Here's hoping that they include a feature to do "disk spanning" on one volume where the max file size has been reached. I've got 500GB of storage in FAT32 form, limiting file sizes to 4GB - too small for zipping up backups of file systems (notebooks); when it hits a file size limit, WinZip should check for available space and (optionally) create sequentially-numbered subsequent.zip files.
Given good speech recognition, or at least a touchscreen, why have buttons at all? Maybe one for activating the voice-dial feature, but otherwise, why not? you're going to be talking anyway...
All that "crappy stuff nobody wants" you list is making humongous amounts of money which comes out of an amazing number of pockets... and the "quality" audience doesn't pay nearly as much (as in: not even close to the same order of magnitude).
We went to a theater recently, driving quite a ways to get to a good one. No particular movie in mind, just a night out to see whatever good was playing. Nothing good was playing, and we're not going to drop >$20 to just see nothing good. Prices just don't line up with the quality - supply and demand reigns, so we bought 3 used DVDs at Blockbuster for the same price, and saw 6 hours of good stuff at our convenience, AND get to keep the media.
Unless it's good material needing a huge screen (and "Wedding Crashers" ain't it), the price is just too high.
There's a wonderful technical paper analyzing the value of procrastination. Don't recall the details, but the upshot was that for certain computing problems long enough (on the order of years compuatation time), at some point it's just better to do nothing at all until the price of the hardware drops and the CPU speeds rise enough so that you can actually get the job done sooner than if you started running the job on what you had ASAP.
If you have computing job that will take 4 years on today's processors, and processors will be 4 times faster 2 years from now, better to do nothing for 2 years and then run the job on computers that will complete the job in 1 year, getting you done a year early including a 2 year vacation.
I don't print anything for reading. To the contrary, I scan everything I can so whatever I want is on one slim notebook computer or a few cubic inches of 0.5TB storage.
Moving into an apartment led me to reduce paper as much as possible. While reading paper is nicer (mostly because that's what we grew up with), I have no qualms about reading long texts online. The tradeoff favors a paperless existance.
That said, I do have about 3000 books in storage, hopefully destined for a dedicate personal library when I find a new house. Online text is great for speed and portability... but truly worthwhile material (NOT relatively transient stuff printed to be read once and tossed) should be printed, bound, and shelved as long-lasting human-readable low-tech backups.
The library should digitize all its books... but absolutely should retain the physical copies. One good-sized EMP and the computers will forget everything. And there's nothing like spending hours wandering the stacks, browsing thru whatever strikes you.
The failed July 21st attacks meant the police could track them down, and arrest them!
Only because they were too stupid to kill themselves despite going to extraordinary lengths to do so.
The IRA bombings ceased when the cameras went in precisely because the bombers intended to survive. What too many don't seem to realize is: these guys don't. Suicide bombers don't care if their approach and attack is recorded - they may even revel in the idea - because they won't be around to be tracked down & arrested.
CCTV surveilance has its uses. Unfortunately, for this application, its benefits are minimal.
The name SoulPad comes from the concept of separating a PC into a body (processor, memory, keyboard, display) and a soul (data, applications, personal settings).
In the Middle Ages, philosophers would (supposedly) sit around arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Today, with processors being not much bigger than a pinhead (esp. a Medievial one), and software having such influence in the real world, I've concluded that my job title really should be "Angel Choreographer".
Imagine: Google contracts with WiFi router manufacturers to provide repeater capabilities (there was a/. article a few months ago to this effect). Why bother plugging every router into a cable/DSL/other-wire line when there are enough overlapping wireless routers to support each other? Only a few need be actually wired; there's enough overlap among the rest to share the network entirely wirelessly. The hardware already exists, just someone needs to persuade the router makers to include repeater software and have it turn on by default.
But I, for one, would gladly pay $200 per month for electricity instead of $80 if I knew we would greatly increase our chance of creating a more sustainable lifestyle.
