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The result isn't actually that surprising. A similar result was mentioned in the book Blink that was popular a while ago. The study mentioned in Blink showed that juries were very sensitive to the race of the accused, and that black defendants had a much higher conviction rate, even with very similar evidence.

For a beautiful example of how it works subconsciously, have a look at the Implicit Association Tests from Harvard.

Since you can duplicate everything, including food and shelter, the whole idea of working to survive goes out the window.

Ralph Williams' short story, "Business As Usual, During Alterations," has a lot to say about replicators.

His alien machines could not replicate anything living.

That cuts to the heart of two - perhaps three - fundamental questions:

Can the original be scanned non-destructively?

Are you certain you have a true - stable and trustworthy - copy? Will copies of a copy be degraded?

The replicator is simply an automated factory. Unless the machine is wholly magical in operation it needs raw materials. Metal dug out of the earth. Chemical feed stocks ready for processing.

The machine doesn't provide services or support.

It is not a concert hall, theater, recording studio or motion picture sound stage. It is not a teaching hospital, research lab or machinist's workbench. It can't staff the facilities you build with the parts it provides.

With nothing real at stake the hobbyist can flit from one thing to another and never accomplish anything.
SourceForge is an elephant's graveyard - it's where your hobbyist project goes to die. Because you lost interest in the thing. Because you couldn't recruit - and hang on to - enough talented and energized people to drive the project to completion.

Dr. Phil is pop psychology, who's as worthless as they get.

Wait - how do you measure "worthless"?

Really - what other book can you buy on Amazon for $.01?

Oh, I see - the capitalist version of "worthless": measured by the amount of money somehting makes on the market.

OK, for the duration of this post I'll go with that.

[...]

Gary Craig used to give his instruction manual away for free [...]

At this point, you are expected to notice something.

http://www.amazon.com/Us-Living-Comedy-Customs/dp/0743491548/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274123631&sr=8-1

Used from $0.01!

Sounds like you've fallen for some of the Myths of Innovation. I personally believe it's pro-patent people who propagate these myths. If you can get people to believe innovations come from small garage inventors, then you can get people to protect them from the big guys with patents. Sadly, the patents really protect the big companies from small innovative companies.

I've got a severe case of DSPS (~5-6 hour delay).

Same here. About a year ago, I went to a sleep therapist, among the best five hundred bucks I've spent in my life. Officially diagnosed with DSPS, my treatment is:
1. Half an hour of blue-light therapy in the morning, 16 hours before the desired bedtime, with this bad boy:
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-GoLite-Spectrum-Therapy-Device/dp/B000C1946S/ref=pd_sim_hpc_9
2. Use a good pair of sunglasses and avoid direct sunlight on the eyes in the afternoon and early evening. For example, if I gaze at a sunset, my circadian system might interpret it as a sunrise and reset the cycle.
3. Switch off all electronics half an hour before bedtime.

With these three steps, I can effortlessly maintain a morning schedule for 2-3 weeks at a time. More often than not, stress, illness or alcohol will screw up the morning schedule.
And so, I've got a six-week old son at home right now, so I've suspended treatment until further notice, as every night gets kind of noisy during this time, and dealing with the medical bills and insurance company... well, that's incredibly stressful.

I recently downloaded a film I had seen as a child. I remembered it because of a link I saw on another subject, so I was curious to watch it again.

Only problem, at Amazonthe price was way more than I would be willing to spend just to watch it and I couldn't find it at my local rental store. Therefore I downloaded it.

Distributors should find the right price, I would gladly pay $1 or so to watch an old film, but $16 is outrageous.

Semmelweis did have evidence: his patients didn't die. His contemporaries didn't like his explanation (which was pretty good, for the time), so they ignored him. The page I linked to has a decent explanation of what happened.

Energy psychology is NOT 'pop psychology'. Dr. Phil is pop psychology, who's as worthless as they get. Really - what other book can you buy on Amazon for $.01?

People enroll in clinical trials all the time. Would you have someone live forever with an irrational fear, and let 15 years pass while research catches up with the techniques?

Gary Craig used to give his instruction manual away for free (he retired in January, and I haven't visited the site since).

