having a doctor or nurse putting in billing codes will only slow down the process.
It's worse than that. I used to work for an insurance company* and although I can't talk about specifics, I would see errors all the time. For instance, there are several different diagnosis codes for neck pain; the differences involve severity, location, cause, etc. Chiropractors (they were the worst offenders for some reason) would send in claims forms that had the 'wrong' code entered- what I mean is that an insurance plan might cover a specific back problem but not the general, catch-all code for 'back pain' or whatever the office entered. Bam, claim denied.
There are also codes for treatments. Maybe you take your kid to get a scheduled check-up and instead of a level 1 or 2 doctor consultation code you get the well child exam code. Bam, claim denied. Or you take your kid in for a check-up and the office puts in the level 1 doc consult but leaves the diagnosis blank if there's nothing wrong. Bam, claim denied.
A big part of why I left was my misgivings over the ethics of the job. On the surface my job was to correct transcription errors or omissions on claims forms, but really what I was doing was covering the companies ass for each denied claim. I would see 5-figure bills come through and know that they were going to be denied for something as trivial as a missing drug code.
Then the meat must also be protected from germs and parasites which would have a field day munching on the same proteins and sugars that we (ostensibly) want to eat. However, the disembodied monoculture meat has no animal immune system to defend it and it requires a sterile environment in which to grow. We have to shoulder these burdens instead of the animals doing it themselves.
We already 'grow' many different foods under what could loosely be classified as laboratory conditions. Cheese is the first thing that comes to mind; we all know how readily cheese can spoil, yet we manage to age it for months (years, even) and wind up with a delicious and safe product. Uncured sausage is another example of a really great bacteria culture but we do alright for ourselves (and have been for a few thousand years).
In addition, domesticated animals do a terrible job of protecting themselves. That is the very reason that people are working on this project- to reduce the antibiotics, hormones, nutrient supplements, etc that it takes to keep these evolutionary freaks of nature alive (you talk about natural selection in a discussion about domesticated animals?).
I agree that there are issues to overcome in the future, but let's not dismiss this entire idea out of hand.
Based on what I've seen grad students consider to be 'food', I don't think we'll have any problem convinving them to eat what amounts to a dish of hot dog.
This could wind up being more efficient than the current system. We will be increasing our ethanol usage for the forseeable future, and vat-meat could be part of the loop.
-corn, cereals, switchgrass, sugarcane, etc are harvested, the carbohydrates are used to produce ethanol, and the byproducts (crude proteins, fats, nutrients) could be used to grow meat after refining.
-land that was once used for grazing could support additional EToh crops, filling in the energy gap created by the new vat-meat. If the vat-meat process turns out to be more efficient than live cattle, we actually come out ahead energy- and carbon-wise.
This is a win for peta, the environment, our economy, and our health (considering that we could produce cheap lean meat without hormones and antibiotics).
Cows will be around for a while. We've had several different milk substitutes around for many years and people still drink plain old milk. Work on artificial cheese has come about as far as artificial meat due to the complexities of trying to make soy proteins act like milk proteins.
One thing that is forgotten (or ignored) when discussing land use with regards to cattle is that a large majority of the rangeland in the u.s. is unsuitable for farming. In addition, certain breeds of cow can fatten up on land that would starve another breed; proper herd management can allow the animals to fatten up without destroying the soil and plants. This is why it always irks me a bit to hear people talk about how one cow uses enough land to grow wheat for 40 people or some nonsense. Here, take these seeds- go try to grow them out west in the free ranges.
This meat-in-a-vat project has a long way to go- they need to figure out how to tone the muscle, marble it with fat, configure the nutrients to make the meat not taste like a chewable vitamin, etc.
There's a taco bell near here; in 5 years I'll go sample the vat-meat.
Eh, I have to disagree on that point. It has historically gone more like this:
-microbe evolves side by side with a human (or close human relative) population; the humans build up defenses against that particular microbe
Then either: -Something changes (environment, nutrition, domestic animals, etc.) that tips the scales in one direction or the other, giving you a plague or a reduction in disease -A previously unexposed group of humans encounters the microbe; the microbe has evolved to deal with human defenses, these humans don't have the defenses, bam, you got yourself a plague.
