Domain: amazon.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to amazon.com.
Comments · 40,271
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Re:OTA all the way
I'm too busy (lazy) and lack the parts (am not handy) to make one, so I bought one of these at Walmart. I'm in an apartment in Toronto, a few stories up; I can pick up the Toronto and most Buffalo stations just fine, which is more than enough. Most of my viewing is streaming internet video though.
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Re:Go Full Heisenberg
In your next joke, please consider using better quality products.
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Go Full Heisenberg
Whenever I'm in Beijing, I like to rock my IIT 91440 Twin-Cartridge Respirator with Goggles, ideally with my Day-Glo Yellow Tychem Qc Chemical Protection Coveralls. Authorities don't give me a problem, they just assume I'm from North Korea.
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Re:same for laptops and cell phones
sorry for multiple replies, maybe it will be helpful to build this info in one place. Here's how to kibosh the mike on your macbook.
to kill in hardware: For unibody macbook pros the microphone is connected to the logic board but not soldered on, so if you have iron nuts you can actually just unplug it. you give up the convenience of FaceTime chats or dictation without plugging in an external mike, but if you care then you care:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Ma...then if you get one of these it's convenient to get microphone access when you need it. This one works for the macbook airs that have the line-in/ line-out port like an iPhone, it might work for an older macbook with a separate line in port, i don't know.
http://www.amazon.com/IK-Multi...if this is too permanent or hard core, then there are a few ways of doing it in software. Here is a guide from the NSA themselves on how to harden your macbook. this version applies to snow leopard, but much of it likely still holds over.
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/f...a last thought, another way you could be super hardcore is to pull out the airport card, which like the microphone isn't soldered on. it has wifi and bluetooth. another super pain in the ass thing, but it's a step.
this appears to be a small USB dongle that would give you BT and wi-fi when you need it.
http://www.amazon.com/Cirago-B...OK, once you've done all these things you can upgrade to ranger-level tinfoil hat.
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Re:same for laptops and cell phones
sorry for multiple replies, maybe it will be helpful to build this info in one place. Here's how to kibosh the mike on your macbook.
to kill in hardware: For unibody macbook pros the microphone is connected to the logic board but not soldered on, so if you have iron nuts you can actually just unplug it. you give up the convenience of FaceTime chats or dictation without plugging in an external mike, but if you care then you care:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Ma...then if you get one of these it's convenient to get microphone access when you need it. This one works for the macbook airs that have the line-in/ line-out port like an iPhone, it might work for an older macbook with a separate line in port, i don't know.
http://www.amazon.com/IK-Multi...if this is too permanent or hard core, then there are a few ways of doing it in software. Here is a guide from the NSA themselves on how to harden your macbook. this version applies to snow leopard, but much of it likely still holds over.
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/f...a last thought, another way you could be super hardcore is to pull out the airport card, which like the microphone isn't soldered on. it has wifi and bluetooth. another super pain in the ass thing, but it's a step.
this appears to be a small USB dongle that would give you BT and wi-fi when you need it.
http://www.amazon.com/Cirago-B...OK, once you've done all these things you can upgrade to ranger-level tinfoil hat.
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Re:Directly contacting gov agencies. Good idea?
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Re:Why single out Whole Foods?
...or your salt.
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same for laptops and cell phones
Anything they can do with an xbox they can do with a cell phone / laptop as well. I just bought one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H9...discrete static cling covers for your glass-front equipment. you can still peel off when you want to facetime or whatever, then put them back.
I don't know how to muffle the microphones when I'm not using them, does anybody have ideas?
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Re:hacker vs hacker
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Socially accepted uses of a prison:
1. Remove a danger to society
2. Acting as a deterrent
3. As a punitive measure (strongly related to item #2)
4. To provide rehabilitationTo date, analysis[1] has shown that never in the verifiable recorded history of crime and punishment, has any prison, anywhere, ever had a non-negligible impact on recidivism rates. Some pre-established percentage of people continue to commit crimes after a jail sentence, regardless of changes to enable rehabilitation. Education, trade skills, access to medicine & counselors, 'nice' quarters, access to games and exercise, work release programs, etc - no appreciable impact.
Even punishments like public shaming (very big in medieval times) have no impact on the average number of individuals willing to commit the crime again. Even torture (short of permanent harm) has no real lasting impact, though it does often result in the individuals using more effort to reduce the risks of getting caught.