In his book The Game of Life, Timothy Leary provided the following polemical definition of the Semmelweis reflex: "Mob behavior found among primates and larval hominids on undeveloped planets, in which a discovery of important scientific fact is punished"

HTH, HAND.

You've hit on a key issue in not just small donations but in lots of business models, too. There are problems with most payment methods for small payments.

Small checks through the mail are efficient for the sender, but are terribly inefficient for the recipient. That's even true if a stamp is used to endorse them. Then there's the small but real risk of fraudulent ACH transactions when you send an unknown entity a check. Then there are failed check hassles, too. Even small checks can be insufficient funds if someone's overdrawn already or they could write an old check on a closed account by accident.

Accepting credit and debit cards is pretty efficient for the recipient for larger values, but with fixed per-transaction fees in addition to the percentages, most merchant accounts aren't worth using if a large proportion of transactions are for small amounts.

Sending coin or currency through standard post is fairly efficient, and there's typically a reasonable risk of loss on the part of the sender if the payments are small enough. There are pretty good systems for counting coin and cash. There's an issue of security through obscurity for the recipient, though, since targeting the recipient's end of the mail could score a pretty good chunk. How does one let honest people out in the public know where to send cash while keeping the delivery end secure? A post office box is more secure than the average customer location mail drop, as are slots into a building or a locked customer box. There's still lots of people involved in getting the money there, though. People, even ones screened by the Postal Service for honesty and integrity, are always a possible weak link to security. Some projects have had at least limited success with this process, though. Barry Kauler of the Puppy Linux project accepts cash for mailing CDs to people (and would probably accept donations in cash, too). He accepts US dollars, Australian dollars, and Euros/a>. He recommends PayPal. I hope I haven't hurt the security of this system for him by mentioning it on Slashdot; anyone who's been to the Puppy site could have already known about it.

PayPal is an option. They have similar per-transaction and percentage-of-transaction fees to credit cards. For donations, they require no setup fees, no monthly fees, and no monthly minimum. There is a $0.30 transaction fee on top of the percentage for donation receipts of less than $3000 per month (if this source is timely). That makes single-dollar donations feasible but expensive. Anything less is not worthwhile. I haven't found the pricing info for donations on PayPal's site after a few minutes looking, but the prices listed at that fundraising news site are in line with their commercial payment services.

Amazon has a system that lets any Amazon customer pay you a donation for 5% plus as little as $0.05 if you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US and the donation is less than $10. Check out their prices. They also have a similar low-cost cutoff for non-donation payments and even a micropayment system that tracks payments under $0.05 at 20% with a quarter-cent minimum cost for both donations and sales.

Google has Google Donations which for any US 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) non-profit (but not other 501(c) subcategories) which follows the standard transaction fees. For organizations that are qualified and are accepted into the Google Grants program, Google Donations processing is free while the organization is in good stand

You've hit on a key issue in not just small donations but in lots of business models, too. There are problems with most payment methods for small payments.

Small checks through the mail are efficient for the sender, but are terribly inefficient for the recipient. That's even true if a stamp is used to endorse them. Then there's the small but real risk of fraudulent ACH transactions when you send an unknown entity a check. Then there are failed check hassles, too. Even small checks can be insufficient funds if someone's overdrawn already or they could write an old check on a closed account by accident.

Accepting credit and debit cards is pretty efficient for the recipient for larger values, but with fixed per-transaction fees in addition to the percentages, most merchant accounts aren't worth using if a large proportion of transactions are for small amounts.

Sending coin or currency through standard post is fairly efficient, and there's typically a reasonable risk of loss on the part of the sender if the payments are small enough. There are pretty good systems for counting coin and cash. There's an issue of security through obscurity for the recipient, though, since targeting the recipient's end of the mail could score a pretty good chunk. How does one let honest people out in the public know where to send cash while keeping the delivery end secure? A post office box is more secure than the average customer location mail drop, as are slots into a building or a locked customer box. There's still lots of people involved in getting the money there, though. People, even ones screened by the Postal Service for honesty and integrity, are always a possible weak link to security. Some projects have had at least limited success with this process, though. Barry Kauler of the Puppy Linux project accepts cash for mailing CDs to people (and would probably accept donations in cash, too). He accepts US dollars, Australian dollars, and Euros/a>. He recommends PayPal. I hope I haven't hurt the security of this system for him by mentioning it on Slashdot; anyone who's been to the Puppy site could have already known about it.

