They are. It's been running since 2007. The article summary even says "the US Mint [issues] four new presidential coins each year". And they're going absolutely nowhere except "government vaults."
I'm starting to think this is a strategy to salvage/prolong our faltering money supply: print/coin huge piles of cash, then stash it (either by creating something the public wants so much they hoard it, or creating something the public doesn't want so it sits in vaults, or just create it and don't even offer it for general use), creating a financial ballast to counteract the ever-extending debt. Don't have the whole theory worked out, but there's got to be something to making that much cash and stashing out of the public's hands.
Sure, some stories are more cerebral and require little in the way of quality to assure enjoyment. Ultimate form of this is ultra-low-budget movies where nothing is of quality yet the story & telling is engaging (El Mariachi, Babette's Feast, Cube, pi).
But some movies just have to be seen on the big screen. They're overwhelmingly visual, demanding a wide field of view and tremendous detail, because the visuals really are a significant part of the story (Watchmen, Matrix, Alice in Wonderland).
So, for those stories you enjoy which don't demand a big screen, video quality doesn't matter much either. But for those which DO demand a big forum to tell a visually big story, video quality will matter.
Interesting start, but methinks has a ways to go. As others note, it's mostly just rough masking one photo onto another.
Methinks the effect would be more striking if the foreground characters were crisply masked onto the background photo, with a broader blending of striking background distinctions (rubble). Don't just have a soldier fade into the modern setting.
Go to openappmkt.com and click on "Install OpenAppMkt" using an iPad. Popup sez "To install our app, use the iPhone browser" and offers to text the link to a phone number, same as if attempted on a PC.
Hey, somebody has to be the first to do it. Like many profitable ideas, once presented it's a "duh", but someone had to have - and act on - that "duh" moment first.
I figured that the Android/iPhone keyboard would look at finger movements on each key to try to see if you pressed in the center like you wanted that letter or far to the side like you didn't and adjust accordingly much like this.
The iPhone keyboard's spelling correction takes finger drift into account. If you type an unrecognized word, but one/some keys are one-off from a recognized word, it adjusts accordingly. It deals with lack of tactile feedback by figuring out what word you would have typed if your hand hadn't drifted.
This new keyboard is different. Instead of relying on pattern-matching words with one-off keys, it tracks where your hands drift to (perhaps making use of that algorithm to some degree) and moves the keyboard to match where your fingers drifted to.
The model has served the company well on the PC, but if it wants to make money in the phone market, it needs to start thinking like a consumer electronics company.
Companies that stick to their core competencies thrive. Companies that lose track of their core competencies decline and fail.
Microsoft is, first and foremost, an operating systems company. Whatever they do must serve that core competency. To stray from that into another market, say into the cellphone market as a direct competitor, is to pursue an afterthought against those devoted to that market - the fail should be apparent from the outset.
TFA demonstrates as a positive the Zune, showing the author is confused about what constitutes "success". TFA demonstrates as a positive the Xbox, which is a closed system little different from their main offering of an OS running apps on a PC. Cell phones are different. They're not PCs. Microsoft should consider it's own history, and that of others: deviating from devotion to the core competency is a fast, and expensive, track to fail.
Even knowing there are "walls around the garden", I don't exactly feel restricted by this device. If anything, I feel somewhat liberated by it.
All of this "walled garden" kvetching forgets that the entry gate is open and the mansion is next door.
A walled garden serves its purpose, for what it is, as it is. Likewise, the iPad serves its purpose, for what it is, as it is. If you want the services rendered by a mansion, go there. Likewise, the multi-core multi-drive multi-monitor cycle-crunching high-bandwidth big-screen monster machine is also available. Buy and use what tools you need. It's a free country; you're not limited to just one.
6 iPads is about $3000. A nice HDTV-centered home theater can easily cost as much. Both are for "consumption"; one is portable. Some of us, having such disposable income, buy premium latest-model high-def big-screen surround-sound blu-ray systems for family entertainment. Some of us, having same income but different habits/interests, buy convenient devices so each can consume whatever media they want where/whenever they want. Same price, similar ends, different choices. You spend your money your way, I'll spend mine my way. Neither is evil based only on size/quantity of screens. (FWIW, my home TV is a 15-year-old 27" CRT; we've spent the entertainment money on iPad, MacBook, Nook, and other portable devices instead of the lusted-after but not-purchased 55" HDTV.)
