Isn't the big difference that Apple currently use a trackpad that can register multitouch while this is to be a touchscreen that can register multitouch?
I'd figure that things like distinguishing between, say, a click on a button and a multitouch-gesture where the first touch hit that button and the other fingers touch the screen half a second later, would be somewhat of a problem. On one hand, you want a quick and responsive interface that doesn't wait 500ms before acting on your input. On the other hand, you want the interface to be able to figure out what you wanted to do, like rotating a picture, not what you acutally did, which might have been to first close the picture and then rotate the screen.
I have these kinds or problems all the time with my Iphone, especially when using it one-handed. A zoom becomes a button-click, a slide becomes a button-click, a button-click becomes a slide, etc. On a small device which present you with one application at a time and which isn't used extensively for productivity, this isn't much of a problem. If put to use in a multi-window environment where having your input misinterpreted might loose you hours of work or slow down your productivity significantly, it's a huge problem.
If you look at MS history of releases, you'll notice that the time between Vista and 7 isn't short at all.
The years they've released a new Windows-version, counting server and 64bit variants: 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
If 7 is released 2010, as seems likely, it will not break any records. Vista will be 3 years by then. The 6 years between XP32 and Vista is a big exception from their standard release-cycle.
The theory of evolution is not beyond question, not any more than the special theory of relativity. No theory is. If someone can falsify, produce a better hypothesis or come up with modifications of an existing theory so that it is a better model of reality, the theory will change or be replaced. This has happened before to a lot of theories that where widely accepted as accurate.
But, please, leave religion out of the arguments for or against any scientific theory. They don't belong in the same discussions. Put the scientific model on the curriculum instead of teaching that evolution in particular is to be questioned. That way, they'll learn how to question any scientific theory and probably to question everything that's pushed as "The Truth" too.
Nope. They want Creationism taught as The Truth, not as science.
If it's taught as science, it would change over time. (Scientific theories and models do that when something more accurate comes along.) If taught as The Truth, it would be static and unchanging.
Because we, as an analogy, imagine it to be a rubber sheet with indentations. Gravity isn't an actual sheet with actual indentations which actual object fall into. It's just a way of visualizing a hard to grasp concept. If you take it as a literal description of the physics, it makes no sense.
If you like, you can instead imagine a cube in a 4D environment and represent the direction of gravitational force as vector points in that cube and amount of gravitational force in those points as the 4'th vector. Still an analogy but it may be a bit easier to grasp than projecting 3D space onto a 2D plane and then represent gravity as 3'rd dimension curvatures of that plane. (Rubber sheet with indentations)
I am afraid of pain, suffering, becoming a cripple and things like that. I also have an irrational fear of heights. Thus, I'd hesitate and feel fear if doing your test, since I most probably would be in a lot of pain before dying if jumping of the side of a cliff.
The thing that goes through my mind when something goes wrong while I'm doing something that is potentially lethal isn't "OMG, I'm going to die!". It's "OMG, this is going to hurt!"
Well, that's the hardest part of falsifying any prediction. When do you say "We've searched long enough, the prediction is most probably wrong"?
For instance, when do we stop looking for the Higgs boson if LHC can't find it? Do we say the prediction of the particle is wrong or do we build a more powerful accelerator?
The most important prediction made by evolution is that we should see genetic differences between different generations of a species, that a species or race should be able to change over time and that we, with long enough observation (a small detail religious people often fail to comprehend), should be able to witness the appearance of totally new species.
I fail to see how evolution would be falsified by having dinosaurs found alongside humans or by having fossils older than we previously thought possible anyway. That would mainly give problems to some theories regarding geology, decay of radioactive isotopes, archeology and such.
A "science" degree in creationism certainly isn't a degree in science.
Exactly. I don't know the exact types of degrees available in the higher education of the US, but it feels like studying creationism should be part of some degree in philosophy. It certainly shouldn't be a Master of Science degree.
Plus, you never know what scripts there are, until you activate them.
