That was Bradbury? I remember reading that story in elementary school, back before I could keep track of author's names. That one has stuck with me for probably 3 decades now. I haven't read as much of his stuff as I should, but I've liked what I have read. Time to dig up some classics.
I've got to say, if a lamp breaks on me I'm not going to buy a replacement lamp from the same company. Shoddy products with built-in expiration only make a good business model if they're all in on it together - which for all I know they may be.
I agree, touch lamps are kind of nice, and they are an improvement. Of course they're a little mysterious if you don't know it's a touch lamp and you're trying to figure out how to turn one on, but generally fumbling around for where you think the switch *should* be will trigger the lamp.
I don't think there's too much of a problem having to step through the low-mid-bright stages as you turn it off, as all three-way lamps have the same problem. If I'm going to sleep I just shut my eyes before triggering the lamp and it's less of a problem, though our only touch lamp is in the kid's room, so I may be messing with her a little.
There is also the occasional problem of accidentally turning on the lamp when you're fumbling around for something else, but it's still far better than the normal fumbling around for a hidden switch.
I'll admit that while renting a Civic I kept turning the brights on while trying to activate the turn signal, since they were on the same lever. The sensitivity for the brights (pull towards me) was very low, while the turn signal (up/down) took more force, and the darn lever kept folding in on me. Now this was only for a few days, probably I would have gotten the hang of it eventually, but I think I flashed the brights at least a dozen times. Sometimes mixed controls can be a pain.
Lamps have infuriating and nonsensical design problems.
1. The switch is almost always put in the most inaccessible of places: behind the lamp shade where you can't see it, can't peek around the shade if the light is on because it's too bright, can't peek around the shade if the light is off because it's too dark, and if you feel around with your fingers you risk being burned by the bulb. Also, most table lamps are set in a position where you really need a second elbow to be able to reach under, across, and back up to reach the switch. A sensible lamp switch should always be visible.
2. Inconsistent activation methods: you've got knobs, pull strings, little pins to push, sometimes levers. Your own lamps you get used to often enough, but any new lamp is always a mystery and takes far too much investigation just to figure out how it works. Particularly when the lever is entirely hidden (see #1 above). A sensible switch mechanism should be obvious at a glance.
3. Poor durability. Despite the fact that every lamp has basically exactly one moving part, that part breaks or jams far too often. I can't tell you how many lamps I've thrown away because the activator either bound up so tightly you can't turn it anymore, or became so loose turning it didn't work the mechanism. A device with a single moving part should have a well-designed part that continues to move appropriately for decades without problem.
4. Poor usability. The activator device is almost always more complicated or less efficient than it needs to be. So many lamps have knobs that are tiny, thin little sticks, which makes it almost impossible to rotate them. (This is the type that invariably binds up, making the situation worse). You should have nice, big knobs or easy-to-grip dongles on the end to take advantage of applied force and angular rotation - it's much easier to turn a screwdriver than a screw, and easier still to turn a wrench than a screwdriver. Most knobs also only rotate one direction, which means if the knob is positioned on the left side of the lamp for righties or the right side of the lamp for lefties, you either need an awkward reach around or to reposition the lamp to rotate the darn thing - not terrible if you only ever reach in from one position, but difficult if you approach the lamp from different angles (both sides of a desk, say, or if one person in the house is a righty and the other a lefty). The push pins are just as bad: you need your hand on one side of the lamp to turn it on, but your hand has to to to the other side of the lamp to turn it off, and you have to fumble around to figure out which side has the pin sticking out. The beaded draw strings are really lousy about catching and jamming. Compared to another very popular on/off switch -- the common wall-mounted light switch -- all of these are badly inferior. I've never, ever had a light switch fail on me, but lamp switches break all the time. (Even the average power button - press once for on and press again for off - is vastly superior.)
