Slashdot Mirror

Tablet computers are becoming a commodity. A 7" tablet from China is only $70. On Amazon, you can now get Android tablets from $60. Since the Allwinner ARM system on a chip came out for $7, with no US intellectual property to run up the price, the compute power in low-end tablets has been quite impressive. Tablet computers are going to be something you buy in a blister pack at the convenience store.

How will Apple, with all their expensive stores on expensive real estate, and a business built on huge markups, deal with that? Their pricing is around $400, over five times the price of the competition. They can't maintain that margin.

There's a market for luxury items. The CEO of Rolex says "We are not in the watch business, we are in the luxury business. The volumes are small. Apple is too big a company to take that route. Apple may have to try coming out with lower-priced lines to compete.

Joan Stigliani: The Computer User's Survival Guide: Staying Healthy in a High Tech World

See it at the Female Warrior's Shop

It is 10+ years old but when I read it I thought it was pretty good. If there are newer books that are recommendable I would be interested, too.

Otherwise: keep moving. As others in this discussion have stated: we are not made to sit still for long periods (or stand still, come tho that). Just try to sit in a comfortable position for, let's say, 1 hour, without moving at all (breathing movements and heartbeat may be continued ;-)

Yes, switching positions is the best. I have a 27" monitor mounted on this arm. I swing it between a standing and sitting position. I cycle through about two hours standing and one hour sitting.

I have a padded knee/shin brace for the standing position to steady my stance, and make it more comfortable.

For sitting, I have a recumbent chair, so I am almost laying down when I use it. Most of the pressure is on my back and thighs rather than my butt.

Hmm. http://www.amazon.com/mp3

"We're sorry, Amazon MP3 is only available in the United States".

Oh, of course. There is no rest of the world, the ocean simply falls off into space about 2 miles off the coast of America.

Looks like you can purchase the vinyl here. For anyone interested in the song (this guy was ahead of his time!) check it out here. You've just made me a fan =)

Yeah--I noticed those listings while I was posting. I'm particularly fond of this article on the guy. I wish I had been able to meet him before he died--he lived only a few hours drive away from me. I'm sure he would have appreciated the fond memories of my youth--hanging out in the garage, rocking out with my dad. Heck--I even remember listening to his stuff while my dad and his buddies made and bottled wine. (Try finding info on that old-and-gone company on Google buried in the events of this week--they were called "Mars Landing".)

Looks like you can purchase the vinyl here. For anyone interested in the song (this guy was ahead of his time!) check it out here. You've just made me a fan =)

No it shouldn't. Didn't you study "checks and balances" in school?

You're talking to someone with a Bachelor's in Political Science. Of course I am aware of the standard civics-textbook account. I just don't buy it, and it was my studies that led me to the conclusion I stated above. Specifically, the writings of Sanford Levinson and Robert Dahl (see also this book review by Hendrik Hertzberg) led me to agree with those authors that the Constitution and the federal system it sets up are deeply flawed in many ways and need to be re-thought from the ground up.

No it shouldn't. Didn't you study "checks and balances" in school?

You're talking to someone with a Bachelor's in Political Science. Of course I am aware of the standard civics-textbook account. I just don't buy it, and it was my studies that led me to the conclusion I stated above. Specifically, the writings of Sanford Levinson and Robert Dahl (see also this book review by Hendrik Hertzberg) led me to agree with those authors that the Constitution and the federal system it sets up are deeply flawed in many ways and need to be re-thought from the ground up.

Buy 8 x 4TB drives + this enclosure
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H8R2-SU3S2-ProRaid-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYQ

Tape measures are expensive

Bullshit.

I suppose this one is more miniaturized, but "virtual reality" and "haptics" people have been trying this sort of thing for a while, without having yet really come up with a compelling win. Here is a 1995 Popular Science article about a device that takes basically the same approach to characterizing what constitutes texture perceived by fingertips (by simulating sliding/bumpiness/resistance/stickiness). Available for only $20,000! And a 1996 textbook devoted large sections to the topic as well.