Then DO IT. Buy your own solar cells or wind turbine. Get off the grid and make/collect your own electricity. While you're at it, grow your own food, make your own textiles, minimize/eliminate/build your electronics, travel by foot/bicycle, and do a host of other low-impact activities. (Yes, I've been there to some degree.)
Consider what you're doing instead: comfy chair, climate-controlled room, electricity from questionable sources, toxicly-produced resource-chowing computers & electronics, casual use of incredibly powerful instant communications, food from factory farms, and all of it transported to you via environment-pounding trucks/wires/ships/etc. - considering that half the planet's population lives on less than $2/day, and your position relative thereto in terms of resources you're using daily, you (like most on/.) are practically a poster child for what you term "raping the planet".
It's not going to stop so long as YOU are doing what you criticize others for doing. Step one for "save the planet" is: get your fair share of the planet's land surface (6 acres now, I compute it periodically), disconnect from "the grid" (electricity & gasoline included), and live off that. No? you don't want to grow cotton to weave into cloth to make your own clothes? you'd rather drive to the mall and get a new made-in-China shirt that way? Love your luxury lifestyle (relative to most of the world's population), eh?
"Sustainable lifestyle" requires going a lot farther than paying twice as much for electricity; it means living a life where you KNOW every facet of your existance is in harmony with nature. Funny, most who live in "harmony with nature" try awfully hard to get away from it...
Apologizing with "Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern" is reminiscent of Monty Python:
'We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are concerned more with thier personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicity sexual practices which some people might find offensive.
We are sorry if this impression has come across.' - Monty Python, Episode 32
no one should have access to my genetic code without my permission or a warrant. Period.
One obnoxious little problem: you're leaving bits of genetic material lying around all the time - including on other people's property. Hair, dandruff, and other tidbits of you are just lying around waiting to be observed.
The problem is that people have a presumptuous division between what is available for observation and what is not. The privacy of your home does not reasonably include what you do in the front yard or behind windows with the drapes open and lights on - precisely because such things are simply open to observation. We used to think walls and closed drapes provided an assurance of privacy, but that is now in question as technology can pick up infrared, millimeter-wave, and other electromagnetic radiation other than light - it's all right there to be observed, limited only by observation devices.
Just looking at you, we can make certain genetic evaluations: colorings, gender, shape, sounds, behavior, etc. which can all be intelligently observed to render reasonable conclusions about your genetic makeup, and deduce possible future consequences as a result. What then of all the pieces you leave behind for someone to pick up and analyze closer?
How can access to your genetic code be controlled when all someone need do is pick up a hair you left behind? This is oddly comparable to DVD encryption: we object to laws preventing us from reading & decrypting a DVD we hold in hand, but demand laws preventing others from doing practically the same with DNA in hair, dander, fingerprints, etc. that we leave wherever we go. You leave a fingerprint on my doorknob - why can't I decypher the DNA therein?
A warrant to access your information presumes you have means of preventing, or at least hindering, physical access to that information - and a court order is the only way, short of brute force, to persuade you to grant access. How can you demand a warrant to access information, to wit DNA, you leave around for anyone to simply reach out and take & decode? It's like the idiocy of being unable to photograph a building - right there for all to see - because it has been copyrighted.
The cost of converting a film to 3-D varies, but the conversion price tag for a possible stereoscopic re-release of Randal Kleiser's '70s blockbuster Grease was estimated at around $8 million.
"Grease"? Nifty new 3D technology, and we're going to get "Grease" in visual stereo? WTF?
I can't help to think that 3D hasn't taken off yet because, to date, there hasn't been a really good movie to take advantage of the process, which could explain that while 3D has existed in various forms for the last 60 years, it's rare to see a wide released feature film.
3D hasn't taken off because filmmakers just won't do 3D. Even computer animation studios (hello? Pixar? you listening?) won't be bothered to re-render a film 2" to the left and hand the dual-view print to Imax.
