which is badly redundant, the very first thing is you can make all "td"-s in the table be 1px/1px with a simple: table.captcha td {width:1px; height:1px} rule, then background-color can be shortened to just "background" and still be valid.
Furthermore you don't need table with rows and columns, if you float the pixels to left, then you only need a container of the right width and columns/rows wil naturally form, to keep it down we can style a shorter tag for our purposes, like <b>
So at this stage we arrive at the much simpler:
<b style="background:#abcdef"></b>
But this can be simplified even further by indexing the colors used as around a 40-50 css classes (fiven the image has a lot more than 40-50 pixels and 40-50 colors are enough for it, it's still a net gain), for example:.cA {background:#abcdef}.cB {background:#ffaabb}, at which point we get not only more obfuscation for the captcha crackers to solve, but much lighter code:
And I was referring to end-users like my mother, who don't know about the memory allocation, etc. facets of an operating system.
Blake, you know very well this is still misleading. What kind of a "user friendly" modern OS it is when it can't even save or load files to your HDD, let alone play a movie off your DVD drive, for example.
Sure it sounds like a cool marketing idea to call it an OS, but you gotta be frank: it's just gonna be a web application written in JS, locked in a browser.
And with Firefox's slow JSDOMHTML performance, you'll need quite some innovative ideas to make this "OS" perform acceptably. Try any of the existing WebOS out there: they run acceptably on Opera and IE, and slow as **** on Firefox.
That's except for the Flash based ones, although for some reason (poor plugin API?) Flash runs a lot slower on Firefox than other browsers too.
Oh I'm sorry, of course the kernel! I mean, the OS and the kernel have nothing to do with each other. The way I said it, makes it sound as if the kernel is a core part of the OS.
The NTFS filesystem isn't open, and reverse engineering aside, you'd have to use Windows to access it. Google doesn't lock your data into proprietary formats, it doesn't force those formats down everyone's throats so you're forced to be compatible with it...
Can you access google results from Microsoft's search engine? You surely realise the product here isn't a bunch of HTML code? It's the search results?
I don't know of Google has opened their crawling algorithms and databases for anyone to use, or if anyone has reverse engineered them.
Claiming google is open because it uses HTML (on the web.. I mean what ELSE could they use !?), it like claiming Microsoft is open because it runs on any PC hardware.
Few signs that some bloggers are very very sad: a company is sending free laptop, no strings attached, and the bloggers are rushing to embarrass Microsoft (and themselves) by auctioning their presents.
A sign that some Slashdotters are very very sad: the "haha" tag. What exactly is funny here? How poor said bloggers skew the world around them and their inept behavior?
From Wikipedia: Parakey is a Web-based computer user interface proposed by Firefox creator Blake Ross. Ross describes it as a "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do."
Uhmm... everything? Like run device drivers and manage memory allocation and multitasking:P?
Have people forgotten that an "OS" comprises more than a shiny GUI? Well let's see how his "OS" performs when it doesn't have a real "OS" to run on top of.
Can't people call it the way it is: Web GUI, Web Desktop, Web Apps...
Unlike Microsoft products, it's not like many of us are locked into using Google.
Who exactly locked you into using Microsoft products? Format the drive, install whatever you want. Yes you most likely paid a modest 30-40 USD for the OEM license as part of your PC cost.
Are those $40 bucks what are locking you into Microsoft products? Are there no PC-s with Linux preinstalled?
If the answer to the above is "no" then you're not locked into anything, but Microsoft products have value for you: the interface or features or supported Windows software. And this is value. The same reason we go to Google.
If Microsoft somehow "forces" you to use Windows, then Google "forces" you to use their search engine, since it shows the best results out there, and everyone knows that you gotta "google it", not "live search it".
I'll tell you how our entire setup works, and hope it helps:
A. Development Box B. Test Server C. Production Server
A. Development Box
Every developer has Apache (or IIS respectively) and PHP/SQL on his box. People without experience can just install one of the premade packages that exist (like XAMPP or whatever its name was). This setup is isolated from the outside and responds only to 127.0.0.1 and the virtual domains. Each virtual host in Apache is a separate project.