5. They're unnecessarily loud. Again, compare to a normal wall-mounted light switch which works silently, the average lamp is surprisingly noisy as it clicks or clacks. I've woken up my wife turning off the bedside lamp at night, and there are enough times that my baby -- in another room, behind two closed doors -- wakes up as I turn off the light that I suspect she can hear it. This is *not* an unusually loud lamp; just the normal sudden clacking is enough in a dark and quiet space to startle someone.
6. Added to the noise is the fact that most lamp shades simply will NOT stay tightened, and also spin and rattle when they inevitably come loose. Being able to change a shade is a valuable option, but I'd say I change one shade a decade. With approximately ten lamps in the house, that means the average lamp shade life span is about a century. Even disregarding that loose math, the default behavior should clearly favor being fixed in place. Much better that it's hard to remove the shade th
Wow, that's handy. I picked one of my images at random, and there's 27 matches out there. It appears that some quiz-based site stole it and displays the image if you match a certain personality. I don't know whether to be complimented or outraged. Or both. Checked a few others, no matches at all. Guess just the one was popular:
http://quirkz.com/creative/st_hell.php
I only have one data point for this, but my one adult friend who was really into wrestling said he enjoyed it at a meta-level for the scripting. He knew the wrestling was fake, but he liked how they put together the drama, all the twists and turns and betrayals, etc.
For what it's worth, I still don't understand how that could make it watchable, but he was a pretty smart guy and seemed to be getting something out of it.
Most of the modern HDTVs don't have buttons on the front anymore. They're around the side or even on back. It's more sleek and stylish that way, I guess. Besides, most people are using cable or some other input box to change the channels rather than the TV itself.
I hate to drop a Bill Clinton, but it really does matter what "are" means in this context. During high school, college, and even post college, I did occasionally pirate software, primarily stuff that I wasn't in any position to afford, mostly either to play around with or for home use when I had a valid copy at the office. Now that I'm in my 30s, have a reasonable income, and also have some intentions to have legitimate home business, I buy what I need. In many cases what I buy is new versions of the stuff I had formerly pirated (Photoshop, Office, etc.) because I want to keep using the same stuff I've used over the past decade or longer. I don't think I've had pirated software on the last two or three computers I've owned.
I'm not sure what this survey would categorize me as. Would they say I "am" a pirate because I've done it in the past? Or that I'm not one because all my current software is legit? Does pirating anything, once upon a time, make you a pirate for life?
Unfortunately, any of those code-monkeys have to wait 6 months after the IPO before they're allowed to sell. I don't think any regular Joes got anything yesterday, and they're going to have to wait for this to play out for half a year before they can cash out.
We got logo in the 5th grade, and a repeat in the 6th grade. I loved it, but thinking back I think my biggest obstacle wasn't learning programming itself, but struggling with typing. I can remember figuring out in a few seconds what I *wanted* the program to do, and then taking tens of minutes painfully putting down the text and going back to fix typing errors. It wasn't until I got a typing class in high school that I finally got good enough that typing wasn't painfully slow, and not really until college when I got exposure to the internet and the ability to chat online that I actually got fast.
Wow, I'm not sure I ever got a character to level 70. Never had that much time or patience, and by that far through it always started to feel repetitive. If that's where the game is supposed to *start*, then it took far too much time and energy to get there.
My preferences are exactly opposite yours: I don't play MMO's, or any games that require a constant internet connection. I played Diablo 2 exclusively in single-player and never had a problem with it. In fact, I liked it. (I tried online a couple of times and considered that a mostly miserable experience.) I don't have any interest at all in a "completely validated system" but I do have an interest in playing while offline.
I really loved the first two games in the series. Played both a ton. I'd buy a copy yesterday if I could play standalone, but I really and truly don't like the online requirement so I'm not going to buy. It's not so much because of any grand philosophy about DRM or anything, just an additional hassle and restriction I don't want.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
on
Diablo III Released
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· Score: 1
Hey, I remember Spectre! I wasted a lot of hours in college playing that game when I should have been doing homework. Good stuff.