Every 3D movie gets caught up in "Hey! This is 3D, viewer! You realize that? It's 3D! Here - let's shove some snakes and popcorn in your face! Cool, huh?" To which viewers respond "that was neat for 10 seconds, but the story sucked."
What filmmakers fail to observe is the simple richness of 3D. _The_Polar_Express_ was the first movie to take 3D seriously: a feature film which used 3D for enriching the viewing experience, not just "hey that's neat". Depth perception added a great deal; ditto for other documentaries I've seen in 3D - the best just use it to draw the viewer into the environment.
Every computer-generated animation production should spend a few extra bucks re-rendering for stereo view and IMAX high-def. Just a few of those would cumulatively lead to the "killer app" effect.
Remember not long ago when some scientists reported the "color of the universe"? that they claimed it was sort of a pale mauve or something? Lots of hype and excitement, only to be thrown into rank confusion when they came back a few days later and said "oops, sorry, it's really pretty much just straight white." The whole story got mangled, and soon dropped with a "um, ok, uh..." attitude.
And that was just identifying a color.
Showed that it makes sense for scientists to get a better handle on what they've found (which is not necessarily obviously clear) before telling the public, which tends to grab onto nifty ideas - even if dramatically wrong.
Is Open Source software the equivalent of physical commodities?
Commodities are noted by being hardly unique to their source, and are [relatively] easily duplicated & understood. There are various kinds of corn, and many people produce it, with a few taking the effort to enhance breeds which are then [usually] easily duplicated. Comparably, OSS is [relatively] easily copied, understood, and distributed.
Non-commodities are harder to make, are constrained by IP ownership, and are traded in the market as being relatively unique to the manufacturer(s); duplication is non-trivial, and people are willing to pay a premium for the product, and often for the brand name (as an assurance of characteristics). Closed software is [generally] produced for specific tasks, with only a few companies producing it and holding the knowledge for doing so.
Initially, a category of software tends to be closed-source: those creating it charge a premium for it. Once supply-and-demand gets going, others start creating the same thing, and being uninterested in direct profit (for whatever reason, be it Stallman's altruism or Sun's desire to sell hardware), writes & distributes the software for practically free - even encouraging others to pitch in.
Enhancing this dichotomy is the dualism of shareware: a paid-premium product which people initially got for free... and started wondering "if it worked fine for free, why pay?". Try-before-you-buy turns int try-before-you-try-another, don't-buy, and eventually just-get-the-free-one.
Enough people have written word processors, compilers, paint programs, etc. that the premium pricing has evaporated: where most would pay top $$$ for PhotoShop, most are content to just use Gimp - and may have made the transition via shareware.
I won't buy a compiler or text editor or paint program just because there's so many good ones out there for free - and they're similar enough that I care little about which I use, making me view such software as a commodity.
So yes, to the point of the original question, open source and commercial software can certainly coexist: just recognize there is an economic flow from a new type of program being created & distributed at a premium due to rarity, to so many copies of that software existing that it becomes a low-cost easily-replaced commodity.
I'll second that. Just got a Sony T-series: tiny, ultraportable, and quiet. Only time I notice the fan at all is when it's running at 100% CPU for a while. DVD drive is noticeable, but that's only used read/write optical discs ASAP; when playing a CD/DVD, just copy it onto the hard drive first (then can send the disc into storage, content is now online, but I digress).
This in contrast to my old SR17K, which made quite a racket (but took a beating). Sony is learning.
Having gone to notebook computers, I won't go back unless there really isn't a choice. They're quiet, power-efficient, convenient, with most vital peripherals built-in. Most larger accessories can be left on a small desk and attached via USB2. No need for the relatively huge desktop box unless you're doing hardcore gaming.
Why idle hundreds of watts on a big noisy fan-laden box, if a power-efficient notebook performs the same with a few dozen watts?
I had to learn Morse long time ago, and it's not hard at all.
Good for you.