I have yet to hear of a real human-killing pathogen that just appeared out of nowhere. HIV, for instance, crossed over from our close ape or monkey relatives. Rabies is another one. Anthrax, certain flues, many parasites. My point is that it's very unlikely that life on mars would be deadly to us as an infectious agent because it had spent millions of years focusing on surviving heat, cold, radiation, drought or flood, etc.- and most importantly, there are no food sources that even remotely resemble warm-blooded animals on mars. So the microbes would have to make an evolutionary leap from eating iron, sulfur, or other inorganic substance to dealing with the intricate and extraordinarily hostile environment of a human body.
I'm really not worried about it. There are so many other difficulties to overcome that by the time we actually send people to mars, I'm sure we'll have a pretty good picture of what kind of life, if any, exists there.
I think the word 'faith' muddles the semantic waters too much. You are confusing 'knowledge from experience' with 'knowledge from lore/fable/tradition'.
I'm sure other people- people who've taken philosophy within the last 5 years- will come up with better responses.
I think a better word for scientists would be 'confidence'. I am confident that I will not be eaten by a butterfly tomorrow. I can test that to a confidence well into 6 significant figures simply based on empirical evidence. Similarly, I am confident that my floor will exist below my feet when I swing out of bed tomorrow morning- and according to a conservative 200 years of evidence (since humans developed the first steam-powered floor-detecting technology), I can say with a precision asymptotically approaching 1 that I am right.
The critical difference is: proof or, lacking proof, the possibility of finding proof (prediction) VS faith, i.e., belief in the face of disproof or belief without reason to believe. For example, the belief in good luck charms or horoscopes.
I get to work in a truck. I understand how the truck works; with the right tools, I could build my own truck. Calling the fact that my truck doesn't run on butterfly juice 'faith' is an insult.
Looking at the keyboard is a setback if your keyboard is a foot or two away from the screen (like most computers are set up). Typing on a phone is different because if you are looking at the screen, you are already looking at the keyboard. This is especially true on an iphone where the keyboard usually ends about 1/2" from the text.
I know there are people out there who text with morse code precision, but I hardly ever see it. Whether you have a touch screen, buttons, or flat pads (like the razr) you need to see the screen to catch typos, correct the phone's autocomplete, or scroll through punctuation. Texting on a razr without looking at the phone would result in complete gibberish since the phone, while trying to anticipate which word you want to use next, would end up sending a collection of random words.
...it was pointed out that our current arsenal is sufficient to annhilate all life on earth several times over, and STILL people are wetting themselves at the idea that we might not be able to deter our enemies... wtf? How much more "deterred" can they be?
A main guiding principle of mutually assured destruction is that a retaliatory strike would be lethal to the aggressor (the country that shot first). The ability to mount a retaliatory strike in the face of, during, or after a nuclear attack is dependent on our ability to maintain command and control, targeting, and authorization- and in a worst-case scenario this could be carried out in communication blackout by the missile site operators. We have prepared for scenario after scenario to ensure that we will, without a doubt, wipe out whoever attacked us. And we have taken pains to let the world know that. If we didn't, M.A.D. wouldn't work.
Part of our ability to strike back lies in our multiply-redundant nuclear arsenal. Russia (just for this example) knows where 90% of our nukes are, and you better believe that they have those sites hard-coded in their warheads. But that extra 10%... If that extra 10% is still enough firepower to destroy Russia, then their hands are tied- there's no way they can launch first and not be destroyed.
And that is why we need enough firepower to annihilate the world 40 times over. Sweet dreams, everyone!
We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.
Then:
It seems that those in it for money will opt for iPhone, and those in it for distribution will opt for Android.
I'm not sure this is the best example. Gameloft is both selling more games *and* earning more profit on the itunes store, right? I haven't seen any ads for the android app store, either.
I understand the walled-garden that is the itunes app store, but I don't understand what advantages come from developing solely for android. Less consumer exposure vs open structure?
If the typical slashdot comment is to be believed, the average joe demands ssh, skype, google voice, and voice-to-text. From that perspective, android will be an unqualified success. On the other hand- and this is just from my experience seeing people's iphones- the average joe wants to play games, take pictures, follow sports, and make their phone look like a lighter or a glass of beer.
