Sure, a lot of the Atari 800's and Commodore 64's were up in our bedrooms, but a lot of them were also in the living room. I even remember Atari's marketing verbiage that went along the lines of, "First there was Pong... then we invented games that followed people home to their TVs." Why was there convergence in the early 80's?
The max resolution of computer technology matched the max resolution of television.
Because of the high cost of manufacturing electronics, families had fewer TVs/monitors.
We didn't each carry e-mail around on our cell phones.
The big thing I see reconverging is #1 above -- resolution. HDTV and PC resolution coincide. But I don't think it's going to be enough to counteract the other four forces.
The world of high-tech wristwatches is mostly vapor, vapor, vapor. It took 16 years after the 1983 Casio CFX-200 Scientific Watch (that could do trig and parentheses) until a more advanced watch became actually available, the 1999 On-Hand PC, which runs a variant of DOS.
Will the Toshiba actually reach the wrist of Slashdot user? It doesn't matter anymore, because of the invention of a little piece of plastic: the cell-phone belt clip. While wearing a PalmPilot makes one a first-class geek, even women now wear cell phones on their belts. The cell phone is the new standard for socially acceptable portable computing, not the Dick Tracy wristwatch.
All thanks to a little piece of plastic.
Nothing less than mind-control
on
Retro Vision
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· Score: 1
Copyrights were originally 17 years.
When content producers exploit not only the now practically perpetual copyrights, but start denying fair use as well with the DMCA even on abandonware, it's nothing less than mind control, especially when it comes to childhood memories. Since adult stability is rooted in childhood stability, those of us fortunate enough to have had happy childhoods are unable to legally recall our them, speak about them in many cases, and relate to those of our own generation (or children, for that matter).
Since I was raised in an era of 70-year copyrights, I wasn't too bothered by them. But now with the proposition of perpetual copyrights and DMCA, I am very selective about what I will watch and what software I will use, because I know that by doing so my psyche will be altered and I generally want the ability to reflect back upon my experiences in the future. Before I allow myself to go to a movie (the few times that I do), I ask myself the question, "am I willing to never see this movie again after today?" because I do not want to be held in blackmail by the content producer.
A 17 year monopoly should be more than enough. That would allow, for example, those in their 30's to reflect upon and relive their childhood as they themselves are likely at a stage of life of starting to raise children or gaining significant responsibility in a career.
Like, how many times have you accidentally deleted an email that you thought was spam but was really from a long-lost friend? Or how many times have you opened Spam because you weren't sure that it was Spam or something from your ISP (or whatever).
It seems as though you're defining "human" as "person who is time-constrained". I suspect that the author of the original article had something like this in mind, but without defining the time constraint, a measure like "10x" is meaningless. E.g., as spam continues to escalate, what was a few years ago 10 spams to check each morning is now 100 spams and next year will be 1000 spams. The time to check e-mail in the morning is probably inelastic with respect to amount of spam, so the person perhaps got 100% accuracy a few years ago, is getting 95% accuracy now, and will only get 90% accuracy next year. It's impossible for an algorthim to be "10x" to all these numbers simultaneously.
In short, "accuracy levels as high as 10x that of a human" is meaningless as stated. And I took the opportunity to make fun of it.
Umm... what's the definition of spam?
on
DSPAM v2.10 Released
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· Score: 4, Interesting
algorithm providing accuracy levels as high as 10x that of a human
Is this to say I can't tell when I'm being spammed? I thought the ultimate definition of spam was mail unwanted by a person. How can a computer decide a piece of mail is bad for a person if that person really wanted it? One could digress way off with this on Asimov's Laws and the politics of Socialism/Fascism vs. Libertarianism (that e-mail is just no good for you, you oughtn't read it).
No award should be given to a police force that directs its tallest members into what the police themselves refer to as a "goon squad" to break up demonstrations.
Traffic stops are the ultimate "selective enforcement" -- thus the uproar over "racial profiling". When everyone's breaking the law (and here I'm referring to limited access highways designed for 75-80 MPH that still have 55-65 MPH speed limits), the police can target whoever doesn't look "quite right."
And then there was McCarthyism and the blacklists.
Prosecuting for copyright infringement is pure justice compared to these examples.
I'll agree that the RIAA dragnets bringing in parents and grandparents of 12-year-olds is contributing to the disrespect of authority, but they didn't start it.
Hey, I first heard about it in a slashdot comment. So, as usual, I did some research and made it a story on my blog. It turns out the slashdot comment didn't have it quite right -- it's only for statutory royalties, which are the royalties paid by radio stations, etc. when they play any copyrighted song they want (thereby invoking the mandatory copyright licensing Congress set up long ago for just that purpose).
