Slashdot Mirror

It was disappointing when Ask bought out Teoma, that was a good search engine.

Yea, I used to use Teoma a lot, when I didn't get a result or not what I was looking for from Google. Another I use a lot also is Mooter. Alta Vista still returns good text search results, though I don't use it much. Another I use, for specific searchs, is About. Actually it was Google that led me to using About. I googled for some archeology and anthropology searchs and Google returned About's Archeology and anthropology section in the top results. Later I googled for something in photogaphy and once again Google returned an About section Photography, in the top spot.

The hemitt.

And in 1998 Pa's license plates were changed to "promote the Commonwealth's award winning and highly visited official website".
http://philadelphia.about.com/library/weekly/aa100 499.htm
They were the first to do this, because PA was being trumpted as 'revolutionary' and 'embracing the internet' IIRC. LOL!

When in doubt ask About.

Basically 3 places Jitterbug, Wirefly, and Net10.

Jitterbug I've seen and it's large numbers (buttons and screen) make it ideal for stiff fingers and bi-focal eyes.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Cell+phones+f or+elderly
http://cellphones.about.com/od/topcellphones/tp/ce ll_senior.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_33 /b3947040_mz006.htm
http://www.engadget.com/2004/07/28/lgs-cellphone-f or-the-elderly/
All phones and leads on phones with exactly what you require. And, no foreign import issues.
"Ocham's Razor essentially states that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually correct."

And then next time country (x) invades country (y), country (y) will be all wanting us to help again, and complaining we didn't come in quickly enough. It happens every 50 years or so, seems to be overdue by a decade or two.

I'd also like to know where you get this "all" from - seems like one of those statements which is a generalization with few facts to back it up.

So if people who don't get all the facts, and choose to blame only Bush for the actions of the entire legislative _and_ executive branch, well, they can hate the entire country out of ignorance, there's nothing anyone can do to stop them.

Actual carbonated soda is very rare; it's not that unusual to see even Coca Cola vending machines that don't actually sell cola.

Carbonated soda is not "very rare". And Coca Cola machines without soda only exist when other Coca Cola machines *with* soda sit right next to them.

Japanese vending machines almost always exist in multiple units - it's actually uncommon to see a single vending machine by itself. In the event that you *do*, that vending machine will *always* have at least one, and usually two or more flavors of carbonated soda. When vending machines are paired together, they have one particular kind of drink in each, so yes, of course you will only find carbonated drinks in one out of the four or five machines in any given spot. But they're always there.

This is a typical single-unit Suntory machine installation:
http://www.japonophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2004 -2006/jihanki.jpg

And the same for Coke:
http://z.about.com/d/gojapan/1/0/8/2/machine2.gif

This is a more common multi-machine installation:
http://www.tjf.or.jp/deai_korea/contents/teacher/m ini_en/pic_mini/life031.jpg

(I know the url says "korea", but that's Japan. Here is the original page it's from.)

It is true that Japan has much more variety of drink types in their vending machines than we do. But I disagree that their drinks are all that much healthier. Their vending machines contain drinks of the following types:

a) Canned iced coffee - always sweetened
b) Soda
c) Beer
d) Sweetened, processed juice drinks (their equivalent to "Sunny Delight")
e) Iced tea (unsweetened)

Of those, only tea is even remotely healthy and calorie-free. And it's true that it's usually available for those who want it. But then, diet soda is always available at vending machines here too; not as healthy as tea, but at least calorie-free and non-obesity forming. Most people choose something else, in both countries.

Our problem is portion control. The standard bottle size in vending machines here is 20oz. A Japanese canned coffee is I think 7oz. Big difference. We're drinking almost three times the sugar in our sugar drinks as they are, just because we're drinking a lot more of it. (This extends beyond vending machines too; go to McDonald's there and the "large" drink is the same size as a "small" here.)

Combined with the rest of their diet, which is a lot less fatty and rich in calories, and with a lot smaller portions, and of course they're in better shape. Though with the rise of fast food there, they're fattening up now just like we already have. (Most articles on this are a bit alarmist, IMO - it's still obvious that they're in pretty good shape, but obesity rates are rising.)

