A. No. Going where the people are seems like a good thing, not lunacy at all.
I agree. From now on, all polling places will be inside Wal-Mart stores...
Why is the phone company ok and facebook bad?
Because the phone company has common carrier status, and all the government imposed regulations that go with that. Facebook does not. Maybe Facebook will arbitrarily censor submissions they disagree with. Maybe their terms of service make certain races, genders, or classes of people unable to participate.
Hell yeah! Nuclear power plants going for cheap. I'll take one! Surplus ICBM silos are interesting, but have far too many drawbacks. But nuclear power plants? Those things are bigger than a city block, above ground, extremely stable, etc. I'd love to buy one.
For starters, I think I'd start cutting up one of the cooling towers, until it looked like a giant medieval castle, just smooth and round instead of 4 stone walls. Re-enactments of Monty Python's & the Holy Grail are, of course, obligatory.
As an added bonus, nuclear power plants always need ample water, so you're guaranteed to get a private lake, river, or beachfront property, no matter which one you buy. They're also universally pretty close to mega population centers, so, while it's likely a nice quiet location, you won't be too far from a major city, unlike many of those silos.
Considering that the US is currently divided about 50/50 between democrats and republicans, ANY new territory could make national elections one sided for many years to come. Canada would likely vote with New York, but California is only about 55/45 democratic, so it often-enough goes to republicans, it just hasn't since Bush Sr., thanks to the insane right-wingers the republicans have put forward for the past few years. Even throwing Canada in wouldn't stop a republican presidential candidate if they were sane enough to win California, along with Texas & Florida, Ohio and the other usual suspects.
one line from north of the border: "You, my friend, are a xenophobic. (...)"
Are you trying to prove that Canadians don't know what Xenophobic means? Or did you throw a word into a thesaurus and accidentally picked the antonym instead of the synonym? Since when is saying "they're practically one of us" being xenophobic, in any possible sense?
One line from south of the broder: "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means."
The only US state with more population than Canada is California. Every other state is significantly smaller.
No, California is larger, Texas has about 3/4ths the population (not significantly smaller), and New York and Florida each have more than 50% the population. It would help if thee US had more large states.
Ontario, the most populous Canadian province, has about the same number of people as Illinois.
And? Ontario is geographically HUGE, 90% of their population is within 100miles of the US border, and Illinois isn't one of the most populous states, by far.
Canada is bigger than 5 average state populations combined.
The "average" is brought down by some really, really tiny states. If you want to talk averages, let's try nation-wide population density figures...
The top 4 US states have populations that are singificantly more than 50% the population of all of Canada... California has more people, Texas has about 3/4rds as many people, and New York & Florida have a little more than half as many people as all of Canada.
And you can't ignore the fact that 90% of the population of Canada is within 100 miles of the US border.
Please remember that USA != world. In Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) the BBC sells a lot of programs both in DVD and Syndicated TV. Lets not forget the rest of Europe.
A person can be forgiven for implying Canada when they say US... Smaller population than some US states, and 90% of them within a few miles of the US border. Canada is largely thought of as "North Wisconsin".
Australia and New Zeland have small populations, throw Canada in there too, and it's still nowhere close to the US population. It's not surprising companies tailor their products to the largest available secondary market, and the US simply has 75% of all native english speakers.
The EU is big, but there's several different languages to accommodate. India is also huge, and officially English speaking, but language is likely to be an issue there, too.
Of course you can settle this quickly... if you've got some sources that cite the profits from Dr Who DVDs and syndication in the US, the EU, other commonweath countries, etc., then you can prove everyone's assumptions wrong, but I don't expect so.
Why can't we have a long term positive male companion?
Because the old Dr Who had an audience the skewed heavily male, and the makers of the new series are dead-set on getting and keeping a significant number of female viewers, or die trying... That's why there's been such a heavy dose of romance in the new series.
Symbian was a great, leading platform when Nokia jumped-in. The fact that they took it nowhere isn't an inherent fault of the "platform".
Meego was having trouble getting off the ground and wasn't gaining much traction.
How many Meego devices did Nokia release? THAT is why there was little traction. How many QT developers are out there? It could have been overflowing with apps if they'd gone full-bore with it, and increased the userbase to respectable levels. As to "getting off the ground", again, that's internal Nokia issues.