PayPal is an option. They have similar per-transaction and percentage-of-transaction fees to credit cards. For donations, they require no setup fees, no monthly fees, and no monthly minimum. There is a $0.30 transaction fee on top of the percentage for donation receipts of less than $3000 per month (if this source is timely). That makes single-dollar donations feasible but expensive. Anything less is not worthwhile. I haven't found the pricing info for donations on PayPal's site after a few minutes looking, but the prices listed at that fundraising news site are in line with their commercial payment services.

Amazon has a system that lets any Amazon customer pay you a donation for 5% plus as little as $0.05 if you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US and the donation is less than $10. Check out their prices. They also have a similar low-cost cutoff for non-donation payments and even a micropayment system that tracks payments under $0.05 at 20% with a quarter-cent minimum cost for both donations and sales.

Google has Google Donations which for any US 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) non-profit (but not other 501(c) subcategories) which follows the standard transaction fees. For organizations that are qualified and are accepted into the Google Grants program, Google Donations processing is free while the organization is in good stand

You've hit on a key issue in not just small donations but in lots of business models, too. There are problems with most payment methods for small payments.

Small checks through the mail are efficient for the sender, but are terribly inefficient for the recipient. That's even true if a stamp is used to endorse them. Then there's the small but real risk of fraudulent ACH transactions when you send an unknown entity a check. Then there are failed check hassles, too. Even small checks can be insufficient funds if someone's overdrawn already or they could write an old check on a closed account by accident.

Accepting credit and debit cards is pretty efficient for the recipient for larger values, but with fixed per-transaction fees in addition to the percentages, most merchant accounts aren't worth using if a large proportion of transactions are for small amounts.

Sending coin or currency through standard post is fairly efficient, and there's typically a reasonable risk of loss on the part of the sender if the payments are small enough. There are pretty good systems for counting coin and cash. There's an issue of security through obscurity for the recipient, though, since targeting the recipient's end of the mail could score a pretty good chunk. How does one let honest people out in the public know where to send cash while keeping the delivery end secure? A post office box is more secure than the average customer location mail drop, as are slots into a building or a locked customer box. There's still lots of people involved in getting the money there, though. People, even ones screened by the Postal Service for honesty and integrity, are always a possible weak link to security. Some projects have had at least limited success with this process, though. Barry Kauler of the Puppy Linux project accepts cash for mailing CDs to people (and would probably accept donations in cash, too). He accepts US dollars, Australian dollars, and Euros/a>. He recommends PayPal. I hope I haven't hurt the security of this system for him by mentioning it on Slashdot; anyone who's been to the Puppy site could have already known about it.

PayPal is an option. They have similar per-transaction and percentage-of-transaction fees to credit cards. For donations, they require no setup fees, no monthly fees, and no monthly minimum. There is a $0.30 transaction fee on top of the percentage for donation receipts of less than $3000 per month (if this source is timely). That makes single-dollar donations feasible but expensive. Anything less is not worthwhile. I haven't found the pricing info for donations on PayPal's site after a few minutes looking, but the prices listed at that fundraising news site are in line with their commercial payment services.

Amazon has a system that lets any Amazon customer pay you a donation for 5% plus as little as $0.05 if you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US and the donation is less than $10. Check out their prices. They also have a similar low-cost cutoff for non-donation payments and even a micropayment system that tracks payments under $0.05 at 20% with a quarter-cent minimum cost for both donations and sales.

Google has Google Donations which for any US 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) non-profit (but not other 501(c) subcategories) which follows the standard transaction fees. For organizations that are qualified and are accepted into the Google Grants program, Google Donations processing is free while the organization is in good stand

Stress is the biggest killer of all, and they don't make a drug for that one. Cancer responds well to Vitamin D, but stress is frequently the original cause of that condition.

Accidents are the best use of allopathic medicine. Degenerative disease is best treated before it becomes overwhelming. Preventative steps include proper nutrition, encouraging proper elimination of the body's metabolic waste products, keeping stress levels under control, etc. And even when degeneration takes place, there are gentle approaches that address the original cause.

