For the record (because it's the Internet and it never forgets and stuff), I might express my distaste for micro USB, but that in no way should imply that I am in favor of whatever gizmo Apple comes up with.
I've seen their magnetic laptop connectors. That's a pretty sweet idea.
I just think it's absolute nonsense for the EU to claim that standardized connectors should be, well, standardized, when those connectors are *by design* engineered to last X.
Maybe if they stopped trying to figure out how cheaply they can get 10,000 insertion cycles manufactured, they might consider building a connector that was as robust as a simple two-prong power outlet.
Springs and little release hooks are not a replacement for a connector that simply needs a little more depth. To be honest, I'd be much happier with one of the round power connectors (like those old Nokia phones) than a micro USB connector.
Oh... but data? Screw data. I don't need my device to sync itself to some unknown entity every time I plug it in. These batteries suck as it is, so the fact that I need to constantly keep it plugged in should not be a fault of "clumsy use".
Blah. Apologies for the trollish rant... I'm done now.
By the way I assume you took the device to get repaired right?
Actually, it just sits on my desk. Literally a paper weight.
I haven't replaced it, no. I've decided that I prefer for people to just get a hold of me through email. Get off my lawn. and such.
The devices I use most these days are a small wifi hotspot ($50/mo w/Clear) that goes with me most places. I keep it in my pack so that I have my own Internet whether I move or am just downtown for whatever. Like I said, I had the Galaxy Player 5 (which I would love for somebody to update to a modern device, ie. android w/o cell plan) until that stopped charging. I still have my old HTC Evo from when I had a Sprint plan, fortunately that still works (the WiFi performance kinda sux), so I am not totally w/o a device. I suppose at some point I could have the Galaxy fixed. It's basically the same device as the Note.
As it is, I sort of prefer to be left alone to do my work. Bartleby I may be, so I'd prefer not to.
Let's look at the most recent device, a Samsung Galaxy Player 5. That one stopped working properly one day when I had unplugged it from the charging cord (like I would do each morning) only to find that the little wafer of plastic that sits in the middle of the female port came out of the device.
Other USB connectors (of various sizes) I have seen do the exact same thing over the years across all sorts of devices. What did those devices have in common? They were handled constantly. On devices that do little but sit there, the connector works well.
Kudos. You've managed to never break one in your life. This doesn't change the fact that other people will use these devices in a manner much less "sterile" than yours. Being a clutz has nothing to do with it, because, well, I'm not a clutz. I will admit, though, that occupational hazards probably contributed the majority of wear and tear on my devices.
In the end, a micro USB connector (and other USB connectors to an extent) is terribly fragile and no matter if it breaks because you gave your phone to a baby while it was plugged in or if it breaks because of normal wear and tear, the end result is the same, electronic waste. If the goal of the EU is to reduce this waste, choosing micro USB is directly in conflict with that goal.
...and thinking just a bit further, I have, in my lifetime, lost more laptops to connector failure than I have lost spinning hard disks due to any failure. I've had one spinning hard disk fail in my life (I've bought a new disk probably once every two years since about 1992). I have lost several laptops to broken connectors (both power and data connectors).
I currently have several devices that are nothing more than paper weights now as they are no longer chargeable due to broken micro USB ports.
It's not a terrible design for something like an external hard disk or other device that generally just sits there. On a device that is designed to be handled constantly, however, it falls flat on its face. The connection is simply too fragile.
If the EU really wants to reduce waste, they would mandate a connector that didn't break so easily, thus bricking the device. This is less of a problem nowadays with laptops, but they too have suffered this problem long enough that at this point the only reason you would keep releasing devices with fragile power connectors is that you are engineering obsolescence.
I'm pretty sure that one of the considerations when coming up with these tax levels is that the price of pot in general is going to nosedive, especially compared to inflation.
I assume it is still common for pot to cost somewhere between $40-50 for 1/8 oz everywhere else in the country. This price has been fairly stable since I was a teenager in the 90's. However, at least here in Denver, the price has been more than cut in half already, and I can only see it going down further. Like I said, I almost never pay for it, as there are plenty of people (even strangers) that are willing to give it to you for free ("oh man you have to try this new bozzanical freedom red kush I grew!").