It's really not rocket science why we're all getting fat. Too many calories, too big portions. It drives me crazy how people read stuff like "fructose makes you fat!" and think they can just cut out fructose and lose weight. Meanwhile, they're still eating double quarter pounders with cheese, a large fries and two apple pies for lunch and wondering why they're still getting fat. The culprit to gaining weight is calories. That's it. Simple laws of physics. All of these foods that supposedly "cause" obesity do so because they are high in calories and low in nutrients. That includes fructose. The bottom line is you need to control your calorie intake, which means both controlling the types of food you eat as well as the amounts.

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
- Thomas Jefferson and/or Howard Zinn

Wait that could work! While the Zune of course was an utter flop, I actually like brown mugs.

--
Non-profit and Business Grant Writing Professionals.

These are the methods of a tin pot dictator, not the leader of a great and worthy nation.

For the really touchy-feely OS out there!
Does this mean all apps will play nice?

Pavlov demonstrated that when Transmarginal Inhibition began to take over a dog, a condition similar to hysteria in a human manifested. The applications of these findings to human psychology suggest that for a "conversion" to be effective, it is necessary to work on the subject's emotions until s/he reaches an abnormal condition of fear, anger or exaltation. If such a state is maintained or intensified by any of various means, hysteria is the result. In a state of hysteria, a human being is abnormally suggestible and influences in the environment can cause one set of behavior patterns to be replaced by another without any need for persuasive indoctrination. In states of fear and excitement, normally sensible human beings will accept the most wildly improbably suggestions. [. . .] Most of Pavlov's findings applicable to Mind Control are reported in a series of Pavlov's later lectures translated by Horsley Gantt, published in Great Britain and the United States in 1941 under the title "Conditioned Reflexes and Psychiatry." [5] Professor Y. P. Frolov's book about these experiments, Pavlov and His School [6] has also been translated into English. Article here

2. Tobacco smoke quickly lowers stress and anxiety and feelings of anger. It is one of the only two commonly used drugs on the market which while increasing clarity of thinking does not affect judgment. (Caffeine is the other). Old native bands meeting to discuss problems would all first smoke before opening their meeting, (hence, the "peace pipe"). Tobacco lent itself well to averting unnecessary anger and anxiety. In a world like ours today when fear is regularly promoted in such a way which guides the decisions and acceptance of the public with regard to international policy, knowledge

If you got that "1 in 50" figure from about.com, then AFAICT it simply referred to the risk in any given unprotected sexual encounter with a random person. In other words, it already took the percentage of infected people into account; so you're counting it twice.

Still, that's the figures without condom use. And also, I note that about.com gave the risk of unprotected receptive anal sex as between 1 in 50 and 1 in 1300 (a much lower figure). (I would assume that the 1 in 50 figure is a "worst case" guess, and that it applies mainly to ultra-promiscuous gay men in drug-using, multiple-partners/clubbing type situations).

I've never understood the trackball crowd (and I tried one for awhile). Simply put: the way our thumbs work is very sub-optimal for pointing.

The Huns were European / central Asian, a long way from Mongolia. They controlled a large area in the final days of the Roman Empire (the one based in Rome, not Constantinople.) While it is held by some that Attila the Hun was of Mongolian origins, the area over which his rulership held sway was in what we would consider Europe / the Caucasus.

http://www.boglewood.com/timeline/attila.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/attilathehun/a/ attilathehun.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attilla_the_hun
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02061b.htm

Also, that the Huns were not the descendants of the Hungarians is a bit in question (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maygar).

All this in a story about 80 column terminals. This is, like, a tangent of a tangent of a tangent. But then again, that's what makes /. so enjoyable!

Espresso has about half the caffeine of coffee due to the dark roast.

Espresso seems to have a lot higher caffeine density than normal coffee... at least twice.

http://coffeetea.about.com/library/blcaffeine.htm

Double Espresso (2 oz): 45-100mg (22 to 50mg per ounce)
Brewed coffee (8 oz): 60-120 mg (7.5 to 15mg per ounce)

http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database/

Coffee (Brewed) 13.44 mg/oz
Coffee (Decaf, Brewed) 0.70 mg/oz
Coffee (Decaf, Instant) 0.31 mg/oz
Coffee (Drip) 18.13 mg/oz
Coffee (Espresso) 51.33 mg/oz

To answer the original question: 315 to 720 mg total!
=Smidge=

The desktop publishing fraternity has had rules for how wide lines should be for a very long time. Some of them are described here about.com. Most of them place the ideal width of text for maximum comprehension at 30-60 characters. Notice how this is done with newspapers. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to read a newspaper that spanned articles across the entire page?