Server Side Developers work in Eclipse PHP IDE with SubClipse, designers/client side work in Dreamweaver/Photoshop with SVN4DW & TortoiseSVN.
B. Test Server
This is used for few purposes: devs can checkout a revision and run it there on a "real" server to test, QA (well we have no dedicated QA.. it's a small team) can test on this server too.
If everything is ok it goes to...:
C. Production Server...
That's it, it works really well though, everyone has his own server that can run files right of his PC, and this helps a lot in quick development. Showing to clients is as easy as checking out a revision on the test server.
You know, it looks fine in 320x240 trailers, but in HD screenshots you can see it looks like any other game.
It's not good enough for me you guys! I don't wanna see stretched textures and low-polygon models anymore! I mean, it's next gen!
COME ON! And on top of that half the scenery is precomputed and static. For example, going into a tunnel of course drops shadows on your car since otherwise it'd be too jarring. But when outside and crossing the shadow of a tree on the street, the shadow magically remains below your car, as if it's a piece of black paper versus a FRIGGIN SHADOW.
Am I being a negative bastard? Are my expectations way too high? Do I want the impossible?
Well, forgive me for being hyped up by sony for years and years about how amazing PS3 gaming will be.
And yet we are hearing more about webbrowsers and weather stuff on the Wii than actual Wii games? Why would anyone want to try to use a webbrowser on your TV at 480p rez - that sounds just painful.
You know, I see headline along the lines of "XYZ now more useful" or "ABC more fun" and I'm sure if slashdot readers have nothing of substance to say, then they'll post a bunch of "hey XYZ is useless anyway" or "ABC sucks!" posts.
And guess what, it's exactly the case.
What's the moral of the story? Anyone can be a negative sissy, but it doesn't mean you gotta be. Take the news for what it is: Wii browsing made easier. Noone forces you to browse on your Wii, noone forces you even to own a Wii.
Can I ask the Slashdotters to stop with the superficial bitter remarks of how Amiga is dead and so they better not try: give them a friggin' chance.
As people who are more involved in the matter at hand, they probably know better ways to capitalize their efforts than try to cater to Slashdot readers that had Amigas who put their efforts down before they've even seen the thing.
Competition is nice: there's place for Amiga. Why? Well there's place for a hundred Linux distros some of which are majorly incompatible with each other, for bsd, unix, windows, why not another one?
If it has practical applications it'll be used, never mind what you geniuses have to say about it.
There's only one thing that left bad taste in my mouth... They entire AmigaOS site is splattered with the infamous 3D demo ball... Understandable, but still, let's hope they don't rely on that ball saving the day;)
I don't live in US but my mobile service provider has this annoying habbit of flooding their customers with SMS ads of their latest-and-greatest campaign.
Granted, they sent us the campaign ad once, that's, let's say, bearable. But then they proceeded sending it every day and on every reload. My parents, which have mobiles, are not 100% familiar with the additional features of their mobile phone (besides making you know: phone calls), so those messages confuse them additionally and needless to say every time I receive an SMS I have to go out of my way to stop, open my cellphone, read it, delete it (since it may actually be important).
So this way armed with bad feelings I called them and said "ok, can you please tell your supervisors up the chain that I do not wish to receive any more ads on my personal cellphone, especially I don't wanna receive the same exact SMS message telling me to join your campaign every day. If I wanted to join it, one SMS would be sufficient, thanks".
The answer from the support: "well there's nothing wrong with the ads, I mean: there's also ads on the TV right, if you don't like them, you don't watch them".
Me: "But I pay for this service, why augment it with ads? If I don't want those ads what's the use of sending them to me?"
Support: "Well you also pay for your cable right?"
After a conversation like this you know the root cause of the issue: zero respect for the customer and zero research on what effect their actions have.
Well, guess who's switching to the competition next year (when a new law comes in place that mandates I can keep my phone number..)
Any idea why Etch is ripping off the classic Windows GUI? I mean, in a way, all all GUI-s ripp off each other, but look at the chrome of the Windows and the standard controls... ??
