nolan

The thing that really hold me sold on Chrome (other than its security) was the browser's Javascript performance. After Safari, Google Chrome has the fastest Javascript engine of popular modern browsers. Firefox is actually the slowest, falling even below Internet Explorer in terms of JS efficiency. This only really becomes an issue when you're working with intensive visual JS applications, though.

I could see quite a few netbook manufacturers wanting to ship their products with it. Traditionally, using a free OS meant using a product that most of your customers have probably never heard of (e.g., Linspire). With Google behind it, customers will at least have that same level of familiarity, brand-wise, as seeing Microsoft, so the risk of seeming like your cutting corners or seeming "generic" won't be there quite as much.

I'm going to have to second what rvalkass said. Personally, though, I prefer to see some kind of loading bar so that I can actually see progress being made. On another note, you could probably argue that there's some kind of psychological reason for it. Making your customers feel more "welcome" using your product could be another reason they'd want to go back to you for other products in the future. This would especially be the case if the alternative were seeing something like "Please wait... Decompressing stack-001192.dll", which could intimidate some people.

A lot of this is repeating points from other posts, but here goes... "as far as wartime. if a government believes shutting down any part of the internet will give them an advantage through other means of communication, what do you think would happen or the possibility?" -- I've already explained to you that Internet traffic reroutes. If country A has to communicate with country C and country B's Internet access is taken away, it finds another route. "...you shut down a big chunk...and yes...there will be a domino effect in how one nation affects others. since most internet activity comes from the u.s., you literally destroy the internet. it has changed. information isn't going back and forth like it did." -- I don't think you grasp what the Internet actually is. It's in no way limited to any one country. If the U.S. didn't have Internet access, the Internet wouldn't "not" be the Internet anymore. That's very ego-centric thinking. Communication would still continue in the same manner, with the exception that traffic would reroute itself around the disconnected areas. (And that's only if it were going through those areas in the first place -- there are tons of websites outside of the U.S., believe it or not. Many of them are the most visited websites in the world [google.cn, yahoo.cn, etc.] -- see the Alexa rankings if you wish). Equate this concept to a traffic light going out and a detour being created. No, it doesn't mean that all traffic lights are destroyed, it just means that a single traffic light went out. (Again, reading about the technologies would help a lot.) "let's not talk about war, but programming,hacking, and viruses. since i've been on the net for over 25 years, there have been programmer and hacker groups." -- There's no need to. I've already explained the nature of some of the technologies employed along the Internet backbone and how they can be affected by neither viruses nor hackers. Stateless, dumb systems without dynamic or writable storage systems. Proprietary systems without traditional operating environments. And, yet again, it's not that these details even matter, due to the fact that infiltrating every other system before that point is an impossible task. "their sole job is to take down the internet...even if it was for only a day." -- No group of intelligent hackers would even bother to try this, because they would understand that it's not possible. (There are plenty of international hacker groups, by the way.) "all the internet is, is computers connecting to eachother." -- Yes... And hundreds of thousands of other networking devices that work to make that possible. This includes devices that can't interact with users at all (i.e., dumb systems). These devices have no user interface. All of their instructions are encoded on inaccessible, read-only storage. "...is it possible then?" -- No, for every reason I've mentioned and reiterated through each post I've made to this thread. Throughout the course of those posts I've informed you of various things you could research if you wanted to expand your knowledge on the subject, which I don't believe you've done. The opportunity is still there, and I'm sure you'd be fascinated by what you'd find. "i guess you are assuming that we are living in a never ending world..." -- I've already mentioned that there's a difference between asking "is it possible to destroy the Internet?" and "is it possible for the Internet to be destroyed?" A meteor can easily destroy the Internet. An international group of blackhat hackers with evil intentions? Not so much. "i don't like your definition to destroy. in fact, i don't like a lot of definitions i have read in the past because they don't account for certain variables. written definitions only make communication more universal." -- If you don't like the definitions given by dictionaries, then so be it. I can't account for your way of thinking if you're not going off of the standard definitions. "and plus...definitions can be translated in to meaning more than one thing by whoever is reading it." -- Yes, that's called semantics, which is something I can't possibly account for (any word can mean anything to you -- the Internet could be a large purple bunny in your mind, for all I know). That's the very reason we have things like dictionaries and style guides: in order to provide a common framework for communication and understanding.

