I might agree with you, except for the fact that people don't want to put themselves in those situations. Eventually the military won't have enough boots on the ground to get involved like that.
I mostly agree with you. Coming from one of the first generations to grow up (mostly) with the internet and such, I'm definitely comfortable with new technology and can adapt just fine. BUT I think there is a certain amount of understanding (or maybe it's just desire to understand) that comes from literally growing up with it. You can certainly teach an old dog new tricks and they can be extremely proficient at them, but are they necessarily at the same level as someone who lived and breathed those tricks while their brain was still developing?
I play and coach soccer. I've known some talented players who didn't start until later in life, but they never quite reach the level of players that started as kids. Maybe it's not a perfect comparison, but I think there is at least something to it.
Also, I find that while I understand new stuff fine, I don't have the desire to get involved like I would have when I was younger. I have other things on my mind these days or am just plain not interested.
Mod parent up. This is a point that should not overlooked. When was Google founded? 1998? That's only 12 years. Assuming the majority of people were hired out of college or close to it (cheaper, and they haven't yet had their souls completely crushed by corporate America), they'd mostly be in their thirties and THAT's assuming they all started in 1998 (obviously not) and that they all stuck around for the entire time.
Maybe Google could hire more older(?) folks, but I am certainly not going to hold it against them. A lot of the things they're looking for in employees are probably just harder to find in more experienced workers.
Personally, I only use one from that particular list (SciFi), and I wouldn't care too much if I lost it. Regardless, I'm still very concerned about NBC-Comcast because of the dangerous precedent it might set. If the merger went through and NBC-Comcast was able to start favoring its own content (even in a small way), you know it would only be a matter of time until Time Warner and such start making similar deals. By then, it may be too late to stop without turning the market upside-down.
Turning the market upside-down may not be a bad thing, but I'd hate to have to find out that way.
If the storage were local, any criminal with half a brain would just destroy the storage devices. You'd need some sort of protected storage location, which would almost certainly become completely centralized regardless of your original intentions.
I like the direction you're going, though. Requiring a warrant would certainly be a good idea.
Possibly, but I can see myself making use of it. If I can save a dollar by pressing a button and folding my laundry tomorrow instead of today, I think I'd probably do it. It costs me essentially nothing (assuming this is a standard feature on the dryer) and even helps my procrastination. Win-win.
Yeah I've never seen or heard of a Kill-A-Watt being used anywhere but in an official capacity. I'm quite sure the majority of 'normal' people either don't know what it is or don't care.
That said, I think the concept of the smart grid is great and I'd love to see more sophisticated tools for monitoring and controlling energy use. We'll have to see how things develop. Hopefully it won't become a privacy issue.
Why not do both? This bothers me, especially with battery-powered devices. A lot of them want to go into a sleep mode when you push the power button instead of powering off. I think I'm smart enough to decide if I want it to sleep or actually be off. Granted, it's not always a lot of power to save, but why can't I choose?
I have an HTC Eris that was just recently updated from 1.5 to 2.1. While waiting for the promises to come through, I kept a close eye on forums and news articles to try to figure out what was going on. I never found much concrete information, of course, but my impression is that it was Verizon that held things up much more than HTC.
I have serious issues with the changes Texas is making, but the rest of us to stepping in and saying 'no' defeats the whole purpose of our [intended] form of government. The United States of America were founded to be exactly that, a collection of [mostly] independent states, joined by basic principles of freedom. The never-ending cycle of making national issues out of local/state ones is a trend that scares the crap out of me. It's the main thing (besides being a single Slashdotter) that makes me question whether or not I should have children.
Good job, California (this time). Texas, I'm embarrassed for you, but good luck.
BUT BE WARNED, upgrading to karmic will just ruin the Poulsbo graphics completely, with no hope for repair, aside from formatting and going back to 9.10.
I don't want to be that guy, but it might be relevant for people....
9.10 = Karmic
Are you upgrading to Karmic, going back to Jaunty (9.04)?
or
upgrading to Lucid (10.04), going back to Karmic? (I assume this one...)
Pregnancy and home drug tests are reasonably accurate and give an actual result (ie. no, you're not pregnant or yes, you're on drugs). These tests tell you that you MIGHT have a somewhat increased risk of something later in life. It's just an advertisement for lab testing that needs to be interpreted by someone who's qualified to understand what the results mean. The vast majority of people who actually buy these things will not use the information correctly.