Besides that, they didn't jump off their (difficult) newborn platform over to a thriving, non-problematic platform... they picked one that is completely stillborne, that never had any prospects. They did it all for exactly one reason: a huge wad of cash.
I don't think Nokia really had better options aside from becoming yet another Android handset maker.
Android has the apps, installed base, and huge growth to support another entrant... Windows Phone has none of that. Google's doing just fine with their premium line of Android phones. Nokia could jump-in with their impressive hardware and give Samsung some competition on the high-end. Seriously, the hardware quality of even the "premium" Android phones isn't great (see: camera, battery life, etc).
This is the tired-old excuse. Iranian officials have said plenty of argressive things about Israel, of numerous occasions. It's not merely mistranslation.
Do we really think that its a good idea to trade in your 20" screen, full sized keyboard and fast, memory expansive system for a 4" screen with a chiclet sized keyboard or some overpriced tablet that gives far less computing power and reliability than a desktop system? It seems absurd to me.
Right, just as, say, a POSTER is superior in every way to a BOOK, because the book is smaller! Clearly, people will continue buying novels in poster form for their home use... Books will only continue to be popular where people require mobility.
Personally, my smartphone has taken over 90% of my computing. A web browser on a tiny screen isn't great, but as soon as I discovered decent RSS Readers, my phone became the superior device. Admittedly, one of the reasons my smartphone is so useful is that it allows me to SSH into my DVR/Server, so there is a hold-out.
As well, desktops are a better value in general for computing, providing higher speeds and more RAM for lower cost.
Desktops NEED MORE CPU AND RAM because programmers have gotten so incredibly lazy. I need multiple GBytes of RAM on my desktop to run a web browser... I DON'T need a fraction as much RAM in my phone to run the almost-as-capable web browser it came with. Where sheer speed can't be avoided, dedicated DSP hardware in phones does a pretty good job making up the difference. And finally, we pretty well passed the point where people can't figure out what to do with all the power their desktop has, and they're just sitting idle damn near all the time. Even video encoding isn't the burden it used-to be.
Desktop sales will remain steady over time due to the much better value and better and more versatile usage characteristics.
There's no question desktops are significantly more capable than a smartphone, but for how long will that be the case? People have been running Debian chrooted on Android phones for quite a while... There now exists an X11 implementation for Android. Bluetooth, wifi, and USB allows for connecting directly to all kinds of accessories, including full-sized keyboards and mice. And an increasing number of smartphones have HDMI output, so you can connect them to a TV, bigger than your computer monitor.
There's no reason a smartphone can't do 95% of everything an average person does on their computers. Will that other 5% allow desktops to hang-on? I'd be lying if I said I knew.
Add in mobile phones ringing all the damn time and people talking continuously on their phones and it will be a nightmare to travel by air. No thanks.
It's ALREADY a nightmare to travel by air...
Re:Anyone rebuilding their kernel still?
on
Linux 3.3 Released
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· Score: 1
Nowadays with auto-configuring, rolling release desktop distributions being the norm, is kernel building now only done in server room environments and for non-PC hardware?
In the old days, people were compiling their own kernels because:
A) there weren't bleeding-edge distros &
B) There were major new features coming out, like USB SUPPORT, latest network cards, sound cards, modems, and more. The change has been in the PC hardware industry, more than Linux... Although it must be said that Linux is now the cutting-edge platform, rather than second-class citizen (where the community had to reverse engineering everything).
The world of TV-tuner cards is still just like the old days. I had to upgrade my CentOS6 system to a Linux-3.x kernel to get support for my Hauppauge HVR-1250 card (used a Fedora SRPM, though), and still had to patch it myself, just to get the attached remote control working. I'm sure others can chime-in with other spots where kernel upgrades are necessary for hardware they use and need...
In the changelog, at least those BTRFS changes seem like killer features someone would upgrade for, if they are crazy enough to be using an unstable filesystem.
Personally, though, I very rarely see the need to recompile kernels for our servers, either...
Well then... you really can't say they're "WRONG" then, can you? Maybe, by sheer dumb luck, their statement will still turn out to be correct, once we figure out what, if anything, dark mater and dark energy is.
No one cares if you have a CS degree from Princeton if you can't program something to save your life.
Bravo. Best advice I've heard so far. I have no idea who the other lunatics commenting here, saying the opposite, are coming from... Must not be the same industry I work in.