So if you're an indie, and a radio station plays your song, you are obligated to license the radio station to play that song, and the RIAA gets the royalty.
The "2-D fighter" genre was not part of "classic gaming", but rather was the final nail in the coffin of classic gaming. As I noted in my 2001 comment, classic gaming died in the mid-80's from two causes: LaserDisc games, and Warner's mismanagement of Atari.
By the end of the decade, the dominance of "chop sukey" games dealt the final blow. And around the same time rap music was putting the 80's-tyle pop music genre to death. Together, "chop sukey" and rap music killed the magic that was the 1980's.
Currently, my most stinging lessons come from reading my blog's Referer [sic] log. "Oh look, findlaw.com lists my site as the #1 search result for 'tresspass'." Then I do a search on Google and realize it's supposed to be "trespass."
P.S. Google is a much better dictionary than dictionary.com -- extremely fast, smarter suggested alternatives, and no pop-ups.
Considering how railfans are now getting the same scrutiny as terrorists, it's easy to see how a combination of heavy al-Jazeera watching plus a viewing of a Discovery Channel special on the Hoover Dam could elicit a visit, wiretap, or worse.
It wouldn't surprise me if TiVo weren't already supplying a feed to a central U.S. database.
...and it's amazing NASA could press it at the right time from 124 million miles away (1.3 AU). Although I wonder how many times NASA did have to press it before they got the timing right -- we only know about the success:-)
You forgot to mention James Bond, plus the biggest box office drag on Star Trek: Nemesis: it's predecessor, which ranked down there with STV (at least that one had the original cast).
That holiday season, I chose to see two of the three movies -- Bond lost out.
Nemesis was better than all the odd-numbered movies, even though it was the weakest of the even-numbered movies.
There comes a time when private property starts to act like public property, and where free speech should start to apply because the public interest should ethically outweigh that of a large corporate landholder (and even the very existence of private large corporations in general is morally suspect). Clear examples are shopping malls and convention centers. In the virtual world, free speech should apply to a newspaper's discussion forum. Less clear is an entertainment venue -- normally I would say "no", but with a phenomenon as large as The Sims, I'm not so sure.
How about educating kids to write and think while they're still in gradeschool instead of training them to pass standardized tests? Then maybe they wouldn't be afraid to write their own papers.
It's like schools confiscating nail clippers instead of punishing bullying -- treat the symptom instead of the cause -- because it's easier to do so and gives a (false) sense of control.
Google has become so invaluable to many people (like me) that they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme.
Uh, timothy, in a capitalistic society, that's called "charging for services," not blackmail.
I've said many times over the years that I would be willing to pay at least $1K-$5K per year for deja.com, which Google has since taken over. I would be useless at my job without it.
Mirra seems to have products for "home", "small office", but how about for "apartment", or just a home trying to be space-efficient?
For the first time in over twenty years, I'm eliminating my "computer room" -- switching instead to the concept of a server closet plus roaming notebooks with WiFi. I don't think I'm the only one.
My server closet currently has a cable modem, a WiFi router with built-in print server & parallel port, and a laser printer. The cable modem and router are the typical small vertically standing self-contained units. I'd like to find storage and backup servers in the same form factor, with a web-accessible admin page -- like the router has -- to avoid the need for bulky keyboards and monitors. At first glace at their website, it doesn't look like Mirra has such a beast -- just units built around a full-size desktop tower.
With just weeks to go to Christmas, the THG crew got together to offer our loyal readers and especially the hardcore geeks among us something really special. Our brainstorming session quickly lead to extreme overclocking.
Oh the creativity -- it's blinding! A computer hardware website investigating overclocking!
A boring bullet-only PowerPoint could/should be done in Word, but consider a more interesting more graphics-intensive PowerPoint -- have you ever tried to lay out graphics in Word? All the "Float over text"/"Move with text" stuff -- it's a nightmare. Maybe Word's poor layout has something to do with some of PowerPoint's popularity.
Slashdot Mirror
- The max resolution of computer technology matched the max resolution of television.
- Because of the high cost of manufacturing electronics, families had fewer TVs/monitors.
- Houses were smaller (page 14)
- Videogames were more family friendly than today.
- We didn't each carry e-mail around on our cell phones.