And again, as people have already stated, family history is a free and accurate way to get similar information.
Not at all. The issue here isn't statistics. It's that less-than-brilliant people could potentially be making huge, life-changing decisions based on this test. Yes, the tests might give you an idea about your risks for certain health problems, but there is no real benefit to these kits. The same testing (or better) is available through labs, if someone feels it's necessary. Not to mention, as someone said above, family history is a pretty accurate (and free) way to get similar information.
These kits are just a way for the company to make money by basically putting an advertisement for lab testing in a drug store. I'm not saying they definitely should not be sold in stores, but it needs to be very clear to consumers exactly what they're getting into. We all know it won't be.
In my office (small company - 50ish employees in our building). We have three Android phones... the VP has a Moto Droid, the IT guy has an HTC Eris, and I have an Eris. There is a Blackberry or two and everyone else has a dumbphone. I think of all people everywhere, I know one single person with an iPhone.
This is not exactly a high income area, which I think has a lot to do with it. The smallish number of us who make enough money and have the technical know-how and/or need for a fancier phone went with Android phones for a few reasons: 1. The network (Verizon) has better coverage (yes, I know it's generally considered inferior technology...) 2. They were cheaper (deals through Verizon) 3. The phones are damn impressive, especially to non-tech folks. 4. (This one only applies to me). It's Linux. 5. (Also only applies to me). I can't stand Apple's propaganda machine and the false image it portrays.
The Blackberry folks had them before Android was out and either don't know or don't care to switch. I'm not sure what they would pick if they got new phones now.
I disagree. If the vast majority of people are only going to play through once, it doesn't necessarily matter if you have extra content, because people will never see the other stuff. That's one way to do it, but it seems like a better way to go would be to get better writers (easier said than done, I know). They can make what quests (or whatever) you do have more believable and interesting, which does much more for me than just knowing that it'll be different if I choose the 'evil' option instead of the 'good' one.
Mod parent up. It's not about complexity. It's about time and interest. You can make a ton of content, but if it doesn't suck you in (or it's too long), of course people won't finish it.
I have a fair amount of free time (if I care to make the time) to play games and I found the same thing with Dragon Age and other games. I never did see the ending of that. As interesting as it was, I got bored with the rinse and repeat battles. Pretty much every aspect of the game was great. I loved the complexity, the story, everything, except some of the battles were poorly balanced and it just took too damn long. I even restarted several times to try out different character builds, classes, etc, but the game dragged so much in the middle/end that I eventually shelved it.
Take the KOTOR games for example. Maybe those don't quite have the complexity of Dragon Age, but they do offer a ton of customization options for the characters and combat. I've replayed both of them several times because I can get into them and enjoy them, and be done with them in a reasonable amount of time.
Now consider the Civilization series or similar... There's not even a story, but I've lost probably literally years of my life to those games. Games can potentially take ages to finish, depending on your settings, but everything builds from my decisions and goes at my pace. The decisions can be wonderfully complex, but are still accessible.
Now that I think about it, it seems to boil down to how you're defining complexity. Character/civilization choices and progression, battles/puzzles/whatever that require thought and effort... these are 'good' complexity, things that make the game interesting and fun. Piles of [essentially meaningless] quests drag out the conclusion until I get bored and give up. Class-specific content and hidden content make me feel like I'm missing out on the game and make it feel like work, unlocking/finding everything. Yeah, I want to feel like I accomplished something by building my character, winning battles, etc. However, if I want to feel like I put in 40 hours to get a pat on the back at the end, I'll get another job.
Make it fun, interesting, and complex, but let me finish in a reasonable amount of time. If you get slammed because you're not providing enough 'value' to the customers, drop the price. You didn't spend quite as much time and money adding 100 extra 'run here, kill 5 x' quests, so give me that money back. I'll love you for it. I can't be the only one.
The inane ramblings above are my opinion. If you disagree, by all means reply. I don't need your mod points, but I'm very interested in what people have to say about this stuff.
Hardly. At best, it is a completely random group. The odds of them all being mature, responsible, and committed are slim. Even if they are, that doesn't mean they have enough knowledge or common sense to understand some of the more technical stuff, especially if it's not explained to them in a clear and consistent manner. Since the lawyers of either side are going to be trying to make their side look good, the odds of super clear explanations of the real issues is very unlikely.
