Reminds me of our humble technological past. My desktop machine IS a "Personal Mainframe," even though it's not state-of-the-art by any means.
I can see the logic of an IBM Selectric typewriter with the Datatype with DF-2 sticking barcodes above human-readable english so that it can be scanned: Remember, this was long before the Microsoft revolution; Innovation was the rule before we all converged on "standard" thinking.
This is a catalyst in a way. I feel like it has some of the same texture of the movie "Moog", in which the director conveys a beautiful sense of entrprenuerial spirit of the '70s. Although the movie speaks of the roots of synthesized music, I can't help but to think that it says a whole lot more about the tipping point of technology as we know it today.
In the 60's and 70's, companies like Raytheon and Fairchild were offering the "leveler" as a feature in commercial radio and studio equipment. Essentially, the Leveler was a light bulb coupled with a light-sensitive resistor: The brighter the light, the lower the signal level.
In excess, these things sounded like a brick wall. I suspect that Paul McCartney & Wings "Band On The Run" album used heavy Leveler processing because many pieces of it just sound like there is no change in dynamics. Levelers were popular with radio becuase they constrained dynamics without destroying subtlties.
A few years ago, levelers saw a resurgance in the home studio market. I notice today, some studios take this concept to the extreme with digital equivalents to the Leveler. Witness the obvious: Los Lonley Boys "Sacred" album.
Of course people can tell the difference between 128 and 256 kbps. I want the option of downloading uncompressed audio for the extra price. I'm just buying a license anyway, so I'll do with it what I please!
Found a bug in the author's code. This snippet will fail if it's in C. Otherwise, it's plain sloppy...// move all the aliens for (short i = 0; I MAX_NUM_ALIENS; i++)
if (aliens[i].exists())// this alien currently exist?
aliens[i].move_it();
Also, repeat after me: DON'T WRITE VARIANTS ON THE SAME ROUTINE. While we're at it, take advantage of inheritance in subclassing!
Hearst is beating a dead horse. I can't possibly keep up with the world-spanning RSS feeds I track on my kitchen laptop right now (I'm behind by 1095 articles at the moment). Why would I want the narrow scope of a single news source when I can look to the 'net?
Looks like hearst is trying CPR on the old newspaper model. I refer you to to Kodak, who can't face up to technology passing them by, and continues to pursue pathetic variations on the drugstore film processing theme. E-paper is a great idea, but I want it to be the next-gen computer, not a newspaper.
"Errors in reason become evident in practice" --The Ayn Rand philosophy of objectivism (paraphrase)
Microsoft keeps making ridiculous toys that don't stand up to real problems. It keeps happening again and again. Stop screwing around with Microsoft and use some real tools for critical applications.
Every Office application has an autosave function. Autosave is just acknowledgement of bugs. There are bugs in Office that have persisted for years, yet Microsoft ignores them.
Properly written code just does not crash. Any conscientious coder should feel compelled to get to the bottom of a crash and respond immediately with a patch, no matter how insignificant.
Stanford's term "ossification" seems fitting, but I think applying it to only the internet is a bit narrow in scope. Let's face it: The stranglehold of big players like Microsoft has brought revolutionary thinking to a standstill. Everybody operates on their opinion of how the computer and network should operate. I commend Stanford for thinking with integrity, but ultimately they have to answer to Microsoft when it comes to revolutionary thinking.
Fact is, the HDTV standard has become perverted by fixed-resolution monitors like LCD, DLP and Plasma. The original HDTV standard was written for CRT sets that can change the number of scan lines to match signal resolution. Widescreen sets did a neat trick with by scan width for anamorphic 16x9. Current fixed-resolution devices don't match the 480i of DVD, so on-the-fly interpolation is required. They also can't do true anamorpic. To me the result looks more like a cartoon than HDTV.
Recently I thought I was impressed with my friend's new DLP, capable of 1080. Back at home, I was reminded that, for all its flaws, my ancient 4x3 CRT is REAL HDTV. There was all of the detail and resolution that first struck me with HD. I haven't yet been so impressed with fixed-res monitors like DLP or Plasma.
In truth, the 480p of DVD is only a few lines short of the premier 520p resolution of HD. With BluRay, Sony is merely exploiting the resolution gap in fixed-res monitors.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. What a trip.
Reminds me of our humble technological past. My desktop machine IS a "Personal Mainframe," even though it's not state-of-the-art by any means.
I can see the logic of an IBM Selectric typewriter with the Datatype with DF-2 sticking barcodes above human-readable english so that it can be scanned: Remember, this was long before the Microsoft revolution; Innovation was the rule before we all converged on "standard" thinking.