In short, prisons do not rehabilitate prisoners, and they never have.[2] [3]
Pretending they they do, or can and then making screeching noises when they fail - or worse, throwing money at them so they can try yet another fad get-lawful-quick program is just irrational. Blaming the system for not working as one expects only shows the value of those expectations.
Here's the takeaway: The only things prisons are good for is removing a danger from society and providing a punitive threat as a deterrent - and even that last one has only limited impact.
For those interested in constructive comments, the fix is obvious and simple; spend that money on fixing those parts of society that give rise to crime. Focus on education, focus on a two-parent household, focus on employable skills, and so on.
[1] - oy. Google it, read some books, and take a few criminal justice classes. Personally, I'd start with this book, http://www.amazon.com/CRIMINAL... because it's a fascinating read, but your mileage may vary.
[2] - though there's nothing to say they couldn't eventually. Maybe cryogenically freeze them and subliminally imprint upon them the desire to knit when they're stressed? Could work.
[3] - Technically, life in prison works, in that they don't commit any more crimes, but the important point to note is that rehabilitation programs STILL have no impact on this rate. So it doesn't count either. -
Re:Heinlein
The story actually brought to mind a set of short stories I read recently: Machine of Death
Inspired by a Dinosaur Comics strip, the short stories all share one element: They have a machine that someone (often many people) in the stories use that tells them how they will die. Not when, but how. And not exactly how either. "Stroke" can mean that you are in an airplane crash due to the pilot having a stroke. "Old age" can mean you get run over by an old guy driving a car. However, people in these stories must live their lives knowing that what is on that slip of paper is coming for them.
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worse hazard than submerged cargo containers
John Trimmer's going to have a hard time on the next update of his book
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Re:That House episode
Which in turn is an exaggerated version of a....mirror. Major reduction of expense I'd say...
Read the following two books or more details:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-...
http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms... -
Re:That House episode
Which in turn is an exaggerated version of a....mirror. Major reduction of expense I'd say...
Read the following two books or more details:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-...
http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms... -
Daniel J. Boorstin's "The Discoverers"http://www.amazon.com/Discover...
Daniel Boorstin, Librarian of Congress (1975 - 1987) wrote The Discoverers. It's a book about the people and events surrounding some very early, essential discoveries. Some of the discoveries include
Time (remember, prior to clocks each day had hours of differing duration. The 12 daylight hours were longer in the summer, and shorter in the winter.)
Maps and map coordinates (such as the idea that they should be drawn to scale, or that coordinates were not evil)
the Compass
Money
It's history, not the future view you're discussing, but it does give lots of great insights into the discovery of things that fundamentally changed the world.
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Re:Easier solution
I came here to say this. I'll add Ramachandran's book to the above post, Phantoms in the Brain.
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Re:Smartphone superior in every way
and since smartphones are inherently networked devices it's kind of silly to complain about size of local storage.
At 2 to 5 GB per month, how long does it take to move files off local storage onto the cloud and off the cloud onto local storage? And how much can one store in the cloud without paying a substantial chunk of change annually to lease remote storage? Apple quotes $2 per GB per year.
You have WIFI connections available in most restaurants and stores including Lowe's and Home Depot
Some carriers offer the option of unlimited 4g speeds for an extra 20/month with no overages.
I currently have a 500MB @ 4G speeds then throttled to 3g plan, no overages, ever.
Oh, I'm in the U.S. before you say it's not available here.Often the PC web browsing has been exactly that when I was in a hotel room - until I tethered through my smart phone
Provided that 1. you spend a lot of time in hotels, 2. your plan doesn't forbid tethering, and 3. your plan has enough MB left.
1. The option of tethering exists outside of hotel rooms.
2. Even if your plan forbids tethering, there are free apps that support it. My carrier allows tethering, but, I have an app that worked fine on Sprint with no complaints.
3. Again, no overages on my plan, maybe shop around someIt's also obviously superior to use touch over tiny physical keyboards, or there would still be a lot of devices sold with tiny physical keyboards instead of virtually none.
There are still plenty of mobile devices sold with tiny physical nonalphabetic keyboards, namely PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS. This is because touch is not optimal for games in genres that use directional rather than positional input.
Can't argue here, I personally hate touchscreen keyboards.
Other than that, all your points are wrong
Not "all"; you forgot to mention external storage.
with AirPlay it's easy to take advantage of a larger TV.
Provided you buy the $99 adapter to use AirPlay with a TV.