Rule #1: The company only knows what you put on your resume. A degree in a non-CompSci field doesn't sound good, so just mention you got a BS and omit the details. At worst they'll ask you when you're in the interview, but you're already a long way into the process and had an opportunity to prove to the decision makers your intelligence and ability to do the job.
Rule #2: Browse job liistings BEFORE you decide what to do with your life. 2 years in school and tens of thousands of dollars down the drain (when you could have been EARNING Money instead) and you'll get out to find all the job listing that even mention degrees say they want a BS in CompSci OR an additional couple years of work experience.
Rule #3: Breaking-in to the industry is hard... very hard... whether you have degrees and certifications, or not. Getting the first job will be the toughest, so have very low standards (long commute, bad hours, not the tech you wanted to work on, whatever..), and ask for a very low salary. There aren't many entry-level jobs out there, and you need them more than they need you.
Rule #4: If it isn't clear already, the layout and contents of your resume may be more important than your actual skills. Without a polished resume with keywords galore, you won't get paste the first-level recruiters/HR. Without a work history, you'll want to fill it with details of personal projects to get in the door.
Rule #5: The flip-side of the above is that during the interview with the experts, you'd better know the technologies you said you knew. In addition, don't assume you need to know the technologies they want/use. Interviewing well means saying "no" when they ask if you have experience in something you don't, but then coming back showing (not just saying) what a quick learner you are, and how well you know some similar technology. Not everyone has every skill, no matter how many years you've been working, and you just need to be a reasonable match.
The problem with reading books on an LCD display isn't the resolution. It's the fact you're staring at a light bulb the whole time.
I used-to think the same thing. But with a nice auto-dimming screen, I find it much more comfortable to read a high-dpi LCD than even a book, or e-ink.
Where is the (offline) encyclopedia for tablets? Encarta, Britannica, whatever... I see the "concise" version of Britannica in the Android App store (stupid "Play" rebranding crap!), but nothing else, except a bunch of web browser front-ends calling themselves "Wikipedia reader[s]".
Come on! A tablet (or phone) is a much better fit for the bookshelf than a desktop PC, much better for kid/elderly use, much nicer to read than a non-portable and noisy desktop (or semi-portable and still noisy laptop), and has the added bonus of fitting perfectly into the model of THHGTTG.
With 32GB MicroSDHC cards everywhere, there should be more than enough space, and with decent tablets going for $35 in India, ($70 for the rest of the world--see ubislate, or others), it should be an imminently practical option. Instead, a random web search, or the low-quality crap that is Wikipedia, is all we get. I'm sure brick and mortar libraries would love to have this as an option... a REAL reference in a tiny and cheap form factor, not the random crap you get from a web search.
Ah, the common consumer fallacy - it's "just" a CD, so it should be orders of magnitude cheaper... Notwithstanding the fact that printing and distribution of the hardcopy was only a very small fraction of the total cost.
So trim off the cost of printing and distribution, then cut the price in half, or less, because you're sure to sell at least 2X as many CD sets as hard-copies.
This is why Sears (a name that once stood for quality) is on the ropes, and Sam Walton died a very rich man. (Ray Kroc too...)
Sears (and K-Mart) didn't lose out to Sears, they lost out to Target. It's a duopoly, and those two giants are doing just fine... Target figured out how to compete with Walmart... Sears and K-mart did not.
everyone on this direction will be able to intercept the transmission (no more warrants for wiretapping necessary).
The curvature of the earth will make this fairly difficult. Either geosync satellites or tunneling underground directly between sender and receiver will be necessary.
People have been shaving the yellow so long, it's been forgotten that it mean "the light is about to go red, STOP",
It hasn't been forgotten. If you were at a stop on red, and the light turns yellow in front of you... no question, you should stop. But if you are moving at a high rate of speed, then it's tricky. There is a trade-off between how badly to gouge and damage your brakes & tires, rattle occupants, etc., and how dangerous it will be to proceed instead of braking... Obviously this increases as the speed limit rises, but the length of yellow isn't always adjusted accordingly. At what speed, and how many car lengths from the intersection, will YOU slam on the brakes when the light changes to yellow in-front of you? One car length at 45 MPH? You wouldn't be able to stop. Two car lengths? 3? How about if you're driving a fully loaded tractor-trailer? Pretty soon it gets dangerous to stop, and yellow lights need to be nice and long for simple safety, and when people get accustomed to that margin, suddenly changing that on them is dangerous... as they get rear-ended by that tractor-trailer behind them, which can't stop on yellow.