Dunno about your neck of the woods, but my ISP options include: Comcast ATT DSL 4G/WiMax from Clear and Sprint 3G from ATT, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile That's at least 6 options (2 or more flavors of some), not including dialup, nor others getting into the game soon.
And if I really don't like the options, I'm free to start my own. I'm thinking an ad-hoc network of home wifi routers would rock (surprised Linksys et al haven't pulled this off yet).
Just because YOU can't conceive of a use for 10-year-old binary without source code doesn't mean others can't.
With an old binary we can at least run the program enough to create requirements suitable for reconstructing and improving the program. I've heard much of "MULE" and other great programs past, and my reflex is a desire to run them to grok their behavior and subsequently write a new take thereon. Having the source is valuable, but lacks decades of development in the art. I could write a clone of MacPaint or VisiCalc or other classics easy enough, and do so better using modern coding techniques, if only I can run the program enough.
Likewise, while source is valuable for parsing old data files, given enough data in that format I can deduce the content and write a parser from scratch.
Oh sure having the source helps, but lack thereof does not render the binary useless.
I keep wondering why Minority Report type advertising (esp. in-store) isn't here yet despite advancements in face recognition. Plant an innocuous camera at the checkout, and cross-link data from the credit card (your name is on there). Next time you walk in, an animation on a prominently positioned HDTV or projection display greets you by name, and a clerk can sidle up offering help & suggestions based on your buying history.
Per prior/. story, some 10% of the population has trouble perceiving 3D. I'm wondering if that subset coincides with the subset which is so vehemently against 3D video.
I find it well worth the minor extra cost. Video looks so... flat... without it.
As observed in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: "If," he said tersely, "we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy..." "Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect, "Fiscal policy!" The Management Consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied. "Fiscal policy..." he repeated, "that is what I said." "How can you have money," demanded Ford, "if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know." "If you would allow me to continue..." Ford nodded dejectedly. "Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich." Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. "But we have also," continued the Management Consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut." Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The Management Consultant waved them down. "So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revaluate the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and... er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances." The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the Management Consultant a standing ovation. The accountants amongst them looked forward to a profitable Autumn. "You're all mad," explained Ford Prefect. "You're absolutely barmy," he suggested. "You're a bunch of raving nutters," he opined. The tide of opinion started to turn against him.
the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying...because everyone realizes at some point that they like to eat three times a day, and sleep in a warm dry bed, and that fulfilling those desires is not free. "Free" information isn't, it's a gift; someone had to pay for it.
At some point, and it looks like soon, the Internet will hit a "Tower of Babel Moment" where the so-far successful universal interconnectivity of all systems will falter, fracture, and fragment into limited-interaction groups. By choice or by consequence, participants adhering to different standards will just lose the ability to communicate. Intense vertical integration on one platform will cause fundamental incompatibility with others, and "universal access" will become impractical.
PortableApps.com = move your digital life onto removable media, able to run on any PC. microSDHC = 1-16GB storage on a sub-fingernail-sized removable media. Unless they're gonna go thru all the lint in everyone's pockets, they can have the notebook.
Any word on when it will come to the iPad? Sooner than iOS 4 I hope. Current version on iPad is broken in a tiny but critical way (anyone know why it doesn't work with eCollege's discussion "post" button?)
If customers are willing to pay that much that way, providers are willing to take the money. Nobody is forcing customers to get such an array of services. Those willing to put in a little effort and withstand slight inconvenience can pay much. There is no right to convenient data plans so great as to compel, under threat of imprisonment, providers to concoct such a "universal unlimited" data plan. Quit being greedy. You want premium variety, you're going to pay thru the nose for it.
No, I'm not kidding. I have a pacemaker (the term "fatal error" is not a euphemism to me).