Though I do still have some weak spots in my education, particularly in english as I'm more of a math geek and have never taken the time to educate myself on the proper use of language.. So be gentle on my mistakes here ;)

As far as I can tell, you write as well as most of the other students I knew from classes as an English major at Berkeley, so it doesn't appear to have been a major setback... I recently started teaching myself 'proper' writing and grammar, as my schools didn't bother beyond the basics in elementary school -- if you're curious about it in the future, I've found 3 books that make the task more entertaining and are pretty good references:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

Though I do still have some weak spots in my education, particularly in english as I'm more of a math geek and have never taken the time to educate myself on the proper use of language.. So be gentle on my mistakes here ;)

As far as I can tell, you write as well as most of the other students I knew from classes as an English major at Berkeley, so it doesn't appear to have been a major setback... I recently started teaching myself 'proper' writing and grammar, as my schools didn't bother beyond the basics in elementary school -- if you're curious about it in the future, I've found 3 books that make the task more entertaining and are pretty good references:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

Though I do still have some weak spots in my education, particularly in english as I'm more of a math geek and have never taken the time to educate myself on the proper use of language.. So be gentle on my mistakes here ;)

As far as I can tell, you write as well as most of the other students I knew from classes as an English major at Berkeley, so it doesn't appear to have been a major setback... I recently started teaching myself 'proper' writing and grammar, as my schools didn't bother beyond the basics in elementary school -- if you're curious about it in the future, I've found 3 books that make the task more entertaining and are pretty good references:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

Buy a Kindle, then carry it around in a SentrySafe Model 7250.

in this case it's simple to prove the "knowingly materially misrepresent". The contract that those authors SIGNED with Amazon explicitly says in very BOLD LETTERS:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=APILE934L348N

5.2 Marketing and Promotion; Kindle Book Lending Program.
[...]
5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. This will disable lending of the Digital Book by customers who purchase it after you have opted it out, but this will not affect the right of customers who purchased it when lending was enabled to continue to lend it. You may not choose to opt out a Digital Book if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. If we become aware that a Digital Book you have opted out is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel, we may enable it for lending. Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.
[.... and a bit below...]
KDP Select Option Terms and Conditions.
[...]
2.2 Inclusion in Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program. Digital Books included in KDP Select will be automatically included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program described in more detail here. ( https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200798990#KOLL )

Q.E.D.

in this case it's simple to prove the "knowingly materially misrepresent". The contract that those authors SIGNED with Amazon explicitly says in very BOLD LETTERS:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=APILE934L348N

5.2 Marketing and Promotion; Kindle Book Lending Program.
[...]
5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. This will disable lending of the Digital Book by customers who purchase it after you have opted it out, but this will not affect the right of customers who purchased it when lending was enabled to continue to lend it. You may not choose to opt out a Digital Book if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. If we become aware that a Digital Book you have opted out is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel, we may enable it for lending. Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.
[.... and a bit below...]
KDP Select Option Terms and Conditions.
[...]
2.2 Inclusion in Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program. Digital Books included in KDP Select will be automatically included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program described in more detail here. ( https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200798990#KOLL )

Q.E.D.

He has only ever written short stories. The entire collection is called "Stories of Your Life and Others". Do yourself a favour and read them. http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1931520720/ref=la_B001HCZ6OA_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344484966&sr=1-1

I was hoping in fact just today there'd be an appropriate reason for me to post this on Slashdot.

Lem is relatively well known in the USA, from what I can judge. The couple of English translations I've encountered weren't particularly good. Lem's Solaris is brilliant, and several other works are well worth reading.

But whom I really want to point out to sci-fi fans in the USA are the Strugatsky brothers (Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky). Soviet sci-fi authors with legendary status in post-Soviet space among anyone who reads sci-fi. As an avid sci-fi fan, I put them on the very top tier of authors, along with the better known English-language greats like Clarke, Asimov or Bradbury.