Red-light cameras are a local-government fund-raiser andd nothing more. Trying to read more into their decisions will have you constantly grasping at straws.
Why does he feel he has the right to vandalize stuff and disobey the laws?
"Laws" aren't the ten commandments, etched in stone, handed down from on high by an infallible being. Laws are what we, as a society, agree is acceptable regulation of our lives for the greater good. This is why one of the cornerstones of US law is trial by jury... If the government can't convince 12 average people that the crime you comitted SHOULD be a punishable offence, then the law will never be enforced, and it's not worth the paper it's written on.
Local governments have made it clear that they only want red-light camera as a lottery method of raising funds. They have no positive effect on public safety, and studies show they may have negative effects. When some old man is still driving, despite his catarcts, the red-light cameras won't identify that he's a danger to the public, won't require him to go take an eye exam to restore his license, etc. It will merely send him a fine everytime he does it, and maybe snap a photo of him as he sideswipes some school bus...
So the question is, what do you do when your representatives are only slightly corrupt? Dishonestly and dangerously extracting money with red-light camera, but who may otherwise be reasonably good representatives otherwise? Voting for a worse candidate because he opposes red-light camera may make you worse off.
Civil disobedience is one option. This isn't segregation here, but since they're doing this as a fund-raiser, it's only fair to raise their operating costs as much as possible. Minor damager to said cameras is fairly harmless. And if they want to claim they're doing it for public safety, they'll simply pay for the added maintence expense with other funds, and go merilly along protecting people from themselves, entering an intersection a millisecond after the untimed light has turned red.
And iif they want to prosecute the vandal, go ahead... put him up in front of a jury of his peers and see if they'll give him jail time. I think I know the answer.
I don't see any reason to avoid H.264 (MPEG4) and standardize on an inferior-quality open source codec that is little better than MPEG2.
WebM/VP8/VPx is only slightly lower quality than H.264 at worst.
That would be like voluntarily choosing inferior NTSC-video instead of HD-video (and then being stuck with that choice for years and years).
No, it would be like standardizing on a royalty free baseline, rather than one that needs to be licensed... just like the w3c and other standards bodies have insisted upon doing, forever.
In just a few years the royalty fees will expire and H.264 will be just as open as any other codec. Plus it's not as if Mozilla is supporting some evil corporation, but instead a standards organization.
MPEG-1 was standardized in 1991 based on technology developed in the late '80s... At that time, the WWW hadn't even been developed. GUI web browsers wouldn't exist for another couple years. MPEG-1 still isn't free of patents today (see: MP3).
In short, by the time all the patents on H.264 have expired, we likely WON'T HAVE WEB BROWSERS ANYMORE.
And finally, the MPEG gets none of the patent license fees you pay for H.264. They go directly to the huge corporations that attend the MPEG meetings and recomend inclusion of technologies they've patented, in whatever the newest standard will be, because they want the windfall of patent license fees from an MPEG standard.
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I agree. From now on, all polling places will be inside Wal-Mart stores...
Because the phone company has common carrier status, and all the government imposed regulations that go with that. Facebook does not. Maybe Facebook will arbitrarily censor submissions they disagree with. Maybe their terms of service make certain races, genders, or classes of people unable to participate.
Hell yeah! Nuclear power plants going for cheap. I'll take one! Surplus ICBM silos are interesting, but have far too many drawbacks. But nuclear power plants? Those things are bigger than a city block, above ground, extremely stable, etc. I'd love to buy one.
For starters, I think I'd start cutting up one of the cooling towers, until it looked like a giant medieval castle, just smooth and round instead of 4 stone walls. Re-enactments of Monty Python's & the Holy Grail are, of course, obligatory.
After that, I'd have to buy as much flesh-tone paint as I can afford. It would take some time, but just think of it... http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_omMU_7Vv1us/S7aqBJUCP_I/AAAAAAAAAIE/HMaftmCYRGM/s1600/san-onofre_songs.jpg">Giant nuclear boobies!
As an added bonus, nuclear power plants always need ample water, so you're guaranteed to get a private lake, river, or beachfront property, no matter which one you buy. They're also universally pretty close to mega population centers, so, while it's likely a nice quiet location, you won't be too far from a major city, unlike many of those silos.