I don't learn such things particularly well, I did try to learn Morse, I did take the test, I did fail it, and - beeng a teenager then - just plain lost interest. I would have aced the rest of the test, and gone on to be an enthusiastic ham operator, but having to learn an archaic, slow, uninteresting, unfamiliar, (for some) nearly unlearnable, and largely unused comm protocol just shut off my interest entirely.
Imagine having to get a "amateur computer programmer" license today, having to know Z80 machine code to pass the test. May be interesting for advanced programmers, but it's just pointless and discouraging for bright-eyed newbies. Imagine "sure we'll let you use this nifty new Pentium M notebook - but to get permission you'll have to punch the right holes in this paper tape to make a PDP-8 boot." You'd lose a lot of bright beginners right there.
As a kid, I wanted my ham radio license. Knew the technical stuff well enough. Thought I had Morse code down adequately (not well, but enough to pass); went to take the test, listened to a few minutes of beeps, scrawled a few words, missed too many, failed the test, and just plain lost interest.
Everything about the test seemed geared toward discouragement. The most obnoxious part of the test - Morse code - was first, not even letting me get far enough to succeed in part of the test (electronics was no problem) and develop a desire to finish it. The audio used was significantly different from actual radio tones - enough so that the other guy taking the test complained loudly. I learned the code visually from books, which was encouraged yet doesn't translate to another sense very well. Yes, I could have done it and my complaints can be explained away... but fact is it was Morse code that discouraged an otherwise eager and knowledgeable teenager from joining the ranks of Amateur Radio.
Later the no-code license became available - but that was too late (having already been burned/discouraged), and was limited to a minimal license which is sneered at in ham radio circles.
Yes, Morse code has its use as a resilliant noise-tolerant bare-bones comm method... but that's the kind of thing that those actively in the hobby may choose to take up later; it's such a lame and rarely-used yet required starting point that it just turns off a majority of those who might otherwise become enthusiastic participants. It sure turned me off at an impressionable age.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's hoping that they include a feature to do "disk spanning" on one volume where the max file size has been reached. I've got 500GB of storage in FAT32 form, limiting file sizes to 4GB - too small for zipping up backups of file systems (notebooks); when it hits a file size limit, WinZip should check for available space and (optionally) create sequentially-numbered subsequent .zip files.
Given good speech recognition, or at least a touchscreen, why have buttons at all? Maybe one for activating the voice-dial feature, but otherwise, why not? you're going to be talking anyway...
All that "crappy stuff nobody wants" you list is making humongous amounts of money which comes out of an amazing number of pockets ... and the "quality" audience doesn't pay nearly as much (as in: not even close to the same order of magnitude).
We went to a theater recently, driving quite a ways to get to a good one. No particular movie in mind, just a night out to see whatever good was playing. Nothing good was playing, and we're not going to drop >$20 to just see nothing good. Prices just don't line up with the quality - supply and demand reigns, so we bought 3 used DVDs at Blockbuster for the same price, and saw 6 hours of good stuff at our convenience, AND get to keep the media.
Unless it's good material needing a huge screen (and "Wedding Crashers" ain't it), the price is just too high.
There's a wonderful technical paper analyzing the value of procrastination. Don't recall the details, but the upshot was that for certain computing problems long enough (on the order of years compuatation time), at some point it's just better to do nothing at all until the price of the hardware drops and the CPU speeds rise enough so that you can actually get the job done sooner than if you started running the job on what you had ASAP.
If you have computing job that will take 4 years on today's processors, and processors will be 4 times faster 2 years from now, better to do nothing for 2 years and then run the job on computers that will complete the job in 1 year, getting you done a year early including a 2 year vacation.
Wish I still had that paper...
I don't print anything for reading. To the contrary, I scan everything I can so whatever I want is on one slim notebook computer or a few cubic inches of 0.5TB storage.
... but truly worthwhile material (NOT relatively transient stuff printed to be read once and tossed) should be printed, bound, and shelved as long-lasting human-readable low-tech backups.