I agree. You'll be seeing a lot more flash/java-killer apps in the near future, as well, as HTML 5 gets rolled out. Things like the new canvas element allow for a lot more graphical flexibility inside of traditional web pages. My point was merely that you can't explicitly say that coding a web app in any one language is consistently more difficult than with any others. Some things that you could make quite easily with Javascript take a bit more work with Flash/actionscript, and vice-versa.

These were the same sorts of ponderings I was having. I believe Google will put in a good effort to make the OS suitable for offline applications, but so far that hasn't really been demonstrated. I'm hoping, too, that they'll have some kind of intelligent background file synchronizer that automatically updates your online/offline Google docs and mail when you're connected to the Internet. It's inconvenient for the user to have to download each individual file they want each time the file updates, especially if it's a collaborative office environment. Having an option like what I just mentioned would save a lot of people a great deal of time.

Here's my definition of destroy (from Merriam-Webster): 1. to ruin the structure, organic existence, or condition of, and 2. to put out of existence. If you need to look up "ruin", feel free to do so. And yes, I am using my head. Part of using my head means to actually draw from a thorough understanding of the technologies that make up the Internet, as opposed to having no idea of what those technologies are or how they work and to state something as being a fact regardless of my lack of understanding. As for your other points: "communications providors. get rid of them and you destroy the majority of the internet" -- First of all, you're saying the "majority" of the Internet. Destroying the "majority" of the Internet isn't destroying the Internet, since it would still be operational (traffic reroutes itself automatically), still be in existence, and its structure would not be "ruined". Not only this, but taking out all of the communication providers alone won't happen, so it's a moot point. "a war in xyz country would create a domino effect that would destroy the internet" -- Again, this is incorrect. The Internet was initially designed to be a system of mass communications DURING wartime, hence its origins as DARPAnet at the Department of Defense (and hence the reason the DOD controls a great number of DNS root servers). If, for some reason, a government decided it was going to restrict all Internet access from its civilians, I can guarantee their military operations would still rely on the network. And, lo and behold, even if they didn't, the Internet still wouldn't be destroyed, due to the fact that if any one country (or several) lost Internet access in its entirety (which also won't happen, but we'll say so anyway), that wouldn't "destroy" the Internet for other countries. People in those countries won't be able to access servers in the country that's no longer connected, but the Internet would still be functional. "...without going in to a lot of detail and writing a book on the subect..." -- Well, you could start by -reading- books. Perhaps even look over some of the documents put out by the NSF and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). "...i don't really care how much knowledge you have on technology." -- We're discussing technology, so I would think that would be relevant if you wanted to offer any intelligent contribution. "...and yes, CHANGE destroys... etc." -- Fair enough if that's what you want to believe, but I hope you either wear the same clothes every day or buy clothes in bulk, because you're going to end up with a lot of destroyed undergarments that way. Best regards, Nolan

I can almost guarantee that this varies based on the level of instruction, as well. Masters classes, for example, are a lot more laid-back than undergraduate courses. Similarly, doctoral courses tend to be more laid-back than masters courses. This is usually the case due to the fact that as the education level goes up, the degree of professionalism and responsibility tends to increase as well.

I've been using Photoshop happily for the last 10 years. If I had to name one reason (and only one) why I would never convert away from Photoshop, it's because with Photoshop I can create anything that I can imagine, with the only exception being 3D elements, which I use Blender for (free, open source).Not only that, but I can create most things that I'd like to create within a matter of just a few clicks, and there's an endless array of feature/option combinations to achieve just about every visual effect imaginable.As for other Adobe products, I've used InDesign and Reader as well. All of my vector work is done within Photoshop, so I've never had a need to use Illustrator (PS handles vector manipulation very well these days).From what I hear, Gimp sounds like a good option too, although I'd never personally make the switch to it for the reason I mentioned earlier.