English translations are not too numerous, but I discovered last month that one of their best books, Roadside Picnic, has been re-released in the USA with a new translation. Amazon link. Give it a try. I really hope that new edition will help in getting them to be better known in the English-speaking world, and greatly hope that this post will get at least a couple of Slashdotters to look into it.

I think the modified version of the quote is from The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel. Specifically the "childish daydream" vs. "childish fantasy" wording...

See amazon entry. It's quite a fantastic read although very bleak.

  Funny fact: they play around with things reassembling ipads in the book

Then you definitely don't want to read Firefly by him as well. (sexually molested 5 year old)
http://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Piers-Anthony/dp/0380759500/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344435434&sr=8-1&keywords=firefly+piers

And avoid Nabokov's Lolita. (Pedophile and 12 year old)
http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-50th-Anniversary-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344435597&sr=1-1&keywords=lolita

On a slightly different note, guess how old Mary was when she gave birth to Jesus!

12-14! Does that make God a pedo? Of course girls were usually married off by 12 or 13 then. Imagine an ethereal force impregnating underage girls... Anyway, I suppose we were all born from pedophiles and all Christians worship a pedophile deity by your logic. Oh, and a jealous mass murderer too! (Noah's ark and all that) Anyway, I digress... :)

Hey, if God were an alien (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic/miracles of course), then I suppose you could argue that the Bible is a work of SciFi. And definitely depressing too! *ducks* :)

Then you definitely don't want to read Firefly by him as well. (sexually molested 5 year old)
http://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Piers-Anthony/dp/0380759500/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344435434&sr=8-1&keywords=firefly+piers

And avoid Nabokov's Lolita. (Pedophile and 12 year old)
http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-50th-Anniversary-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344435597&sr=1-1&keywords=lolita

On a slightly different note, guess how old Mary was when she gave birth to Jesus!

12-14! Does that make God a pedo? Of course girls were usually married off by 12 or 13 then. Imagine an ethereal force impregnating underage girls... Anyway, I suppose we were all born from pedophiles and all Christians worship a pedophile deity by your logic. Oh, and a jealous mass murderer too! (Noah's ark and all that) Anyway, I digress... :)

Hey, if God were an alien (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic/miracles of course), then I suppose you could argue that the Bible is a work of SciFi. And definitely depressing too! *ducks* :)

The Books of the Wars-I've never managed to actually finish it. It's basically the ending of every hope I have for humanity. Humans have reached out to the stars, and ventured far and wide. An evil rises on Earth and seduce the colonies to rush back one by one to Earth (to save it from the evil)-only to be ground down and reduced to nothing. http://www.amazon.com/The-Books-Wars-Mark-Geston/dp/1416591524

A Maze of Stars by John Brunner was a bit depressing, although quite good, when I read it. Which, even more depressingly, was 16 years ago...

Wow, I completely disagree. I've read the series and it doesn't compare to other series for depressiveness (if I may coin a term), but is certainly well worth reading. Other recent series that (IMO) are more depressing: Butcher's Calderon series and of course the Hunger Games series.

But all these series read as television scripts - very little introspection from the characters, and very short chapters. As someone who is comfortable and actually enjoys reading old books these "made for TV" books are kind of a let-down.

Here's what I'm currently reading. It was the second best seller after Gone With The Wind, but today is virtually unknown.

Another excellent suggestion! Although I think Bank's Use of Weapons is far more depressing. I meant to write an Amazon review equating Use of Weapons to his non-SF The Steep Approach to Garbadale. Banks is an impressive writer.

Which I suggested. :-) Related, a list of dystopian novels (example) would be fun. I didn't find that particular novel depressing enough to list in my prior post, but it is well written.

Also, an interesting post apocalypse online novel that certainly qualifies as depressing: http://starvationridge.blogspot.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-One-Warwick-Collins/dp/0714530336

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-One-Warwick-Collins/dp/0714530336

Won the Hugo in its day. Left teenage me depressed for days. Still topical, I think.