Do you have free will? Does it matter? Would you ever know the difference? The pedophile cited in the article couldn't use it as a defense in his trial, because the legal system doesn't give a damn.
I know at least one other part which if surgically removed will turn all pedophiles into non-pedophiles.
Also I agree with your point entirely: this whole debate doesn't make sense. We are what we are in our entirety, and as such entity "free will" is just whatever actions this entity comes up with in a given environment (and previous history).
Trying to reduce us to our base components and argue that our base components make decisions for us, well: duh, we ARE all those base components. This is what we are.
I guess it's an artefact of our brain to try to find a "soul" behind every simple physical phenomenon.
Perhaps we should look into ant colonies to imagine the future of humanity, but this future may never come as we may destroy ourselves with nukes before we develop an ant-like social structure.
Yes ants are indeed a very good example. Don't worry, we can't nuke ALL of us with nukes:D
What you're saying is indeed coming in the next few hundred years, and in fact half way here already.
I'm also calling Bullshit on this as I have gotten SuperGlue on my fingers many times and it didn't hurt a bit.
Trust me: I had often had of that glue on my fingers too and it didn't hurt a bit. But ok.. here's the story.
I was fixing my sandals (yea, sandals.. anyway hehe), and I applied some glue, I thought it's all in the inner layers, so I stepped on it to apply good pressure. But some good amount leaked on top into my foot. When there's enough of it + pressure, I'm telling you it burns you bad.
When you have some of it on your fingers you don't actually have enough and don't pressurize you for it to have those reactions on your skin.
How many other ways can I deduce your philosophy into a contradiction? Shall I continue?
Feel free to continue, you're apparently not even reading what I'm writing. I just said the FCC decided properly in THIS EXACT CASE, I have neither "philosophy" nor I'm saying "hey let's take this special case and apply it to everything".
But I clarified myself 3 or 4 times. It's getting boring.
Monopolies are forbidden from entering other markets because their effective subsidy on another market makes them able to grant their own entrance to the other markets without the same growing pains everybody else has. No, certain aspects of their business should not be left to deregulation. The only way to control a monopoly is to actually control it, not slap it on the wrist and tell it to turn away. It will turn away, onto other markets, if left to its own devices.
Congratulations, you've just managed to be 100% irrelevant to the particular issue we're discussing (built-out requirements).
Except the people who, thanks to this decision, can't get any service whatsoever.
It's up to me as a business to decide whether I wanna sell you christmas lights, or I don't wanna sell you christmas lights. If my shop is in New York and my profits are just fine, it's not up to some regulatory institution to insist I open a clone shop in every single little village in the country.
If you want my service, move to a place where I offer it, or use someone else's service. Simple as that.
You seem to imply that they will lower their prices or something. I don't see why they would. In which case they make larger profits.
I knew people will bend it like this, but there's the deal: you have a certain acceptable price range to offer to your customers, say ~100 ID/mo (imaginary dollars:P).. To break even without regulators, you need say, ~50 ID/mo, and with regulators: ~80 ID/mo.
If you need to sustain certain profitability with regulations that force you to do business where you don't want to, you have two options: neglecting reinvestment, support, quality, but keeping prices in the desired range, OR increasing prices.
It's as simple as that. Your logic makes sense only if they make their investments few times back in profit so they could afford to fix prices to whatever they want and not affected by their expenditures.
In reality however, the profit margin is much thinner, so no such perfect conditions exist.
Slashdot Mirror
This GPL-ed project can be reproduced by a junior coder in an hour so the fact it's GPL-ed I guess isn't of so much help.
... tr... <td style='height:1px;width:1px;background-color:#fcfb ff'></td> ... /tr...
.cA {background:#abcdef} .cB {background:#ffaabb}, at which point we get not only more obfuscation for the captcha crackers to solve, but much lighter code:
... tr... <td style='height:1px;width:1px;background-color:#fcfb ff'></td> ... /tr...
Also on the subject of it being 218k, each pixel looks like:
which is badly redundant, the very first thing is you can make all "td"-s in the table be 1px/1px with a simple: table.captcha td {width:1px; height:1px} rule, then background-color can be shortened to just "background" and still be valid.