Code may have slightly different numbers, but I suspect they're probably not that different. 80 characters means you don't have to spent too much time seeking back to the start of the next line and you can read the code fast. When it comes down to it, almost all code formatting rules are about maximising their comprehensibility. While technology used to be the limiting factor, the human eye/brain is now the limit, and while we can do hundreds of characters per row now, you'd be hard pressed to find a person who could read text/code formatted like that easily.

Consider this bit of history:

Hippocrates [ca 400 BC] writes about the use of willow bark to relieve pain.
The active ingredient in willow bark is isolated and extracted in concentrated form. [1828-1839]

The problem was that salicylic acid was tough on stomachs and a means of 'buffering' the compound was searched for. The first person to do so was a French chemist named Charles Frederic Gerhardt. In 1853, Gerhardt neutralized salicylic acid by buffering it with sodium (sodium salicylate) and acetyl chloride, creating acetylsalicylic acid. Gerhardt's product worked but he had no desire to market it and abandoned his discovery.

In 1899, a German chemist named Felix Hoffmann, who worked for a German company called Bayer, rediscovered Gerhardt's formula. Felix Hoffmann made some of the formula and gave it to his father who was suffering from the pain of arthritis. With good results, Felix Hoffmann then convinced Bayer to market the new wonder drug. Aspirin was patented on March 6, 1889.

Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, Aspirin ® and Heroin ® were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The History of Aspirin

And most of the chemical industry was founded in Switzerland at the turn of the century

I would have placed the origins of the modern chemical industry in Germany ca. 1860 with companies like Bayer and with the exploitation of coal tar dyes - modern organic chemistry. Harold Baron: The Chemical Industry on the Continent

The point of a dictionary is to show how a word is used in general. If enough people misuse a word it should have that definition added. As such, some dictionaries cite a definition of atheist meaning 'wicked'. It isn't the job of dictionaries to provide definitions of how those people who describe themselves with a word use the word. Even though weak atheist is categorically not agnosticism and agnosticism is a completely disconnected claim from one of theism/atheism that isn't the way it is generally understood and thus isn't the way the dictionaries have the word listed. Atheism is without a theistic belief, whether unbelief or disbelief (as disbelief automatically assumes unbelief). Whereas agnosticism is a knowledge claim which, by and large, says nothing about belief in God (one can be agnostic and atheist or theist).

http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/p/ overview.htm

Gee, it looks like there will be dueling perpetual motion machine demonstrations tomorrow. Joeseph Newman has been promoting a "Gyro power" machine for decades. I first became aware him while working in the Patent and Trademark Office back around 1980 where his patent application was rejected, the rejection being affirmed on appeal.

Oh, what to do, what to do, London or Phoenix?

Toxic waste.

This is what I've heard, and I tend to believe it.

The place is a mess; tons of projects have been improperly disposed of, and many employees have become sick with what looks like heavy metal poisoning (the government has refused to reveal what it was they might have been exposed to, however, so many have been unable to get appropriate treatment).

Basically, because it's classified, there's no oversight, and because there's no oversight, the place is a disaster. "Area 51" is nothing but a neglected Superfund site where they fly airplanes.

[Sources: There was a 60 Minutes episode interviewing some very sick people, and there were satellite photos in Popular Mechanics (I know, it's a rag), also showing chemical pools, etc.]

________________________

And here's more info on the above:

For the fifth year in a row, President Bush has granted the Air Force an executive exemption from legal requirements to disclose information regarding solid or hazardous waste disposal operations at Area 51.

[...]

Area 51's annual exemption stems from lawsuits filed in 1996 on the behalf of two former civilian employees at the facility. Both employees, Robert Frost and Wally Kasza, died of illnesses attributed to inhalation of smoke from toxic materials being disposed of at Area 51.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits, Frost v. Perry and Kasza v. Browne, claimed that the Air Force and EPA had violated the RCRA by illegally burning Area 51's hazardous waste in open pits.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/blgrooml ake.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/b ases022.html

People have been arrested for wearing masks outside.

Here is an About.com article that talks about it more. http://paranormal.about.com/cs/earthmysteries/a/aa 021604.htm

The text below is lifted from this site: http://prometheus.al.ru/english/phisik/onichelson/ tunguska.htm

The Tunguska event took place on the morning of June 30th, 1908. An explosion estimated to be equivalent to 10-15 megatons of TNT flattened 500,000 acres of pine forest near the Stony Tunguska River in central Siberia. Whole herds of reindeer were destroyed. Several nomadic villages were reported to have vanished. The explosion was heard over a radius of 620 miles. When an expedition was made to the area in 1927 to find evidence of the meteorite presumed to have caused the blast, no impact crater was found. When the ground was drilled for pieces of nickel, iron, or stone, the main constituents of meteorites, none were found down to a depth of 118 feet.