The Amazon Review describes it better than I could.

--Greg

It sounds like 2430 A.D. by Asimov - a short story. Both your choices are good, still think Earth Abides was more depressing.

I must have been around 12-14 when I read it, but left a pretty deep impression. And I thought the idea of a gravity lens was neat. One of my most favorite authors.

http://www.amazon.com/Space-Tyrant-Vol-Refugee-ebook/dp/B004P8K530/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344388563&sr=8-2&keywords=bio+of+a+space+tyrant

Hmmm. On a similar note, some movies/anime that come to mind are Akira, Aliens, Bladerunner, Naussica Valley of the Wind, etc. Also, Grave of the Fireflies is just the plan saddest and most moving anime/film period.

I read the Foundation series when a teenager and thought it was pretty cool. I reread the first book a couple of years ago and couldn't believe what garbage it is. That was the first time I understood why so many held SF in contempt.

Now, before you all start bashing me, let me say I remain a SF fan, but a pretty darn picky one. I blame John Gardner:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Writers-Writing-John-Gardner/dp/1582434948/
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Fiction-Harper-Torchbook--5069/dp/0465052266/

I read the Foundation series when a teenager and thought it was pretty cool. I reread the first book a couple of years ago and couldn't believe what garbage it is. That was the first time I understood why so many held SF in contempt.

Now, before you all start bashing me, let me say I remain a SF fan, but a pretty darn picky one. I blame John Gardner:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Writers-Writing-John-Gardner/dp/1582434948/
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Fiction-Harper-Torchbook--5069/dp/0465052266/

Great topic, btw!

My books are packed up from a move, so this is from memory.

On The Beach
The Road (does that count as SF?)
While many will list 1984, I found his other work actually more depressing: Keep the Apidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air
Make Room, Make Room (kind of uncharacteristic for Harry Harrison)
Handmaid's Tale
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents (I wish Octavia Butler had a) survived to write the third book b) was far more better known)

Ted Sturgeon has written many elegant depressing (some in fact heartbreaking) stories, including Saucer of Loneliness. There's an excellent series of his works (example here: http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Sculpture-Complete-Theodore-Sturgeon/dp/1556438346/) well worth reading.

I'm not sure depressing is the word, but Harlan Ellison has written amazing stuff. IMO _Being John Malkovitch_ was a ripoff of one of his stories.

Finally, my google skills suck, but there's a relatively well known SF/mystery story written in the past 10 years where the premise is that Islam is now the dominant force in America. I found that pretty depressing. Anyone know what I'm remembering?

Alan Watts: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are describes the internet (in broad terms) and how it will affect us. I'm reading it now, and his assumptions (at the time 1966) are turning out to be true.

And here I am, on the internet - still.

We're losing personal connections. Facebook is NOT personal connection and neither is Slashdot.

I've yet to find a nice small form factor PC that supports any sort of high end graphics (3D gaming/rendering... not video). Most of the SFF machines have built in crappy video cards and/or have no PCI-Express slot capability. It would be nice to have a motherboard with the ability to plug in a graphics card on the edge parallell to the mainboard itself. Unfortunately, the way the cards are designed, the heatsink would be under the plane of the motherboard unless the PCI-Express slot was moved to the other side of the CPU or a GPU with all it's components on the inverse side.

The only way I've found around that is to install a riser with a 90 degree bracket (Example) but these require that the board have a PCI-Express slot to begin with and most likely a custom mounting solution.

This doesn't much help you now, but I've been told that the MIT Press Platform Studies series, which looks at both technical and cultural/artistic aspects of gaming platforms, and how those aspects impact each other, has an SNES book in the pipeline. May want to look for it later. They just came out with one on the Amiga that was pretty interesting, so hopefully the SNES one will be good, too.