If android is going to become succesful, it will need to have lots of simple games and novelty applications (like the fake beer). And once that happens, the developers who were complaining yesterday that their quality apps were being lost among the crap on itunes will complain about the same thing with android. Even more so, since apple's opaque approval process won't be there to weed out the worst.
That's just my opinion as of right now; if the playing field changes I'll buy an android phone the minute my current contract expires.
Another/. story brought this to my attention and I did some digging. It turns out that the entire tech-blog-sphere is basing their articles on a 'study' done by Squaretrade, a company that sells extended warranties for computers and phones. I won't get into the ethics of selling warranties for brand-new computers that already carry OEM warranties.
The problem is that Squaretrade is in direct competition with Apple's Applecare. A few quick searches on their website shows that their plans cost more than applecare and that they lack some of the features of applecare (phone support, apple store support, ups dropoff service, etc).
So my advice is to take that bar graph with a grain of salt.
Number 4 according to Squaretrade, a company that sells warranties on computers and is a direct competitor to Apple's Applecare.
Just saying.
fwiw, Consumer Reports consistently ranks Apple at the top or near the top in satisfaction, reliability, and tech support. I can't draw any overall conclusions of my own since most laptop failures I have seen among my friends (covering the gamut of manufacturers) have been a result of physical abuse. otoh a laptop's ability to take abuse without breaking is a big selling point for me.
Re:Android WILL take over.
on
Less Than Free
·
· Score: 1
- Being open source, carriers and smartphone makers can customize it as little or as much as they want
This is the reason I wouldn't put money on your bet. There was an article about verizon's business practices a few days ago that included much discussion of how they purposely made the "OK" button (in some contexts) the "go online and charge me for data whether or not I have a data plan" button in other contexts. Or having the "OK" button that pops up actually try to upload your data instead of saving (saving the photo went under another button).
There are many, many examples of carriers disabling features that interfere with there revenue stream. How many phones out there are carrier-locked to prevent you from loading your own (free) ringtones? Or one that I really hate, disabling the mini-usb port so you have to use the carrier software to transfer files to and from your computer?
I'm not taking sides as far as carriers go, simply because there isn't one without some BS lockdown on at least some of their phones (speaking from the U.S.).
So for me, looking at the past behavior of carriers makes me less than optimistic about the success of any phone OS, let alone one that isn't designed from the outset to monetize basic functionality.
It would nice if you turned out to be right, though.
At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever.
I don't mind that. No, seriously. When cable TV started, the idea was that if you paid for content, you wouldn't have to deal with commercials (we all saw how that turned out).
I would be happy to pay for the content I watch as long as I am only paying for the content I *want* to watch. This will save money for me and funnel money into the kinds of shows that I watch. It seems like a win-win situation to me.
I would be happy if my money went into a system with futurama and arrested development and NOT everybody loves raymond. That would mean that I got what I wanted and the producers would see that one more person wasn't willing to pay for crap (or what I consider to be crap).
I would like to imagine that world... However, in the world *I* live in, my connection is throttled down to 30-60kbs after I download a few too many albums or watch too much streaming video from Hulu.
Here's how my life works- I have to prioritize my viewing. Ok, the latest daily show and colbert report should stream just fine because I've been at work all day. Done and done. OK, now I want to watch last night's Conan Obrien- I'll have to watch this in sections, since the hulu player only lets you preload a few seconds of video at a time. I'll use this time to catch up on slashdot and xkcd while I wait for the video to catch up. Ok, after the two hours it took to watch conan I want to watch the latest south park episode. The official south park episode player works like the hulu player in that pausing the player only allows a few seconds/maybe a minute to cache. That won't work for me at this point so I go to a japanese or korean website that uses the youtube version of caching, ie, you can press pause and come back in 20 minutes to find at least 10 minutes have already downloaded.
I do dream of a world where I can download all the video I want, but right now I have to work with what I have. Netflix, boxee, et al won't work for me when my connection gets progressively slower for each ~400MB I use in a 24 hour period.