... but absolutely should retain the physical copies. One good-sized EMP and the computers will forget everything. And there's nothing like spending hours wandering the stacks, browsing thru whatever strikes you.
Moving into an apartment led me to reduce paper as much as possible. While reading paper is nicer (mostly because that's what we grew up with), I have no qualms about reading long texts online. The tradeoff favors a paperless existance.
That said, I do have about 3000 books in storage, hopefully destined for a dedicate personal library when I find a new house. Online text is great for speed and portability
The library should digitize all its books
Only because they were too stupid to kill themselves despite going to extraordinary lengths to do so.
The IRA bombings ceased when the cameras went in precisely because the bombers intended to survive. What too many don't seem to realize is: these guys don't. Suicide bombers don't care if their approach and attack is recorded - they may even revel in the idea - because they won't be around to be tracked down & arrested.
CCTV surveilance has its uses. Unfortunately, for this application, its benefits are minimal.
Nothing like almost finding yourself lower on the food chain.
Just thought it was worth repeating.
"Strange how much human accomplishment and progress comes from contemplation of the irrelevant."
- Scott Kim
Imagine: /. article a few months ago to this effect). Why bother plugging every router into a cable/DSL/other-wire line when there are enough overlapping wireless routers to support each other? Only a few need be actually wired; there's enough overlap among the rest to share the network entirely wirelessly. The hardware already exists, just someone needs to persuade the router makers to include repeater software and have it turn on by default.
Google contracts with WiFi router manufacturers to provide repeater capabilities (there was a
But I, for one, would gladly pay $200 per month for electricity instead of $80 if I knew we would greatly increase our chance of creating a more sustainable lifestyle.
/.) are practically a poster child for what you term "raping the planet".
Then DO IT. Buy your own solar cells or wind turbine. Get off the grid and make/collect your own electricity. While you're at it, grow your own food, make your own textiles, minimize/eliminate/build your electronics, travel by foot/bicycle, and do a host of other low-impact activities. (Yes, I've been there to some degree.)
Consider what you're doing instead: comfy chair, climate-controlled room, electricity from questionable sources, toxicly-produced resource-chowing computers & electronics, casual use of incredibly powerful instant communications, food from factory farms, and all of it transported to you via environment-pounding trucks/wires/ships/etc. - considering that half the planet's population lives on less than $2/day, and your position relative thereto in terms of resources you're using daily, you (like most on
It's not going to stop so long as YOU are doing what you criticize others for doing. Step one for "save the planet" is: get your fair share of the planet's land surface (6 acres now, I compute it periodically), disconnect from "the grid" (electricity & gasoline included), and live off that. No? you don't want to grow cotton to weave into cloth to make your own clothes? you'd rather drive to the mall and get a new made-in-China shirt that way? Love your luxury lifestyle (relative to most of the world's population), eh?
"Sustainable lifestyle" requires going a lot farther than paying twice as much for electricity; it means living a life where you KNOW every facet of your existance is in harmony with nature. Funny, most who live in "harmony with nature" try awfully hard to get away from it...
"There is no such thing as bad publicity."
- marketing aphorism
no one should have access to my genetic code without my permission or a warrant. Period.
One obnoxious little problem: you're leaving bits of genetic material lying around all the time - including on other people's property. Hair, dandruff, and other tidbits of you are just lying around waiting to be observed.
The problem is that people have a presumptuous division between what is available for observation and what is not. The privacy of your home does not reasonably include what you do in the front yard or behind windows with the drapes open and lights on - precisely because such things are simply open to observation. We used to think walls and closed drapes provided an assurance of privacy, but that is now in question as technology can pick up infrared, millimeter-wave, and other electromagnetic radiation other than light - it's all right there to be observed, limited only by observation devices.
Just looking at you, we can make certain genetic evaluations: colorings, gender, shape, sounds, behavior, etc. which can all be intelligently observed to render reasonable conclusions about your genetic makeup, and deduce possible future consequences as a result. What then of all the pieces you leave behind for someone to pick up and analyze closer?
