YouTube - Don't Copy That Floppy (HIGH QUALITY version!)
Topic: Computers
3:39 pm EDT, Apr 3, 2007
Its ashame piracy ended the Gaming Industry in the 80's. It makes me wonder what could have been. PS. I think public service style rap might be the worst music ever made.
[ Stunning. I never saw the whole thing before. Sooo bad.
By the way, did you hear the guy say it could take AS MANY AS 20 or 30 people to make a game! 20 or 30! What is it these days, 20 times that? I love old tech references. -k]
Most of the times I'm at a lack for words to describe something, it's because it's something incredibly absurd or stupid. Here, it's because THIS IS SO DAMN RAD!
Stop whatever you are doing. Go watch the video of this, right now. I don't care how important what your doing is... Watch this video, right fucking now.
You are about to see the best thing thats happened to the GUI since the pixel.
Update: Ok.. So only people who litter their desktop seem to think this is as cool as I do. We are apparently a fringe minority. To those like myself, this is fetish UI porn. I currently have 68 files and folders (no app launch shortcuts) on my desktop. I would _love_ this.
[ I fall into the presumed majority of non-messy desktop users -- i have one file on my desktop and it's a temp folder that holds things for a little while until i can properly file them.
That being said, part of my meticulousness may stem from the fact that file manipulation *is* so much less convenient on computer screens. The methodology is a pain, and so i keep things hierarchical.
A lot of it is aesthetic however... my real actual desk is meticulous as well. I have a stack of scrap paper for writing, and individual piles or folders specific to individual tasks or projects, but only if they're active. If i'm not working on them now (within a few days margin), they get filed into medium term (a folder stand on one corner of the desk) or long term (a pile of folders in my cabinet).
If my desk (or desktop) is messy looking it's because i'm working on only one project and it's really taking 100% of my time. Otherwise the overhead of finding information overwhelms my ability to focus on the task and i get nonproductive. My computer desktop reflects the same mode. For me, random stacks and piles aren't an organization technique, but a way to demolish all productivity.
I do like the metaphor of displaying information on relevance, importance, etc by icon size, weight, orientation and so on. That's worth quite a bit.
I'd like to see them adapt that interface to permit mouse use (since people aren't gonna change to a pen interface anytime soon) and build a tie in to MacOS. They also need to add labels. Preferably fadable ones, but each file/window/page and each stack or group needs to be able to show a label, so when I mouse over it I know which stack it is (e.g. "My Travel Plans, or "Data Migration Project". Give me those and I'd try it out.
] A Stratellite%u2122 is a high-altitude airship that when ] in place in the stratosphere will provide a stationary ] platform for transmitting various types of wireless ] communications services currently transmitted from cell ] towers and satellites. It is not a balloon or a blimp. It ] is a high-altitude airship.
Apparently, this is getting "close" to being able to be deployed... they're working on FAA approval right now, apparently.
[ Always thought this was a good idea. Dammmit, bring me my wide area wireless broadband nets! GPRS is SLOW! -k]
I can't say I've ever seen a harddrive have THIS happen to it. How very ODD. The platters were wiped almost completely clean.
[ Yeah, i remember this. Aren't those DeskStars (aka Death Stars) the ones that had PiXiE Dust? Some IBM thing that increased storage density but also had the tendency to cause catastrophic failure?
What i didn't know is that the platters were plastic (glass?). In all the harddrives i've ever opened, they were metal, presumably aluminum. -k]
St. Louis University student Nick Aker and an assistant chemistry professor Shelley Minteer developed the biofuel cell in class. Akers said that once the biofuel cell is charged, it could run a cell phone for a week or a laptop all day before needing another drink.
[ Pretty neat... here's a slightly less tongue in cheek version of the story : http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformationExternal/NewsDisplayArticle/0,1602,4212,00.html
Still lacks details though. 6200% more efficient than traditional chemical batteries is the only half useful spec I've seen. If that's true, and scalable, then my powerbook should be able to run for about 5 straight days. Yet the article says it could power my laptop "all day" and my cell phone all week. My cell phone already lasts about 4-5 days, and my laptop battery gets between 2 and 3.5 hours per charge depending on how i use it, so, is it 62 times more efficient or 2 times? Or are people's laptops only lasting 1/62 of a full day... i know p4's suck, but...
i hope to see more details... so far the articles i've seen are mostly about how cool it is that this startup got funding. -k]
] Dave had some surprises up his sleeve as well. You'll ] remember that I said he was using a ThinkPad (running ] Windows!). I asked him about that, and he told us that ] many of the computer security folks back at FBI HQ use ] Macs running OS X, since those machines can do just about ] anything: run software for Mac, Unix, or Windows, using ] either a GUI or the command line. And they're secure out ] of the box. In the field, however, they don't have as ] much money to spend, so they have to stretch their ] dollars by buying WinTel-based hardware. Are you ] listening, Apple? The FBI wants to buy your stuff. Talk ] to them!
Today was MWSF, and apple dropped a few new things, all relatively well predicted, but none the less cool.
Among the new stuff are G5 Xserves (still 1U), updated iLive with a new entry level recording/mixing/tracking app called Garageband, major update to FC Express and the new iPod Mini, targeted at the high-end flash based players (it's got 4 gb, looks to be about 60% the size of a 3g ipod, comes in colors, and costs $250).
New Scientist | Software shares out spare processing power
Topic: Computers
10:03 am EST, Dec 22, 2003
] It is called the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network ] Computing (BOINC). BOINC acts like a software platform ] that can run a number of screen-saver style applications ] on top of the PC's own operating system. The system will ] also solve some of the problems that have dogged ] distributed projects. ]
We already knew that Scientific Progress goes BOINK!
Ok, maybe the spelling has changed, but Calvin's been on this for years ;)