We're voting in November to approve the taxes on recreational pot (Colorado version).
Off the top of my head (the little election booklet is downstairs... it's Saturday, I'm not getting it) it is something along the lines of:
15% excise tax on wholesale (any sale from a cultivator to a processor).
10% sales tax on purchases, in addition to 2.9% state sales tax and I am assuming the additional municipal sales taxes (the booklet didn't really mention municipal sales taxes, though only really currently relevant for Denver since that's the only municipality that has approved recreational sale. Denver is I think 4.85%, so 7.75% total sales tax).
While these figures may seem high (hehe) it will only be the recreational shops that will be dealing with this. If you grow your own in the closet, you don't have to pay tax on it. One of the main points of Amendment 64 that proponents mentioned was the potential tax revenue being a boon to the state. Now, it remains to be seen, will the heavy tax simply push users to grow their own to avoid the tax? That much is expected from regular users, but not the occasional user who isn't going to bother growing as much as a basil plant.
In the end, though, I don't suspect my source of pot will change much if at all. I don't grow pot and I don't buy pot, yet, there is always pot around. Friends who work at grow-ops might stop by... "Oh you don't have any? Here's a jar full to keep around..." People give pot away all the time, and it is entirely legal to do so. Heck, one of my roommates works for a company that is selling these sweet vaporizers and catridges. If nothing else, there's usually "promotional models" laying around to use.
The other night while falling asleep, I was thinking "man, some mac'n'cheese sounds good right now." Little did I know my roommate was downstairs making some at almost that exact time.
Just WHY was she doing that? WHY was I thinking that? Am I to beleive that someone was pulling our strings? Or is it possible that some things simply happen coincidentally?
Twitter was an invaluable tool for organizing during Hurricane Sandy in 2012
As well, during the recent floods here in Colorado, there was only a single local news outlet providing any sort of coverage. That coverage was better than nothing, but not by much.
Twitter, on the other hand, was providing valuable information from across the area about what was going on, roads washed out, etc. Also (and likely because the floods were happening in Boulder) there were a number of tweets coming from some folks at NOAA and other related government agencies that provided links to rapidly changing conditions.
That event was the first time I ever considered Twitter to be more valuable than all other news outlets combined, simply because it also includes information from regular people (photos, accounts of what happened, etc). I was even able to find out some critical information about the roads near my family's nursery that was posted by, of all people, a guy that worked at a local brewery.
Aside from all of that, Twitter was more valuable than local news simply because the people they send out to do location reports are complete idiots many times.
Remember, it's not all about the affected people having access to information, it's also about those nearby who will be able to help if they have that information.
There is definitely a lot of money to be made if one were to somehow rig a Powerball drawing so that they purchased a ticket with the numbers that would be known to come up (numbers that nobody else chose to boot).
Yes yes, how would they rig the numbers... I get it. It's not likely, and that is exactly the point. Even in Powerball they take precautions to prevent this sort of thing from happening despite how unlikely it is.
Why shouldn't it be criminal if what the person was doing was against the law?
If you're stopped because your car broke down or something, yes, that's entirely different. But if you're stopped because you are not paying attention while you are behind the wheel, then yes, you should absolutely be given blame as it is your actions that are contributing to an unsafe situation.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I am an American, early-mid 30's, and this statement I have known to be true (somewhere in a repressed part of my brain) for nearly two decades.
I am human. I have seen the photos that also humanize the folks in Syria. It's terrible the things that happen.
How about, instead, we simply discuss the merits of CodeIgniter vs. Laraval... or something... ???
The future of web development rides on us figuring out how to make PHP not completely suck. Enough with the ideological crusades. Lets start fixing problems that impact the world we love... the world we intend to leave for our sons and daughters (after giving them a link to php.net...)
Some things are truly worth it. Gather 'round boys. We've got work to do...