Bluray is only good if you buy a Tv that supports HDMI, new technologies can require upgrades for people to use them.
Also, A lot of newer A/V receivers have AirPlay support built inIt's easy to print to any WiFi supporting printer with iOS
Provided you replace an otherwise-working printer with a printer that both speaks Wi-Fi and speaks Apple's protocol over Wi-Fi.
It's hard to find the list of supported printers these days...
and it's easy to make use of any network I like
So long as it's wireless.
here's a USB Ethernet adapter that works with Android and Apple
Well I say, I want everyone to benefit from the power of computation
So long as an app doesn't do anything that Apple doesn't want an app to do, such as contribute to a catalog of open Wi-Fi hotspots.
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Re: Fools
The argument that government backed currencies are so faulty is, well, faulty.
Is it? what makes you conclude that? Economic history says that every single one of them to crashes sooner or later, but don't take my word for it, go read books like this one, or this one if you want to find the details.
sooner or later every single fiat currency gets printed out of existence, there's litterally hundreds if not thousands of examples of that happening, and not a single counterexample in all of human history. But hey I'm sure this time will be different, and the dollar and euro will survive just fine, never mind the excessive spending and printing of both.
inflation is essentially the paper equivalent of debasing gold coins, and central banks think it's desirable. The lunatics are running the asylum.
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Re: Fools
The argument that government backed currencies are so faulty is, well, faulty.
Is it? what makes you conclude that? Economic history says that every single one of them to crashes sooner or later, but don't take my word for it, go read books like this one, or this one if you want to find the details.
sooner or later every single fiat currency gets printed out of existence, there's litterally hundreds if not thousands of examples of that happening, and not a single counterexample in all of human history. But hey I'm sure this time will be different, and the dollar and euro will survive just fine, never mind the excessive spending and printing of both.
inflation is essentially the paper equivalent of debasing gold coins, and central banks think it's desirable. The lunatics are running the asylum.
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Re:Ain't no body got time for that
I would rather the campus be located away from urban area. Less traffic, less driving, cheap/free parking...
Show me a city free of traffic congestion and parking shortages and I'll show you a city that achieves this by forcing property owners to overbuild their parking lots and by overbuilding freeways. "Free" parking comes at a very high cost.
Buffalo, NY is an exception, but only because it's a city in decline. Let's not try to emulate them.
City planners typically (ab)use the zoning code to require so many parking spaces that there's never a shortage when the price of parking is zero. But the economically optimal amount of parking is the amount where the marginal cost of adding another parking space equals the marginal revenue from adding it (MC=MR). This means if the price is always zero (so MR=0), either the cost of building and owning a parking space should be zero (so MC=0 which is somewhere between highly unlikely and impossible) or it should create a parking shortage on a regular basis to be economically optimal.
Cities also tend to overbuild freeways to try to keep ahead of demand without charging a toll, but this usually doesn't work because transportation agencies are terrible at predicting traffic levels. So one nice thing about tolls, besides giving carless taxpayers a return on their sales tax investment (see Prop K in San Francisco, Measure R in Los Angeles, TransNet in San Diego, Prop 400 in Phoenix, etc.), is that variable congestion tolls make traffic levels predictable by keeping demand constant.
The result of these policies is that urban areas subsidize the suburbs. So areas away from urban areas may seem idyllic, but they come at a great cost.
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Re:Drone Occupation
Read this book, Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars. There's a lot of great nuggets about Al-Awlaki.
No, there is no genuine doubt about Al-Awlaki. He was a moderate Muslim man, not associated with terrorism at all. He used his standing in the Muslim community to strongly condemn the 9/11 terrorist attacks as soon as they happened, and continued to do so for some time after. After the US threatened to set up him up on bogus charges and tried turning him into an operative, he got a bit scared and left the country. We clarified that it was an offer he couldn't refuse by blowing him up. And his son too. -
Re:Since it only needs 2C
Straight from Disturbing The Solar System. I just picked that book up from a used bookstore for like $3.
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Re:Vive le Galt!
You might want to give this a read.
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Re:Maybe it just isn't the best criteria
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Re:No
Look at it this way: would you give a toddler a pair of crutches in order to teach him to walk?
That is an astonishingly bad analogy given the popularity of toddler walkers and the fact that every child while learning to walk starts buy pulling themselves up next to something and scooting along it's length.
Or maybe it's a really good analogy, just a bad argument. That sounds more like it to me.
More like he proved the point he was trying to disprove.