You can buy dynamite at hardware stores? A thousand pounds of it? Please tell me what state you live in because that is where I will move in a heartbeat. Around here you need to get a permit from the department of public safety or the local sheriff or police dept.
You know how they call suicide bombers cowards and terrorists? Well, I call cruise missile launchers cowards and terrorists.
I think the distinction lies not in ability but intent. We do not send cruise missiles 1,000 miles just to land in a crowded disco. I won't deny that these things happen by accident sometimes; however, it is never our mission to specifically seek out and destroy civilian targets based on the likelihood of maximum death, injury, and terror.
Dropping a bomb on an insurgent camp probably does cause terror among the insurgents, but those insurgents represent a threat. Drunk dancers in a bar in Mali represent a threat to no one but their own dignity.
The 'net used to account for 1/3, but since that time it has either shrunk due to patches or other 'nets have vastly outpaced it. That caught me off guard, too.
To be honest, when I reread the gpp's question it occurred to me that this entire thing might have been a misunderstanding. It is, I concede, purely a matter of taste when deciding to use impact or affect or strike. However, matters of taste are what make slashdot slashdot. I still believe (as I mentioned in another post earlier and elsewhere) that impact usually falls into the same category as actionable, synergy, gifted, etc: words devoid of any added meaning outside their original jargon (and sometimes not even then). Buzzwords. Advertising words.
In the context of the/. title, the word makes sense. I misread the gpp's intentions and thought he was talking about the word in general usage. Sorry to waste everyone's time being wrong. However, a quick search for impact verb yields 3,530,000 results, most of them regarding this exact topic; I can't help but feel that there is substantial support for my opinion. Despite what the dictionaries say, most of the style and usage guides I consulted said that impact, while often technically correct, is best avoided.
Slashdot Mirror
having a doctor or nurse putting in billing codes will only slow down the process.
It's worse than that. I used to work for an insurance company* and although I can't talk about specifics, I would see errors all the time. For instance, there are several different diagnosis codes for neck pain; the differences involve severity, location, cause, etc. Chiropractors (they were the worst offenders for some reason) would send in claims forms that had the 'wrong' code entered- what I mean is that an insurance plan might cover a specific back problem but not the general, catch-all code for 'back pain' or whatever the office entered. Bam, claim denied.
There are also codes for treatments. Maybe you take your kid to get a scheduled check-up and instead of a level 1 or 2 doctor consultation code you get the well child exam code. Bam, claim denied. Or you take your kid in for a check-up and the office puts in the level 1 doc consult but leaves the diagnosis blank if there's nothing wrong. Bam, claim denied.
A big part of why I left was my misgivings over the ethics of the job. On the surface my job was to correct transcription errors or omissions on claims forms, but really what I was doing was covering the companies ass for each denied claim. I would see 5-figure bills come through and know that they were going to be denied for something as trivial as a missing drug code.
-b
*"which insurance company?" "a major one."
Then the meat must also be protected from germs and parasites which would have a field day munching on the same proteins and sugars that we (ostensibly) want to eat. However, the disembodied monoculture meat has no animal immune system to defend it and it requires a sterile environment in which to grow. We have to shoulder these burdens instead of the animals doing it themselves.
We already 'grow' many different foods under what could loosely be classified as laboratory conditions. Cheese is the first thing that comes to mind; we all know how readily cheese can spoil, yet we manage to age it for months (years, even) and wind up with a delicious and safe product. Uncured sausage is another example of a really great bacteria culture but we do alright for ourselves (and have been for a few thousand years).
In addition, domesticated animals do a terrible job of protecting themselves. That is the very reason that people are working on this project- to reduce the antibiotics, hormones, nutrient supplements, etc that it takes to keep these evolutionary freaks of nature alive (you talk about natural selection in a discussion about domesticated animals?).
I agree that there are issues to overcome in the future, but let's not dismiss this entire idea out of hand.
-b
Based on what I've seen grad students consider to be 'food', I don't think we'll have any problem convinving them to eat what amounts to a dish of hot dog.
-b
This could wind up being more efficient than the current system. We will be increasing our ethanol usage for the forseeable future, and vat-meat could be part of the loop.