How can access to your genetic code be controlled when all someone need do is pick up a hair you left behind? This is oddly comparable to DVD encryption: we object to laws preventing us from reading & decrypting a DVD we hold in hand, but demand laws preventing others from doing practically the same with DNA in hair, dander, fingerprints, etc. that we leave wherever we go. You leave a fingerprint on my doorknob - why can't I decypher the DNA therein?
A warrant to access your information presumes you have means of preventing, or at least hindering, physical access to that information - and a court order is the only way, short of brute force, to persuade you to grant access. How can you demand a warrant to access information, to wit DNA, you leave around for anyone to simply reach out and take & decode? It's like the idiocy of being unable to photograph a building - right there for all to see - because it has been copyrighted.
The cost of converting a film to 3-D varies, but the conversion price tag for a possible stereoscopic re-release of Randal Kleiser's '70s blockbuster Grease was estimated at around $8 million.
"Grease"? Nifty new 3D technology, and we're going to get "Grease" in visual stereo? WTF?
I can't help to think that 3D hasn't taken off yet because, to date, there hasn't been a really good movie to take advantage of the process, which could explain that while 3D has existed in various forms for the last 60 years, it's rare to see a wide released feature film.
3D hasn't taken off because filmmakers just won't do 3D. Even computer animation studios (hello? Pixar? you listening?) won't be bothered to re-render a film 2" to the left and hand the dual-view print to Imax.
Every 3D movie gets caught up in "Hey! This is 3D, viewer! You realize that? It's 3D! Here - let's shove some snakes and popcorn in your face! Cool, huh?" To which viewers respond "that was neat for 10 seconds, but the story sucked."
What filmmakers fail to observe is the simple richness of 3D. _The_Polar_Express_ was the first movie to take 3D seriously: a feature film which used 3D for enriching the viewing experience, not just "hey that's neat". Depth perception added a great deal; ditto for other documentaries I've seen in 3D - the best just use it to draw the viewer into the environment.
Every computer-generated animation production should spend a few extra bucks re-rendering for stereo view and IMAX high-def. Just a few of those would cumulatively lead to the "killer app" effect.
Remember not long ago when some scientists reported the "color of the universe"? that they claimed it was sort of a pale mauve or something? Lots of hype and excitement, only to be thrown into rank confusion when they came back a few days later and said "oops, sorry, it's really pretty much just straight white." The whole story got mangled, and soon dropped with a "um, ok, uh ..." attitude.
And that was just identifying a color.
Showed that it makes sense for scientists to get a better handle on what they've found (which is not necessarily obviously clear) before telling the public, which tends to grab onto nifty ideas - even if dramatically wrong.
Just a thought...
... and started wondering "if it worked fine for free, why pay?". Try-before-you-buy turns int try-before-you-try-another, don't-buy, and eventually just-get-the-free-one.
Is Open Source software the equivalent of physical commodities?
Commodities are noted by being hardly unique to their source, and are [relatively] easily duplicated & understood. There are various kinds of corn, and many people produce it, with a few taking the effort to enhance breeds which are then [usually] easily duplicated. Comparably, OSS is [relatively] easily copied, understood, and distributed.
Non-commodities are harder to make, are constrained by IP ownership, and are traded in the market as being relatively unique to the manufacturer(s); duplication is non-trivial, and people are willing to pay a premium for the product, and often for the brand name (as an assurance of characteristics). Closed software is [generally] produced for specific tasks, with only a few companies producing it and holding the knowledge for doing so.
Initially, a category of software tends to be closed-source: those creating it charge a premium for it. Once supply-and-demand gets going, others start creating the same thing, and being uninterested in direct profit (for whatever reason, be it Stallman's altruism or Sun's desire to sell hardware), writes & distributes the software for practically free - even encouraging others to pitch in.