All toddlers use aids to get upright until they build the muscles required to no longer need the aid. As such, he attempted to show that IDEs were aids to assist the infirm, implying that developers who used them were deficient. Then he used an example were aids are required to learn the task, due to lack of developed muscles and coordination which the aid mitigates.
In other words, he argued with the skill of a Slashdotter, and will probably take offense now. I can nearly hear the explanation on how this argument really makes sense once one smears petroleum jelly on their glasses and views it through a polarized lens at 37 degrees from the horizontal.
If one wanted to be smart instead of right, they'd notice that criticism is a sign of a mistake made, which is an opportunity to learn. Then after finding the lesson and learning it, future mistakes of this kind would come less frequently. Unfortunately, we tend to live in a society where error is tantamount to failure, and learning opportunities are squandered by people attempting to avoid failure at any cost to future learning.
Yes, I'm annoyed, a bit bitter, and being a grouch. But I'm right on this one.
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Re:Stil waiting.
I would recommend the particle at the end of the universe by Sean Carroll.
It covers a lot of the same material as the comic but in more detail and also puts it in historical context.The only bad thing about it is that when you realise that what we call matter is nothing more than the manipulation of energy fields it do end up worrying about your personal concept of reality.
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Re:No
Look at it this way: would you give a toddler a pair of crutches in order to teach him to walk?
That is an astonishingly bad analogy given the popularity of toddler walkers and the fact that every child while learning to walk starts buy pulling themselves up next to something and scooting along it's length.
Or maybe it's a really good analogy, just a bad argument. That sounds more like it to me.
Not at all. It's a really good analogy, toddler walkers are forbidden in Europe due an estimated 14000 hospitalizations a year and some deaths: http://gh.elopedia.com/zijn-baby-wandelaars-veilig-te-gebruiken
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Re:No
Look at it this way: would you give a toddler a pair of crutches in order to teach him to walk?
That is an astonishingly bad analogy given the popularity of toddler walkers and the fact that every child while learning to walk starts buy pulling themselves up next to something and scooting along it's length.
Or maybe it's a really good analogy, just a bad argument. That sounds more like it to me.
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Re:No
Look at it this way: would you give a toddler a pair of crutches in order to teach him to walk?
That is an astonishingly bad analogy given the popularity of toddler walkers and the fact that every child while learning to walk starts buy pulling themselves up next to something and scooting along it's length.
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Correct link for buying the book
Hi all -- I submitted this review, but it looks like something ate the link for the book. Here's where to buy it:
- You can buy DRM-free PDF, epub and mobi ebooks directly from the author
- Or you can buy the dead tree version from Amazon
I believe the Amazon link gives the author a few more shekels, but he makes the most money from the first link; details from his website's page on this book.
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Re:Insecure but secure enough to keep most people
What I use is a text file on a thumb drive also backed up on several local drives.
The text file contains the first half or so of the password, enough to remind me of what the password is should I forget. The rest is stored in my brain.
For rarely used passwords and places I will put a hint under the half pass.
I am trying to get away from these long 20 character passwords though... I really wish some one would invent a better system. Maybe a thumb drive that combines storage and a thumb print scanner in one package.
Youy mean like this?
Yeah, they're a bit pricey, but not totally out of the ballpark for the concerned user
:) -
Re:Insecure but secure enough to keep most people
What I use is a text file on a thumb drive also backed up on several local drives.
The text file contains the first half or so of the password, enough to remind me of what the password is should I forget. The rest is stored in my brain.
For rarely used passwords and places I will put a hint under the half pass.
I am trying to get away from these long 20 character passwords though... I really wish some one would invent a better system. Maybe a thumb drive that combines storage and a thumb print scanner in one package.
Youy mean like this?
Yeah, they're a bit pricey, but not totally out of the ballpark for the concerned user
:) -
Re:NSA Walks a Fine Line
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Re:Not the Same
A virtual gift card is not the same thing a a virtual currency.
Precisely. A currency can be exchanged for other forms of currency, whereas the value on a gift card can only be exchanged for specific goods and/or services.
Amazon Coins are not convertible to cash, therefore they're not a currency.
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Re:Getting apps in the first place without Play
But how do you download MapQuest onto an Android device without Google Play Store?
I was speaking to device manufacturers rather than consumers... They would get an APK along with license terms directly from MapQuest.
For users, though, it's available on the Amazon app store.
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Re:compare water usage with "average"?
But I'm sorry, I've tried those low-flow shower heads and they SUCK ASS.