But you can see if there are scripts from other sites that's trying to run. And even with a securely authenticated white-list of signed scripts ensuring that all the scripts a site want to run on my computer is probably safe to run, I'd want the final say in if I actually run them or not. Many sites are actually much more usable with scripts and flash turned off and even if a site is harder to use without scripts, I might elect to use it that way simply because I feel that they use scripts without a reason.
Well, as long as what I download is something that I can store, backup, move and install on any of my current or future computers, buying a download of a game is much preferred to buying a cd or dvd with a game.
Same as with music. If what I buy is a portable music-file that I can store and use on any of my computers or media-players, it is better than a CD. Otherwise, not.
The problem is when you start thinking "Oh, so he likes *insert music-band*, I hate them. I'll hire someone else" or "WTF?! He supports *insert football-team*. No way I'll hire him!".
You can format an iPod using HFS+ on a Mac, but then it won't work with Windows until you re-format it.
Unless you have ProTools and choose to install it's bundled HFS+ filesystem-driver. =)
Personally, the lousy filesystem-support in Windows has always been one of the things that really annoy me about Windows. Well, at least since around 1995, when I started using dualbooted Linux/Windows-installs... There is no other consumer OS that supports as few filesystems as Windows. =(
MMS, Video, App Store issues - that's all software, the build quality of the hardware seems perfectly respectable to me. It feels quick and responsive most of the time
You are totally correct. The problems with the Iphone (and I do have one, through my work) is mostly software-related. The hardware is ok, though it is a bit slow, lacks physical buttons and a usb-port and has short battery time.
The software lack mostly in the communications area, which is a bit ironic in a communications-device. You can't send anything to anyone. You can't even share contact-information with your friends or business relations. This "We can not let our users communicate or use media in any way that don't bring us money!"-mentality that Apple has is really, truly annoying.
Your CF card is going to use the USB interface which maxes out at about 40Mbps as opposed to using an internal SSD's SATAII interface which maxes at 300Mbps. Not quite an order of magnitude, but close.
There are three factual errors in that statement. 1. CF-cards can be connected directly to the ATA-port via a simple passive connector-adapter and therefor have a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 133MB/s, which roughly translates to 1300Mbps. There's even adapters with room for both a master and slave CF-card in the same shape, size and connector position as a 2.5" ATA drive, specifically made to use CF-cards in laptops. 2. USB is 480Mbps. 3. SATA is 3000Mbps
The big speed-difference between SSD and CF is due to the construction of the devices themselves, not the interface that connects them to the computer. A fast CF-card can get you around 40MB/s and at the moment they also top out at 32GB sizes and they're not made to handle long term random write operations. A fast SSD can get you all the way to the theoretical maximum of SATA, around 300MB/s, and are available in much bigger sizes.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero
That is only true in the private consumer-market. Anyone who has a site-license for their OS of choice, has no interest what so ever in having an OS license shipped with every single computer they buy. Also, most places that have a site-license never buy DIY hardware. If HP, Dell, etc, started offering their professional lines without any OS at a slightly reduced price, I'd bet that most site-licensees of Microsoft products would choose that option.
If they stopped selling XP, that would be within their right. You can still buy XP with a new laptop, thought. It's just that you can not buy XP without also buying Vista. That is what they shouldn't be allowed to require.
Either sell us XP or don't sell us XP. Don't sell us XP only if we also buy Vista at the same time.
Simply don't buy cable or satellite then. Most of what they broadcast is crap anyway, so why pay for it? By buying their services, you're practically saying "You're doing things right, keep up the good work."
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So the real question is: is MicroSoft trying to do anything funky with the absolute positioning of your fingers?
Probably reading the absolute positioning of your fingers as positions relative the UI instead of positions relative the pointer. =)
Isn't the big difference that Apple currently use a trackpad that can register multitouch while this is to be a touchscreen that can register multitouch?
I'd figure that things like distinguishing between, say, a click on a button and a multitouch-gesture where the first touch hit that button and the other fingers touch the screen half a second later, would be somewhat of a problem.
On one hand, you want a quick and responsive interface that doesn't wait 500ms before acting on your input.