Creating a website is as simple or difficult as you want it to be. Things that affect the level of difficulty can include: proper coding, concerns for accessibility, variety of languages used, stylistic requirements, and functional specifications.Of these, the most significant would be the functional specifications of your website. If you're making an online image editing platform, that's going to be considerably more difficult than a simple page that offers a cookie recipe.No one language can determine the difficulty in developing your web page. I say this due to the fact that I believe I read someone saying that websites created in Flash are more difficult. This is simply not true. A website that uses advanced features of any language outside of HTML can fall anywhere along the spectrum of difficulty, with no one language consistently being the "most difficult" for all purposes. (For example, many visual AJAX applications are much more time-consuming/difficult to develop than those made with Flash/Actionscript.)Finally, the difficulty of the process will also depend on what tools you're using to put the website together. Creating a website with Google Sites, for example, won't seem nearly as difficult to the average user as, say, creating the website in Notepad.

It depends on their health, but people can live quite a bit longer than a month without food. Most estimates would place a person of average health within the 4-6 week timeframe, but (just like with water), there are outliers in both directions.

Hi, index.html. I was a little confused by your post, but if I'm correct, I believe you were wondering if the Google OS is going to be free like Linux distributions. To put your mind at rest in that regard, Google Chrome OS -is- going to be free. Typically, companies aiming to sell a particular software product opt not to disclose the source code for that product, as Google has with the Chrome OS. Whether or not Google makes another version of Chrome at some later date that's not free is anyone's guess, but I'd say it's safe to assume Chrome will always be free.

In this (highly unlikely) case, you'd still have satellite direct-link and backbone communications between network service providers (different from ISPs). Although that's irrelevant, because it's not feasible for the ISP's alone to get taken out. As I've mentioned before, there are a lot of materials out there that are available to be studied which discuss the Internet backbone at great length. Reading these will provide a greater insight into the technologies at work.

As a web developer, I love it when I discover a new API that offers some benefit to me. Some of my favorites include the Twitter API, Google Maps API, Yahoo's BOSS API, and Weather Underground's forecast feed (among many others).What API's do you think are the coolest, and what API's would you like to see in the future?Not that they count for anything, but bonus points are given for API's that are simple to develop with

Hello. I'm curious: what are your first impressions of the Google Chrome OS, and what do you expect might come out of it in the near future? In case you haven't heard, the project has recently gone open-source, and a video (maybe more) was made available to demonstrate concepts relating to the new system (see: https://www.engadget.com/). I guess the greatest concern that I have at this point is whether or not Google will successfully meld online and offline technologies, as opposed to putting too much focus towards online technologies alone. In this regard, I have faith that Google will accomplish the task quite well, but so far I haven't heard much about the OS's offline capabilities. What I would like to see (as in me, specifically) is a solid, quick OS that, without the need for additional software, attempts to understand what -I- use the computer for and makes those tasks easier. For example, having an alerts service that lets me know (unobtrusively) how many new e-mails I have upon login, whether any blogs I follow have new updates, if there are any news stories that are relevant to me, whether or not collaborative documents have updates or revisions, etc. An intelligent, personalized alerts service built directly into the OS would save me loads of time and, well, would be quite snazzy in general. (Note: it should still be optional for the user.) Additionally, an OS with an extensive list of preinstalled developer features (or a downloadable package) would be wonderful. Most development environments take very little space, so disk usage wouldn't be a great concern here. Finally, more advanced dynamic preloading and caching would be nice (so long as I get to determine what gets preloaded and cached). For example, there are very few people who interact with a computer without touching a web browser, so preloading and caching certain features of my default browser seems like a good idea to me. The problem you'd have to address with that is how to handle unexpected behaviors as a result of the cache/preloading (e.g., if something's acting quirky in part of the cached code and I restart the browser, that wouldn't fix the problem) while keeping it simple for the user. Granted, applications are getting a little bit better at error-checking on their own these days. Oh, and quicker process killing would be nice, too. No one likes hangups. (P.S. I do understand that Chrome OS isn't geared to be a mainstream operating environment at the moment, but I have no doubt it will naturally evolve into wanting to become that.)