-corn, cereals, switchgrass, sugarcane, etc are harvested, the carbohydrates are used to produce ethanol, and the byproducts (crude proteins, fats, nutrients) could be used to grow meat after refining.
-land that was once used for grazing could support additional EToh crops, filling in the energy gap created by the new vat-meat. If the vat-meat process turns out to be more efficient than live cattle, we actually come out ahead energy- and carbon-wise.
This is a win for peta, the environment, our economy, and our health (considering that we could produce cheap lean meat without hormones and antibiotics).
-b
Cows will be around for a while. We've had several different milk substitutes around for many years and people still drink plain old milk. Work on artificial cheese has come about as far as artificial meat due to the complexities of trying to make soy proteins act like milk proteins.
One thing that is forgotten (or ignored) when discussing land use with regards to cattle is that a large majority of the rangeland in the u.s. is unsuitable for farming. In addition, certain breeds of cow can fatten up on land that would starve another breed; proper herd management can allow the animals to fatten up without destroying the soil and plants. This is why it always irks me a bit to hear people talk about how one cow uses enough land to grow wheat for 40 people or some nonsense. Here, take these seeds- go try to grow them out west in the free ranges.
This meat-in-a-vat project has a long way to go- they need to figure out how to tone the muscle, marble it with fat, configure the nutrients to make the meat not taste like a chewable vitamin, etc.
There's a taco bell near here; in 5 years I'll go sample the vat-meat.
-b
Eh, I have to disagree on that point. It has historically gone more like this:
-microbe evolves side by side with a human (or close human relative) population; the humans build up defenses against that particular microbe
Then either:
-Something changes (environment, nutrition, domestic animals, etc.) that tips the scales in one direction or the other, giving you a plague or a reduction in disease
-A previously unexposed group of humans encounters the microbe; the microbe has evolved to deal with human defenses, these humans don't have the defenses, bam, you got yourself a plague.
I have yet to hear of a real human-killing pathogen that just appeared out of nowhere. HIV, for instance, crossed over from our close ape or monkey relatives. Rabies is another one. Anthrax, certain flues, many parasites. My point is that it's very unlikely that life on mars would be deadly to us as an infectious agent because it had spent millions of years focusing on surviving heat, cold, radiation, drought or flood, etc.- and most importantly, there are no food sources that even remotely resemble warm-blooded animals on mars. So the microbes would have to make an evolutionary leap from eating iron, sulfur, or other inorganic substance to dealing with the intricate and extraordinarily hostile environment of a human body.
I'm really not worried about it. There are so many other difficulties to overcome that by the time we actually send people to mars, I'm sure we'll have a pretty good picture of what kind of life, if any, exists there.
-b
I think the word 'faith' muddles the semantic waters too much. You are confusing 'knowledge from experience' with 'knowledge from lore/fable/tradition'.
I'm sure other people- people who've taken philosophy within the last 5 years- will come up with better responses.
I think a better word for scientists would be 'confidence'. I am confident that I will not be eaten by a butterfly tomorrow. I can test that to a confidence well into 6 significant figures simply based on empirical evidence. Similarly, I am confident that my floor will exist below my feet when I swing out of bed tomorrow morning- and according to a conservative 200 years of evidence (since humans developed the first steam-powered floor-detecting technology), I can say with a precision asymptotically approaching 1 that I am right.
The critical difference is: proof or, lacking proof, the possibility of finding proof (prediction) VS faith, i.e., belief in the face of disproof or belief without reason to believe. For example, the belief in good luck charms or horoscopes.
I get to work in a truck. I understand how the truck works; with the right tools, I could build my own truck. Calling the fact that my truck doesn't run on butterfly juice 'faith' is an insult.
-b
Looking at the keyboard is a setback if your keyboard is a foot or two away from the screen (like most computers are set up). Typing on a phone is different because if you are looking at the screen, you are already looking at the keyboard. This is especially true on an iphone where the keyboard usually ends about 1/2" from the text.
I know there are people out there who text with morse code precision, but I hardly ever see it. Whether you have a touch screen, buttons, or flat pads (like the razr) you need to see the screen to catch typos, correct the phone's autocomplete, or scroll through punctuation. Texting on a razr without looking at the phone would result in complete gibberish since the phone, while trying to anticipate which word you want to use next, would end up sending a collection of random words.