Several explanations have been given for the Tunguska event. The officially accepted version is that a 100,000 ton fragment of Encke's Comet, composed mainly of dust and ice, entered the atmosphere at 62,000 mph, heated up, and exploded over the earth's surface creating a fireball and shock wave but no crater. Alternative explanations of the disaster include a renegade mini-black hole or an alien space ship crashing into the earth with the resulting release of energy.

Associating Tesla with the Tunguska event comes close to putting the inventor's power transmission idea in the same speculative category as ancient astronauts. However, historical facts point to the possibility that this event was caused by a test firing of Tesla's energy weapon.

In 1907 and 1908, Tesla wrote about the destructive effects of his energy transmitter. His Wardenclyffe facility was much larger than the Colorado Springs device that destroyed the power station's generator. Then, in 1915, he stated bluntly:

It is perfectly practical to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible. ... But when unavoidable [it] may be used to destroy property and life. The art is already so far developed that the great destructive effects can be produced at any point on the globe, defined beforehand with great accuracy (emphasis added).

He seems to confess to such a test having taken place before 1915, and, though the evidence is circumstantial, Tesla had the motive and the means to cause the Tunguska event. His transmitter could generate energy levels and frequencies capable of releasing the destructive force of 10 megatons, or more, of TNT. And the overlooked genius was desperate.

Tesla was just enough of a mad scientist to make what would otherwise sound kooky, at least somewhat plausible.

Here is an interesting page about security clearance. It looks like it's specific to the Department of Defense. Look especially at the page on financial considerations.

The locale of this newspaper? New Jersey.

I think the vitriol you see is a function of location. It might just be a New Jersey attitude, or it might be the segment of the immigrant population that come into contact with.

I live in San Diego, which borders Tijuana and has some strong anti-immigration currents. But it's very often specficially stated it is not about race. We have many law-abiding latinos here that are also very irritated by those who choose to break the law. We come into contact with every class of coming from south of the border... from the poorest nearly native immigrants coming all the way from South America to the richest Mexicans. We would just like our government to take responsiblity for immigration and to favor those immigrants who choose to show respect for our laws.

Finally, I also favor increasing the number of legal immigrants, by at least 10x. But again, we've got to create a system that invites those who want to be a part of our society, not replace it. (Yes, that was authenticated.)

If it's a Republican president, he can purposely ignore all threats and cancel current anti-terror operations beforehand, and when the attack starts, he can ignore that it's happening in order to continue a PR event, and people will still consider him a great heroic leader as long as he ... well, does nothing, really.

German Donut:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/jfk_ berliner.htm

It has been a major topic long since. At least since the creation of an affordable autombile.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarsse ldona.htm

Only on /. does this crap get modded +5 insightful (despite saying nothing of content), and for example, a comment I made that water is in fact BLUE gets modded -1 Troll (it only got up to +1 after I posted a source).

As others have pointed out, Moore regularly uses these tactics of improperly framing a situation and withholding information that would make you reassess his claim (and ultimately not accept his original framing). His most common tactics are: stating selective facts out of chronological order to present an entirely different situation; using quotes out of context; and most importantly, withholding information that would make it obvious he's messing with you. For example, he did this in Bowling for Columbine when he presented Charlton Heston as a racist by using a quote out of context, and did not bother to mention that Heston marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr, Sidney Poitier, etc, in favor of civil rights.

Disclaimer: I'm a liberal and I've never shot nor owned a gun. :D

The simple answer is no, because nobody can be accurately sure without complicating it with all manners of outside factors. Such is the greatness of any political debate.

A recent article exploring Canada's semi-recent abolition of capital punishment tells us that their murder rate is lower 30-years after the abolition than 9 years preceeding. Again, there's 40 years worth of factors both helping and hindering the murder rate, but it's still impressive.

And for the proponents of cap. punishment, that article touches those wrongfully accused. My question to you is: What happens if a truly innocent person is found guilty? One less person to pay taxes or whatever else, while the real criminal is still running amok. And what about their family? (I know, it's a cheap shot and there are a million "what about ___" questions. The family, though, is something that I feel is actually fairly pertinent.)

smallest

In an even smaller spot, this picture was found...