I recommend this book: Healthy Medicine: A Guide to the Emergence of Sensible Comprehensive Care

HTH, HAND.

I've looked into this a fair amount and one thing I will say is beware of fake ELM ICs.

The ELM327 IC is what the vast majority of these scanners will be based on. The ones at www.scantool.net will use genuine ELM ICs, but the ones like this one and this one will almost certainly use non-genuine ELM ICs.

The ELM327 chip is just a PIC with some custom firmware on it. A few years ago someone managed to get the firmware off one of these PICs and since then the fake ones have really taken off. Whereas the genuine ELMs have frequent updates, the fake ones obviously don't.

hardware - http://www.amazon.com/Crescent-OBD2-Multi-Protocol-Diagnostic-Scanner/dp/B001MT0XPK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1274012569&sr=8-2

software - pyodb2

In 1986, the Amiga's graphics were the best, bar none.

Amiga's graphics were not better than the AppleIIgs's 3200 color mode.

The rest of this post about graphics is also suspect. The jump in graphics programming on the PC didnt happen because of Amiga programmers. It happened because The Programmers Guide to the EGA and VGA Cards was published.

You saw it through rose colored glasses. The color obscured reality.

This money is used by the universities/colleges to keep tuition lower than if students had to take on the full costs themselves.

Check out Chapter 4 (Academic Facts and Fallacies) of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. He goes into a brief explanation of why government subsidation of higher education raises the price of college and how few students see a good return on their education. The tuition costs being reduced by subsidies is exactly one of the fallacies he points out, as is people that go to college to get a pointless degree even if their field shouldn't naturally require one (who needlessly drive up demand, forcing colleges to expand and thus, increasing the overall cost of running a university).

You're more right than you know. It's not just your opinion. Overpopulation IS a myth, and it wasn't draconian Chinese law that did it (though it contributed). All it took was women entering the work force, the decline of the nuclear family into the single-parent family, and a flood of dead beat dads. Women across the globe are averaging 2.4 children each, down from the average of over 5 each their mothers had. The population bomb fizzled. If the trend continues for even a tiny bit longer, we're going to globally drop below the replacement rate, and population will begin to decline. There's a good chance we WON'T expand into the universe because we're not doing it already, when population pressure has peaked. The odds we will after population pressure starts dropping don't seem good. For every Birther or Octomom you hear about, there are half a dozen women who had one child or no children at all.

If you are looking for a good math reference I would recommend Mathematical Handbook for Scientists and Engineers by Korns

Russian translation of it was a must-have for every member of Russian "technicheskaya intelligentsiya".

There are a bunch of different devices you can use to check OBD II codes. I generally point hobby mechanics and people that do their own maintenance to use something like this. An OBD II code is an OBD II code is an OBD II code...if you are just trying to pull the code and then clear the light without doing any other on-board diagnostics, you shouldn't spend more than $50 on a scanner. If you do, you just bought something that does more than you need.

As has been the case for a while, Snap-On still sells the ultimate scanner. Most professionals wouldn't even have a need for this monster...but holy crap, when you need something like it, there is nothing else on the market that works better.

There are a bunch of different devices you can use to check OBD II codes. I generally point hobby mechanics and people that do their own maintenance to use something like this. An OBD II code is an OBD II code is an OBD II code...if you are just trying to pull the code and then clear the light without doing any other on-board diagnostics, you shouldn't spend more than $50 on a scanner. If you do, you just bought something that does more than you need.

As has been the case for a while, Snap-On still sells the ultimate scanner. Most professionals wouldn't even have a need for this monster...but holy crap, when you need something like it, there is nothing else on the market that works better.

Its hard enough as it is for repair shops to work on engines and electronics without adding security, which would make repairs even more proprietary and expensive.

No offense intended, so please don't take this as such. Mods, please mod offtopic:

You haven't worked in a shop before, have you? Whether you have a cheap OBDII scanner or a full-blown diagnostic tool, so long as the car uses OBDII, you can pull codes from it and subsequently replace the fouled O2 sensor, know which cylinder had a misfire, etc. The full-blown diagnostic tools are useful for crazy-hard problems to solve, but your average scanner bought at Autozone is sufficient enough for the vast majority of code-related problems you would encounter.