Whoa whoa... I wouldn't go so far as to call it a slur. Wooks are proud to be wooks. And, I mean, can you blame them? Out of all possible slurs, they were assigned "wook". Wooks were pretty badass. Yes, some people use it as a slander... though, they/re usually are too busy with their 9-5 that they wouldn't get it if they tried.
Back when people used to make me write papers and bother with writing all these silly citations, I always wondered why I could not simply cite Wikipedia, seeing as the wiki would then also include citations to all the things I was citing anyway.
This was confusing to me. I knew that at some point in the future whatever I am citing is going to no longer exist, making that citation invalid (of course, who's going to be reading my paper in 20 years... but I digress).
Why is it not perfectly acceptable to cite Wikipedia these days? It still relies on donations and such, but it's not going anywhere; once you cite something through Wikipedia, you are effectively future-proofing your citations.
Seems a lot less redundant than citing the other pages that are cited on Wikipedia. I guess academia isn't terribly keen on their industry going belly-up because of obsolescence.
I know of a particular camp site in Utah that is near the edge of the rim of Canyonlands. If you didn't know it was there you'd never find it unless you went out of your way to look for it. I'd much rather collect a dozen or so friends and plan a week out there for a heckuva lot less money.
If others are confused, the correct term and spelling is "wook", as in "wookie". A term that is essentially the 2013 version of "hippie" (with some changes, such as wooks not only being into "festies" where they can watch Further, String Cheese, etc, but they also like that heavy hip-hop crunk dub step stuff as well).
Slashdot Mirror
AI won't be teaching my children. For that matter, some lifetime NEA member won't be teaching my children either.
If anyone is going to indoctrinate my children, it's going to be me.
For the record (because it's the Internet and it never forgets and stuff), I might express my distaste for micro USB, but that in no way should imply that I am in favor of whatever gizmo Apple comes up with.
I've seen their magnetic laptop connectors. That's a pretty sweet idea.
I just think it's absolute nonsense for the EU to claim that standardized connectors should be, well, standardized, when those connectors are *by design* engineered to last X.
Maybe if they stopped trying to figure out how cheaply they can get 10,000 insertion cycles manufactured, they might consider building a connector that was as robust as a simple two-prong power outlet.
Springs and little release hooks are not a replacement for a connector that simply needs a little more depth. To be honest, I'd be much happier with one of the round power connectors (like those old Nokia phones) than a micro USB connector.
Oh... but data? Screw data. I don't need my device to sync itself to some unknown entity every time I plug it in. These batteries suck as it is, so the fact that I need to constantly keep it plugged in should not be a fault of "clumsy use".
Blah. Apologies for the trollish rant... I'm done now.
By the way I assume you took the device to get repaired right?
Actually, it just sits on my desk. Literally a paper weight.
I haven't replaced it, no. I've decided that I prefer for people to just get a hold of me through email. Get off my lawn. and such.
The devices I use most these days are a small wifi hotspot ($50/mo w/Clear) that goes with me most places. I keep it in my pack so that I have my own Internet whether I move or am just downtown for whatever. Like I said, I had the Galaxy Player 5 (which I would love for somebody to update to a modern device, ie. android w/o cell plan) until that stopped charging. I still have my old HTC Evo from when I had a Sprint plan, fortunately that still works (the WiFi performance kinda sux), so I am not totally w/o a device. I suppose at some point I could have the Galaxy fixed. It's basically the same device as the Note.
As it is, I sort of prefer to be left alone to do my work. Bartleby I may be, so I'd prefer not to.
I must have been holding it wrong, right?!?!
Let's look at the most recent device, a Samsung Galaxy Player 5. That one stopped working properly one day when I had unplugged it from the charging cord (like I would do each morning) only to find that the little wafer of plastic that sits in the middle of the female port came out of the device.
Other USB connectors (of various sizes) I have seen do the exact same thing over the years across all sorts of devices. What did those devices have in common? They were handled constantly. On devices that do little but sit there, the connector works well.
