Comment beowulf (Score 0, Redundant) 96
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
Forget that.
Imagine a Beowulf Swarm of these.
Comment The Strawminator (Score 1) 449
I'm going to inter-splice book pages of the Terminator and the wizard of Oz.
A bit of tape, and I will be famous!
Would this be my creation or that of Cameron and Baum?
What if I paraphrase the sources?
What if I rewrite everything in another language?
What if I don't tell anyone what my sources are?
The limits of what we view as original work are shifting, why would that which is applicable to music or other media, not be applicable to books?
If I paint Leonardo painting the last supper and his canvas covers most of my canvas, then at what point does this cease to be my painting and become a copy of his?
What about art not in the public domain?
Would Disney be upset if I painted one of their artists creating Mickey mouse?
The girls book has won numerous awards. I don't know how much of her book really is just a "copy" of someones work, and if these are in the public domain. But her book must be interesting, otherwise this debate would not exist. To me this would qualify as 'sampling' other art to create something unique.
If I drew an illustration and someone used a part of it without my permission, at what point would I be upset? I think I would be upset if the new work decreases the value of my own work.
There are so many what if's that would be answered differently depending on culture or century, - that I find it unreasonable to think that our view should be static.
Did she copy stuff? Yes
Did she combine it into a new and unique work? Yes
Did it negatively influence any of the (non-public domain yet) copyright holders? I highly doubt it.
Comment Re:But what did Apple want? (Score 1) 401
I disagree. Most of my friends are not hard core tinker happy nerds. And they were all underwhelmed with the iPad. In fact, I don't know a single person who was actually impressed by it.
How many of those friends have an iPhone?
If even a fraction of the people with iPhones will buy an iPad then it will be a success.
Apple is selling this as a new way to experience the internet. The hardware to accomplish this is not as impressive as the software.
Ideally - iPad software on something like the IdeaPad U1 would be great, but for now I think (for most people) a half-as-powerful Apple product has a better user-experience than a far superior (hardware-wise) product running another OS.
As for myself, if I had an iPad - then for me the priority would be to get an OS I can compile myself on it.
But I'm not most people.
Comment NASA, I'm on to you! (Score 1) 175
The EXIF data in the moon photographs will surely prove that the moon landings were faked.
Comment Re:dumb question (Score 2, Interesting) 175
For most of my photos, this works:
cat image_name.jpg | strings | more
Submission + - Bill Gates responds to the iPad. (bnet.com)
nicknamenotavailable writes: Brent Schlender had a chance to talk to Bill Gates about the iPad.
"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words a netbook — will be the mainstream on that," he said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, `Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, `Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"
"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words a netbook — will be the mainstream on that," he said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, `Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, `Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"
Submission + - Why don't employees follow IT recommendations? 2
An anonymous reader writes: I am the IT guy at a small (1-20 workers) office. We recently moved to a new location, during which we set up an online voicemail account with a major telco. Unfortunately, one computer (64 bit Vista with IE8) won't run the java applet used to listen to voicemails. Firefox handles it beautifully. I told the worker to just use Firefox, unless he needed IE for something. He responded with "Well, I don't feel like running Firefox all the time". He's the office manager, so there's not really a lot I can say. How do you IT folk implement and enforce this kind of thing?
Submission + - Gates unimpressed by iPad (bnet.com)
nicknamenotavailable writes: Recently Brent Schlender had a chance to ask Bill Gates about the iPad.
'I wasn't sure what to expect when I asked Jobs' longtime rival, Bill Gates, what he thought of the iPad. After all, Gates has been a proponent of tablet computers for years, and he was in awe of the iPhone when it first came out. But the iPad? Gates told me he isn't sold.'
"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words a netbook — will be the mainstream on that," he said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, `Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, `Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"
'I wasn't sure what to expect when I asked Jobs' longtime rival, Bill Gates, what he thought of the iPad. After all, Gates has been a proponent of tablet computers for years, and he was in awe of the iPhone when it first came out. But the iPad? Gates told me he isn't sold.'
"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words a netbook — will be the mainstream on that," he said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, `Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, `Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"
Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 436
Aside from the recent thing in China, can you source that? I was under the impression Google followed spying and censorship laws both in the US and abroad.
I'm primarily referring to that. Are there other places where these issues were raised? Perhaps I just didn't hear about them.
Either way, Google is still nicer than the other players. But I'm still using my own mailserver.
Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 436
Why Google's email and not Yahoo's, Microsoft's, or AOL's?
Because Google doesn't play nice with dictatorships and oppressive regimes.
Comment Don't you mean suspends access to? (Score 1) 436
Iran Suspends Google's Email Service
In Iran I presume
I thought that Iran was on the US trade embargo list.
Comment Re:I'm posting this from IE6. HELP! (Score 1) 512
My employer hasn't switched from IE6.
It's OK, your new employer might use IE8.
(my employer doesn't know I have a netbook here, I get to use Firefox
Submission + - Best set of tools to create an UI prototype
justdev writes: I have a 8 year old web application built originally in ASP. User Interface is quite clumsy — forms with dozens of data fields arranged in three columns, uses frames, very long pages with lots of scrolling and all the information presented in tables with buttons and links all over the place all of which submits the page. It also has more than 250 pages created this way. I want to create a fully operational UI prototype for part of the application which users can test drive and get a flavor of what is possible. This is with the hope that moving it to a much better UI can improve productivity, get a chance to redesign better using newer technologies, separate UI from business and database logic and make it more maintainable. Prototype can have test data, no database connectivity and no business logic. Any suggestions on best set of tools for creating a prototype?
Comment Re:My one and only question. (Score 1) 671
Why should Apple spend development time on something that only the vast minority of potential users, I'd estimate at >1%, will want to do?
Without that (less than) 1% who run FreeBSD where would OS X be?
I'm just hoping.
Comment My one and only question. (Score 3, Insightful) 671
Apple excels at creating beauty, in both hardware and software (BTW, I'm using an Imac right now). This iPad is no exception.
My only question is: Will I be able to put my own Operating System on it?
The old G3,G4,G5 macs were open enough so that I could load my own OS on them (sometimes BSD, sometimes Linux).
The same goes with the current Intel macs.
While I sometimes marvel at the beauty of OS X and how Apple has created a user friendly UNIX, I want more freedom.
Unless Apple is open enough to let us (the minority) play and tinker with the internals so that we can install an OS that
might be visually inferior(to most) but is philosophically superior, unless Apple can allow us to do this - I will never buy one.
I will patiently wait until the other players create a tablet that will run x86.
All the other stuff in the article is not much use to me, all I need is make; make install.