Fonts aren't copyrightable, based on numerous court precedents (note: a font is distinct from a typeface: a font is a typeface with a style, weight, size applied)

• Trademark protection -- a font's name can be trademarked, which is why many Helvetica clones are called anything but Helvetica.
• Copyright -- Yes, really. Not on the font design itself, because that's not allowed. What is the copyright on, then? You see, computer software vendors came up with the clever idea of packaging fonts (really typefaces) as software. The idea was pioneered by Adobe with PostScript Type I fonts -- the "font" (typeface) is a set of instructions for stroking and rendering, including hinting for rendering at low resolutions (something that most public domain and freeware fonts don't have).

Here ya go...

Definition of the term Linux...

http://linux.about.com/od/glossary/l/bldef_linux.h tm/

Should I look into your other claims, or will that be a waste of time?

No, I'll do it for you:

"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one." --George W. Bush, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006

You're right in that I should not have chosen the first link I found; however, my faulty organic memory was, in this case at least, spot-on. Thanks for calling me on that though, sometimes I make mistakes.

No, I am not new here, but it seems that sensible discussions quickly deteriorate into a nationalistic slanging match whenever France is mentioned, or whenever the US is shown in a bad light.

But the stereotype is based rubbish. WW2 dead - France 810,000, US - 500,000. WW1 dead - France Empire 5,651,000, US - 321,000. And when you compare that with the total size of available population the US contribution doesn't seem quite so impressive, does it? In fact, during WW2, the US came behind the USSR, Poland and Greece, as well as quite a few countries fighting for the other side. Sources: http://www.hitler.org/ww2-deaths.html and http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/bl ww1castable.htm.

I just have difficulty with a nation that (thinks it) is so advanced yet cannot see past the end of its nose...

Get a brane, morans?

(also couldn't resist)

I recommend you to become familiar with the terms "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam"

From wikipedia:
Dar al-Harb (Arabic: "house of war") is a term used to refer to those areas outside Muslim rule. The term traditionally refers to those lands administered by non-Muslim governments. The exact definitions of these territories can vary widely according to the viewer's concept of who is and is not a Muslim, and which governments are or are not Muslim in practice. The inhabitants of the Dar al-Harb are called harbi, as opposed to dhimmi. A harbi has no rights, not even the right to live.

Dhimmi is another word to understand. Here's a good article about "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam" http://atheism.about.com/od/islamicextremism/a/dar alharb.htm

I note that it seems "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam" are traditional teachings, not the product of a fanatical minority group. The fanatical minority groups just take them more seriously and implement them. The idea that there can be lasting peace between Muslims and non-muslims is a dangerous fantasy. No action of self ruled non-muslims can make them not be dar al-harb. Diplomacy and "trying to be less hated" will never be sufficient.

Wow, really? I thought he was a big supporter of the poor.

If he's out there killing poor people, I better not vote for the guy after all.

It might have helped if the President had carefully read a certain August 6th, 2001 memo titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.

For all we know, he did read the memo.

Otherwise, I'd say you were onto something. Just think where we'd be today if we elected a President could read and wasn't an ex oil man, a Vice President without ties to Halliburton, or a Secretary of State whose specialty wasn't Russian studies. Come to think of it, if it wasn't real, you'd think only a science fiction writer could come up with that scenario.

As it should be - if you want a piece of carbonized meat, burn some hamburger not a good steak.

In your opinion.

The technique (charred on the outside, rare on the inside) is called "pittsburghing" and is a very popular method of preparation.

Bah, everyone knows shoggoths don't even see euclidean geometric structures, let alone get bound by them.

The shoggoth's Antarctic iceblock is in the Disney Concert Hall in LA, keeping Walt's head frozen.

Aspartame scare is an urban legend, dude.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blasp.htm

Wow... seriously you need some professional counciling. Your opinion about Carter is fine. You can are entitled to your own belief on his agenda although I completely disagree with, but the most disturbing part of your comment was

" Personally I dont like jews, but when it comes to Israel, i believe they should nuke palastine and iran and push THEM off into the ocean. I think this wall would be the best thing for their country and I have great respect for a people who live in such a dangerous area where everyone on every border wants to see you die."

