Messages

101

Living Room / Re: Be the author of a scientific paper

« on: April 03, 2010, 03:56 PM »

Makes you wonder about the intelligence of today's scientific community.

Most "scientist" of today, are just scholars, and not researchers, they just blindly cite another persons work (that normally just cited another one previous work,), instead of doing the research themselves. 

In today's world penicillin would have never being discovered, as its discovery was the result of a laboratory mistake, and thus they would have thrown the cultive in the garbage instead of wondering why the fungus was killing the bacteria.

My guess i that too much scholarly, makes you think more rigidly. And since genius is seeing what all people have seeing before and from it thinking what no one have tough before, it makes you more intelligent, but less wise.

102

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« on: March 29, 2010, 07:47 AM »

If i understand correctly what you want is to synchronize a directory with the one on a pen drive in both directions.

There are many programs that does this:
http://en.wikipedia....nization#Open_source

This one looks good SynKron:
http://synkron.sourceforge.net/index.php

portable version:
http://portableapps.com/node/21036

103

Living Room / Re: Transcendence: Free EV Nova like 2d space exploration / battle / adventure game

« on: March 25, 2010, 09:07 AM »

Interesting retro game. Takes me back.

104

Living Room / Re: Yelp Website Accused of Extortion -- More Examples of Corrupt Review Sites

« on: February 25, 2010, 08:24 PM »

If you are on the USA. Extortion is one of the pillars of our society. Just look at the IRS, one might think they invented it

The best thing you can do, legally, is to just don't do business with this kind of people nor use their services.

And, if you are really lucky, and got proof that will stand in court. Sue them and hope they don't bribe your lawyer or the judge. Good luck with that, justice may be blind, but sure likes money.

Yelp employees and only agreed to be interviewed if granted anonymity, said several sales reps have told him they promised to move reviews to get businesses to advertise. "It's not illegal or unethical," he said they told him. "We're just helping the little guy. It doesn't hurt them, it benefits them."

I do not know if its legal or not. But is certainly unethical.  As always people that do wrong are delusional, thinking they are doing good. Just like Al Capone, John Dilinger, Dick Chenney 

105

Developer's Corner / Re: The programmer as (starving) artist

« on: February 25, 2010, 02:21 PM »

A small company usually cannot compete with a big company. But many small companies on a cooperative can compete and even beat the large companies.

As an example. Lets say you have a small supermarket. How do you compete with Waltmart? You cannot buy the volume necessary to get the same prices as Waltmart gets from its providers. You just don't have the negotiation power with your suppliers.

Now imagine that a 100 supermarkets form a cooperative for the sake of buying goods. As the volume is much bigger, their negotiation power increases. Thus they can get goods at a lower price, making them able to compete with Waltmart.

The same goes for small software development companies. Their products are too small in volume to get a good deal. Thus the profit gets gobbled up by a middle man. (Electronic Arts, Microsoft, etc..)

But if enough small companies team together in form of a cooperative that takes care of the business part of the development. They can go directly to the retailers and thus get a better deal. Retailers, as any company, wants profit. One piece of software will not bring a business relation. But a whole line of software is software they can sell and continue selling all year long.

Notice I say cooperative and not corporation. On a cooperative, everyone has a vote on what's going on. On a corporation, the one that has most money is the one that decides. Thus, the others are irrelevant.

106

Living Room / Re: Yea, I won't be getting an iPad anytime soon

« on: February 17, 2010, 08:39 PM »

I have an iPhone, and I love it. But hate both ATT and Apple. The hardware is really nice, but apple crippled the iPhone on purpose. Only after jailbreaking it you get to see its potential True multitasking and access to more stores instead of just the Apple one. Plus you get to use your phone as a external hard disk. Plus you get a camera.

However, I seem to miss the point of getting an iPad. I cannot carry an iPad on my pocket, nor make a call, nor take a picture, nor use GPS nor use a 3G network while on the go. Its single task, with no jailbreaking available (so it will stay single task), No USB port. Grossly overcharged accesories from apple. For example the power supply on an iPhone is $50 when bought in the apple store, but you can buy a chinese clone for $6. And the work the same.

Thisis not a notebook killer. Heck is not even a good notebook. So that leave their only purpose, reading magazines an books. So lets see how it compares with a kindle. It has color and is capable to play movies. In this apple wins. But the kindle screen has no glare. The kindle battery  can last 1 week with a charge. The kindle is cheaper and most important. The kindle has FREE 3G access to download the books.