They are NOT all the same. There are many awful low-flow shower heads, and there are also pretty good ones. That's not to say you'll be completely unable to tell there's some difference, but they certainly don't seem like just half as much water flow.
Average of 4.2 out of 5 stars out of 202 reviews. $9:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003U... -
Re:Here's the problem, vehicle designers
Parenthetically, (geek alert) the controls on TOS Enterprise, with their distinctive shapes, seemed a LOT more practical to me for an environment with lots of tipping and juddering in combat, as opposed to the all-touch-screen controls in later generations, which required that you keep your hands in contact with the control surface in a potentially hostile environment and watch your hands manipulate virtual buttons and switches, when you should probably be looking at something else.
The "Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual", on page 33, when describing the touch-panels, says: "Also incorporated into this layer is a transducer matrix that provides tactile and auditory feedback to the operator..." They don't elaborate on what this 'tactile feedback' might be like. At a minimum it would presumably indicate (e.g. via a vibration) that a button was pressed. Some fans have hypothesized that the panels perhaps incorporate miniature versions of the force-field technology used throughout the ship: so that even though the panel looks flat, you can actually 'feel' the buttons/layouts as you move your hands around; and of course this tactile response updates as the layout does. (This is supported by the fact that in Voyager, when Tuvok is blinded he is able to activate a "Tactile mode" on his workstation, implying that all panels have the ability to generate tactile feedback.) Thus, the TNG-era touchscreens could have had substantial amount of tactile control.
The reason I point this out is that the creators of a sci-fi show in 1991 could easily imagine that a flat-panel interface would benefit substantially from tactile feedback. The fact that modern vehicle UI designers can't understand this is thus rather ridiculous. -
this:
Core Worlds. Not on a console.
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Re:They're atheists...
Individual atheists can behave morally, ethically, and decently towards other human beings. Officially atheist governments, as opposed to simply secular, don't have a good track record, especially when they are predisposed to suppressing religion. That was the case in at least most communist countries. What makes North Korea notable is that it is still acting in the present day and age as the most oppressive communist countries did 50-90 years ago. To get a taste for that, watch the Soviet Story (trailer) - available on DVD or streaming video
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Re:They're atheists...
Individual atheists can behave morally, ethically, and decently towards other human beings. Officially atheist governments, as opposed to simply secular, don't have a good track record, especially when they are predisposed to suppressing religion. That was the case in at least most communist countries. What makes North Korea notable is that it is still acting in the present day and age as the most oppressive communist countries did 50-90 years ago. To get a taste for that, watch the Soviet Story (trailer) - available on DVD or streaming video
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Re:Sure, blame the flu
The epidemic happened in 1872. Milton Friedman's book puts that right in the middle of a period of economic growth that would last a few years longer. So basically, you're right.
I'm not sure why the summary thinks "the US economy was brought to its knees." Nowhere in the article does it say what data they are using. So I'm not sure it had such a huge impact. People still found ways to carry their goods to market, still found ways to fight Indians. -
Re:Ahh Kerry...
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Re:FAR better than fossil fuels, and even better t
Mostly due to batteries. If you compare the power usage of laptops then, and now, you'll find that older laptops tended to use in the 10-20W range for their motherboard and CPU. Modern ultra books use a similar power level, while modern laptops use around 30-50W, and still get longer battery life.
No, mostly due to higher IPC, agressive power gating and deeper sleep stages. Here's the extended battery pack from my 2002 UltraPortable, 3600 mAh in 330 grams. In 2014 the extended battery for the Sony Vaio Pro 11 is 4690 mAh in 290 grams, that's about a 75% increase in power/gram in 12 years. There have not been any major revolutions in battery technology, it's still the same lithium-ion technology just a little more refined.
You're not comparing just the weight of the energy storage element, but also the weight of the casing. And that has changed a lot in the last 10 years.
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Re:FAR better than fossil fuels, and even better t
Mostly due to batteries. If you compare the power usage of laptops then, and now, you'll find that older laptops tended to use in the 10-20W range for their motherboard and CPU. Modern ultra books use a similar power level, while modern laptops use around 30-50W, and still get longer battery life.
No, mostly due to higher IPC, agressive power gating and deeper sleep stages. Here's the extended battery pack from my 2002 UltraPortable, 3600 mAh in 330 grams. In 2014 the extended battery for the Sony Vaio Pro 11 is 4690 mAh in 290 grams, that's about a 75% increase in power/gram in 12 years. There have not been any major revolutions in battery technology, it's still the same lithium-ion technology just a little more refined.
