> Any way you look at it, the only reason to wish to post > anonymously is to avoid some form of repercussion > (whether identity theft, stalking/harassment, or simply > being outed as a douchetard.)
Wow, I can't believe you got a +5 for that. You forgot "safely express a contrarian opinion" from your list.
Sometimes, the majority are the thieves, stalkers, and douchebags.
> They don't see a $600 phone when they buy the > phone that costs them $50 on contract, they see > a $50 phone.
What I see is a range of PLANS that don't give me any benefits if I pay full price for a phone. It's not like your choices are "free phone and expensive plan" or "expensive phone and cheap/flexible plan", which is what you would think when you hear that the phone is "subsidized" -- it's pretty much "expensive plan no matter what you buy."
Nor am I scared away by the term "two-year contract." I've been with my carrier since 1997.
Considering that people now-a-days want more space on their portable computing device...
Apple dropped the 4 GB iPhone just a few months after it was introduced because the 8 GB model was outselling it by (I think I remember hearing) about 8 or 10 to 1.
> Why store the data in only one format? Why not put > one copy on USB Flash, one copy on DVD-R and > possibly one copy on some other flash with a > different interface like SD?
Put a micro SD in there too, which, in 25 years, will be known as "jumbo SD.":-)
(Oops, hit 'submit' instead of 'preview' on that other one. What I meant to say was...)
Like, forever. And guess who will be the LAST to give up their guns? If you said "criminals", YOU'RE RIGHT!
One last time: not a practical solution. You can wish all you want, but until you have a workable solution, you have nothing to contribute. Any post that boils down to "I wish guns would disappear" has no value.
You know the famous spam solution checklist that contains all the reasons any particular spam-fighting measure won't work? We need to have one of those for anti-gun laws. In particular, the line
b) I said nothing about texting. When holding a phone with one hand--a common occurrence--you can reach EVERY corner of the screen--not just where the letters are. One-handed, I can unlock my 3.5" phone, hit any icon on the screen, and swipe from every edge and corner as needed. I can launch a drawing app and draw a perfect X, corner to corner.
> Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What > does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos > and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot > from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust > your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a > recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?
LOL. I can show you a million examples of both a) people with degrees who don't know a damn thing and b) people who don't have degrees who are masters at what they do.
If you plotted the smartness of people with degrees and without degrees you'd get two bell curves and the "with" one might be a little more on the "smarter" side, but having a degree is by no means a guarantee of intelligence, and not having a degree is not a guarantee of the opposite.
From talking to many people that do hiring for many places, a degree MIGHT tip the scales in favor of someone who is better at what they do, but in real life it's never that close. If you really do have a choice between two people who are nearly identical (and that almost never happens) the nod will RARELY go to one just for having a degree when the other doesn't. The person hiring will pick the one he likes more, or gets a better feeling about, or who he just thinks will work harder, etc.
> Legally getting guns should be a process designed to > aggravate and filter out the nutcases.
It is, somewhat. Laws vary from state to state, but for the most part (like in the biggest states, i.e. New York and California) you have to buy from a licensed dealer, and you have to pass a background check. Other states (like Florida) allow private sales. In any case, you never know someone is a "nut" (like the subject of the day) until the first time they do something "nutty." So even that has questionable effectiveness.
> Most felons are filtered out as well but they are sane and > it does not take much to get around bureaucracy...
News flash: it is already illegal in the United States for felons to possess guns at all. (Not just "can't buy new ones"--they can't own any at all. If they owned one already and kept it, or someone gives a gun to them for free, they're still breaking the law.) But even if they don't have a gun, how do felons get guns? THEY BUY THEM ILLEGALLY.
See? THEY DON'T FOLLOW THE LAW. That's why they're called "criminals."
> Victims are still going to happen with or without guns > and it should be obvious the number of victims will go > down without guns.
You know that when you make guns illegal, it's not like you snap your fingers and they're all gone, right? There are about 300 million people in this country and about as many guns. (Estimates vary.) And the country is almost 4 million square miles. How exactly do you plan to make them not available to criminals? Oh, right, by passing a law. Right. Because the same people that break laws today will not break this new law. Got it.
> If you can not realize this then you are not smart enough to waste time trying to argue with.