Jewish people are good people. That was a very racist comment about jews, and you need to reevaluate your position about the Jewish people as a whole. Certain ones carry there own elite fanatical agenda which is the root of the problem today, but under no circumstances do they represent ALL Jewish people. In fact there are MANY Jewish people who speak out against Israeli policy and unortunately are dubbed as "self hating jews" by the zealous fanatics I meantioned earlier. It is important to identify and confront those zealots but not liking an entire race/religion for the acts of few is ridiculous.

Your belief that they should nuke palestine and Iran only illustrates further your complete disregard for humanity in general. Violence is not the answer to any of these problems, and to even suggest a nuclear attack puts you in the same catergory as radical islam in that you both see mass destruction of civilians as a way to solve problems.

" I think this wall would be the best thing for their country and I have great respect for a people who live in such a dangerous area where everyone on every border wants to see you die."

Everyone on the border doesn't want to see them die everyone on the border themself doesn't want to die, face economic strangulation, denial of basic resouces (water), denial of citizenship, barred freedom to visit there families, and destruction of there own homes.

This whitewashing of the Palestinians is a huge problem and the media is partly to blame. Do you know ANY palestinians? You'll find that they are humans just like you and I and want the basic human rights that we take for granted everyday.

Raids on Palestinian homes the slaying of women and children in gaza all can easily be considered terrorists acts. by terrorism I mean

"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. "

And there have been several Terrorist organizations in Israel against Arabs

http://atheism.about.com/library/world/AJ/bl_Israe lTerror.htm

This situation is very complicated, and it will only work itself out if everyone owns up that everyone has made grave mistakes. I hope that you reevaluate your positions about Arabs and Jews because it is only going to make it harder for a peaceful resolution to be reached.

I never heard of this LCD dithering before. A little bit of Googling found a simple explanation of what it is, a simple test to look for it, and a detailed explanation and test.

This seems to be a very common practice on LCD screens, not just a trick used by Apple. I'm still not clear whether most LCDs use spatial or temporal dithering. It seems like temporal dithering would work very well with an LCD. They're known for their sluggish response times, so sending "80-84-80-84" at 60 Hz should result in a nice smearing into "82-82-82-82" over time.

I didn't see any dithering artifacts on my MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo). Either it doesn't dither (unlikely) or the dithering is better than my eyes can see.

We all know that screens are actually made of red, green, and blue (RGB) dots that combine to make the apparent color of each pixel. An 8-bit screen would have 256 levels of brighness for each of those subpixels, yielding 256 x 256 x 256 = 16.8 million mixed colors. But if you wanted to be really technical you could say that the screen can actually show only 256 + 256 + 256 = 768 colors; the mixed colors are an illusion. Likewise a 6-bit screen can generate only 262 thousand colors in a given pixel at a given instant, but it can simulate many more colors over time or space.

The argument depends on how many pixels the manufacturer claims to have. If they say their screen is 1024 x 768 with 16.8 million colors then we would expect to have 786,000 independently addressable pixels, each of which comprises three RGB subpixels. If in fact it takes four RGB subpixels (1-1/3 of each 6-bit subpixel to get 8 bits) to yield 16.8 million colors then they should really only claim a resolution of 768 x 576. If, however, they do the dithering temporally and the pulsation is unnoticeable then I think continuing to call the resolution 1024 x 768 is fair.

AlpineR

This got me wondering how many bpp my own Viewsonic Pro series monitor can display. I was surprised to find that it wasn't listed in the product specifications -- neither as bits nor total number of colors.

A little further digging brought me to this article which gave some good insight about the differences. Some highlights:

Since consumers were demanding faster screens, something needed to be done to improve response times. To facilitate this, many manufacturers turned to reducing the number of levels each color pixel render. This reduction in the number of intensity levels allows the response times to drop but has the drawback of reducing the overall number of colors that can be rendered.

High-speed LCD monitors typically reduce the number of bits for each color to 6 instead of the standard 8. ... This is far fewer than the true color display such that it would be noticeable to the human eye.

If no color depths is listed, it should be assumed that monitors of 12ms or faster will be 6-bit and the 20ms and slower panels are 8-bit.

This is very subjective to the actual user and what the computer is used for. The amount of color really matters to those that do professional work on graphics. For these people, the amount of color that is displayed on the screen is very important. The average consumer is not going to really need this level of color representation by their monitor. As a result, it probably doesn't matter. People using their displays for video games or watching video will likely not care about the number of colors rendered by the LCD but by the speed at which it can be displayed. As a result, it is best to determine your needs and base your purchase on those criteria.