FWIW only online purchases (ie MP3s, Game downloads, etc) can really be bought that way from Amazon by a third party who has your password. From experience (not hacking! Just using) whenever you enter a new shipping address you have to re-enter your credit card information for the card you're using to make the purchase. You can't simply say "Oh, I'll use the one you have on file ending in 1234."

I'm sure it's a problem for many people, but at the same time it's not as bad as it could be if, say, someone bought a new overpriced Mac using your credit card, rather than a $1.29 MP3 or $50 game.

Adobe CS6 Master Collection [Download] - mine for only $2,133.44 of your money - and you save $465.56.

Or how about a little Kindle ebook? Only $5,679.17

FWIW only online purchases (ie MP3s, Game downloads, etc) can really be bought that way from Amazon by a third party who has your password. From experience (not hacking! Just using) whenever you enter a new shipping address you have to re-enter your credit card information for the card you're using to make the purchase. You can't simply say "Oh, I'll use the one you have on file ending in 1234."

I'm sure it's a problem for many people, but at the same time it's not as bad as it could be if, say, someone bought a new overpriced Mac using your credit card, rather than a $1.29 MP3 or $50 game.

Adobe CS6 Master Collection [Download] - mine for only $2,133.44 of your money - and you save $465.56.

Or how about a little Kindle ebook? Only $5,679.17

The newer KF8 format supports embedded TTF fonts. (Don't know if it supports RTL though) Here is one I created in Cherokee (definately *not* latin): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006YJRQGC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B006YJRQGC&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwcherokeele-20

Nevermind that no mainstream media house has produced a PS2 title in years

So 2K Games, EA, Konami and THQ aren't mainstream game companies? All those were released between 5 and 10 months ago.

Nevermind that no mainstream media house has produced a PS2 title in years

So 2K Games, EA, Konami and THQ aren't mainstream game companies? All those were released between 5 and 10 months ago.

Nevermind that no mainstream media house has produced a PS2 title in years

So 2K Games, EA, Konami and THQ aren't mainstream game companies? All those were released between 5 and 10 months ago.

Nevermind that no mainstream media house has produced a PS2 title in years

So 2K Games, EA, Konami and THQ aren't mainstream game companies? All those were released between 5 and 10 months ago.

The difference is that 'Cloud' doesn't stand for those things, for example here are two examples of what are apparently 'cloud' products.

Years ago I had the idea to make a site or wiki to gather all the movies from the past once we reach that point. As you pointed out, BttF is just 3 years away. 2001 and 2010 have already passed. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man* was supposed to take place in 1996 and Judgement Day in T2 was supposed to be in 1997.

Inspiration came from one of my favorite books, Yesterday's Tomorrows but I wanted to focus specifically on the future as predicted in movies and TV shows that were set in the "future".

But, like everyone else, I'm too busy and have too many projects in mind to pursue this. If anyone wants to, I'd love to see it happen.

* not that that's the best movie ever, just one of the first that popped into my mind.

A good friend of mine lives in South Carolina. There's a barbecue chain there called Maurice's Barbecue. Big chain, everyone knows about them. And everyone knows that they are openly unapologetic racists.

The guy who runs them fought a court case all the way to SCOTUS to keep blacks out of his restaurants (lost by unanimous decision). Walk in today, and you'll find literature on shelves with racist tracts and his book promoting "a lost way of life" and promoting slavery.

http://www.amazon.com/Defending-My-Heritage-Maurice-Bessinger/dp/0971336903

The Chick-Fil-A analogy is apt. These guys can't keep blacks out of their restaurants any more than Chick-Fil-A can keep gays out of theirs. And the kids behind the counter making minimum wage, along with the management of individual stores may or may not have a prejudiced bone in their bodies.

But the owners are intolerant dinosaurs from a bygone era. They may not have a completely free hand to run the company the way they wish with regards to bigoted policies. But they're still jerks.

The point is bigots of all kinds are still around. But there are disgusting things that we have decided are lawful (for instance, hate speech), and disgusting things that we've decided as a society that will be unlawful (discriminating in places of public accommodation).

and high school football