Furthermore you don't need table with rows and columns, if you float the pixels to left, then you only need a container of the right width and columns/rows wil naturally form, to keep it down we can style a shorter tag for our purposes, like <b>
So at this stage we arrive at the much simpler:
<b style="background:#abcdef"></b>
But this can be simplified even further by indexing the colors used as around a 40-50 css classes (fiven the image has a lot more than 40-50 pixels and 40-50 colors are enough for it, it's still a net gain), for example:
<b class="cA"></;b>
and again the original:
And this is before we start putting JavaScript in the picture...
And I was referring to end-users like my mother, who don't know about the memory allocation, etc. facets of an operating system.
Blake, you know very well this is still misleading. What kind of a "user friendly" modern OS it is when it can't even save or load files to your HDD, let alone play a movie off your DVD drive, for example.
Sure it sounds like a cool marketing idea to call it an OS, but you gotta be frank: it's just gonna be a web application written in JS, locked in a browser.
And with Firefox's slow JSDOMHTML performance, you'll need quite some innovative ideas to make this "OS" perform acceptably. Try any of the existing WebOS out there: they run acceptably on Opera and IE, and slow as **** on Firefox.
That's except for the Flash based ones, although for some reason (poor plugin API?) Flash runs a lot slower on Firefox than other browsers too.
Dude, that's the role of the kernel, not the OS.
Oh I'm sorry, of course the kernel! I mean, the OS and the kernel have nothing to do with each other. The way I said it, makes it sound as if the kernel is a core part of the OS.
Silly me.
The NTFS filesystem isn't open, and reverse engineering aside, you'd have to use Windows to access it. Google doesn't lock your data into proprietary formats, it doesn't force those formats down everyone's throats so you're forced to be compatible with it...
Can you access google results from Microsoft's search engine? You surely realise the product here isn't a bunch of HTML code? It's the search results?
I don't know of Google has opened their crawling algorithms and databases for anyone to use, or if anyone has reverse engineered them.
Claiming google is open because it uses HTML (on the web.. I mean what ELSE could they use !?), it like claiming Microsoft is open because it runs on any PC hardware.
Grow up.
Few signs that some bloggers are very very sad: a company is sending free laptop, no strings attached, and the bloggers are rushing to embarrass Microsoft (and themselves) by auctioning their presents.
A sign that some Slashdotters are very very sad: the "haha" tag. What exactly is funny here? How poor said bloggers skew the world around them and their inept behavior?
From Wikipedia: Parakey is a Web-based computer user interface proposed by Firefox creator Blake Ross. Ross describes it as a "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do."
:P?
Uhmm... everything? Like run device drivers and manage memory allocation and multitasking
Have people forgotten that an "OS" comprises more than a shiny GUI? Well let's see how his "OS" performs when it doesn't have a real "OS" to run on top of.
Can't people call it the way it is: Web GUI, Web Desktop, Web Apps...
Unlike Microsoft products, it's not like many of us are locked into using Google.
Who exactly locked you into using Microsoft products? Format the drive, install whatever you want. Yes you most likely paid a modest 30-40 USD for the OEM license as part of your PC cost.
Are those $40 bucks what are locking you into Microsoft products? Are there no PC-s with Linux preinstalled?
If the answer to the above is "no" then you're not locked into anything, but Microsoft products have value for you: the interface or features or supported Windows software. And this is value. The same reason we go to Google.
If Microsoft somehow "forces" you to use Windows, then Google "forces" you to use their search engine, since it shows the best results out there, and everyone knows that you gotta "google it", not "live search it".
And we're back to square one.
I'll tell you how our entire setup works, and hope it helps:
...
A. Development Box
B. Test Server
C. Production Server
A. Development Box
Every developer has Apache (or IIS respectively) and PHP/SQL on his box. People without experience can just install one of the premade packages that exist (like XAMPP or whatever its name was). This setup is isolated from the outside and responds only to 127.0.0.1 and the virtual domains. Each virtual host in Apache is a separate project.
Server Side Developers work in Eclipse PHP IDE with SubClipse, designers/client side work in Dreamweaver/Photoshop with SVN4DW & TortoiseSVN.
