It doesn't even look like a touchscreen 'scroll' panel as much as a flat button with up, down, left, right capabilities.
They've got a flash online demo of sorts to check out to see how it works. Doesn't even look as "fancy" as the Kensington touchpad mouse people have mentioned.
Talk about slanting a story. They were put away for the scam, not the spam.
That aside, advocating putting people in prison for annoying business practices doesn't exactly jive well with having liberal free speech rights attitudes. If they've got the right to mail me advertising crap via snail then they damn well should have the right to do so via email. Whether I like getting the stuff or not.
It would be nice to see some sort of "party line" attitude when it comes to these Internet Free Speech Issues... but I don't think it'll ever happen.
While it is true (and has been for some time) that Universities and other academic institutions are "shifting the paradigm" toward monetary profit and corporate , I don't believe it is true that this is endangering, in any way, the pure and necessary academic freedom at most institutions.
This stuff is true when talking about the technology portions of a university (CS, Engineering). Mathematics is still (mostly) safe from this crap. The Liberal Arts are fine and aren't abusing the idea of profit-making.
Of course, every prof., every department at your local university is trying to make money for itself. They write books, textbooks, instructors guides, solutions manuals.. all of this on top of the necessary "publish or perish" rule because most of that stuff doesn't even count.
Give our academics some credit. Education is good and educators need money (more than they get) and they work their asses off.
What bothers me more than anything about this, as well as many other types of so-called "protective" laws, is that it feels more and more every day as though "they" are just preparing us for something.
We can feel comfortable putting chips in our pets in case we lose them... buying into a "service" that allows the car companies to unlock your doors... not minding too much that the govt. is peeking at big, bad, evil criminals email because it isn't like we should let them get away with anything.
I truly dislike it when people, even I, compare current-day laws and situations to things such as Nazi Germany.... so I won't. It is really hard not to though.
That is what they'll go after next. No more DCC file transfers at all. They'll try get server owners to regulate transfers so that only certain approved file types can be transferred.
I now have daily thoughts about moving to a different country.
If nothing else, the Internet has changed my views on the world and made my initial belief in truly free speech even stronger. Stick it out, they aren't really that big and they aren't really that scary.
Until the day Bill Gates gets a penguin tattooed on his ass, Make Mine Slashdot.
I spend my working time (and then some) as a Web Designer and have recently been trying to read up on XML and XHTML. (is that slightly redundant?)
It is turning out to be quite a difficult task. While everything I read tells me that it will be replacing all those proprietary document formats, it doesn't tell me exactly how that is supposed to work in a real world scenario. I believe that it does have that potential am stuck in exactly the same place as the poster... not being able to find the answer to what seems to me is a rather basic and obvious question. Is it worth my time to learn XML for future use or is it just another wild dream of a select few people?
I went over and looked around the site. I do think it could be useful for home computer users who want to build vanity pages... maybe even some web designers. People will always be impressed with certain canned image manipulations. Problem is, most of us who want to edit images of any sort (including photos) already have an image program we can use, and know how to use, faster than we could by uploading files over a 56k modem. Chances are, if you have an electronic copy of a photo, you've got access to a scanner, and hence some type of image manipulation program.
'Tis a good idea still, and I wish them all the luck in the world.
I read an article today on The St. Paul Pioneer Press about the influx of females, young and old, on the Internet and how they are just not interested in any of that icky technical stuff. They even had a teacher saying that her female CS students blame themselves if something unexpected happens when they are using a machine. This attitude was, disappointingly (I always liked the Pioneer Press), presented as "just the way it is with those girls."
I'm a female and have been programming, designing and screwin' around on the Net for many many years now. What I see is women and girls using the Internet the same way they use telephones (talking, chatting, gossiping, blah blah blah) and television (Ally McBeal, Providence, "Why would I want to watch the/news/? Yuck!"). If that is what females want with the Internet, more power to them, but, keep in mind, that perhaps they are stereotyping themselves just a little bit too.
We've been running across problems related to this in my office (a web design/hosting/advert firm) and, while I'd like to see non-database driven searching of the Internet continue, I have to say that perhaps, most people, would rather have the database. So many web design clients expect that once they have a web site they won't have to advertise in print ever again are driving the whole thing toward the database method... creating the problem they so love to bitch about.
Perhaps doing away with keywords entirely, getting search engines to look at the content instead of the "false content" of meta tags... now that would be nice.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a link to the Logitech page about this mouse:
s /US/EN,CRID=2146,CONTENTID=9508
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/detail
It doesn't even look like a touchscreen 'scroll' panel as much as a flat button with up, down, left, right capabilities.