First of all, I'd like to point out that in this thread (or any others), I am not attacking anyone, nor trying to discredit their views. I think sometimes these threads begin to sway off-topic or out of range of their true purpose simply due to how heated they get. We can all say things that others disagree with without attacking them or nitpicking rhetorical elements of what they're saying. (I don't care if it's done to me, but in general it's not helpful.) (That part of my post was not in relation to you, truefusion, but to the thread in general.) With regards to your response to what I said: For [1], I can easily believe in something and not support it. Moreover -- and particularly relevant in this case -- I can believe in something and not have an agenda to support it at a particular point in time. It's not my agenda to "support" evolution here. I am, above all else (for the purposes of this thread), a creationist. I've talked about evolution, but I could care less if anyone draws anything from those ramblings or changes their views, which is what I would consider the aim of someone supporting evolution in a debate. For [2], my use of the term "know" is no more ambiguous than the word "know" itself is. We do "know" about -certain- things; that's correct. I've never argued that we don't. We don't, however, know the things that actually mark a definitive end to the question of creationism vs. evolution. If we did, as I've said, we would not be having a debate. We can -believe- things in that regard -- and we all do -- but we do not definitively "know" them. As an example, if you "know" that there's a God, it stands to reason (to me, anyway) that you should be able to make a concrete statement about him/her/it. No one can truly say they know what God "looks" like, if he "looks" like anything, what materials he's made up of, if he's made up of materials in the sense that we think of them, why he created us, what he did before us, what he's thinking right now, or even if he thinks at all. There's not a single concrete statement that you can possibly make that would stand the burden of proof. So yes, therefore we can't claim to "know". Similarly, for -strict- evolution and related theories, there are an equal number of concrete statements that can't be formed. What came before the big bang? Did something come before the big bang? If nothing came before the big bang, what are its properties and how were they derived? How did life form? For any of these you can make statements, but they won't be concrete. If they -were- concrete, you wouldn't have five different theories that each say something slightly different, such as the various contenders for the title of unified field theory. The people who are the very founders of these ideas don't claim to know certain aspects concretely. (Fact: Darwin himself was what we would refer to these days as a "scientific creationist", just as Newton, whom he was heavily influenced by. You'd see that if you take the time to read even a mediocre biography about his life.) I'll end with this:

No, not full of it; I just actually understand the technology that I talk about. And for the record, you shouldn't resort to calling someone ignorant just because your argument can't hold its footing against them. Even if the person were wrong, what would you be showing by sinking to that level? That kind of attitude doesn't take you far in life, and only gives insight into greater insecurities. The question was, "is it possible to destroy the Internet?" That's not the same as asking, "is it possible for a future technology to take the Internet's place?" or "is it possible for humanity to get destroyed and the Internet to go out with it?" A part of the Internet changing is not the same thing as a part of the Internet being destroyed; it's simply something changing. If you want to use that logic, you'd have to take the stance that you yourself have been destroyed thousands of times throughout your life due to the ever-changing nature of the human body. (And if that's how you look at things. fair enough -- that's what they call "perspective".) And when it comes to the "long term" that you've mentioned, if the Internet ends up being replaced entirely by another system of mass communication, again, the Internet will not have been destroyed. The creation of a new Web browser does not "destroy" the old web browser. A person taking the place of a retiree at their former job does not "destroy" the retiree. A technological construct can become deprecated or removed from service, but that's not the same as it being destroyed. A little bit of calm thinking goes a long way with these topics, as opposed to just looking at someone who says something slightly off cue with you and gorging yourself with enough adrenaline to kill a small bull. Have a good day.