Kudos. You've managed to never break one in your life. This doesn't change the fact that other people will use these devices in a manner much less "sterile" than yours. Being a clutz has nothing to do with it, because, well, I'm not a clutz. I will admit, though, that occupational hazards probably contributed the majority of wear and tear on my devices.
In the end, a micro USB connector (and other USB connectors to an extent) is terribly fragile and no matter if it breaks because you gave your phone to a baby while it was plugged in or if it breaks because of normal wear and tear, the end result is the same, electronic waste. If the goal of the EU is to reduce this waste, choosing micro USB is directly in conflict with that goal.
...and thinking just a bit further, I have, in my lifetime, lost more laptops to connector failure than I have lost spinning hard disks due to any failure. I've had one spinning hard disk fail in my life (I've bought a new disk probably once every two years since about 1992). I have lost several laptops to broken connectors (both power and data connectors).
Eventually? The sooner the better, if you ask me.
I currently have several devices that are nothing more than paper weights now as they are no longer chargeable due to broken micro USB ports.
It's not a terrible design for something like an external hard disk or other device that generally just sits there. On a device that is designed to be handled constantly, however, it falls flat on its face. The connection is simply too fragile.
If the EU really wants to reduce waste, they would mandate a connector that didn't break so easily, thus bricking the device. This is less of a problem nowadays with laptops, but they too have suffered this problem long enough that at this point the only reason you would keep releasing devices with fragile power connectors is that you are engineering obsolescence.
I'm pretty sure that one of the considerations when coming up with these tax levels is that the price of pot in general is going to nosedive, especially compared to inflation.
I assume it is still common for pot to cost somewhere between $40-50 for 1/8 oz everywhere else in the country. This price has been fairly stable since I was a teenager in the 90's. However, at least here in Denver, the price has been more than cut in half already, and I can only see it going down further. Like I said, I almost never pay for it, as there are plenty of people (even strangers) that are willing to give it to you for free ("oh man you have to try this new bozzanical freedom red kush I grew!").
Lots of sample content available for free. Just scroll down to "Contents" and browse around. Google
We're voting in November to approve the taxes on recreational pot (Colorado version).
Off the top of my head (the little election booklet is downstairs... it's Saturday, I'm not getting it) it is something along the lines of:
15% excise tax on wholesale (any sale from a cultivator to a processor).
10% sales tax on purchases, in addition to 2.9% state sales tax and I am assuming the additional municipal sales taxes (the booklet didn't really mention municipal sales taxes, though only really currently relevant for Denver since that's the only municipality that has approved recreational sale. Denver is I think 4.85%, so 7.75% total sales tax).
While these figures may seem high (hehe) it will only be the recreational shops that will be dealing with this. If you grow your own in the closet, you don't have to pay tax on it. One of the main points of Amendment 64 that proponents mentioned was the potential tax revenue being a boon to the state. Now, it remains to be seen, will the heavy tax simply push users to grow their own to avoid the tax? That much is expected from regular users, but not the occasional user who isn't going to bother growing as much as a basil plant.
In the end, though, I don't suspect my source of pot will change much if at all. I don't grow pot and I don't buy pot, yet, there is always pot around. Friends who work at grow-ops might stop by... "Oh you don't have any? Here's a jar full to keep around..." People give pot away all the time, and it is entirely legal to do so. Heck, one of my roommates works for a company that is selling these sweet vaporizers and catridges. If nothing else, there's usually "promotional models" laying around to use.
If anyone would like more proof that it is her in charge, give "The Martha Rules" a read.
Alternatively, if you don't give a shit about this but you're starting a small business, give it a read anyway, you'll thank her later.
The other night while falling asleep, I was thinking "man, some mac'n'cheese sounds good right now." Little did I know my roommate was downstairs making some at almost that exact time.
Just WHY was she doing that? WHY was I thinking that? Am I to beleive that someone was pulling our strings? Or is it possible that some things simply happen coincidentally?
one thing we were thinking was how useful it would be if Twitter actually had formal support for emergency communications.
I had the same thought, and it seems as simple as adding geotags to tweets (especially photos). The rest is arbitrary.