They've got a flash online demo of sorts to check out to see how it works. Doesn't even look as "fancy" as the Kensington touchpad mouse people have mentioned.
Talk about slanting a story. They were put away for the scam, not the spam.
That aside, advocating putting people in prison for annoying business practices doesn't exactly jive well with having liberal free speech rights attitudes. If they've got the right to mail me advertising crap via snail then they damn well should have the right to do so via email. Whether I like getting the stuff or not.
It would be nice to see some sort of "party line" attitude when it comes to these Internet Free Speech Issues... but I don't think it'll ever happen.
While it is true (and has been for some time) that Universities and other academic institutions are "shifting the paradigm" toward monetary profit and corporate , I don't believe it is true that this is endangering, in any way, the pure and necessary academic freedom at most institutions.
This stuff is true when talking about the technology portions of a university (CS, Engineering). Mathematics is still (mostly) safe from this crap. The Liberal Arts are fine and aren't abusing the idea of profit-making.
Of course, every prof., every department at your local university is trying to make money for itself. They write books, textbooks, instructors guides, solutions manuals.. all of this on top of the necessary "publish or perish" rule because most of that stuff doesn't even count.
Give our academics some credit. Education is good and educators need money (more than they get) and they work their asses off.
What bothers me more than anything about this, as well as many other types of so-called "protective" laws, is that it feels more and more every day as though "they" are just preparing us for something.
We can feel comfortable putting chips in our pets in case we lose them... buying into a "service" that allows the car companies to unlock your doors... not minding too much that the govt. is peeking at big, bad, evil criminals email because it isn't like we should let them get away with anything.
I truly dislike it when people, even I, compare current-day laws and situations to things such as Nazi Germany.... so I won't. It is really hard not to though.
That is what they'll go after next. No more DCC file transfers at all. They'll try get server owners to regulate transfers so that only certain approved file types can be transferred.
I now have daily thoughts about moving to a different country.
If nothing else, the Internet has changed my views on the world and made my initial belief in truly free speech even stronger. Stick it out, they aren't really that big and they aren't really that scary.
Until the day Bill Gates gets a penguin tattooed on his ass, Make Mine Slashdot.
Lapsan
I spend my working time (and then some) as a Web Designer and have recently been trying to read up on XML and XHTML. (is that slightly redundant?)
It is turning out to be quite a difficult task. While everything I read tells me that it will be replacing all those proprietary document formats, it doesn't tell me exactly how that is supposed to work in a real world scenario. I believe that it does have that potential am stuck in exactly the same place as the poster... not being able to find the answer to what seems to me is a rather basic and obvious question. Is it worth my time to learn XML for future use or is it just another wild dream of a select few people?
I went over and looked around the site. I do think it could be useful for home computer users who want to build vanity pages... maybe even some web designers. People will always be impressed with certain canned image manipulations. Problem is, most of us who want to edit images of any sort (including photos) already have an image program we can use, and know how to use, faster than we could by uploading files over a 56k modem. Chances are, if you have an electronic copy of a photo, you've got access to a scanner, and hence some type of image manipulation program.
'Tis a good idea still, and I wish them all the luck in the world.
I read an article today on The St. Paul Pioneer Press about the influx of females, young and old, on the Internet and how they are just not interested in any of that icky technical stuff. They even had a teacher saying that her female CS students blame themselves if something unexpected happens when they are using a machine. This attitude was, disappointingly (I always liked the Pioneer Press), presented as "just the way it is with those girls."
I'm a female and have been programming, designing and screwin' around on the Net for many many years now. What I see is women and girls using the Internet the same way they use telephones (talking, chatting, gossiping, blah blah blah) and television (Ally McBeal, Providence, "Why would I want to watch the /news/? Yuck!"). If that is what females want with the Internet, more power to them, but, keep in mind, that perhaps they are stereotyping themselves just a little bit too.
We've been running across problems related to this in my office (a web design/hosting/advert firm) and, while I'd like to see non-database driven searching of the Internet continue, I have to say that perhaps, most people, would rather have the database. So many web design clients expect that once they have a web site they won't have to advertise in print ever again are driving the whole thing toward the database method... creating the problem they so love to bitch about.
Perhaps doing away with keywords entirely, getting search engines to look at the content instead of the "false content" of meta tags... now that would be nice.