I'm not saying that all jurors are incompetent/stupid/whatever. I'm saying that your generalization is not accurate. Even if it were, I would not want to face that jury even as an innocent man. Maybe especially as an innocent man. I can't say I'd necessarily want an accurate representation of the population (which would include conservatives, liberals, and everything in between), but a homogeneous jury like that is much scarier to me than one that represents a dozen different points of view.
Definitely agree here. The vast majority of 'average Joe' computers that I come across have a 160-500GB hard drive, of which they've generally used less than 20-25GB, including all of their apps, music, etc. Unless they have an absolutely massive music collection or like to play a whole bunch of high-end games, a 40-80GB SSD is PLENTY.
Even a more tech-oriented person like myself doesn't need a ton of space. I keep all of my files on a server at home, which I access from my other computers when I want something. If I'm going on a trip, I can put the important stuff on my laptop, with all of my music and whatever videos/games I feel like I want for entertainment. That easily fits within my arbitrary 80GB and it would not take much effort to fit into 40GB. How much information can a person really need, especially for short trips? Are people really using 2TB of files on their laptop when they leave the house? (Short of possible work-related stuff)
I know this probably isn't terribly helpful, but my Mazda has a standard line-in jack that I plug my mp3 player into. It's newer (2009), but I believe most or all Mazda3s from this generation have them (going back to 2004?) and I'm quite confident that the more expensive cars in their lineup have it too. Just saying... there are cars out there that don't force you into that $50+ add-on or iPod-only crap. Granted, I can't control what plays using the steering wheel controls, but it does the job just fine
Not only that, but the screens are tiny and the controls are clumsy at best. When I play games, I want a screen large enough that I won't go blind or cross-eyed and I want a controller that allows me to play the game rather than fight the controls.
It might be fun to kill a few minutes playing a game on a phone while waiting, but to build a phone specifically for games seems silly to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I might agree with you, except for the fact that people don't want to put themselves in those situations. Eventually the military won't have enough boots on the ground to get involved like that.
I mostly agree with you. Coming from one of the first generations to grow up (mostly) with the internet and such, I'm definitely comfortable with new technology and can adapt just fine. BUT I think there is a certain amount of understanding (or maybe it's just desire to understand) that comes from literally growing up with it. You can certainly teach an old dog new tricks and they can be extremely proficient at them, but are they necessarily at the same level as someone who lived and breathed those tricks while their brain was still developing?
I play and coach soccer. I've known some talented players who didn't start until later in life, but they never quite reach the level of players that started as kids. Maybe it's not a perfect comparison, but I think there is at least something to it.
Also, I find that while I understand new stuff fine, I don't have the desire to get involved like I would have when I was younger. I have other things on my mind these days or am just plain not interested.
Mod parent up. This is a point that should not overlooked. When was Google founded? 1998? That's only 12 years. Assuming the majority of people were hired out of college or close to it (cheaper, and they haven't yet had their souls completely crushed by corporate America), they'd mostly be in their thirties and THAT's assuming they all started in 1998 (obviously not) and that they all stuck around for the entire time.
Maybe Google could hire more older(?) folks, but I am certainly not going to hold it against them. A lot of the things they're looking for in employees are probably just harder to find in more experienced workers.
Personally, I only use one from that particular list (SciFi), and I wouldn't care too much if I lost it. Regardless, I'm still very concerned about NBC-Comcast because of the dangerous precedent it might set. If the merger went through and NBC-Comcast was able to start favoring its own content (even in a small way), you know it would only be a matter of time until Time Warner and such start making similar deals. By then, it may be too late to stop without turning the market upside-down.
Turning the market upside-down may not be a bad thing, but I'd hate to have to find out that way.
If the storage were local, any criminal with half a brain would just destroy the storage devices. You'd need some sort of protected storage location, which would almost certainly become completely centralized regardless of your original intentions.
I like the direction you're going, though. Requiring a warrant would certainly be a good idea.
Possibly, but I can see myself making use of it. If I can save a dollar by pressing a button and folding my laundry tomorrow instead of today, I think I'd probably do it. It costs me essentially nothing (assuming this is a standard feature on the dryer) and even helps my procrastination. Win-win.
Yeah I've never seen or heard of a Kill-A-Watt being used anywhere but in an official capacity. I'm quite sure the majority of 'normal' people either don't know what it is or don't care.
That said, I think the concept of the smart grid is great and I'd love to see more sophisticated tools for monitoring and controlling energy use. We'll have to see how things develop. Hopefully it won't become a privacy issue.