Maybe one day we will be allowed to upgrade RAM on these cards so that going from 1Gb to 2Gb didn't cost you another $60.
Twitter was an invaluable tool for organizing during Hurricane Sandy in 2012
As well, during the recent floods here in Colorado, there was only a single local news outlet providing any sort of coverage. That coverage was better than nothing, but not by much.
Twitter, on the other hand, was providing valuable information from across the area about what was going on, roads washed out, etc. Also (and likely because the floods were happening in Boulder) there were a number of tweets coming from some folks at NOAA and other related government agencies that provided links to rapidly changing conditions.
That event was the first time I ever considered Twitter to be more valuable than all other news outlets combined, simply because it also includes information from regular people (photos, accounts of what happened, etc). I was even able to find out some critical information about the roads near my family's nursery that was posted by, of all people, a guy that worked at a local brewery.
Aside from all of that, Twitter was more valuable than local news simply because the people they send out to do location reports are complete idiots many times.
Remember, it's not all about the affected people having access to information, it's also about those nearby who will be able to help if they have that information.
There is definitely a lot of money to be made if one were to somehow rig a Powerball drawing so that they purchased a ticket with the numbers that would be known to come up (numbers that nobody else chose to boot).
Yes yes, how would they rig the numbers... I get it. It's not likely, and that is exactly the point. Even in Powerball they take precautions to prevent this sort of thing from happening despite how unlikely it is.
Jerks. They were probably born a poor black child.
That someone doesn't understand relativistic physics.
It's quite possible they do understand the physics, it's just that a massive financial gain clouded their judgement and they overlooked the delay.
Aside from proper indenting on replies?
Why shouldn't it be criminal if what the person was doing was against the law?
If you're stopped because your car broke down or something, yes, that's entirely different. But if you're stopped because you are not paying attention while you are behind the wheel, then yes, you should absolutely be given blame as it is your actions that are contributing to an unsafe situation.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I am an American, early-mid 30's, and this statement I have known to be true (somewhere in a repressed part of my brain) for nearly two decades.
I am human. I have seen the photos that also humanize the folks in Syria. It's terrible the things that happen.
How about, instead, we simply discuss the merits of CodeIgniter vs. Laraval... or something... ???
The future of web development rides on us figuring out how to make PHP not completely suck. Enough with the ideological crusades. Lets start fixing problems that impact the world we love... the world we intend to leave for our sons and daughters (after giving them a link to php.net...)
Some things are truly worth it. Gather 'round boys. We've got work to do...
False! I could have sworn I've seen it in Hollywood... at least, like, five times!
Whoa whoa... I wouldn't go so far as to call it a slur. Wooks are proud to be wooks. And, I mean, can you blame them? Out of all possible slurs, they were assigned "wook". Wooks were pretty badass. Yes, some people use it as a slander... though, they/re usually are too busy with their 9-5 that they wouldn't get it if they tried.
Back when people used to make me write papers and bother with writing all these silly citations, I always wondered why I could not simply cite Wikipedia, seeing as the wiki would then also include citations to all the things I was citing anyway.
This was confusing to me. I knew that at some point in the future whatever I am citing is going to no longer exist, making that citation invalid (of course, who's going to be reading my paper in 20 years... but I digress).
Why is it not perfectly acceptable to cite Wikipedia these days? It still relies on donations and such, but it's not going anywhere; once you cite something through Wikipedia, you are effectively future-proofing your citations.
Seems a lot less redundant than citing the other pages that are cited on Wikipedia. I guess academia isn't terribly keen on their industry going belly-up because of obsolescence.
Precisely my thoughts.
I know of a particular camp site in Utah that is near the edge of the rim of Canyonlands. If you didn't know it was there you'd never find it unless you went out of your way to look for it. I'd much rather collect a dozen or so friends and plan a week out there for a heckuva lot less money.
If others are confused, the correct term and spelling is "wook", as in "wookie". A term that is essentially the 2013 version of "hippie" (with some changes, such as wooks not only being into "festies" where they can watch Further, String Cheese, etc, but they also like that heavy hip-hop crunk dub step stuff as well).