cult/klt/ Noun 1. A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. 2. A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
Actually, that's what they told us this would be - a pick-up service. Maybe they're having an outside contractor handle the actual deliveries, though. (Yes, I currently work there, but I'm not involved with this project.)
Oh, the dairy aisle is last - frozen food is next to last.
Seriously? Do they think all gamers will have that fast of a network connection by then? That is certainly not the case today.
Downloading once isn't an issue for most people, it's probably faster than going to a bricks and mortar store - and much faster than mail order. I'd have to figure that many games would be comparable to HD video in terms of transfer rates required; there's still a lot of people who couldn't handle that over their existing connections. Hence the next consoles will still need local storage. Whether a hard drive or SSD is another question, but it must be local.
As a math geek, former teacher and owner of a dozen different graphing calculators, I feel I have to add my two cents.
I'm from the era where you weren't allowed to use any calculators on tests. Not that I would have needed one anyway (as a math geek). Calculators were cool (for math geeks) in the '80s, and some of them are still cool.
But there are some skills that come up later in math that many people these days don't know or never even learned. Long division can be used with polynomials instead of just numbers, but it's a lot harder to teach polynomial long division if they don't remember long division in the first place. And try to get anyone these days to work out a square root by hand. (Yes, there are polynomial square roots too - but how can you teach that?)
I do appreciate that the Casio will give you an exact answer for SQRT(5+2*SQRT(6)) - namely, SQRT(3) + SQRT(2). I could get that myself, but it's not something we ever taught.
I appreciate that my students have no excuse for multiplying wrong. Okay, they might enter a number wrong and get a wrong answer for that reason, but they're supposed to check their work. People of my generation should know if an answer makes sense or not - we had to learn to estimate so that we knew if we had made a mistake (because it was so easy to make one). It is still easy to make mistakes, even if the mistakes are now different... I worry that people who grew up on calculators don't know when they get a wrong answer.
ME wasn't the only version that must have been skipped. Between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 there was Windows for Workgroups and there was also the original Windows NT (3.5). Windows 95 was a successor to Windows 3.1, there was a separate Windows NT 4 as an update to NT 3.5. After 95 (in the single-user versions) were 95 Plus!, 98, 98 SE and of course ME, after NT 4 was Windows 2000. Windows XP was actually descended from Windows 2000. Since 95/98/ME didn't support NTFS, it wasn't possible to "upgrade" from one of the NT versions to one of those. (And I'm not considering the "Server" versions, which would add a few more.)
If you have a function (the "ham") whose known values lie between two other functions (the "bread") and you are taking a limit at a point, then the limit of the "ham" is bounded by the limits of the "bread". They'll usually make some reference about the point you're taking the limit at as being where you're biting (or squeezing) the sandwich at.
Of course, it is nicest when the two limits for the bread are the same (hence the "squeezing"), but the bounds could still be useful even if they are not the same.
then why are they throttling certain users at all times (both peak and non-peak)?
If I were to only use data mode during non-peak hours but was still in the top 5%, I'd still be throttled, and it would do absolutely nothing to help their peak demand since I'm only using it at non-peak times. Sorry guys, this just doesn't work to solve the stated problem.
Strange, I don't see this "Fixed position" stuff everyone is complaining about.
On the other hand... it doesn't adjust to the width of my tab. I don't use the full width of my browser window for pages (my bookmarks are on the left) nor do I use the full screen for my browser, so my tab is only about 800 pixels wide. If I scroll enough so I can't see the left bar, then I can read all of a comment - otherwise I lose part of it off the right side. I'd hate to try and view it on one of those devices that only starts out with 800 pixels of screen to begin with...
Between that and the "too much white", count me as a thumbs down.
Persistent data storage for web apps is something other browsers have had, so I'm surprised that FF is only now producing versions with this feature...
The nice thing about the Sinclair was that you could do hi-res (for that era) graphics and sound from BASIC (no POKEs, no extension ROM). Then again the total resolution was somewhat lower (only 24 rows of 32 characters, instead of 25 rows of 40). Neither one had sprites in BASIC... the C-64's best game features were not available in the internal BASIC.
I had the US version of the Spectrum (that is, the Timex/Sinclair 2068), which added 3-channel sound via an AY3-8910 chip) and some extra commands and joystick ports. I used it long after most people had switched to PCs (and I don't mean for games).
I opt-out by blocking. If they can't see me, what data do they get? Okay, yeah, I'm a geek and can do that, whereas the other 95% of people (or more) wouldn't know how to, though they might stumble upon one of the good block lists floating around and remove themselves that way. If not... well, as long as they can track 80% of the people, they probably don't care about us.
Having previously worked for a newspaper, I know about some of the holes in "Do Not Call". "Do not track"? Since you can't prove they are (or aren't) tracking you except by targeted content, the law would be meaningless.
Or of course when typing something that requires capital letters, especially mixed with numbers. I use it most often when keeping track of serial numbers of my valuables, for example. But I've also used it with capchas if they don't have mixed case - when they say to type what you see I try to be exact.
I use Ctrl a lot more than CapsLock and can see why some keyboards swap the two, but it should still be available somewhere.