Why not do both? This bothers me, especially with battery-powered devices. A lot of them want to go into a sleep mode when you push the power button instead of powering off. I think I'm smart enough to decide if I want it to sleep or actually be off. Granted, it's not always a lot of power to save, but why can't I choose?
I have an HTC Eris that was just recently updated from 1.5 to 2.1. While waiting for the promises to come through, I kept a close eye on forums and news articles to try to figure out what was going on. I never found much concrete information, of course, but my impression is that it was Verizon that held things up much more than HTC.
Posting to undo accidental mod...
Sorry
Exactly.
I have serious issues with the changes Texas is making, but the rest of us to stepping in and saying 'no' defeats the whole purpose of our [intended] form of government. The United States of America were founded to be exactly that, a collection of [mostly] independent states, joined by basic principles of freedom. The never-ending cycle of making national issues out of local/state ones is a trend that scares the crap out of me. It's the main thing (besides being a single Slashdotter) that makes me question whether or not I should have children.
Good job, California (this time).
Texas, I'm embarrassed for you, but good luck.
BUT BE WARNED, upgrading to karmic will just ruin the Poulsbo graphics completely, with no hope for repair, aside from formatting and going back to 9.10.
I don't want to be that guy, but it might be relevant for people....
9.10 = Karmic
Are you upgrading to Karmic, going back to Jaunty (9.04)?
or
upgrading to Lucid (10.04), going back to Karmic? (I assume this one...)
Pregnancy and home drug tests are reasonably accurate and give an actual result (ie. no, you're not pregnant or yes, you're on drugs). These tests tell you that you MIGHT have a somewhat increased risk of something later in life. It's just an advertisement for lab testing that needs to be interpreted by someone who's qualified to understand what the results mean. The vast majority of people who actually buy these things will not use the information correctly.
And again, as people have already stated, family history is a free and accurate way to get similar information.
Not at all. The issue here isn't statistics. It's that less-than-brilliant people could potentially be making huge, life-changing decisions based on this test. Yes, the tests might give you an idea about your risks for certain health problems, but there is no real benefit to these kits. The same testing (or better) is available through labs, if someone feels it's necessary. Not to mention, as someone said above, family history is a pretty accurate (and free) way to get similar information.
These kits are just a way for the company to make money by basically putting an advertisement for lab testing in a drug store. I'm not saying they definitely should not be sold in stores, but it needs to be very clear to consumers exactly what they're getting into. We all know it won't be.
In my office (small company - 50ish employees in our building). We have three Android phones... the VP has a Moto Droid, the IT guy has an HTC Eris, and I have an Eris. There is a Blackberry or two and everyone else has a dumbphone. I think of all people everywhere, I know one single person with an iPhone.
This is not exactly a high income area, which I think has a lot to do with it. The smallish number of us who make enough money and have the technical know-how and/or need for a fancier phone went with Android phones for a few reasons:
1. The network (Verizon) has better coverage (yes, I know it's generally considered inferior technology...)
2. They were cheaper (deals through Verizon)
3. The phones are damn impressive, especially to non-tech folks.
4. (This one only applies to me). It's Linux.
5. (Also only applies to me). I can't stand Apple's propaganda machine and the false image it portrays.
The Blackberry folks had them before Android was out and either don't know or don't care to switch. I'm not sure what they would pick if they got new phones now.
I disagree. If the vast majority of people are only going to play through once, it doesn't necessarily matter if you have extra content, because people will never see the other stuff. That's one way to do it, but it seems like a better way to go would be to get better writers (easier said than done, I know). They can make what quests (or whatever) you do have more believable and interesting, which does much more for me than just knowing that it'll be different if I choose the 'evil' option instead of the 'good' one.
Mod parent up. It's not about complexity. It's about time and interest. You can make a ton of content, but if it doesn't suck you in (or it's too long), of course people won't finish it.
I have a fair amount of free time (if I care to make the time) to play games and I found the same thing with Dragon Age and other games. I never did see the ending of that. As interesting as it was, I got bored with the rinse and repeat battles. Pretty much every aspect of the game was great. I loved the complexity, the story, everything, except some of the battles were poorly balanced and it just took too damn long. I even restarted several times to try out different character builds, classes, etc, but the game dragged so much in the middle/end that I eventually shelved it.