Considering that the US is currently divided about 50/50 between democrats and republicans, ANY new territory could make national elections one sided for many years to come. Canada would likely vote with New York, but California is only about 55/45 democratic, so it often-enough goes to republicans, it just hasn't since Bush Sr., thanks to the insane right-wingers the republicans have put forward for the past few years. Even throwing Canada in wouldn't stop a republican presidential candidate if they were sane enough to win California, along with Texas & Florida, Ohio and the other usual suspects.
one line from north of the border: "You, my friend, are a xenophobic. (...)"
Are you trying to prove that Canadians don't know what Xenophobic means? Or did you throw a word into a thesaurus and accidentally picked the antonym instead of the synonym? Since when is saying "they're practically one of us" being xenophobic, in any possible sense?
One line from south of the broder: "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means."
No, California is larger, Texas has about 3/4ths the population (not significantly smaller), and New York and Florida each have more than 50% the population. It would help if thee US had more large states.
Ontario, the most populous Canadian province, has about the same number of people as Illinois.
And? Ontario is geographically HUGE, 90% of their population is within 100miles of the US border, and Illinois isn't one of the most populous states, by far.
The "average" is brought down by some really, really tiny states. If you want to talk averages, let's try nation-wide population density figures...
The top 4 US states have populations that are singificantly more than 50% the population of all of Canada... California has more people, Texas has about 3/4rds as many people, and New York & Florida have a little more than half as many people as all of Canada.
And you can't ignore the fact that 90% of the population of Canada is within 100 miles of the US border.
BBC Worldwide made more than half of its (2009) revenue from abroad.
The aim (was) to generate two-thirds of revenue from abroad by 2012.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8149767.stm
A person can be forgiven for implying Canada when they say US... Smaller population than some US states, and 90% of them within a few miles of the US border. Canada is largely thought of as "North Wisconsin".
Australia and New Zeland have small populations, throw Canada in there too, and it's still nowhere close to the US population. It's not surprising companies tailor their products to the largest available secondary market, and the US simply has 75% of all native english speakers.
The EU is big, but there's several different languages to accommodate. India is also huge, and officially English speaking, but language is likely to be an issue there, too.
Of course you can settle this quickly... if you've got some sources that cite the profits from Dr Who DVDs and syndication in the US, the EU, other commonweath countries, etc., then you can prove everyone's assumptions wrong, but I don't expect so.
Because the old Dr Who had an audience the skewed heavily male, and the makers of the new series are dead-set on getting and keeping a significant number of female viewers, or die trying... That's why there's been such a heavy dose of romance in the new series.
Symbian was a great, leading platform when Nokia jumped-in. The fact that they took it nowhere isn't an inherent fault of the "platform".
How many Meego devices did Nokia release? THAT is why there was little traction. How many QT developers are out there? It could have been overflowing with apps if they'd gone full-bore with it, and increased the userbase to respectable levels. As to "getting off the ground", again, that's internal Nokia issues.
Besides that, they didn't jump off their (difficult) newborn platform over to a thriving, non-problematic platform... they picked one that is completely stillborne, that never had any prospects. They did it all for exactly one reason: a huge wad of cash.
Android has the apps, installed base, and huge growth to support another entrant... Windows Phone has none of that. Google's doing just fine with their premium line of Android phones. Nokia could jump-in with their impressive hardware and give Samsung some competition on the high-end. Seriously, the hardware quality of even the "premium" Android phones isn't great (see: camera, battery life, etc).
This is the tired-old excuse. Iranian officials have said plenty of argressive things about Israel, of numerous occasions. It's not merely mistranslation.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilate-israel/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-says-it-launched-satellite/2012/02/03/gIQARNuDmQ_story.html
Right, just as, say, a POSTER is superior in every way to a BOOK, because the book is smaller! Clearly, people will continue buying novels in poster form for their home use... Books will only continue to be popular where people require mobility.
Personally, my smartphone has taken over 90% of my computing. A web browser on a tiny screen isn't great, but as soon as I discovered decent RSS Readers, my phone became the superior device. Admittedly, one of the reasons my smartphone is so useful is that it allows me to SSH into my DVR/Server, so there is a hold-out.