I like that. Sadly, the laptop is a Mac. But that's a useful thing to know, because I do also spend a lot of time on Windows. Might come in handy, thanks.
Very timely question. We've got an 11-month-old and Skype with relatives a couple of times a week. We were just commenting yesterday that the most useful addition to our laptop would be a "deactivate the keyboard" switch on the side, so that she could tap keys and poke at the trackpad without causing any disruption. It's really amazing how one wild open-palm slap can so often hit the right combination to disconnect or disrupt the call.
While inevitably said switch would cause more problems than it solves by getting turned off accidentally all of the time, I'd still like one. On the plus side, it'd probably be useful for some cat owners, too.
Romney's the candidate who... stated during his candidacy "I like to fire people,"
I've got no love for Romney, but 1) this was blown way out of proportion when he said it, and 2) you're badly misquoting the line and the context. You do know that, don't you?
My first thought was this is a great resource for me as a reader. I went out, scanned the list, and downloaded a couple of books right away because I'm very excited about free textbooks on topics I wanted to learn more about. I've bookmarked the site and will be going back regularly to see what else gets added.
Grandparents*, you mean. The third implies that his predecessors had the same name (his father being the second and his grandfather being the third). Having a number in your name doesn't imply anything about future generations. I should know, I'm a son of a man who's the fourth of his name, but he decided to buck the trend and give me an entirely different first name.
*And the simple answer is of course he has grandparents or he wouldn't be here. There's nothing to speculate about in that arena.
A different frame of reference doesn't make the event happen a second time, just that the timing of the event isn't consistent between one frame of reference and the next. Seeing something sooner or later doesn't change the energy of the event.
Slashdot Mirror
That was Bradbury? I remember reading that story in elementary school, back before I could keep track of author's names. That one has stuck with me for probably 3 decades now. I haven't read as much of his stuff as I should, but I've liked what I have read. Time to dig up some classics.
I've got to say, if a lamp breaks on me I'm not going to buy a replacement lamp from the same company. Shoddy products with built-in expiration only make a good business model if they're all in on it together - which for all I know they may be.
I agree, touch lamps are kind of nice, and they are an improvement. Of course they're a little mysterious if you don't know it's a touch lamp and you're trying to figure out how to turn one on, but generally fumbling around for where you think the switch *should* be will trigger the lamp.
I don't think there's too much of a problem having to step through the low-mid-bright stages as you turn it off, as all three-way lamps have the same problem. If I'm going to sleep I just shut my eyes before triggering the lamp and it's less of a problem, though our only touch lamp is in the kid's room, so I may be messing with her a little.
There is also the occasional problem of accidentally turning on the lamp when you're fumbling around for something else, but it's still far better than the normal fumbling around for a hidden switch.
So what you're saying is there's a correlation between the ability to understand homophones and homo sapiens?
I'll admit that while renting a Civic I kept turning the brights on while trying to activate the turn signal, since they were on the same lever. The sensitivity for the brights (pull towards me) was very low, while the turn signal (up/down) took more force, and the darn lever kept folding in on me. Now this was only for a few days, probably I would have gotten the hang of it eventually, but I think I flashed the brights at least a dozen times. Sometimes mixed controls can be a pain.
Lamps have infuriating and nonsensical design problems.
1. The switch is almost always put in the most inaccessible of places: behind the lamp shade where you can't see it, can't peek around the shade if the light is on because it's too bright, can't peek around the shade if the light is off because it's too dark, and if you feel around with your fingers you risk being burned by the bulb. Also, most table lamps are set in a position where you really need a second elbow to be able to reach under, across, and back up to reach the switch. A sensible lamp switch should always be visible.
2. Inconsistent activation methods: you've got knobs, pull strings, little pins to push, sometimes levers. Your own lamps you get used to often enough, but any new lamp is always a mystery and takes far too much investigation just to figure out how it works. Particularly when the lever is entirely hidden (see #1 above). A sensible switch mechanism should be obvious at a glance.