That's why I said that it's "a practical impossibility." How do you propose to find (estimates vary) about a quarter billion pieces of easily-concealable metal scattered around 3.8 million square miles? Hint: when guns become illegal, criminals don't say "Damn, I can't rob anyone anymore. Time to go turn in all my guns to the police." Anyone who thinks "once something is illegal, no one does it anymore" does not have a grasp of reality at all.
> Once people experience ad free programming > it becomes very addictive.
DVRs serve that purpose too. Like you, I've been living largely ad-free for about 10 years now. I'm happy with cable (satellite, actually... DirecTV, in fact) for several reasons.
1) Internet problems do not lead to TV problems. Playback is always smooth. 2) Works with any Internet service. (Or without, in fact.:-) ) Up until 6 months ago I was on 1.5MB down/256k up DSL which MAYBE would work with decent quality video (definitely not HD) from SOME sources, SOMETIMES. I'm on 18MB service now and it's still not perfect. Generally very good, but not perfect. There's a big difference between 95% and 98% and 99% and 100%. TV pretty much JUST ALWAYS WORKS. 3) The UI is generally better than any other set-top box or app (like Hulu Desktop) on a traditional computer. (I still <3 my TiVo but the newer generic DTV boxes are pretty good. Worse in some ways, better in others... overall, both are pretty OK.) 4) There are LOTS of good shows (especially smaller shows from smaller networks) that aren't available online. 5) No delay. Shows are still on TV first. I don't have to wait a day, or 3 days, or a week. When it's "on TV", I can watch it. Period. 6) DVRs solve most of the problems (mainly, ads and scheduling) that people associate with traditional TVs. 7) I actually LIKE some ads. In particular, I like seeing ads during shows for other similar shows. If an ad looks good I'll watch it, and if turns out it wasn't good, I'll skip it next time it's on. I just prefer that to "If you liked this, you also might like..." kind of stuff. (I also like browsing books in a library or bookstore. Call me crazy.) 8) It's all in one place. I don't have to look at Hulu and Netflix and individual networks' sites to find what I want. All the channels are just THERE. Also, no worries about having the latest version of any kind of software. 9) I have nearly no incentive to EVER go to legally-questionable sites. It's not a HUGE deal, but yeah, I'd rather avoid the hassle of some multi-thousand-dollar lawsuit, regardless of the odds and whether the suit is bullshit or not.
There are some downsides compared to streaming and there are some neat features that streaming offers, but there is no single perfect solution, and for me, traditional TV service plus a DVR works very well. I'm not saying I don't watch or get ANY video online, but I'm a LONG way from "cutting the cord." (Which is such a HORRIBLE misnomer, by the way--all you're doing is TRADING one cord for another. And both cords are controlled by the same companies, so if the day comes that they're losing too much money over here, they'll just raise the rates over there.)
Lots of things are great for lazy parents. Many of these same things are good for active parents too. We watch Nick Jr. (among other channels) with our kid and he's learned a lot with that. When you have a kid, you are not magically transformed into an infinite supplies of creativity, information, and energy. It's good to have helpers. Like anything else, it can be used well, or not.
I was hoping the story linked under "Big Data analytics" would be interesting but it wasn't. It only has vague statements and a couple small examples. A much better story is "Target knows you're pregnant" from earlier this year.
It has been shown repeatedly that 3.5" is the ideal size for a touchscreen phone. The majority of the population can hold the phone in one hand and reach every corner with their thumb. Phones that are 4, 4.3, or 5" are just stupid.
Unless Apple makes one that size. Then it'll be awesome.;-)
But in America, today, banning guns is a practical impossibility. Like it or not, there are just too many out there, and guess what? -- criminals won't give up theirs. (Interesting fact: it's ALREADY ILLEGAL for felons to own guns, but many do.) If you ban guns, all you're doing is creating a whole nation of helpless victims. Yes, you'd get to (as my friend says) "just arrest anyone you see with a gun", but unfortunately, by the time you SEE the gun, it's already too late.
Yes, it sucks when a guy shoots up a theater, or when people fly planes into buildings. But more people are killed by car crashes and obesity every year than mass killings like this. As much as everyone here hates the nanny state, laws about seatbelts and motorcycle helmets and happy meals and large sodas will probably save more lives than letting the TSA or HCI have their way. (Not that I'm a fan of either of the linked laws or organizations. Just sayin' they'd probably do more.)