Knew that... solid angle is steradians in metric units, of which there are 4pi around a sphere - but what's the non-metric unit to convert to for the new name?
I have friends who lived in rural districts who would bring their shotgun to school during hunting season so they could go hunting after school (or because they'd been hunting before school), 40 years ago. Many people in my school carried pocket knives. Has the current "Zero tolerance" movement made things safer than they were back then? Doesn't seem to...
There are lots of areas we need more math in, but probably not what you think. Logic would be the first one, yes probability and statistics (80% of all statistics are made up)... not all math is about numbers after all. Oh yeah, I'm always surprised by how little people seem to understand of geometry. No, I don't mean proofs, I mean shapes, filling spaces, general concepts like that.
Yes, I am one of those who likes to curl up with a good Algebra book. But it is amazing how much of this stuff could be used every day if people knew it.
I own a previous color model from Casio, the CFX-9800G (along with... gee, about 20 others). That one only had 3 colors (orange, green and blue) and was sort of a kludge in that regard. You had to use your imagination sometimes to call them orange and green, but the blue was decent.
When I was teaching 20 years ago Casio calculators had too many limitations for me to recommend them to my students. The recent models seem to have removed most of those, and even added some interesting features. I do have to wonder though, would we be further ahead with a larger touchscreen and put half the keys (or maybe all of them) onto the touchscreen. Most smartphones have enough processing power and resolution that with the right software they could do everything this does and more...
1. For the typical consumer, this is obviously a good thing. A typical user wouldn't be (intentionally) rooting his own phone and therefore this would only happen if someone was exploiting the OS - in that sense it is a great anti-malware feature. For us here it is excessive and thus should include an off switch, but for the rest of the world this is a net positive. Except...
2. What if they need to update the OS? The article and summary both say "reinstalling the factory OS", which would be the version that actually shipped with the phone (minus all updates). Droid is not so mature as to not be likely to need updates... are they going to provide you with a new phone with all updates every time a major issue is patched? Somehow I doubt it...
So overall - sorry, HTC. Probably seemed like a good idea on paper, but in reality it's terrible.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I read dismemberment ...
cult /klt/ Noun
1. A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
2. A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
Hmm ... I fail to see how the term applies here.
Actually, that's what they told us this would be - a pick-up service. Maybe they're having an outside contractor handle the actual deliveries, though. (Yes, I currently work there, but I'm not involved with this project.)
Oh, the dairy aisle is last - frozen food is next to last.
Seriously? Do they think all gamers will have that fast of a network connection by then? That is certainly not the case today.
Downloading once isn't an issue for most people, it's probably faster than going to a bricks and mortar store - and much faster than mail order. I'd have to figure that many games would be comparable to HD video in terms of transfer rates required; there's still a lot of people who couldn't handle that over their existing connections. Hence the next consoles will still need local storage. Whether a hard drive or SSD is another question, but it must be local.
As a math geek, former teacher and owner of a dozen different graphing calculators, I feel I have to add my two cents.
I'm from the era where you weren't allowed to use any calculators on tests. Not that I would have needed one anyway (as a math geek). Calculators were cool (for math geeks) in the '80s, and some of them are still cool.
But there are some skills that come up later in math that many people these days don't know or never even learned. Long division can be used with polynomials instead of just numbers, but it's a lot harder to teach polynomial long division if they don't remember long division in the first place. And try to get anyone these days to work out a square root by hand. (Yes, there are polynomial square roots too - but how can you teach that?)
I do appreciate that the Casio will give you an exact answer for SQRT(5+2*SQRT(6)) - namely, SQRT(3) + SQRT(2). I could get that myself, but it's not something we ever taught.
I appreciate that my students have no excuse for multiplying wrong. Okay, they might enter a number wrong and get a wrong answer for that reason, but they're supposed to check their work. People of my generation should know if an answer makes sense or not - we had to learn to estimate so that we knew if we had made a mistake (because it was so easy to make one). It is still easy to make mistakes, even if the mistakes are now different ... I worry that people who grew up on calculators don't know when they get a wrong answer.
ME wasn't the only version that must have been skipped. Between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 there was Windows for Workgroups and there was also the original Windows NT (3.5). Windows 95 was a successor to Windows 3.1, there was a separate Windows NT 4 as an update to NT 3.5. After 95 (in the single-user versions) were 95 Plus!, 98, 98 SE and of course ME, after NT 4 was Windows 2000. Windows XP was actually descended from Windows 2000. Since 95/98/ME didn't support NTFS, it wasn't possible to "upgrade" from one of the NT versions to one of those. (And I'm not considering the "Server" versions, which would add a few more.)
The Sandwich Theorem in common terms:
If you have a function (the "ham") whose known values lie between two other functions (the "bread") and you are taking a limit at a point, then the limit of the "ham" is bounded by the limits of the "bread". They'll usually make some reference about the point you're taking the limit at as being where you're biting (or squeezing) the sandwich at.
Of course, it is nicest when the two limits for the bread are the same (hence the "squeezing"), but the bounds could still be useful even if they are not the same.
then why are they throttling certain users at all times (both peak and non-peak)?