Yes, the guy is a twit. "Infecting" a chip, sticking it in himself for storage, then using it to "infect" another chip, all to say "computer virus infects man, then vice versa" is stupid.
However...
As a prior/. article noted, there are concerns about the security of wireless-interface modern pacemakers and other implanted medical devices. Get close enough to me and you could (with undue effort) surreptitiously reprogram my pacemaker to annoying or lethal results. It is conceivable (though unlikely, as the software is very robust due to the severity of errors) that someone could write and deliver a computer virus to a pacemaker, a virus which in turn could infect the diagnostic computer at the patient's next tuneup, which could then repeat the cycle when used with another patient. Conceivable as a thought experiment, yes, but also vanishingly small probability in the real world (not enough computers of enough value to be worth the effort, coupled with extremely strict data checking therein). This may not "infect" a person in the normal sense, but could have very real life-altering effects (what, really, is the difference at that point?), and could involve a "contagious" vector that could spread to other implanted devices.
I'm not worried... but neither can I dismiss the concept entirely.
I'd think programmers would understand that the value of a label is independent of the label's semantics, and two labels with the same value have, well, the same value. Whether the label is "shit" or "$#*!", we all know that both are used as conduits of the same meaning - although the latter does so by referencing the former. If someone is offended at the meaning of the former, they're offended at the meaning - and using a reference to the former does nothing to alleviate the meaning.
BTW, I'm amused at how many people express outrage or shock at someone else using obscenities, then spend a prolonged period talking about it with lots of quotations thereof in an apparent excuse to use the word themselves - somehow thinking that by using a reference they are absolved of the content referenced. "He said 'shit'! Isn't he bad? Yeah, he said 'shit'!"
Slashdot Mirror
why not do a "44 presidents" set?
They are. It's been running since 2007. The article summary even says "the US Mint [issues] four new presidential coins each year". And they're going absolutely nowhere except "government vaults."
I'm starting to think this is a strategy to salvage/prolong our faltering money supply: print/coin huge piles of cash, then stash it (either by creating something the public wants so much they hoard it, or creating something the public doesn't want so it sits in vaults, or just create it and don't even offer it for general use), creating a financial ballast to counteract the ever-extending debt. Don't have the whole theory worked out, but there's got to be something to making that much cash and stashing out of the public's hands.
Sure, some stories are more cerebral and require little in the way of quality to assure enjoyment. Ultimate form of this is ultra-low-budget movies where nothing is of quality yet the story & telling is engaging (El Mariachi, Babette's Feast, Cube, pi).
But some movies just have to be seen on the big screen. They're overwhelmingly visual, demanding a wide field of view and tremendous detail, because the visuals really are a significant part of the story (Watchmen, Matrix, Alice in Wonderland).
So, for those stories you enjoy which don't demand a big screen, video quality doesn't matter much either. But for those which DO demand a big forum to tell a visually big story, video quality will matter.
Interesting start, but methinks has a ways to go. As others note, it's mostly just rough masking one photo onto another.
Methinks the effect would be more striking if the foreground characters were crisply masked onto the background photo, with a broader blending of striking background distinctions (rubble). Don't just have a soldier fade into the modern setting.
...are on their way: http://www.televisions.com/tv-news/No-joke-3D-contact-lenses.php
graduating with six-figures of debt
http://ocw.mit.edu/ and other sites provide top-tier education, offering full course content on-line for free.
It's the certification that'll cost ya.
I didn't post a question, I posted a statement - the point of which was to inform /. readers about to do what I did, and to prompt discussion thereof.
Go to openappmkt.com and click on "Install OpenAppMkt" using an iPad.
Popup sez "To install our app, use the iPhone browser" and offers to text the link to a phone number, same as if attempted on a PC.
Hey, somebody has to be the first to do it. Like many profitable ideas, once presented it's a "duh", but someone had to have - and act on - that "duh" moment first.
I figured that the Android/iPhone keyboard would look at finger movements on each key to try to see if you pressed in the center like you wanted that letter or far to the side like you didn't and adjust accordingly much like this.