The big thing I see reconverging is #1 above -- resolution. HDTV and PC resolution coincide. But I don't think it's going to be enough to counteract the other four forces.Will the Toshiba actually reach the wrist of Slashdot user? It doesn't matter anymore, because of the invention of a little piece of plastic: the cell-phone belt clip. While wearing a PalmPilot makes one a first-class geek, even women now wear cell phones on their belts. The cell phone is the new standard for socially acceptable portable computing, not the Dick Tracy wristwatch.
All thanks to a little piece of plastic.
When content producers exploit not only the now practically perpetual copyrights, but start denying fair use as well with the DMCA even on abandonware, it's nothing less than mind control, especially when it comes to childhood memories. Since adult stability is rooted in childhood stability, those of us fortunate enough to have had happy childhoods are unable to legally recall our them, speak about them in many cases, and relate to those of our own generation (or children, for that matter).
Since I was raised in an era of 70-year copyrights, I wasn't too bothered by them. But now with the proposition of perpetual copyrights and DMCA, I am very selective about what I will watch and what software I will use, because I know that by doing so my psyche will be altered and I generally want the ability to reflect back upon my experiences in the future. Before I allow myself to go to a movie (the few times that I do), I ask myself the question, "am I willing to never see this movie again after today?" because I do not want to be held in blackmail by the content producer.
A 17 year monopoly should be more than enough. That would allow, for example, those in their 30's to reflect upon and relive their childhood as they themselves are likely at a stage of life of starting to raise children or gaining significant responsibility in a career.
In short, "accuracy levels as high as 10x that of a human" is meaningless as stated. And I took the opportunity to make fun of it.
WIPO Pressured to Kill Meeting on Open Source
No award should be given to a police force that directs its tallest members into what the police themselves refer to as a "goon squad" to break up demonstrations.
And then there was McCarthyism and the blacklists.
Prosecuting for copyright infringement is pure justice compared to these examples.
I'll agree that the RIAA dragnets bringing in parents and grandparents of 12-year-olds is contributing to the disrespect of authority, but they didn't start it.
"Your papers please" comes to Ohio
So if you're an indie, and a radio station plays your song, you are obligated to license the radio station to play that song, and the RIAA gets the royalty.
Just as rap did not define Blondie's catalog, neither did seven songs define a decade's music.
By the end of the decade, the dominance of "chop sukey" games dealt the final blow. And around the same time rap music was putting the 80's-tyle pop music genre to death. Together, "chop sukey" and rap music killed the magic that was the 1980's.
P.S. Google is a much better dictionary than dictionary.com -- extremely fast, smarter suggested alternatives, and no pop-ups.
Portals are not secret.
It wouldn't surprise me if TiVo weren't already supplying a feed to a central U.S. database.
...and it's amazing NASA could press it at the right time from 124 million miles away (1.3 AU). Although I wonder how many times NASA did have to press it before they got the timing right -- we only know about the success :-)
That holiday season, I chose to see two of the three movies -- Bond lost out.
Nemesis was better than all the odd-numbered movies, even though it was the weakest of the even-numbered movies.
There comes a time when private property starts to act like public property, and where free speech should start to apply because the public interest should ethically outweigh that of a large corporate landholder (and even the very existence of private large corporations in general is morally suspect). Clear examples are shopping malls and convention centers. In the virtual world, free speech should apply to a newspaper's discussion forum. Less clear is an entertainment venue -- normally I would say "no", but with a phenomenon as large as The Sims, I'm not so sure.
U.S. corroborating with WIPO to overturn Betamax decision and also eliminate public domain
It's like schools confiscating nail clippers instead of punishing bullying -- treat the symptom instead of the cause -- because it's easier to do so and gives a (false) sense of control.
I've said many times over the years that I would be willing to pay at least $1K-$5K per year for deja.com, which Google has since taken over. I would be useless at my job without it.
For the first time in over twenty years, I'm eliminating my "computer room" -- switching instead to the concept of a server closet plus roaming notebooks with WiFi. I don't think I'm the only one.
My server closet currently has a cable modem, a WiFi router with built-in print server & parallel port, and a laser printer. The cable modem and router are the typical small vertically standing self-contained units. I'd like to find storage and backup servers in the same form factor, with a web-accessible admin page -- like the router has -- to avoid the need for bulky keyboards and monitors. At first glace at their website, it doesn't look like Mirra has such a beast -- just units built around a full-size desktop tower.
Banana Jr. 2000
A boring bullet-only PowerPoint could/should be done in Word, but consider a more interesting more graphics-intensive PowerPoint -- have you ever tried to lay out graphics in Word? All the "Float over text"/"Move with text" stuff -- it's a nightmare. Maybe Word's poor layout has something to do with some of PowerPoint's popularity.