B. Test Server
This is used for few purposes: devs can checkout a revision and run it there on a "real" server to test, QA (well we have no dedicated QA.. it's a small team) can test on this server too.
If everything is ok it goes to...:
C. Production Server
That's it, it works really well though, everyone has his own server that can run files right of his PC, and this helps a lot in quick development. Showing to clients is as easy as checking out a revision on the test server.
Over here
Remember, you MUST turn on the blender all the way to 10, you have no choice.
No one in their right mind would design a kiosk that needs employee attention every 5-10 minutes.
And the key here is: "in their right mind" they wouldn't. Sony though...
You know, it looks fine in 320x240 trailers, but in HD screenshots you can see it looks like any other game.
It's not good enough for me you guys! I don't wanna see stretched textures and low-polygon models anymore! I mean, it's next gen!
COME ON! And on top of that half the scenery is precomputed and static. For example, going into a tunnel of course drops shadows on your car since otherwise it'd be too jarring. But when outside and crossing the shadow of a tree on the street, the shadow magically remains below your car, as if it's a piece of black paper versus a FRIGGIN SHADOW.
Am I being a negative bastard? Are my expectations way too high? Do I want the impossible?
Well, forgive me for being hyped up by sony for years and years about how amazing PS3 gaming will be.
And yet we are hearing more about webbrowsers and weather stuff on the Wii than actual Wii games?
Why would anyone want to try to use a webbrowser on your TV at 480p rez - that sounds just painful.
You know, I see headline along the lines of "XYZ now more useful" or "ABC more fun" and I'm sure if slashdot readers have nothing of substance to say, then they'll post a bunch of "hey XYZ is useless anyway" or "ABC sucks!" posts.
And guess what, it's exactly the case.
What's the moral of the story? Anyone can be a negative sissy, but it doesn't mean you gotta be. Take the news for what it is: Wii browsing made easier. Noone forces you to browse on your Wii, noone forces you even to own a Wii.
Can I ask the Slashdotters to stop with the superficial bitter remarks of how Amiga is dead and so they better not try: give them a friggin' chance.
;)
As people who are more involved in the matter at hand, they probably know better ways to capitalize their efforts than try to cater to Slashdot readers that had Amigas who put their efforts down before they've even seen the thing.
Competition is nice: there's place for Amiga. Why? Well there's place for a hundred Linux distros some of which are majorly incompatible with each other, for bsd, unix, windows, why not another one?
If it has practical applications it'll be used, never mind what you geniuses have to say about it.
There's only one thing that left bad taste in my mouth... They entire AmigaOS site is splattered with the infamous 3D demo ball... Understandable, but still, let's hope they don't rely on that ball saving the day
I don't wanna burst your bubble but.. for every guy swapping his PS3 for a Wii, there has to be one swapping his Wii for a PS3
I don't live in US but my mobile service provider has this annoying habbit of flooding their customers with SMS ads of their latest-and-greatest campaign.
Granted, they sent us the campaign ad once, that's, let's say, bearable. But then they proceeded sending it every day and on every reload. My parents, which have mobiles, are not 100% familiar with the additional features of their mobile phone (besides making you know: phone calls), so those messages confuse them additionally and needless to say every time I receive an SMS I have to go out of my way to stop, open my cellphone, read it, delete it (since it may actually be important).
So this way armed with bad feelings I called them and said "ok, can you please tell your supervisors up the chain that I do not wish to receive any more ads on my personal cellphone, especially I don't wanna receive the same exact SMS message telling me to join your campaign every day. If I wanted to join it, one SMS would be sufficient, thanks".
The answer from the support: "well there's nothing wrong with the ads, I mean: there's also ads on the TV right, if you don't like them, you don't watch them".
Me: "But I pay for this service, why augment it with ads? If I don't want those ads what's the use of sending them to me?"
Support: "Well you also pay for your cable right?"
After a conversation like this you know the root cause of the issue: zero respect for the customer and zero research on what effect their actions have.
Well, guess who's switching to the competition next year (when a new law comes in place that mandates I can keep my phone number..)
