going to all of IE7/Opera/KHTML/Gecko, that's just not going to happen.
IE7 will be a huge step forward. Not because of how good it will be - but because of how bad IE users won't be anymore (assuming MS get A into G and are planning an IE8 etc afterward...). We constantly come across annoyances with design work on our sites (things like position:fixed, PNG alpha) that actually hold back your abilities a lot. It's going to be great to slowly be able to start using those capabilities.
It's half a fix. Yes, it fixes alpha-PNG elements. However, it still DOESN'T fix alpha-PNG IMAGES. For a quick example - it doesn't correctly alpha any background-images. It also won't alpha list-style-image's. Which is why people don't do nav links as a simple |ul| of |a|'s, but rather a |table| of |a|'s with lots of javascript just for the rollovers... (well, that and the way IE can't do a :hover except over an |a|)
While I don't find GIMP unusable, and while I recognise that most people like Photoshop because they're used to it (for much the same reason people use IE, Word, AOL, etc) - I must say that the GIMP UI has a long way to go.
The lack of a tabbed interface for example, breaks the now accepted model for interaction with many similar sub-task panes/windows. It's one of the big reasons Firefox/Opera/etc get pimped over IE, and with Windows XP's similar-window-grouping, it means sub-panes of GIMP are an extra click away. (and no, this argument is not going to go away. And no, GIMP's gazillion-windows strategy is not 'just different')
Having said that, I'm a coder and never use Photoshop unless I have to (mainly just cos I'm a g33k...). There's a lot of power in the GIMP when used right - recently I've been working on an icon library for my various code projects. So I've been drawing the icon's in SVG using Inkscape. Then running perl scripts to colorize them appropriately, convert them to PNG format (using a GIMP script), and scale them appropriately (again using a GIMP script). 30 minutes work on an icon and I have it available in as many colors, sizes and formats as I choose to run the scripts for :). 15000 final icons and counting - I'd hate to do them by hand.
...so it's not all doom and gloom. But there definately IS plenty of work for the GIMP team to tackle.
I know the Police here often have Rugby games with the local Motorcycle gangs for similar reasons. Computer games are a natural progression now they're played as much as more traditional sports.
After all, it's hard to commit felonies and pwnz the local copper at the same time - unless the trash talking counts...
I hear these so called 'skins' are only the tip of the iceberg.
There's an evil communist open-source program known as 'The GIMP' (coincidental naming? I think not!) which allows users to directly create images depicting sexual intercourse, paedophilia and more! Clearly, we must move to ban this insufferable cesspool!
While we're at it, I have been informed by my crack team of sleuths that a binary application using the name 'Word' allows the writing of....
etc etc ad nauseum. Gotta love the whole 'EA is doing nothing' angle. Cos you know - they clearly control Teh Interwebs.
They do? While a dictionary would support that view on first glance, it's interesting to note how dictionaries note the relationship between a game and a sport.
I'd define a sport as any game taken seriously (competitively). Which would include things such as poker tournaments, chess tournaments and golf - none of which require physical exertion. (*pokes golfers*)
See, now that's a really interesting question. There's actually been a huge amount of research in 3D interfaces on the desktop. But remarkably, the most defining characteristic is the totally underwhelming nature of the results. In fact, the results tend to suggest that 3D interfaces are slower than 2D interfaces.
Of course, much of this is related to the way in which both our common input devices (mice especially), and common output devices (monitors and printers) are all essentially 2-dimensional. But I wouldn't be surprised if this were the next 'cone trees' example (a 3D interface that generated a lot of excitement, but was ultimately found to be slower than the old 2D way of doing things...)
While I agree that having somebody to yell at is bizarre - I think it may be you that has missed the point. I know (being a sys admin myself) that we don't pay for (normally minimal, but often at least some) support so we can yell at the support from vendors. We pay for support so that we can access their knowledge and resources - tips on installation and configuration issues that would otherwise just add hours here and there (costing money); as well as somebody that's probably heard of most of the common issues and solutions with the device/software/etc - including those that aren't easily googleable/findable in the docs etc.
I guess it's only a matter of time before people overseas start hiring out their services as TK'ers in FPS games :|. $10 and you can have somebody you dislike followed and TK'd for a couple hours...
According to TFA here: http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/creating/ "The theme of your film should be about how intellectual property theft affects both individuals and society. Think about it: what would a world look like without protection for intellectual property?" (emphasis mine) So why not make a positive film showing how free information exchange could improve everyone around the globes' access to vital information? :)