If I were to only use data mode during non-peak hours but was still in the top 5%, I'd still be throttled, and it would do absolutely nothing to help their peak demand since I'm only using it at non-peak times. Sorry guys, this just doesn't work to solve the stated problem.
Please stay on the line and we will tell you your problems.
Strange, I don't see this "Fixed position" stuff everyone is complaining about.
On the other hand ... it doesn't adjust to the width of my tab. I don't use the full width of my browser window for pages (my bookmarks are on the left) nor do I use the full screen for my browser, so my tab is only about 800 pixels wide. If I scroll enough so I can't see the left bar, then I can read all of a comment - otherwise I lose part of it off the right side. I'd hate to try and view it on one of those devices that only starts out with 800 pixels of screen to begin with ...
Between that and the "too much white", count me as a thumbs down.
Persistent data storage for web apps is something other browsers have had, so I'm surprised that FF is only now producing versions with this feature ...
"... Microsoft would do before it finally got the idea that standards are good"
Since it isn't clear MS got that idea yet, I must conclude you're a time traveler from the distant future.
So who wins this year's Superbowl? (Or is the game going to be that forgettable?)
Somehow I thought it was a reference to the latest Star Trek film ...
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/greenwald/
The nice thing about the Sinclair was that you could do hi-res (for that era) graphics and sound from BASIC (no POKEs, no extension ROM). Then again the total resolution was somewhat lower (only 24 rows of 32 characters, instead of 25 rows of 40). Neither one had sprites in BASIC ... the C-64's best game features were not available in the internal BASIC.
I had the US version of the Spectrum (that is, the Timex/Sinclair 2068), which added 3-channel sound via an AY3-8910 chip) and some extra commands and joystick ports. I used it long after most people had switched to PCs (and I don't mean for games).
Not sure how real any of those are. Bumper cars? A really slow paint function?
On my anemic (1.6 GHz Atom) system, Chrome gets 3986 while Opera gets 4250 (sorry, no Firefox installed).
I opt-out by blocking. If they can't see me, what data do they get? Okay, yeah, I'm a geek and can do that, whereas the other 95% of people (or more) wouldn't know how to, though they might stumble upon one of the good block lists floating around and remove themselves that way. If not ... well, as long as they can track 80% of the people, they probably don't care about us.
Having previously worked for a newspaper, I know about some of the holes in "Do Not Call". "Do not track"? Since you can't prove they are (or aren't) tracking you except by targeted content, the law would be meaningless.
Or of course when typing something that requires capital letters, especially mixed with numbers. I use it most often when keeping track of serial numbers of my valuables, for example. But I've also used it with capchas if they don't have mixed case - when they say to type what you see I try to be exact.
I use Ctrl a lot more than CapsLock and can see why some keyboards swap the two, but it should still be available somewhere.
Knew that ... solid angle is steradians in metric units, of which there are 4pi around a sphere - but what's the non-metric unit to convert to for the new name?
Since the 360 in "Xbox 360" implicitly refers to degrees ... what's the non-metric unit of solid angles?
I have friends who lived in rural districts who would bring their shotgun to school during hunting season so they could go hunting after school (or because they'd been hunting before school), 40 years ago. Many people in my school carried pocket knives. Has the current "Zero tolerance" movement made things safer than they were back then? Doesn't seem to ...
There are lots of areas we need more math in, but probably not what you think. Logic would be the first one, yes probability and statistics (80% of all statistics are made up) ... not all math is about numbers after all. Oh yeah, I'm always surprised by how little people seem to understand of geometry. No, I don't mean proofs, I mean shapes, filling spaces, general concepts like that.
Yes, I am one of those who likes to curl up with a good Algebra book. But it is amazing how much of this stuff could be used every day if people knew it.
No sign of Presto (Opera's js engine) ... or IE (just to be complete).
Could be useful ...
I own a previous color model from Casio, the CFX-9800G (along with ... gee, about 20 others). That one only had 3 colors (orange, green and blue) and was sort of a kludge in that regard. You had to use your imagination sometimes to call them orange and green, but the blue was decent.
When I was teaching 20 years ago Casio calculators had too many limitations for me to recommend them to my students. The recent models seem to have removed most of those, and even added some interesting features. I do have to wonder though, would we be further ahead with a larger touchscreen and put half the keys (or maybe all of them) onto the touchscreen. Most smartphones have enough processing power and resolution that with the right software they could do everything this does and more ...
1. For the typical consumer, this is obviously a good thing. A typical user wouldn't be (intentionally) rooting his own phone and therefore this would only happen if someone was exploiting the OS - in that sense it is a great anti-malware feature. For us here it is excessive and thus should include an off switch, but for the rest of the world this is a net positive. Except ...
2. What if they need to update the OS? The article and summary both say "reinstalling the factory OS", which would be the version that actually shipped with the phone (minus all updates). Droid is not so mature as to not be likely to need updates ... are they going to provide you with a new phone with all updates every time a major issue is patched? Somehow I doubt it ...
So overall - sorry, HTC. Probably seemed like a good idea on paper, but in reality it's terrible.