Saying something is obvious does not mean you support it. For example, during winter in the Midwest, it's obvious that there's going to be snow. Do I support snow? Far from it. My beliefs about evolutions are merely that it's a function of creationism. I do not believe that an intelligent designer would leaves its creations in a stagnant state in an ever-changing environment. It doesn't make sense to -me-.Also, with regards to the comment about my being motivated to post to this thread: it's a debate, and one that I find interest in. I feel I need no greater reason to participate. I never toyed around with the word "know", due to the fact that we -don't- know. In fact, if we -knew-, there wouldn't be anything to debate, there'd simply be the facts. I strongly believe in creationism, but a divine being has never confirmed it for me. Similarly, evolutionists can strongly believe in their theories, but they're theories for a reason, and theories with a lot of open variables left to solve for.

It is not possible for a virus to destroy the Internet. Regardless of what anyone wants to believe (which they can, and they're entitled to), there's no argument, it simply is what it is. You can call it ignorance, but it's ignorant to make an assertion without having a clear idea of the technology behind the Internet backbone. It's not the same as the $40 Linksys router you use at home. Some of the fundamental routing systems are impossible to disrupt through the use of viruses alone. They do not have dynamic or writable storage systems Have you ever noticed that backbone routing functions have -never- gone down as a result of viruses? That's the case for a reason: it's not possible. Also, viruses don't just continue to feed unchecked; they have limitations. If you can name even one virus that been able to infiltrate every system on the Internet, you'd be lying, because that too has never happened. If you'd like, you can do a little research on the hardware involved in these processes. A simple Google search for "internet backbone" would probably reveal a plethora of enlightening information. Best of luck.

Hi. I hope this clarifies: 1. I never said I was supporting evolution. In fact, if you look at my original post in this thread, you'd see that I'm a creationist. 2. I wasn't asking you to support a position. You have a right to believe whatever you want. 3. Quoting: Not necessarily so. The point was that we can't possibly know whether the creature that evolved into a chicken made the final evolutionary step prior to egg-laying, within the egg, or at some point thereafter. We can argue back and forth and try to impress each other with reasoning and rhetoric, but that doesn't change the fact that we don't know.

Sorry, anwiii. I probably just hit reply on the wrong post. I'm always bouncing between things, and the spam protection warning goes off on me at arbitrary times. Thank you for correcting the quote, truefusion. If this was in response to what I said, for the most part it's saying the same thing (re: genetic anomaly), except with regards to the larger perspective that looks at the issue beyond just chickens and eggs. As a quick aside, however, this isn't entirely accurate. An animal that's 99% chicken (it would be a lot more than 99%, by the way -- genetic code is extremely precise) wouldn't just lay an egg that becomes a chicken and that be that. It's just the start to a much longer process. The first issue you'd have would be the derivative species not producing young that carry on its exact genetic code, due to the range of mates it would have available to it (all of a slightly different genetic code). This is countered by the fact that, as evolutionary stages pass (following extensive timespans), the onset of change and the creation of derivative species is relatively quick, meaning that more and more genetic anomalies continue to occur, until they're no longer anomalies. Eventually, the dominant traits of the new species prevail and the old species fades away. This is the short version of how it works, but there are plenty of resources out there to learn more about evolutionary cycles.

None of the responses to this thread that I've been reading have been entirely accurate (and many didn't seem to make the attempt), so I figured I'd shed a little bit of light on the matter, addressing each main point that I've come across:Proposal: "If you take down servers ABC and satellites XYZ, you'll take down the Internet"Reality: You could never, ever take down all of the servers and other routing equipment that contribute to keeping the Internet alive, nor even a substantial fraction of that amount. If you want to target satellites instead, so be it, but you'll be just as unsuccessful. Not to mention that there are also countless network lines that run underwater, some being virtually as inaccessible as satellites.Proposal: "If you take down the DNS servers, you'll take down the Internet."Reality: If you have any idea how many servers are responsible for handling domain resolution, and how spread out geographically these servers are, you would understand how foolish it would be to attempt this. Do a google search for root servers and take a look at the visual representation of the spread of TLD servers. Prepare to be impressed at how redundant the system is. (If you want to see the outlook become a lot more bleak, look at what organizations are running those servers.)Proposal: "You could use a virus!"Reality: You'd be better off trying to hack through backbone cables with a plastic sword. If you want to try to develop a virus that magically devours every operating environment in existence within the overarching landscape of the Internet, good luck. Get it to work on Windows? Good, now get it to work on Linux. Get it to work on Linux? Good, now get it to work on the countless proprietary systems and other "dumb" or specialized machines that lack traditional operating systems. The list goes on.I hope this helps to clarify a few things.