Take the KOTOR games for example. Maybe those don't quite have the complexity of Dragon Age, but they do offer a ton of customization options for the characters and combat. I've replayed both of them several times because I can get into them and enjoy them, and be done with them in a reasonable amount of time.
Now consider the Civilization series or similar... There's not even a story, but I've lost probably literally years of my life to those games. Games can potentially take ages to finish, depending on your settings, but everything builds from my decisions and goes at my pace. The decisions can be wonderfully complex, but are still accessible.
Now that I think about it, it seems to boil down to how you're defining complexity. Character/civilization choices and progression, battles/puzzles/whatever that require thought and effort... these are 'good' complexity, things that make the game interesting and fun. Piles of [essentially meaningless] quests drag out the conclusion until I get bored and give up. Class-specific content and hidden content make me feel like I'm missing out on the game and make it feel like work, unlocking/finding everything. Yeah, I want to feel like I accomplished something by building my character, winning battles, etc. However, if I want to feel like I put in 40 hours to get a pat on the back at the end, I'll get another job.
Make it fun, interesting, and complex, but let me finish in a reasonable amount of time. If you get slammed because you're not providing enough 'value' to the customers, drop the price. You didn't spend quite as much time and money adding 100 extra 'run here, kill 5 x' quests, so give me that money back. I'll love you for it. I can't be the only one.
The inane ramblings above are my opinion. If you disagree, by all means reply. I don't need your mod points, but I'm very interested in what people have to say about this stuff.
Mature. Responsible. Committed.
Hardly. At best, it is a completely random group. The odds of them all being mature, responsible, and committed are slim. Even if they are, that doesn't mean they have enough knowledge or common sense to understand some of the more technical stuff, especially if it's not explained to them in a clear and consistent manner. Since the lawyers of either side are going to be trying to make their side look good, the odds of super clear explanations of the real issues is very unlikely.
I'm not saying that all jurors are incompetent/stupid/whatever. I'm saying that your generalization is not accurate. Even if it were, I would not want to face that jury even as an innocent man. Maybe especially as an innocent man. I can't say I'd necessarily want an accurate representation of the population (which would include conservatives, liberals, and everything in between), but a homogeneous jury like that is much scarier to me than one that represents a dozen different points of view.
Definitely agree here. The vast majority of 'average Joe' computers that I come across have a 160-500GB hard drive, of which they've generally used less than 20-25GB, including all of their apps, music, etc. Unless they have an absolutely massive music collection or like to play a whole bunch of high-end games, a 40-80GB SSD is PLENTY.
Even a more tech-oriented person like myself doesn't need a ton of space. I keep all of my files on a server at home, which I access from my other computers when I want something. If I'm going on a trip, I can put the important stuff on my laptop, with all of my music and whatever videos/games I feel like I want for entertainment. That easily fits within my arbitrary 80GB and it would not take much effort to fit into 40GB. How much information can a person really need, especially for short trips? Are people really using 2TB of files on their laptop when they leave the house? (Short of possible work-related stuff)
The vast majority of SSDs are 2.5" or 1.8", and there are PCIe SSDs out there. I can't speak to the quality and cost, but it's not a new idea:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=636&Description=&Type=&N=2010150636&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=4213%3A46884&PropertyCodeValue=4213%3A47725
I know this probably isn't terribly helpful, but my Mazda has a standard line-in jack that I plug my mp3 player into. It's newer (2009), but I believe most or all Mazda3s from this generation have them (going back to 2004?) and I'm quite confident that the more expensive cars in their lineup have it too. Just saying... there are cars out there that don't force you into that $50+ add-on or iPod-only crap. Granted, I can't control what plays using the steering wheel controls, but it does the job just fine
I can nearly always guess which it is. So if you don't want to be like me....
I already hate myself for typing this, but...
All those years working with Ballmer? Of course he would develop Matrix-like chair-jumping and -dodging abilities.
Not only that, but the screens are tiny and the controls are clumsy at best. When I play games, I want a screen large enough that I won't go blind or cross-eyed and I want a controller that allows me to play the game rather than fight the controls.
It might be fun to kill a few minutes playing a game on a phone while waiting, but to build a phone specifically for games seems silly to me.
The bigger question I see is HOW would they find out whether or not what he's downloading is legal? The only way to know is to invade his privacy.
Personally, I don't want my traffic blocked or my privacy invaded. I want option C, which has yet to pop up anywhere in a concrete form.