Enhancing this dichotomy is the dualism of shareware: a paid-premium product which people initially got for free
Enough people have written word processors, compilers, paint programs, etc. that the premium pricing has evaporated: where most would pay top $$$ for PhotoShop, most are content to just use Gimp - and may have made the transition via shareware.
I won't buy a compiler or text editor or paint program just because there's so many good ones out there for free - and they're similar enough that I care little about which I use, making me view such software as a commodity.
So yes, to the point of the original question, open source and commercial software can certainly coexist: just recognize there is an economic flow from a new type of program being created & distributed at a premium due to rarity, to so many copies of that software existing that it becomes a low-cost easily-replaced commodity.
Just a thought.
Every vote count came up with Bush the winner. Period.
All the courts did was tell Florida to stick to the laws regarding vote counting. Gore was trying to play cutsie games with statistical fluctuations.
I'll second that.
Just got a Sony T-series: tiny, ultraportable, and quiet. Only time I notice the fan at all is when it's running at 100% CPU for a while. DVD drive is noticeable, but that's only used read/write optical discs ASAP; when playing a CD/DVD, just copy it onto the hard drive first (then can send the disc into storage, content is now online, but I digress).
This in contrast to my old SR17K, which made quite a racket (but took a beating). Sony is learning.
Having gone to notebook computers, I won't go back unless there really isn't a choice. They're quiet, power-efficient, convenient, with most vital peripherals built-in. Most larger accessories can be left on a small desk and attached via USB2. No need for the relatively huge desktop box unless you're doing hardcore gaming.
Why idle hundreds of watts on a big noisy fan-laden box, if a power-efficient notebook performs the same with a few dozen watts?
Why, she asks, must women in video games always look like Las Vegas show girls?
For the same reason the men look like action heros.
we must have really high tech phones here because of this funny button called "do not disturb"
Yes you must. I've had a lot of phones on my desks, and none have ever had such a button.
Even having it doesn't help when it's the phone in the next cube that keeps ringing.
I had to learn Morse long time ago, and it's not hard at all.
Good for you.
I don't learn such things particularly well, I did try to learn Morse, I did take the test, I did fail it, and - beeng a teenager then - just plain lost interest. I would have aced the rest of the test, and gone on to be an enthusiastic ham operator, but having to learn an archaic, slow, uninteresting, unfamiliar, (for some) nearly unlearnable, and largely unused comm protocol just shut off my interest entirely.
Imagine having to get a "amateur computer programmer" license today, having to know Z80 machine code to pass the test. May be interesting for advanced programmers, but it's just pointless and discouraging for bright-eyed newbies.
Imagine "sure we'll let you use this nifty new Pentium M notebook - but to get permission you'll have to punch the right holes in this paper tape to make a PDP-8 boot." You'd lose a lot of bright beginners right there.
As a kid, I wanted my ham radio license. Knew the technical stuff well enough. Thought I had Morse code down adequately (not well, but enough to pass); went to take the test, listened to a few minutes of beeps, scrawled a few words, missed too many, failed the test, and just plain lost interest.
... but fact is it was Morse code that discouraged an otherwise eager and knowledgeable teenager from joining the ranks of Amateur Radio.
... but that's the kind of thing that those actively in the hobby may choose to take up later; it's such a lame and rarely-used yet required starting point that it just turns off a majority of those who might otherwise become enthusiastic participants. It sure turned me off at an impressionable age.
Everything about the test seemed geared toward discouragement. The most obnoxious part of the test - Morse code - was first, not even letting me get far enough to succeed in part of the test (electronics was no problem) and develop a desire to finish it. The audio used was significantly different from actual radio tones - enough so that the other guy taking the test complained loudly. I learned the code visually from books, which was encouraged yet doesn't translate to another sense very well. Yes, I could have done it and my complaints can be explained away
Later the no-code license became available - but that was too late (having already been burned/discouraged), and was limited to a minimal license which is sneered at in ham radio circles.
Yes, Morse code has its use as a resilliant noise-tolerant bare-bones comm method