On the other hand, you want the interface to be able to figure out what you wanted to do, like rotating a picture, not what you acutally did, which might have been to first close the picture and then rotate the screen.
I have these kinds or problems all the time with my Iphone, especially when using it one-handed.
A zoom becomes a button-click, a slide becomes a button-click, a button-click becomes a slide, etc.
On a small device which present you with one application at a time and which isn't used extensively for productivity, this isn't much of a problem.
If put to use in a multi-window environment where having your input misinterpreted might loose you hours of work or slow down your productivity significantly, it's a huge problem.
If you look at MS history of releases, you'll notice that the time between Vista and 7 isn't short at all.
The years they've released a new Windows-version, counting server and 64bit variants:
1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
If 7 is released 2010, as seems likely, it will not break any records. Vista will be 3 years by then.
The 6 years between XP32 and Vista is a big exception from their standard release-cycle.
Public schools should teach about religion.
Not teach *a* religion, but *about* religion.
What are the origins, history and current theories about christianity, islam, hindu, etc, etc.
The theory of evolution is not beyond question, not any more than the special theory of relativity.
No theory is.
If someone can falsify, produce a better hypothesis or come up with modifications of an existing theory so that it is a better model of reality, the theory will change or be replaced.
This has happened before to a lot of theories that where widely accepted as accurate.
But, please, leave religion out of the arguments for or against any scientific theory.
They don't belong in the same discussions.
Put the scientific model on the curriculum instead of teaching that evolution in particular is to be questioned.
That way, they'll learn how to question any scientific theory and probably to question everything that's pushed as "The Truth" too.
Nope. They want Creationism taught as The Truth, not as science.
If it's taught as science, it would change over time. (Scientific theories and models do that when something more accurate comes along.)
If taught as The Truth, it would be static and unchanging.
"look at socialist or communist ideologues, their ideology has been repeatedly and convincingly disproven with facts and yet they still cling to it."
How, exactly, do you disprove an ideology?
Because we, as an analogy, imagine it to be a rubber sheet with indentations.
Gravity isn't an actual sheet with actual indentations which actual object fall into. It's just a way of visualizing a hard to grasp concept.
If you take it as a literal description of the physics, it makes no sense.
If you like, you can instead imagine a cube in a 4D environment and represent the direction of gravitational force as vector points in that cube and amount of gravitational force in those points as the 4'th vector.
Still an analogy but it may be a bit easier to grasp than projecting 3D space onto a 2D plane and then represent gravity as 3'rd dimension curvatures of that plane. (Rubber sheet with indentations)
I am afraid of pain, suffering, becoming a cripple and things like that.
I also have an irrational fear of heights.
Thus, I'd hesitate and feel fear if doing your test, since I most probably would be in a lot of pain before dying if jumping of the side of a cliff.
The thing that goes through my mind when something goes wrong while I'm doing something that is potentially lethal isn't "OMG, I'm going to die!".
It's "OMG, this is going to hurt!"
Well, that's the hardest part of falsifying any prediction.
When do you say "We've searched long enough, the prediction is most probably wrong"?
For instance, when do we stop looking for the Higgs boson if LHC can't find it?
Do we say the prediction of the particle is wrong or do we build a more powerful accelerator?
The most important prediction made by evolution is that we should see genetic differences between different generations of a species, that a species or race should be able to change over time and that we, with long enough observation (a small detail religious people often fail to comprehend), should be able to witness the appearance of totally new species.
I fail to see how evolution would be falsified by having dinosaurs found alongside humans or by having fossils older than we previously thought possible anyway.
That would mainly give problems to some theories regarding geology, decay of radioactive isotopes, archeology and such.
A "science" degree in creationism certainly isn't a degree in science.
Exactly. I don't know the exact types of degrees available in the higher education of the US, but it feels like studying creationism should be part of some degree in philosophy.
It certainly shouldn't be a Master of Science degree.
Plus, you never know what scripts there are, until you activate them.
But you can see if there are scripts from other sites that's trying to run.
And even with a securely authenticated white-list of signed scripts ensuring that all the scripts a site want to run on my computer is probably safe to run, I'd want the final say in if I actually run them or not.