So in my bold opinion, at this moment, the iPad has only value to the member of the iCult and to people driven by hype.

107

Living Room / Re: Flattr: New Micropayment System - Gets the Model Right

« on: February 12, 2010, 12:40 PM »

As a user, I do not like that business model.

- The monthly fee.
- Give an equal share for something I REALLY like vs to something I somehow liked at the moment, but not any more.

I prefer the concept of micro accounts that at not tied to my bank account. Lets say I want to spend $100 each month. I just put the money from my bank account into the micro account, then I pay from that micro account, until the $50. I cannot get over the ammount I budgeted, and all I can loss if the account is hacked is the $100.

108

General Software Discussion / Re: Evernote alternative that has an online interface?

« on: December 27, 2009, 07:38 PM »

Is there any alternative that encrypts the notes before sending them?

109

General Software Discussion / Re: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

« on: December 27, 2009, 07:37 PM »

The gloves are old tech. It has being used for years in motion capture when you need more control of the motion of the hands.

A profesional glove would look like this: http://www.metamotio...oves-Cybergloves.htm
If I remember correctly newer globes uses the bending of fiber optics to get the amount of bending that each sensor had. Resulting in movement that is not handicapped by the pulleys.

The rest is interesting but not really new, if you like anime, chances are you have seen the idea before.

Now if he actually made the stuff, then it would be something. I don't believe that buy listening to the sound a paper makes you would be able to know where the finger is. So the demonstration is just the simulation of an idea.

One idea, not mention here, but used at NASA is to motion capture the eyes of the person, so that you know what the person is looking at. Thus moving a cursor. BTW this was found by accident, while trying to do facial motion capture.

At the end, many of the technologies will be used mainstream, but many will not. Have anyone tried a 3d desktop? It seemed like a nice idea at first but is highly unpractical. Thus why hardly anyone uses them today. How about virtual reality. Well people found that they do not really want to totally immerse themselves into a limited machine world. (well, except people that play MMPORGs ) Now the idea is to digital enhance reality. Only time will tell hoe good or bad is the idea.

110

Living Room / Re: Open Source Proves Elusive as a Business Model

« on: December 27, 2009, 11:53 AM »

I always tough of GPL as a way to make people work for free.

- Make them create software and give support for it. While giving you the right to put in on a CD.

- Make it so that anyone that create software based on the original must give you also the right to put it on a CD.

- You then put them into CDs, market them, charge for the CDs and get all the money without needing to pay the developers. Making sure that Instead of saying you are making all this money from the software, you are getting the money for support .

It worked for Red Had, Mandriva, IBM, etc. People working for free while making companies richer. A sort of willing slavery, only we don't call it that.

Is interesting that in a capitalistic world, people expect software to be free. I wonder if you can say that to your landlord, to give free rent. Or how about at the store, free food. Get my meaning, software takes effort and time, and thus on a capitalistic world is not possible to expect software to be free.

One model that I think might work better is the model that Blender (a 3d editor) used to raise money. I  started close source, but free charging only for the manual.

Then when they needed to raise capital they put a thermometer like applet in their website, accepting donations until a mark of 100,000 was reach (to cover their debts with investors). After the mark was reach they made it open source.

Why not make something similar? That way, the developer gets paid, and the community have the source, to do as they see fit.

111

Living Room / Re: Google's Eric Schmidt has a stupid moment on privacy

« on: December 23, 2009, 07:25 AM »

There is also a chance that something be morally right but not legal. And legal but not moral. And even legal and moral but subject to repercusion.

 For example what if you want to start a union in your workplace. You want other employees to know but you don't want management to know until you got the vote. Or what if a person is escaping Persecution from an unjust government. Like the jews on WW2 or the slaves of the past? Would you follow the law or your concience?  

Privacy is often the only tool against tyrants. And that is why they don't want you to have it.  

112

Living Room / Re: Yet another 0-day pdf exploit in the wild

« on: December 23, 2009, 07:05 AM »

More important. Why is the rendering inside the browser on by default. Adobe should add a section on their installer saying. "Do you want to enanos browser support?" and have the default set to no.

Besides the pluggin is incredible fat on resources. I found that the reader loads a lot faster.

113

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« on: December 23, 2009, 06:53 AM »

Why is legal for paypal to steal your money? And since when a private entity has the right to freeze someones assets without going to court to do so. Specially when is not something to do with a payment.

They are crooks. Glad to know this before doing business with them.