This is a catalyst in a way. I feel like it has some of the same texture of the movie "Moog", in which the director conveys a beautiful sense of entrprenuerial spirit of the '70s. Although the movie speaks of the roots of synthesized music, I can't help but to think that it says a whole lot more about the tipping point of technology as we know it today.
By saying "The iPhone doesn't need an SDK," Apple might mean that "The iPhone doesn't need an SDK."
To interpret further, maybe they already have tools available that aren't specific to the iPhone.
In the 60's and 70's, companies like Raytheon and Fairchild were offering the "leveler" as a feature in commercial radio and studio equipment. Essentially, the Leveler was a light bulb coupled with a light-sensitive resistor: The brighter the light, the lower the signal level.
In excess, these things sounded like a brick wall. I suspect that Paul McCartney & Wings "Band On The Run" album used heavy Leveler processing because many pieces of it just sound like there is no change in dynamics. Levelers were popular with radio becuase they constrained dynamics without destroying subtlties.
A few years ago, levelers saw a resurgance in the home studio market. I notice today, some studios take this concept to the extreme with digital equivalents to the Leveler. Witness the obvious: Los Lonley Boys "Sacred" album.
Of course people can tell the difference between 128 and 256 kbps. I want the option of downloading uncompressed audio for the extra price. I'm just buying a license anyway, so I'll do with it what I please!
At home I favor a dedicated machine over SAN/NAS due to lack of programmability and auto backup. With LINUX, I expect easy crontab backup schemes!
Found a bug in the author's code. This snippet will fail if it's in C. Otherwise, it's plain sloppy... // move all the aliens // this alien currently exist?
for (short i = 0; I MAX_NUM_ALIENS; i++)
if (aliens[i].exists())
aliens[i].move_it();
Also, repeat after me: DON'T WRITE VARIANTS ON THE SAME ROUTINE. While we're at it, take advantage of inheritance in subclassing!
Yep. I hear the toothbrush was invented here in Kentucky: Anywhere else and they would have called it a "teethbrush".
It's like saying George W. Bush's garage is a historic landmark. Get real.
When you're a telecommuter, you can't stay home from work when you're sick!
Hearst is beating a dead horse. I can't possibly keep up with the world-spanning RSS feeds I track on my kitchen laptop right now (I'm behind by 1095 articles at the moment). Why would I want the narrow scope of a single news source when I can look to the 'net?
Looks like hearst is trying CPR on the old newspaper model. I refer you to to Kodak, who can't face up to technology passing them by, and continues to pursue pathetic variations on the drugstore film processing theme. E-paper is a great idea, but I want it to be the next-gen computer, not a newspaper.
"Errors in reason become evident in practice" --The Ayn Rand philosophy of objectivism (paraphrase)
Microsoft keeps making ridiculous toys that don't stand up to real problems. It keeps happening again and again. Stop screwing around with Microsoft and use some real tools for critical applications.
Every Office application has an autosave function. Autosave is just acknowledgement of bugs. There are bugs in Office that have persisted for years, yet Microsoft ignores them. Properly written code just does not crash. Any conscientious coder should feel compelled to get to the bottom of a crash and respond immediately with a patch, no matter how insignificant.
Stanford's term "ossification" seems fitting, but I think applying it to only the internet is a bit narrow in scope. Let's face it: The stranglehold of big players like Microsoft has brought revolutionary thinking to a standstill. Everybody operates on their opinion of how the computer and network should operate. I commend Stanford for thinking with integrity, but ultimately they have to answer to Microsoft when it comes to revolutionary thinking.
Cowclops, I couldn't agree more.
Fact is, the HDTV standard has become perverted by fixed-resolution monitors like LCD, DLP and Plasma. The original HDTV standard was written for CRT sets that can change the number of scan lines to match signal resolution. Widescreen sets did a neat trick with by scan width for anamorphic 16x9. Current fixed-resolution devices don't match the 480i of DVD, so on-the-fly interpolation is required. They also can't do true anamorpic. To me the result looks more like a cartoon than HDTV.
Recently I thought I was impressed with my friend's new DLP, capable of 1080. Back at home, I was reminded that, for all its flaws, my ancient 4x3 CRT is REAL HDTV. There was all of the detail and resolution that first struck me with HD. I haven't yet been so impressed with fixed-res monitors like DLP or Plasma.
In truth, the 480p of DVD is only a few lines short of the premier 520p resolution of HD. With BluRay, Sony is merely exploiting the resolution gap in fixed-res monitors.