Desktops NEED MORE CPU AND RAM because programmers have gotten so incredibly lazy. I need multiple GBytes of RAM on my desktop to run a web browser... I DON'T need a fraction as much RAM in my phone to run the almost-as-capable web browser it came with. Where sheer speed can't be avoided, dedicated DSP hardware in phones does a pretty good job making up the difference. And finally, we pretty well passed the point where people can't figure out what to do with all the power their desktop has, and they're just sitting idle damn near all the time. Even video encoding isn't the burden it used-to be.
There's no question desktops are significantly more capable than a smartphone, but for how long will that be the case? People have been running Debian chrooted on Android phones for quite a while... There now exists an X11 implementation for Android. Bluetooth, wifi, and USB allows for connecting directly to all kinds of accessories, including full-sized keyboards and mice. And an increasing number of smartphones have HDMI output, so you can connect them to a TV, bigger than your computer monitor.
There's no reason a smartphone can't do 95% of everything an average person does on their computers. Will that other 5% allow desktops to hang-on? I'd be lying if I said I knew.
It's ALREADY a nightmare to travel by air...
In the old days, people were compiling their own kernels because:
A) there weren't bleeding-edge distros &
B) There were major new features coming out, like USB SUPPORT, latest network cards, sound cards, modems, and more. The change has been in the PC hardware industry, more than Linux... Although it must be said that Linux is now the cutting-edge platform, rather than second-class citizen (where the community had to reverse engineering everything).
The world of TV-tuner cards is still just like the old days. I had to upgrade my CentOS6 system to a Linux-3.x kernel to get support for my Hauppauge HVR-1250 card (used a Fedora SRPM, though), and still had to patch it myself, just to get the attached remote control working. I'm sure others can chime-in with other spots where kernel upgrades are necessary for hardware they use and need...
In the changelog, at least those BTRFS changes seem like killer features someone would upgrade for, if they are crazy enough to be using an unstable filesystem.
Personally, though, I very rarely see the need to recompile kernels for our servers, either...
Well then... you really can't say they're "WRONG" then, can you? Maybe, by sheer dumb luck, their statement will still turn out to be correct, once we figure out what, if anything, dark mater and dark energy is.
Bravo. Best advice I've heard so far. I have no idea who the other lunatics commenting here, saying the opposite, are coming from... Must not be the same industry I work in.
Rule #1: The company only knows what you put on your resume. A degree in a non-CompSci field doesn't sound good, so just mention you got a BS and omit the details. At worst they'll ask you when you're in the interview, but you're already a long way into the process and had an opportunity to prove to the decision makers your intelligence and ability to do the job.
Rule #2: Browse job liistings BEFORE you decide what to do with your life. 2 years in school and tens of thousands of dollars down the drain (when you could have been EARNING Money instead) and you'll get out to find all the job listing that even mention degrees say they want a BS in CompSci OR an additional couple years of work experience.
Rule #3: Breaking-in to the industry is hard... very hard... whether you have degrees and certifications, or not. Getting the first job will be the toughest, so have very low standards (long commute, bad hours, not the tech you wanted to work on, whatever..), and ask for a very low salary. There aren't many entry-level jobs out there, and you need them more than they need you.
Rule #4: If it isn't clear already, the layout and contents of your resume may be more important than your actual skills. Without a polished resume with keywords galore, you won't get paste the first-level recruiters/HR. Without a work history, you'll want to fill it with details of personal projects to get in the door.
Rule #5: The flip-side of the above is that during the interview with the experts, you'd better know the technologies you said you knew. In addition, don't assume you need to know the technologies they want/use. Interviewing well means saying "no" when they ask if you have experience in something you don't, but then coming back showing (not just saying) what a quick learner you are, and how well you know some similar technology. Not everyone has every skill, no matter how many years you've been working, and you just need to be a reasonable match.
I used-to think the same thing. But with a nice auto-dimming screen, I find it much more comfortable to read a high-dpi LCD than even a book, or e-ink.
Where is the (offline) encyclopedia for tablets? Encarta, Britannica, whatever... I see the "concise" version of Britannica in the Android App store (stupid "Play" rebranding crap!), but nothing else, except a bunch of web browser front-ends calling themselves "Wikipedia reader[s]".
Come on! A tablet (or phone) is a much better fit for the bookshelf than a desktop PC, much better for kid/elderly use, much nicer to read than a non-portable and noisy desktop (or semi-portable and still noisy laptop), and has the added bonus of fitting perfectly into the model of THHGTTG.