Also, I got news for you: electrical problems have been a bitch to deal with for literally decades. There isn't really anything that could make them more frustrating to deal with...they are already at that point due to the nature of electricity and the amount of wiring in a car.

If you take your vehicle in because your check engine light is on and you need the diagnostic code pulled, and the shop tells you it's difficult...take your car to another shop. Sure, there are some brands (BMW, for example) that have propriety connectors, but for most of the cars out on the road, their ECU can be accessed using the same tool.

I need to find an HDMI-to-DVI cable for this thing...

The video signal is, for all intents, the same- just a different pinout/connector.. I assume the EVO will have a proprietary plug on it so their cable will have that on one end and HDMI on the other. If that's the case, you can use a simple dongle but DVI doesn't carry audio. Here's a rather unwieldy and way overpriced unit that gives you HDMI -> DVI + optical (toslink) audio

You know, the one Adobe promised would be free so that Apple could make the operating system named Rhapsody?

http://www.amazon.com/Rhapsody-Developers-Guide-Jesse-Feiler/dp/0122513347/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273769560&sr=1-4

I want to be able to program fill and stroke effects and have them show up on-screen like I used to be able to do w/ Altsys Virtuoso on my NeXT Cube.

Apple already caved in on programming environments to Adobe / Microsoft once, and we got Carbon (eventually) having to wait _years_ longer --- and then we had to re-create all of the functionality which was ``just working'' in NeXTstep.

If people want to run Flash on Tablet devices then they should choose to purchase things which run Flash, like the Axiotron ModBook:

http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook

or the HP Slate...

William

Great! Now if they would be kind enough to adjust the European prices for their products so that they are not 2 times more expensive than in the US.
Observe:
http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Creative-Suite-Master-Collection/dp/B003B328TE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1273768517&sr=1-3 - $2,450.99
http://www.amazon.de/Adobe-Creative-Master-Collection-deutsch/dp/B003FSSL3M/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1273768468&sr=1-5 - EUR 3,688.00 = $4,683.39

And thanks to some european laws that Adobe strongly supports and enforces (with the help of BSA) it is illegal for an european company to use software bought in the US.
Yay for open markets.

If Chevy was actively advertising how many illegal DVDs you can fit in the car...

Well, that's just it. I've looked pretty thoroughly at Limewire's web site, and I'm just not seeing any reference at all to illegal downloads. In fact, the site looks on the surface to be pretty vanilla corporate-type design. Maybe the judge has some kind of smoking gun I'm just not seeing, but as far as I know, Limewire has never advertised itself as a product you should use to download files illegally. (But granted, being a commercial implementation of something I can get for free without adware infestation, I've never looked too closely into it.)

...and DVD bootlegging in Impalas ran rampant maybe.

Well, another analogy I can think of is the sale and use of so-called "Saturday night special" handguns. In spite of their prevalent use in criminal activities, a lawsuit against them was dismissed in 2003, and they remain largely unregulated today.

Not saying that they should or shouldn't, I'm just saying that it seems to me that it's awful inconsistent to pass summary judgment--as in, they didn't even get a trial--when other companies that specialize in providing stuff that is foreseeably used quite often, if not mostly, in illegal activities gets a free pass. Hell, if I wanted to, I could even buy a set of lockpicks and go to town. (Or more to the point, go to your house.)

I just looked over the kindle EULA and I don't see such a clause. However there is a clause that says:

Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice.

Well then I guess we have to go the Privacy notice then.

Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. [...] You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customizing future shopping for you, improving our stores, and communicating with you.

So when you highlight something, it automatically gets "backed up" to Amazon's servers. Since you used the "highlight and 'back up'" feature (notice how there isn't a "highlight but don't ' back up' feature), you "voluntarily" provided Amazon with this information and therefore "authorized" them to "customizing future shopping for you, improving our stores, and communicating with you."

...the more money they made the next day on the streets. Those three things--autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward--are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us.