-b
1 grain = 0.000142857143 pounds
-b
A main guiding principle of mutually assured destruction is that a retaliatory strike would be lethal to the aggressor (the country that shot first). The ability to mount a retaliatory strike in the face of, during, or after a nuclear attack is dependent on our ability to maintain command and control, targeting, and authorization- and in a worst-case scenario this could be carried out in communication blackout by the missile site operators. We have prepared for scenario after scenario to ensure that we will, without a doubt, wipe out whoever attacked us. And we have taken pains to let the world know that. If we didn't, M.A.D. wouldn't work.
Part of our ability to strike back lies in our multiply-redundant nuclear arsenal. Russia (just for this example) knows where 90% of our nukes are, and you better believe that they have those sites hard-coded in their warheads. But that extra 10%... If that extra 10% is still enough firepower to destroy Russia, then their hands are tied- there's no way they can launch first and not be destroyed.
And that is why we need enough firepower to annihilate the world 40 times over. Sweet dreams, everyone!
-b
First:
We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.
Then:
It seems that those in it for money will opt for iPhone, and those in it for distribution will opt for Android.
I'm not sure this is the best example. Gameloft is both selling more games *and* earning more profit on the itunes store, right? I haven't seen any ads for the android app store, either.
I understand the walled-garden that is the itunes app store, but I don't understand what advantages come from developing solely for android. Less consumer exposure vs open structure?
If the typical slashdot comment is to be believed, the average joe demands ssh, skype, google voice, and voice-to-text. From that perspective, android will be an unqualified success. On the other hand- and this is just from my experience seeing people's iphones- the average joe wants to play games, take pictures, follow sports, and make their phone look like a lighter or a glass of beer.
If android is going to become succesful, it will need to have lots of simple games and novelty applications (like the fake beer). And once that happens, the developers who were complaining yesterday that their quality apps were being lost among the crap on itunes will complain about the same thing with android. Even more so, since apple's opaque approval process won't be there to weed out the worst.
That's just my opinion as of right now; if the playing field changes I'll buy an android phone the minute my current contract expires.
-b
Another /. story brought this to my attention and I did some digging. It turns out that the entire tech-blog-sphere is basing their articles on a 'study' done by Squaretrade, a company that sells extended warranties for computers and phones. I won't get into the ethics of selling warranties for brand-new computers that already carry OEM warranties.
The problem is that Squaretrade is in direct competition with Apple's Applecare. A few quick searches on their website shows that their plans cost more than applecare and that they lack some of the features of applecare (phone support, apple store support, ups dropoff service, etc).
So my advice is to take that bar graph with a grain of salt.
-b
I'm pretty sure he could think of something useful to do with the ~$1.4 million in prize money, plus the international soapbox.
-b
Number 4 according to Squaretrade, a company that sells warranties on computers and is a direct competitor to Apple's Applecare.
Just saying.
fwiw, Consumer Reports consistently ranks Apple at the top or near the top in satisfaction, reliability, and tech support. I can't draw any overall conclusions of my own since most laptop failures I have seen among my friends (covering the gamut of manufacturers) have been a result of physical abuse. otoh a laptop's ability to take abuse without breaking is a big selling point for me.
-b
Alternative password:
-bash: Password not found
Worth a shot.
-b
- Being open source, carriers and smartphone makers can customize it as little or as much as they want
This is the reason I wouldn't put money on your bet. There was an article about verizon's business practices a few days ago that included much discussion of how they purposely made the "OK" button (in some contexts) the "go online and charge me for data whether or not I have a data plan" button in other contexts. Or having the "OK" button that pops up actually try to upload your data instead of saving (saving the photo went under another button).
There are many, many examples of carriers disabling features that interfere with there revenue stream. How many phones out there are carrier-locked to prevent you from loading your own (free) ringtones? Or one that I really hate, disabling the mini-usb port so you have to use the carrier software to transfer files to and from your computer?
I'm not taking sides as far as carriers go, simply because there isn't one without some BS lockdown on at least some of their phones (speaking from the U.S.).