3. Poor durability. Despite the fact that every lamp has basically exactly one moving part, that part breaks or jams far too often. I can't tell you how many lamps I've thrown away because the activator either bound up so tightly you can't turn it anymore, or became so loose turning it didn't work the mechanism. A device with a single moving part should have a well-designed part that continues to move appropriately for decades without problem.
4. Poor usability. The activator device is almost always more complicated or less efficient than it needs to be. So many lamps have knobs that are tiny, thin little sticks, which makes it almost impossible to rotate them. (This is the type that invariably binds up, making the situation worse). You should have nice, big knobs or easy-to-grip dongles on the end to take advantage of applied force and angular rotation - it's much easier to turn a screwdriver than a screw, and easier still to turn a wrench than a screwdriver. Most knobs also only rotate one direction, which means if the knob is positioned on the left side of the lamp for righties or the right side of the lamp for lefties, you either need an awkward reach around or to reposition the lamp to rotate the darn thing - not terrible if you only ever reach in from one position, but difficult if you approach the lamp from different angles (both sides of a desk, say, or if one person in the house is a righty and the other a lefty). The push pins are just as bad: you need your hand on one side of the lamp to turn it on, but your hand has to to to the other side of the lamp to turn it off, and you have to fumble around to figure out which side has the pin sticking out. The beaded draw strings are really lousy about catching and jamming. Compared to another very popular on/off switch -- the common wall-mounted light switch -- all of these are badly inferior. I've never, ever had a light switch fail on me, but lamp switches break all the time. (Even the average power button - press once for on and press again for off - is vastly superior.)
5. They're unnecessarily loud. Again, compare to a normal wall-mounted light switch which works silently, the average lamp is surprisingly noisy as it clicks or clacks. I've woken up my wife turning off the bedside lamp at night, and there are enough times that my baby -- in another room, behind two closed doors -- wakes up as I turn off the light that I suspect she can hear it. This is *not* an unusually loud lamp; just the normal sudden clacking is enough in a dark and quiet space to startle someone.
6. Added to the noise is the fact that most lamp shades simply will NOT stay tightened, and also spin and rattle when they inevitably come loose. Being able to change a shade is a valuable option, but I'd say I change one shade a decade. With approximately ten lamps in the house, that means the average lamp shade life span is about a century. Even disregarding that loose math, the default behavior should clearly favor being fixed in place. Much better that it's hard to remove the shade th
Wow, that's handy. I picked one of my images at random, and there's 27 matches out there. It appears that some quiz-based site stole it and displays the image if you match a certain personality. I don't know whether to be complimented or outraged. Or both. Checked a few others, no matches at all. Guess just the one was popular: http://quirkz.com/creative/st_hell.php
I only have one data point for this, but my one adult friend who was really into wrestling said he enjoyed it at a meta-level for the scripting. He knew the wrestling was fake, but he liked how they put together the drama, all the twists and turns and betrayals, etc.
For what it's worth, I still don't understand how that could make it watchable, but he was a pretty smart guy and seemed to be getting something out of it.
Most of the modern HDTVs don't have buttons on the front anymore. They're around the side or even on back. It's more sleek and stylish that way, I guess. Besides, most people are using cable or some other input box to change the channels rather than the TV itself.
I'm old enough to remember wired remote controls, but I never ran into the vacuum problem. Is that good enough?
I hate to drop a Bill Clinton, but it really does matter what "are" means in this context. During high school, college, and even post college, I did occasionally pirate software, primarily stuff that I wasn't in any position to afford, mostly either to play around with or for home use when I had a valid copy at the office. Now that I'm in my 30s, have a reasonable income, and also have some intentions to have legitimate home business, I buy what I need. In many cases what I buy is new versions of the stuff I had formerly pirated (Photoshop, Office, etc.) because I want to keep using the same stuff I've used over the past decade or longer. I don't think I've had pirated software on the last two or three computers I've owned.