-- The Kindle's most highlighted passage, from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success

http://kindle.amazon.com/popular_highlights

The fatal flaw in your argument is your unspoken assumption that a specific type of hardware owned by the provider is necessary to implement this scenario.

The fatal flaw in your argument is your unspoken assumption that Kindle's book reading goodness is only available for a specific hardware platform.

Over here in reality, Kindle works fine on my iPod Touch. An Android version is said to be in the works. There is also a PC version, a Mac version, an incarnation for Blackberry, and of course it works fine on an iPad and iPhone.

The real issue for me is that I have no desire to buy any hardware device with such a tight tie to a single vendor. If (when) I ever decide to buy an e-book reader to supplement my netbook, I'll be looking for one that is vendor agnostic to the greatest extent possible. I like having a lot of choice in who I buy from. :)

So go download yourself a Kindle. It's free...much like Steam.

Let us not fog this discussion with dismissives about hardware ownership, for this really has nothing to do with that. Instead, this about how companies treat the data you create. And let me just say that there's are some useful aspects to having Amazon keep your data for you.

Suppose I have a Kindle (or, say, one of the requisite apps on some other hardware platform), and I've bought a few books for it that I've noted and highlighted. Suppose, then, that I lose my Kindle. Or it gets run over by a bus. Or stolen. Or dunked in a hot tub. Or whatever.

All I have to do is procure/install a new Kindle, enter the appropriate account identification, and my books and notes are transferred to the new device.

Which, you must admit, is pretty cool. (Hey luddites! The cloud has uses!)

As I see it, the only problem here is if, and how, Amazon shares that data with others. It really has nothing to do with hardware ownership, which is a red herring argument at best.

So, instead, please: Let's simply discuss the implications of Amazon sharing your highlights with others. (This is a matter that I really don't have any opinion on in this instance, but I guess I'll don my flamesuit anyway...)

Hardware that you own is under your control. "Control" as used here includes the ability to decide whether or not it transmits locally-stored data to any remote destination.

The scenarios you gave of a Kindle being destroyed, stolen, or otherwise rendered inoperable have a simple enough solution: backups. On a hardware device that you own, there is nothing preventing you from making backups of any data it stores. If you own it, you can send your data "to the cloud" as a backup (whether or not this is the primary purpose of doing so), you can back the data up to physical media that you own, you can choose to do both, or you can choose to do neither and take your chances.

Most importantly, hardware that you own doesn't "phone home" unless you specifically configure it to do so. It doesn't force you to return a downloaded book (i.e. 1984) because the publisher screwed up and wants to make this your problem. It doesn't transmit your data to "the cloud" unless you enable such functionality, or if it is enabled by default, you are at least able to permanently disable it with the confidence that your settings won't be remotely overridden.

I think you miss an important point. Data ownership is a total non-issue if no one but you has possession of your data. It's an easy issue if no one else has possession of your data unless you specifically, willingly, and intentionally gave it to them. The only reason you mention "how companies treat the data you create" and think this trumps the "hardware ownership" concern is because Amazon gets this data with or without your consent because they have total control over a device you thought you owned.

The repeated examples of this single principle are why I will never use a Kindle. I refuse to reward such business practices with my money. If you really had no qualms about doing so, if there were truly nothing wrong with any of this, then you wouldn't need to create a false distinction between "hardware ownership" and "how companies treat your data", as though the hardware ownership were not exactly the means by which Amazon obtains your data.

Let us not fog this discussion with dismissives about hardware ownership, for this really has nothing to do with that. Instead, this about how companies treat the data you create. And let me just say that there's are some useful aspects to having Amazon keep your data for you.

Suppose I have a Kindle (or, say, one of the requisite apps on some other hardware platform), and I've bought a few books for it that I've noted and highlighted. Suppose, then, that I lose my Kindle. Or it gets run over by a bus. Or stolen. Or dunked in a hot tub. Or whatever.

All I have to do is procure/install a new Kindle, enter the appropriate account identification, and my books and notes are transferred to the new device.

Which, you must admit, is pretty cool. (Hey luddites! The cloud has uses!)

As I see it, the only problem here is if, and how, Amazon shares that data with others. It really has nothing to do with hardware ownership, which is a red herring argument at best.