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Sci Fi is Mainstream; Good Sci Fi always rare
The massive media attendance at Comic Con indicates that producing Sci Fi (and I do use the term loosely) is almost the sole occupation of the entire movie, TV, game, and publishing industry. Try going to your local multiplex and not have to choose science fiction as some thematic component. Of the top 10 box office hits of 2013, nine are sci fi (only the Fast and the Furious 6 is not)...
Implied in the Kickstarter funding concept is that somehow the hard core genre fanbase would do a better job of bringing (or reanimating) some much beloved work or franchise. This ignores the role of producers, hard working key grips and this thing called professional actors. It also ignores this thing called accountability. Believe it or not, if something is good, it's good for just about everybody. Being terrified of being cancelled can bring out the best in a work.
Many recent well-deserved box office bombs are the result of betting on the hard core allegiance to marginal sci fi classics. "Ender's Game", "John Carter" etc...without realizing that it's more important to just make a good movie.
I use the term sci fi loosely. Of the REAL uncut stuff all you need are the pulp magazines, cover by Michael Whelan and this undeveloped resource called your imagination. Crowdfunding could really help with the marginal economics of magazine publishing. Who the heck wants to WATCH a bunch of space academics debate how to run a foundation.
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Re:Pre-scarcity = revolution
it's invested in low-risk, high to moderate-liquidity investments.
So it's just like a bank account, except they get MORE money than what they put in?
I see. You don't know what an investment is. Reference back to the post you responded to and read what I wrote about how investments feed back into taxable businesses.
Stock dividends are capital gains, which are taxed
Capital gains taxes go down every year, and are now lower than the income tax rate
Umm, no, capital gains taxes do not go down every year. They've gone up and down over time. The most recent change was an increase. In any case, capital gains taxes can be changed at will by a simple act of Congress.
Since you don't seem to be willing to do your own basic research: http://www.data360.org/temp/ds...
Even if it's shipped offshore, it can be taxed if there is political will to do so.
There doesn't seem to be "the will to do so" in Ireland, Bermuda, or the Cayman Islands, which is where most of these offshore account are.
Irrelevant. The money has to get to the offshore accounts from the countries where it's generated, and it has to come back in order to be used. The will that matters is in the countries where it's generated or spent.
You should seriously consider reading a book on basic economics. I highly recommend this one.
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Re:I gave up and used a tablet
I was in the same boat, and carry my iPad with me daily. First, get a good case and never take it out. My old iPad I (kids use / abuse daily) has one of these which I used to use but found a bit bulky. Now I use this. I've dropped it numerous times and come away unscathed. I think the trick is to make sure the corners are well protected, so DON'T use that pretty, slim one Apple makes!
Goodreader with its file sync and annotation capabilities goes a long way towards making up for the stock viewer you get with IOS.
Be aware an iPad in no way will substitute for a laptop. Any serious research / content generation is right out of the realm of possibility. Want to edit a text file on a network share? I can do it in six easy steps but only with third party software (iFile) on my jailbroken iPad. It's great for information retrieval and lightweight email but if you're looking at getting one device for school, go with the laptop. -
Re:I gave up and used a tablet
I was in the same boat, and carry my iPad with me daily. First, get a good case and never take it out. My old iPad I (kids use / abuse daily) has one of these which I used to use but found a bit bulky. Now I use this. I've dropped it numerous times and come away unscathed. I think the trick is to make sure the corners are well protected, so DON'T use that pretty, slim one Apple makes!
Goodreader with its file sync and annotation capabilities goes a long way towards making up for the stock viewer you get with IOS.
Be aware an iPad in no way will substitute for a laptop. Any serious research / content generation is right out of the realm of possibility. Want to edit a text file on a network share? I can do it in six easy steps but only with third party software (iFile) on my jailbroken iPad. It's great for information retrieval and lightweight email but if you're looking at getting one device for school, go with the laptop. -
Re:Kindle DX
The Kindle DX is still available (and hugely discounted) - just a bit hidden, and not pushed at all by Amazon. I bought one last year for PDF reading.
You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ
-- Pete
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Uh, yes
They exist. Don't pick one that is too weak to display large PDFs or too small to comfortably navigate A4. I'd probably pick this 9.7" Icarus Excel if I had to choose one right now: http://www.amazon.com/ICARUS-R...