The iPhone keyboard's spelling correction takes finger drift into account. If you type an unrecognized word, but one/some keys are one-off from a recognized word, it adjusts accordingly. It deals with lack of tactile feedback by figuring out what word you would have typed if your hand hadn't drifted.
This new keyboard is different. Instead of relying on pattern-matching words with one-off keys, it tracks where your hands drift to (perhaps making use of that algorithm to some degree) and moves the keyboard to match where your fingers drifted to.
Distinct difference.
This guy, understandably AC, has insights as one of the participants.
The model has served the company well on the PC, but if it wants to make money in the phone market, it needs to start thinking like a consumer electronics company.
Companies that stick to their core competencies thrive.
Companies that lose track of their core competencies decline and fail.
Microsoft is, first and foremost, an operating systems company. Whatever they do must serve that core competency. To stray from that into another market, say into the cellphone market as a direct competitor, is to pursue an afterthought against those devoted to that market - the fail should be apparent from the outset.
TFA demonstrates as a positive the Zune, showing the author is confused about what constitutes "success".
TFA demonstrates as a positive the Xbox, which is a closed system little different from their main offering of an OS running apps on a PC.
Cell phones are different. They're not PCs. Microsoft should consider it's own history, and that of others: deviating from devotion to the core competency is a fast, and expensive, track to fail.
Even knowing there are "walls around the garden", I don't exactly feel restricted by this device. If anything, I feel somewhat liberated by it.
All of this "walled garden" kvetching forgets that the entry gate is open and the mansion is next door.
A walled garden serves its purpose, for what it is, as it is. Likewise, the iPad serves its purpose, for what it is, as it is.
If you want the services rendered by a mansion, go there. Likewise, the multi-core multi-drive multi-monitor cycle-crunching high-bandwidth big-screen monster machine is also available.
Buy and use what tools you need.
It's a free country; you're not limited to just one.
6 iPads is about $3000.
A nice HDTV-centered home theater can easily cost as much.
Both are for "consumption"; one is portable.
Some of us, having such disposable income, buy premium latest-model high-def big-screen surround-sound blu-ray systems for family entertainment.
Some of us, having same income but different habits/interests, buy convenient devices so each can consume whatever media they want where/whenever they want.
Same price, similar ends, different choices.
You spend your money your way, I'll spend mine my way. Neither is evil based only on size/quantity of screens.
(FWIW, my home TV is a 15-year-old 27" CRT; we've spent the entertainment money on iPad, MacBook, Nook, and other portable devices instead of the lusted-after but not-purchased 55" HDTV.)
Didn't you get the ads?
Dunno about your neck of the woods, but my ISP options include:
Comcast
ATT DSL
4G/WiMax from Clear and Sprint
3G from ATT, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
That's at least 6 options (2 or more flavors of some), not including dialup, nor others getting into the game soon.
And if I really don't like the options, I'm free to start my own. I'm thinking an ad-hoc network of home wifi routers would rock (surprised Linksys et al haven't pulled this off yet).
What part of this isn't "free market"?
Just because YOU can't conceive of a use for 10-year-old binary without source code doesn't mean others can't.
With an old binary we can at least run the program enough to create requirements suitable for reconstructing and improving the program. I've heard much of "MULE" and other great programs past, and my reflex is a desire to run them to grok their behavior and subsequently write a new take thereon. Having the source is valuable, but lacks decades of development in the art. I could write a clone of MacPaint or VisiCalc or other classics easy enough, and do so better using modern coding techniques, if only I can run the program enough.
Likewise, while source is valuable for parsing old data files, given enough data in that format I can deduce the content and write a parser from scratch.
Oh sure having the source helps, but lack thereof does not render the binary useless.
...and welcome back to the GAP!"
I keep wondering why Minority Report type advertising (esp. in-store) isn't here yet despite advancements in face recognition. Plant an innocuous camera at the checkout, and cross-link data from the credit card (your name is on there). Next time you walk in, an animation on a prominently positioned HDTV or projection display greets you by name, and a clerk can sidle up offering help & suggestions based on your buying history.
Per prior /. story, some 10% of the population has trouble perceiving 3D.