So, instead, please: Let's simply discuss the implications of Amazon sharing your highlights with others. (This is a matter that I really don't have any opinion on in this instance, but I guess I'll don my flamesuit anyway...)

I think the greatest example of half-assed awful engineering was the White Sea Canal. It's estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 people died because Stalin wanted it built in the winter, with hand tools, with brutally treated gulag labor. The canal is only 13 feet deep, it's also frozen over half the year and the water is too low to make it useful in dry summers.

BTW, The Ghost Of The Executed Engineer is a great read, drawing from first hand accounts, about the less publicized but stunningly awful failures of Soviet engineering.

Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

David Marr proposed the idea of a primal sketch as the first stage of converting the two-dimensional image on the retina to a full understanding of what is being looked at. This work culminated in a paper published in 1980 called "Theory of edge detection."

Marr was a faculty member at MIT, so it is appropriate for this work to have been done there.

For more information, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marr_(neuroscientist)

and

http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Computational-Investigation-Representation-Information/dp/0716715678

-Todd

read this book for an interesting discussion of this and other approaches to climate change (from one of the original "greenies"):

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

best book I've read in a long time

Well, a big part of their push seems to be training-games/etc., which just seems like the adult version of educational games.

I do agree that there are other aspects games can cover, of which the representing-what-something-is-like part is a big one. But those haven't always been taboo for games, either. One of the best 80s games on the Cold War was Chris Crawford's Balance of Power , which aimed to illustrate the issues involved, not just provide a "fun" war simulation. To emphasize the point, if you triggered a nuclear war, the game did nothing but end and print a textual message: "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure." There's a lot more examples too, although I agree expanding them would be good.

Is that really where "serious games", especially in the form of the "serious games industry" is going, though? Things going vaguely under the heading "newsgames", like Darfur is Dying seem to be doing that better, while the "serious games industry" seems to be focused on, well, people who would pay them to make a serious game, which tends to be more training-ish stuff.

"unicorns on a treadmill"

That's not the only foolishness. The people who run the investment company use Bill Gates's name because it gets attention.

"But the tactic has some heavy hitters on its side, including Bill Gates."

Bill Gates is not a "heavy hitter". There is no evidence that he is knowledgeable about technology. Read the book he wrote with Nathan Myhrvold, The Road Ahead. The book contained nothing of interest, and no evidence that Bill Gates thinks about technology.

Bill Gates is apparently just a bored billionaire looking for something to do. He made his money by having a virtual monopoly. Others did the technology for him, and Microsoft technology has always been very poor, or imitative. Windows 7 is an example; it has a lot of menus moved around by people who seemingly have no understanding of user interfaces.

Nevermind....

http://www.amazon.com/Archos-160-Internet-Tablet-Android/dp/B002OL2PM4

Already exists. Go buy it.

That first sample of crack is free too!

No, it ain't.

You want a sampling of MS Office?

There is the 2010 Beta. The 60 day trial on your new PC. The Docs for Facebook Beta...

Sales are quite good as well. MS Office Home & Student 2007 No. 1 in software sales. 1,231 Days in the top 100. Free upgrade to F&S 2010 if purchased before September 30.

Time to resurrect Living Books for the iPad. Little tykes would be enthralled by a touch version of Just Grandma and Me - and learn to read, too!

There are. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_86283691_14?ie=UTF8&docId=1000449691&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-11&pf_rd_r=0RZ8W5BAKW1XS4XQ4DD3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1260058202&pf_rd_i=1268190011

Just read this book and it's excellent for what you need:
http://www.amazon.com/DBA-Survivor-Become-Rock-Star/dp/1430227877

and no you don't have to be a DBA to read it or have any use of it.
Everyone who is/wants to become a professional attitude in IT has to read it IMO !
Only 1/3rd is about databases (and high level, describing things you can apply in other IT jobs too),
the rest is more about how to be at work, working with coworkers, it even says you to drink less coffee with sugar
and start jogging :)

I agree about keeping your mouth shut and your ears open. I've never worked in a truly bad shark tank sort of environment (although it sounds like you have) but it's always good to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.