Any idea why Etch is ripping off the classic Windows GUI? I mean, in a way, all all GUI-s ripp off each other, but look at the chrome of the Windows and the standard controls... ??
Do you have free will? Does it matter? Would you ever know the difference? The pedophile cited in the article couldn't use it as a defense in his trial, because the legal system doesn't give a damn.
I know at least one other part which if surgically removed will turn all pedophiles into non-pedophiles.
Also I agree with your point entirely: this whole debate doesn't make sense. We are what we are in our entirety, and as such entity "free will" is just whatever actions this entity comes up with in a given environment (and previous history).
Trying to reduce us to our base components and argue that our base components make decisions for us, well: duh, we ARE all those base components. This is what we are.
I guess it's an artefact of our brain to try to find a "soul" behind every simple physical phenomenon.
Perhaps we should look into ant colonies to imagine the future of humanity, but this future may never come as we may destroy ourselves with nukes before we develop an ant-like social structure.
:D
Yes ants are indeed a very good example. Don't worry, we can't nuke ALL of us with nukes
What you're saying is indeed coming in the next few hundred years, and in fact half way here already.
I'm also calling Bullshit on this as I have gotten SuperGlue on my fingers many times and it didn't hurt a bit.
Trust me: I had often had of that glue on my fingers too and it didn't hurt a bit. But ok.. here's the story.
I was fixing my sandals (yea, sandals.. anyway hehe), and I applied some glue, I thought it's all in the inner layers, so I stepped on it to apply good pressure. But some good amount leaked on top into my foot. When there's enough of it + pressure, I'm telling you it burns you bad.
When you have some of it on your fingers you don't actually have enough and don't pressurize you for it to have those reactions on your skin.
How many other ways can I deduce your philosophy into a contradiction? Shall I continue?
Feel free to continue, you're apparently not even reading what I'm writing. I just said the FCC decided properly in THIS EXACT CASE, I have neither "philosophy" nor I'm saying "hey let's take this special case and apply it to everything".
But I clarified myself 3 or 4 times. It's getting boring.
Monopolies are forbidden from entering other markets because their effective subsidy on another market makes them able to grant their own entrance to the other markets without the same growing pains everybody else has. No, certain aspects of their business should not be left to deregulation. The only way to control a monopoly is to actually control it, not slap it on the wrist and tell it to turn away. It will turn away, onto other markets, if left to its own devices.
Congratulations, you've just managed to be 100% irrelevant to the particular issue we're discussing (built-out requirements).
wow so naive...to think monopolies are reigned in by market forces.
I don't see the world in black and white, I said:
There are cases where even "evil monopolists" should be left to do certain aspects of their business without regulators messing in it.
Which part of "there are cases" and "certain aspects" is unclear to you? There also such thing as overregulation, heard of it?
Except the people who, thanks to this decision, can't get any service whatsoever.
It's up to me as a business to decide whether I wanna sell you christmas lights, or I don't wanna sell you christmas lights. If my shop is in New York and my profits are just fine, it's not up to some regulatory institution to insist I open a clone shop in every single little village in the country.
If you want my service, move to a place where I offer it, or use someone else's service. Simple as that.
You seem to imply that they will lower their prices or something. I don't see why they would. In which case they make larger profits.
:P).. To break even without regulators, you need say, ~50 ID/mo, and with regulators: ~80 ID/mo.
I knew people will bend it like this, but there's the deal: you have a certain acceptable price range to offer to your customers, say ~100 ID/mo (imaginary dollars
If you need to sustain certain profitability with regulations that force you to do business where you don't want to, you have two options: neglecting reinvestment, support, quality, but keeping prices in the desired range, OR increasing prices.
It's as simple as that. Your logic makes sense only if they make their investments few times back in profit so they could afford to fix prices to whatever they want and not affected by their expenditures.
In reality however, the profit margin is much thinner, so no such perfect conditions exist.
It's for everyone: if companies are forced to sell where wouldn't sell, this would affect the prices and quality of service for everyone.
There are cases where even "evil monopolists" should be left to do certain aspects of their business without regulators messing in it.