Many sites are actually much more usable with scripts and flash turned off and even if a site is harder to use without scripts, I might elect to use it that way simply because I feel that they use scripts without a reason.
No, no, no...
It's called New Sweden and it's in Maine.
New Sweden
Well, as long as what I download is something that I can store, backup, move and install on any of my current or future computers, buying a download of a game is much preferred to buying a cd or dvd with a game.
Same as with music. If what I buy is a portable music-file that I can store and use on any of my computers or media-players, it is better than a CD.
Otherwise, not.
The problem is when you start thinking "Oh, so he likes *insert music-band*, I hate them. I'll hire someone else" or "WTF?! He supports *insert football-team*. No way I'll hire him!".
Since Thinkpads are the best looking laptops on the market, that's one more plus for it over the Apples. =)
You can format an iPod using HFS+ on a Mac, but then it won't work with Windows until you re-format it.
Unless you have ProTools and choose to install it's bundled HFS+ filesystem-driver. =)
Personally, the lousy filesystem-support in Windows has always been one of the things that really annoy me about Windows.
Well, at least since around 1995, when I started using dualbooted Linux/Windows-installs...
There is no other consumer OS that supports as few filesystems as Windows. =(
Could somebody explain what the point of a 10 MP CCD
Bragging-rights for the gadget-crazy, that's the point. =)
If you like high-tech gadgets, higher tech is better no matter if it usable or not.
MMS, Video, App Store issues - that's all software, the build quality of the hardware seems perfectly respectable to me. It feels quick and responsive most of the time
You are totally correct. The problems with the Iphone (and I do have one, through my work) is mostly software-related.
The hardware is ok, though it is a bit slow, lacks physical buttons and a usb-port and has short battery time.
The software lack mostly in the communications area, which is a bit ironic in a communications-device.
You can't send anything to anyone.
You can't even share contact-information with your friends or business relations. This "We can not let our users communicate or use media in any way that don't bring us money!"-mentality that Apple has is really, truly annoying.
Your CF card is going to use the USB interface which maxes out at about 40Mbps as opposed to using an internal SSD's SATAII interface which maxes at 300Mbps. Not quite an order of magnitude, but close.
There are three factual errors in that statement.
1. CF-cards can be connected directly to the ATA-port via a simple passive connector-adapter and therefor have a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 133MB/s, which roughly translates to 1300Mbps. There's even adapters with room for both a master and slave CF-card in the same shape, size and connector position as a 2.5" ATA drive, specifically made to use CF-cards in laptops.
2. USB is 480Mbps.
3. SATA is 3000Mbps
The big speed-difference between SSD and CF is due to the construction of the devices themselves, not the interface that connects them to the computer.
A fast CF-card can get you around 40MB/s and at the moment they also top out at 32GB sizes and they're not made to handle long term random write operations.
A fast SSD can get you all the way to the theoretical maximum of SATA, around 300MB/s, and are available in much bigger sizes.
The difference is, Microsoft don't offer Windows 98 for sale.
They do offer XP for sale, if you first buy Vista.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero
That is only true in the private consumer-market.
Anyone who has a site-license for their OS of choice, has no interest what so ever in having an OS license shipped with every single computer they buy.
Also, most places that have a site-license never buy DIY hardware.
If HP, Dell, etc, started offering their professional lines without any OS at a slightly reduced price, I'd bet that most site-licensees of Microsoft products would choose that option.
No.
That's not what this is about.
If they stopped selling XP, that would be within their right.
You can still buy XP with a new laptop, thought.
It's just that you can not buy XP without also buying Vista.
That is what they shouldn't be allowed to require.
Either sell us XP or don't sell us XP. Don't sell us XP only if we also buy Vista at the same time.
There is also the small fact of increased population.
Double the population of a city and you, roughly, double the amount of people with autism in that city.
Simply don't buy cable or satellite then. Most of what they broadcast is crap anyway, so why pay for it?
By buying their services, you're practically saying "You're doing things right, keep up the good work."