There is an old business advice book called Bravely, Bravely in Business that contains some all-around good advice. There is one rule in that book that is very very hard to follow, but a good idea: "Never say anything about anyone that you wouldn't say exactly the same way to their face." Think about what would happen if you say something like "Joe is a total idiot who can never get anything done!" or worse, and someone overhears and tells Joe exactly what you said (or mis-remembers it as something even worse). Or if Joe overhears.

Don't hesitate to say something nice when you honestly feel it is deserved. Do hesitate to say something negative, even if you honestly feel it is deserved. "If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all." That's trite but it's good advice.

Like others, I disagree on the "always eat lunch alone" thing. It's good to keep some separation between work and the rest of your life; your boss doesn't need to be your best friend. But you want to learn to get along with your co-workers.

At my second job ever, all the software developers used to go to lunch together, and we would often chat about problems we were working on. It was a fun, informal way to share ideas and information; insisting on eating alone would not have been a good thing in that situation. (Later, management at that company forced some changes in the cafeteria, and as a direct result all the software developers stopped eating together and started going out to lunch. The camaraderie was lost. It was a shame.)

P.S. Looks like you can get Bravely, Bravely in Business pretty cheaply right now. You might want to order a copy and read it; it's good. (Read the customer reviews on Amazon.)

steveha

I agree about keeping your mouth shut and your ears open. I've never worked in a truly bad shark tank sort of environment (although it sounds like you have) but it's always good to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.

There is an old business advice book called Bravely, Bravely in Business that contains some all-around good advice. There is one rule in that book that is very very hard to follow, but a good idea: "Never say anything about anyone that you wouldn't say exactly the same way to their face." Think about what would happen if you say something like "Joe is a total idiot who can never get anything done!" or worse, and someone overhears and tells Joe exactly what you said (or mis-remembers it as something even worse). Or if Joe overhears.

Don't hesitate to say something nice when you honestly feel it is deserved. Do hesitate to say something negative, even if you honestly feel it is deserved. "If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all." That's trite but it's good advice.

Like others, I disagree on the "always eat lunch alone" thing. It's good to keep some separation between work and the rest of your life; your boss doesn't need to be your best friend. But you want to learn to get along with your co-workers.

At my second job ever, all the software developers used to go to lunch together, and we would often chat about problems we were working on. It was a fun, informal way to share ideas and information; insisting on eating alone would not have been a good thing in that situation. (Later, management at that company forced some changes in the cafeteria, and as a direct result all the software developers stopped eating together and started going out to lunch. The camaraderie was lost. It was a shame.)

P.S. Looks like you can get Bravely, Bravely in Business pretty cheaply right now. You might want to order a copy and read it; it's good. (Read the customer reviews on Amazon.)

steveha

83 dollars including shipping and also comes with a wireless access point.

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-RIR205-Infinite-Tabletop-Internet/dp/B0016OI1BY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273383534&sr=8-1

They also sell an RCA branded one for the same price:

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-RIR205-Infinite-Tabletop-Internet/dp/B0016OI1BY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273383900&sr=1-2

83 dollars including shipping and also comes with a wireless access point.

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-RIR205-Infinite-Tabletop-Internet/dp/B0016OI1BY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273383534&sr=8-1

They also sell an RCA branded one for the same price:

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-RIR205-Infinite-Tabletop-Internet/dp/B0016OI1BY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273383900&sr=1-2

Perhaps try a basic neuroscience textbook? I don't think they work the way you think they do.

The Archos 7 looks interesting but is not that much cheaper than a comparable Apple product...

And for just $250, you can have 32GB of onboard storage.

ARM based Netbooks are selling for less than $100

OMG, he's right! There ARE laptops less than $100!!!

Would the Archos 7 with an MSRP of $199 be considered a non-vaporware tablet? You can buy it from Amazon.

Sadly, this is already being done as fraud by These guys, who have over 39,000 separate titles printed, all apparently just wikipedia articles bound with stock photos. It seems to be done by machine, given the amount of books and the odd titles and stock photos.

And they're selling them for over $50 each, with no notice that they are just wikipedia articles!! I only noticed because I was searching for books on an obscure topic and found multiple books by this "author".

tl;dr: DO NOT BUY BOOKS FROM Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, and John McBrewster