So for me, looking at the past behavior of carriers makes me less than optimistic about the success of any phone OS, let alone one that isn't designed from the outset to monetize basic functionality.
It would nice if you turned out to be right, though.
-b
If we ever do have the pleasure of meeting some of them, we'll probably do what we've done throughout our entire history of existence.
What if the aliens do what *we've* done throughout our history and comes as missionaries?
I'd like to listen to the council argue over what to do when the first undeniable proof of extraterrestrial life comes bearing 'the good news'.
-b
At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever.
I don't mind that. No, seriously. When cable TV started, the idea was that if you paid for content, you wouldn't have to deal with commercials (we all saw how that turned out).
I would be happy to pay for the content I watch as long as I am only paying for the content I *want* to watch. This will save money for me and funnel money into the kinds of shows that I watch. It seems like a win-win situation to me.
I would be happy if my money went into a system with futurama and arrested development and NOT everybody loves raymond. That would mean that I got what I wanted and the producers would see that one more person wasn't willing to pay for crap (or what I consider to be crap).
-b
I would like to imagine that world... However, in the world *I* live in, my connection is throttled down to 30-60kbs after I download a few too many albums or watch too much streaming video from Hulu.
Here's how my life works- I have to prioritize my viewing. Ok, the latest daily show and colbert report should stream just fine because I've been at work all day. Done and done. OK, now I want to watch last night's Conan Obrien- I'll have to watch this in sections, since the hulu player only lets you preload a few seconds of video at a time. I'll use this time to catch up on slashdot and xkcd while I wait for the video to catch up. Ok, after the two hours it took to watch conan I want to watch the latest south park episode. The official south park episode player works like the hulu player in that pausing the player only allows a few seconds/maybe a minute to cache. That won't work for me at this point so I go to a japanese or korean website that uses the youtube version of caching, ie, you can press pause and come back in 20 minutes to find at least 10 minutes have already downloaded.
I do dream of a world where I can download all the video I want, but right now I have to work with what I have. Netflix, boxee, et al won't work for me when my connection gets progressively slower for each ~400MB I use in a 24 hour period.
-b
This is by far the best post of the week. My hat is off to you. And I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
-b
How funny is that: A guy airing his opinion on a public medium about how other people's opinions shouldn't be aired on public media...
We need a CNN story on this (complete with tweets) to bring things full circle.
-b
You can buy dynamite at hardware stores? A thousand pounds of it? Please tell me what state you live in because that is where I will move in a heartbeat. Around here you need to get a permit from the department of public safety or the local sheriff or police dept.
-b
You know how they call suicide bombers cowards and terrorists? Well, I call cruise missile launchers cowards and terrorists.
I think the distinction lies not in ability but intent. We do not send cruise missiles 1,000 miles just to land in a crowded disco. I won't deny that these things happen by accident sometimes; however, it is never our mission to specifically seek out and destroy civilian targets based on the likelihood of maximum death, injury, and terror.
Dropping a bomb on an insurgent camp probably does cause terror among the insurgents, but those insurgents represent a threat. Drunk dancers in a bar in Mali represent a threat to no one but their own dignity.
That is the difference.
-b
The 'net used to account for 1/3, but since that time it has either shrunk due to patches or other 'nets have vastly outpaced it. That caught me off guard, too.
-b
To be honest, when I reread the gpp's question it occurred to me that this entire thing might have been a misunderstanding. It is, I concede, purely a matter of taste when deciding to use impact or affect or strike. However, matters of taste are what make slashdot slashdot. I still believe (as I mentioned in another post earlier and elsewhere) that impact usually falls into the same category as actionable, synergy, gifted, etc: words devoid of any added meaning outside their original jargon (and sometimes not even then). Buzzwords. Advertising words.
In the context of the /. title, the word makes sense. I misread the gpp's intentions and thought he was talking about the word in general usage. Sorry to waste everyone's time being wrong. However, a quick search for impact verb yields 3,530,000 results, most of them regarding this exact topic; I can't help but feel that there is substantial support for my opinion. Despite what the dictionaries say, most of the style and usage guides I consulted said that impact, while often technically correct, is best avoided.
-b