I'm wondering if that subset coincides with the subset which is so vehemently against 3D video.
I find it well worth the minor extra cost. Video looks so ... flat ... without it.
As observed in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: ..." ..." he repeated, "that is what I said." ..." ... er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."
"If," he said tersely, "we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy
"Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect, "Fiscal policy!"
The Management Consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
"Fiscal policy
"How can you have money," demanded Ford, "if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know."
"If you would allow me to continue
Ford nodded dejectedly.
"Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich."
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
"But we have also," continued the Management Consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut."
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The Management Consultant waved them down.
"So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revaluate the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the Management Consultant a standing ovation. The accountants amongst them looked forward to a profitable Autumn.
"You're all mad," explained Ford Prefect.
"You're absolutely barmy," he suggested.
"You're a bunch of raving nutters," he opined.
The tide of opinion started to turn against him.
the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying ...because everyone realizes at some point that they like to eat three times a day, and sleep in a warm dry bed, and that fulfilling those desires is not free. "Free" information isn't, it's a gift; someone had to pay for it.
At some point, and it looks like soon, the Internet will hit a "Tower of Babel Moment" where the so-far successful universal interconnectivity of all systems will falter, fracture, and fragment into limited-interaction groups. By choice or by consequence, participants adhering to different standards will just lose the ability to communicate. Intense vertical integration on one platform will cause fundamental incompatibility with others, and "universal access" will become impractical.
PortableApps.com = move your digital life onto removable media, able to run on any PC.
microSDHC = 1-16GB storage on a sub-fingernail-sized removable media.
Unless they're gonna go thru all the lint in everyone's pockets, they can have the notebook.
Any word on when it will come to the iPad? Sooner than iOS 4 I hope.
Current version on iPad is broken in a tiny but critical way (anyone know why it doesn't work with eCollege's discussion "post" button?)
Sorry, make that "pay much less."
If customers are willing to pay that much that way, providers are willing to take the money.
Nobody is forcing customers to get such an array of services. Those willing to put in a little effort and withstand slight inconvenience can pay much.
There is no right to convenient data plans so great as to compel, under threat of imprisonment, providers to concoct such a "universal unlimited" data plan.
Quit being greedy. You want premium variety, you're going to pay thru the nose for it.
No, I'm not kidding. I have a pacemaker (the term "fatal error" is not a euphemism to me).
Yes, the guy is a twit. "Infecting" a chip, sticking it in himself for storage, then using it to "infect" another chip, all to say "computer virus infects man, then vice versa" is stupid.
However...
As a prior /. article noted, there are concerns about the security of wireless-interface modern pacemakers and other implanted medical devices. Get close enough to me and you could (with undue effort) surreptitiously reprogram my pacemaker to annoying or lethal results. It is conceivable (though unlikely, as the software is very robust due to the severity of errors) that someone could write and deliver a computer virus to a pacemaker, a virus which in turn could infect the diagnostic computer at the patient's next tuneup, which could then repeat the cycle when used with another patient. Conceivable as a thought experiment, yes, but also vanishingly small probability in the real world (not enough computers of enough value to be worth the effort, coupled with extremely strict data checking therein). This may not "infect" a person in the normal sense, but could have very real life-altering effects (what, really, is the difference at that point?), and could involve a "contagious" vector that could spread to other implanted devices.
I'm not worried ... but neither can I dismiss the concept entirely.
I'd think programmers would understand that the value of a label is independent of the label's semantics, and two labels with the same value have, well, the same value. Whether the label is "shit" or "$#*!", we all know that both are used as conduits of the same meaning - although the latter does so by referencing the former. If someone is offended at the meaning of the former, they're offended at the meaning - and using a reference to the former does nothing to alleviate the meaning.
BTW, I'm amused at how many people express outrage or shock at someone else using obscenities, then spend a prolonged period talking about it with lots of quotations thereof in an apparent excuse to use the word themselves - somehow thinking that by using a reference they are absolved of the content referenced. "He said 'shit'! Isn't he bad? Yeah, he said 'shit'!"