I'm not sure what this survey would categorize me as. Would they say I "am" a pirate because I've done it in the past? Or that I'm not one because all my current software is legit? Does pirating anything, once upon a time, make you a pirate for life?
Unfortunately, any of those code-monkeys have to wait 6 months after the IPO before they're allowed to sell. I don't think any regular Joes got anything yesterday, and they're going to have to wait for this to play out for half a year before they can cash out.
We got logo in the 5th grade, and a repeat in the 6th grade. I loved it, but thinking back I think my biggest obstacle wasn't learning programming itself, but struggling with typing. I can remember figuring out in a few seconds what I *wanted* the program to do, and then taking tens of minutes painfully putting down the text and going back to fix typing errors. It wasn't until I got a typing class in high school that I finally got good enough that typing wasn't painfully slow, and not really until college when I got exposure to the internet and the ability to chat online that I actually got fast.
I'd mod this +1 insightful, because it is, but it's also %#^&-3 "hopelessly optimistic."
Wow, I'm not sure I ever got a character to level 70. Never had that much time or patience, and by that far through it always started to feel repetitive. If that's where the game is supposed to *start*, then it took far too much time and energy to get there.
My preferences are exactly opposite yours: I don't play MMO's, or any games that require a constant internet connection. I played Diablo 2 exclusively in single-player and never had a problem with it. In fact, I liked it. (I tried online a couple of times and considered that a mostly miserable experience.) I don't have any interest at all in a "completely validated system" but I do have an interest in playing while offline.
I really loved the first two games in the series. Played both a ton. I'd buy a copy yesterday if I could play standalone, but I really and truly don't like the online requirement so I'm not going to buy. It's not so much because of any grand philosophy about DRM or anything, just an additional hassle and restriction I don't want.
Hey, I remember Spectre! I wasted a lot of hours in college playing that game when I should have been doing homework. Good stuff.
I like that. Sadly, the laptop is a Mac. But that's a useful thing to know, because I do also spend a lot of time on Windows. Might come in handy, thanks.
Dunno what kind of laptop you have, but my laptop keyboard is built-in. No USB.
Very timely question. We've got an 11-month-old and Skype with relatives a couple of times a week. We were just commenting yesterday that the most useful addition to our laptop would be a "deactivate the keyboard" switch on the side, so that she could tap keys and poke at the trackpad without causing any disruption. It's really amazing how one wild open-palm slap can so often hit the right combination to disconnect or disrupt the call.
While inevitably said switch would cause more problems than it solves by getting turned off accidentally all of the time, I'd still like one. On the plus side, it'd probably be useful for some cat owners, too.
Romney's the candidate who ... stated during his candidacy "I like to fire people,"
I've got no love for Romney, but 1) this was blown way out of proportion when he said it, and 2) you're badly misquoting the line and the context. You do know that, don't you?
Yes, but they won't be able to charge the same sky high premiums just to cover purely accidental damage.
When they say "the end of insurance" they really mean "our profit margins are going to shrink drastically"
Honestly, I think the only likely outcome is "We cover less so we charge less, but our profit margins will remain identical."
My first thought was this is a great resource for me as a reader. I went out, scanned the list, and downloaded a couple of books right away because I'm very excited about free textbooks on topics I wanted to learn more about. I've bookmarked the site and will be going back regularly to see what else gets added.
Grandparents*, you mean. The third implies that his predecessors had the same name (his father being the second and his grandfather being the third). Having a number in your name doesn't imply anything about future generations. I should know, I'm a son of a man who's the fourth of his name, but he decided to buck the trend and give me an entirely different first name.
*And the simple answer is of course he has grandparents or he wouldn't be here. There's nothing to speculate about in that arena.
A different frame of reference doesn't make the event happen a second time, just that the timing of the event isn't consistent between one frame of reference and the next. Seeing something sooner or later doesn't change the energy of the event.