A few key differences between modern times and Roman times that make the two hard to compare in terms of susceptibility to failure:1. In Roman times, the logistics of managing a large body of people were substantially more difficult than they are at present. Modern systems of transportation and communication make what was impossible for the Romans not only possible for us, but effortless. For example, in Roman times if you wanted to get the latest scoop on what was going on along the empire's western fronts, you couldn't just pick up a telephone, send out an e-mail, view satellite imagery, or deploy a jet plane, as you can these days.2. Global initiatives and manageable, comprehensive political alliances did not exist in Roman times. Yes, so-and-so could say they weren't going to attack you and could give you their word or even sign something saying they'd play nice, but you were still trusting their word. In modern times, there are political organizations whose sole purposes are to keep everybody else in check and to form a collaborative framework for differing political bodies (e.g., the U.N. or the World Bank). Additionally, various oceanographic and airspace treaties allow nations to monitor activities not only for their own protection, but for the protection of others, as well. (If country A wants to send a naval fleet to country D, more often than not B and C will know about it. In some circumstances, interceptions and authorizations are even allowed, as was the recent case with North Korea [as endorsed by the UN].)3. Lastly, the infrastructure for transporting necessities such as food and water has immensely improved. Even around the time of Napoleon you had to worry long and hard about access to such resources and how they would be allotted and dispersed (e.g., when the "largest army ever assembled" made its march into Russia -- needless to say, it didn't go well). Today, cargo ships and aircrafts can ferry these necessities with little difficulty and supply routes are managed much more efficiently.(Disclaimer: These points reflect upon the status of developed nations only.)

For the record, if anyone ever asks you this question, just politely inform them that chickens, themselves, and all of their closest relations, have never been asexual. This means that in order for the chicken to have come first, there would have had to have been two chickens to continue the species (very unlikely). Likewise, in order for the egg to come first, there would have had to have been two eggs (also very unlikely), they would have needed a way to incubate (not available), and add on a whole realm of other complications, such as their ability to sustain themselves in an infantile state without support from others of their race and virtually no system of learned behavior (entirely instinctive). Whenever you're talking about the first of a new species, you end up with complications. For example, most modern animals have live births (including humans), but this wasn't always the case. Historically, all animals have laid eggs. This means that the first animal capable of live birth had to come from an egg. Before eggs, you had cellular division, meaning that the first creature to be capable of laying eggs had to derive from something that was able to divide at the cellular level into a more complex life form, e.g., a sea sponge evolving into a primitive fish. When looking at things in this (appropriate) light, you have to conclude that all originals of a reproductive species were either (a) capable of division or ( asexual. Further, at each evolutionary step in reproduction, the new species would be a family of one, and from that, all other species of the same reproductive subset would derive. (Note, however, that this leaves aside the highly unlikely consideration that the same genetic anomaly could have created two of said species at or around the same time.) Notice from truefusion: Corrected quote. I was the one that said it, not anwiii.

It's fickle to debate between evolution vs. intelligent design. With either route you end up at a point of no return where it's impossible to uncover the additional information that would be necessary to prove either concept to be the absolute truth.Personally, I think it's obvious that various species evolve, but that this does not exclude the concept of creationism. Whereas most "scientific" minds would claim that creationism is illogical, I see it making more sense than the alternative. It makes very little sense that living creatures should appear (given -any- amount of time) with not only a will or instinct to sustain their lives (in the greater scheme of things, why should life want to sustain itself? There's no reason for it. We're less than a blink of an eye in the greater cosmos), but also have all of the necessary ingredients to replicate themselves in some meaningful way and to adapt to their environments. That's a -very- tall order for any random series of particle collisions, even given all the space and history of the universe.I know people get heated during these kinds of discussions, but really we're all just people taking stabs at something we'll never be able to reach for. You might as well ask a computer program what the computer it's running inside of looks like.