With 32GB MicroSDHC cards everywhere, there should be more than enough space, and with decent tablets going for $35 in India, ($70 for the rest of the world--see ubislate, or others), it should be an imminently practical option. Instead, a random web search, or the low-quality crap that is Wikipedia, is all we get. I'm sure brick and mortar libraries would love to have this as an option... a REAL reference in a tiny and cheap form factor, not the random crap you get from a web search.
So trim off the cost of printing and distribution, then cut the price in half, or less, because you're sure to sell at least 2X as many CD sets as hard-copies.
Sears (and K-Mart) didn't lose out to Sears, they lost out to Target. It's a duopoly, and those two giants are doing just fine... Target figured out how to compete with Walmart... Sears and K-mart did not.
The curvature of the earth will make this fairly difficult. Either geosync satellites or tunneling underground directly between sender and receiver will be necessary.
Still sounds like an improvement over ELF, subs used-to use...
It hasn't been forgotten. If you were at a stop on red, and the light turns yellow in front of you... no question, you should stop. But if you are moving at a high rate of speed, then it's tricky. There is a trade-off between how badly to gouge and damage your brakes & tires, rattle occupants, etc., and how dangerous it will be to proceed instead of braking... Obviously this increases as the speed limit rises, but the length of yellow isn't always adjusted accordingly. At what speed, and how many car lengths from the intersection, will YOU slam on the brakes when the light changes to yellow in-front of you? One car length at 45 MPH? You wouldn't be able to stop. Two car lengths? 3? How about if you're driving a fully loaded tractor-trailer? Pretty soon it gets dangerous to stop, and yellow lights need to be nice and long for simple safety, and when people get accustomed to that margin, suddenly changing that on them is dangerous... as they get rear-ended by that tractor-trailer behind them, which can't stop on yellow.
Red-light cameras are a local-government fund-raiser andd nothing more. Trying to read more into their decisions will have you constantly grasping at straws.
"Laws" aren't the ten commandments, etched in stone, handed down from on high by an infallible being. Laws are what we, as a society, agree is acceptable regulation of our lives for the greater good. This is why one of the cornerstones of US law is trial by jury... If the government can't convince 12 average people that the crime you comitted SHOULD be a punishable offence, then the law will never be enforced, and it's not worth the paper it's written on.
Local governments have made it clear that they only want red-light camera as a lottery method of raising funds. They have no positive effect on public safety, and studies show they may have negative effects. When some old man is still driving, despite his catarcts, the red-light cameras won't identify that he's a danger to the public, won't require him to go take an eye exam to restore his license, etc. It will merely send him a fine everytime he does it, and maybe snap a photo of him as he sideswipes some school bus...
So the question is, what do you do when your representatives are only slightly corrupt? Dishonestly and dangerously extracting money with red-light camera, but who may otherwise be reasonably good representatives otherwise? Voting for a worse candidate because he opposes red-light camera may make you worse off.
Civil disobedience is one option. This isn't segregation here, but since they're doing this as a fund-raiser, it's only fair to raise their operating costs as much as possible. Minor damager to said cameras is fairly harmless. And if they want to claim they're doing it for public safety, they'll simply pay for the added maintence expense with other funds, and go merilly along protecting people from themselves, entering an intersection a millisecond after the untimed light has turned red.
And iif they want to prosecute the vandal, go ahead... put him up in front of a jury of his peers and see if they'll give him jail time. I think I know the answer.
WebM/VP8/VPx is only slightly lower quality than H.264 at worst.
No, it would be like standardizing on a royalty free baseline, rather than one that needs to be licensed... just like the w3c and other standards bodies have insisted upon doing, forever.
MPEG-1 was standardized in 1991 based on technology developed in the late '80s... At that time, the WWW hadn't even been developed. GUI web browsers wouldn't exist for another couple years. MPEG-1 still isn't free of patents today (see: MP3).
In short, by the time all the patents on H.264 have expired, we likely WON'T HAVE WEB BROWSERS ANYMORE.
And finally, the MPEG gets none of the patent license fees you pay for H.264. They go directly to the huge corporations that attend the MPEG meetings and recomend inclusion of technologies they've patented, in whatever the newest standard will be, because they want the windfall of patent license fees from an MPEG standard.
A simple laser printer can do 40ppm. How many A4 pages in a 32 volume set?