> That said, do you really think he could have killed 12 and > injured 50 had he burst into the theatre armed with a flint > knife and an atlatl?
He would have had a hard time racking up those numbers inside a theater, but he could kill and injure just as many by driving a pickup truck through a public area--city sidewalk, public park, etc. Or, as another poster said, by setting a fire.
My ideal office machine: - Windows 2000 - Office 97 - Just don't use it to browse the Web. A clean install of W2K on a 1 GHz PIII with 256-512 MB RAM runs like a Swiss watch.
How does "loser pays" work when a little guy goes after a big company like Apple, Google, or Microsoft with a legitimate complaint but gets defeated because the big company was able to spend 100,000x more on their lawyers?
Even 24x24 would be enough to help you navigate around as you walk. That would be a HUGE step up from being blind. Also, by moving your eye around a bit, you could probably get more effective detail--like how if you move your head while looking through showerglass you can get a better idea of what's behind it.* Or, you can be standing near the frame of a door that's open 2mm and by moving your head back and forth you can get a pretty good idea of what's on the other side.**
OK, better example: watch some really tiny video, like 160x120. While it's playing, you can see a good amount of detail, but if you pause a frame, the details are barely discernible.
We also believe that developers will overwhelmingly support our approach, because 75 percent of applications are already designed in HTML5...
Wrong. The ability to make money by writing for a platform generally determines if developers will flock to that platform. Even if the apps are already in HTML5, if it's not worth a developer's time to spend 5 minutes making an app bundle and uploading it, they won't bother, no matter how simple you make it. And platforms aren't free. Even if you could snap your fingers and make a version for Mozilla, that's still yet another platform and yet another group of users you have to support.
Also:
By... adopting standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, we want to attract hundreds of thousands of web developers on OS Firefox. No need to learn the development languages of Apple or Google.
If we ever get a new TV, I might just go 3D. Some friends of ours recently got one (Vizio) and the price wasn't too bad. As it happens, we had just come from a 3D movie (Brave--meh) and we had our *ahem* souvenir 3D glasses with us. My friends put on a movie and I was very happy to see that the glasses from the theater (Real 3D) worked with their set. Especially happy since the set of glasses that came with the TV didn't include any kid-sized ones, but the movie theater does supply them.
I don't overly care for 3D in general but some things, like CGI kids movies, are kind of fun with the effect. And, if this September's Finding Nemo is any indication, someone finally realized that you can make any old CGI movie 3D just by re-rendering it with a new camera angle, so I expect we'll see 3D versions of every movie back to Toy Story in the coming years.
Slashdot Mirror
> Any way you look at it, the only reason to wish to post
> anonymously is to avoid some form of repercussion
> (whether identity theft, stalking/harassment, or simply
> being outed as a douchetard.)
Wow, I can't believe you got a +5 for that. You forgot "safely express a contrarian opinion" from your list.
Sometimes, the majority are the thieves, stalkers, and douchebags.
> ... albeit with the usual US/euro dichotomy.
So there's, like, metric packets or something? :-)
> ... personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment
> her brain's neurons broke connection with one another
> when they were deprived of oxygen.
Cool, I'm totally putting that on my tombstone.
> They don't see a $600 phone when they buy the
> phone that costs them $50 on contract, they see
> a $50 phone.
What I see is a range of PLANS that don't give me any benefits if I pay full price for a phone. It's not like your choices are "free phone and expensive plan" or "expensive phone and cheap/flexible plan", which is what you would think when you hear that the phone is "subsidized" -- it's pretty much "expensive plan no matter what you buy."
Nor am I scared away by the term "two-year contract." I've been with my carrier since 1997.
Considering that people now-a-days want more space on their portable computing device...
Apple dropped the 4 GB iPhone just a few months after it was introduced because the 8 GB model was outselling it by (I think I remember hearing) about 8 or 10 to 1.
> Why store the data in only one format? Why not put
> one copy on USB Flash, one copy on DVD-R and
> possibly one copy on some other flash with a
> different interface like SD?
Put a micro SD in there too, which, in 25 years, will be known as "jumbo SD." :-)
> Time to get rid of guns. It will take a while.
(Oops, hit 'submit' instead of 'preview' on that other one. What I meant to say was...)
Like, forever. And guess who will be the LAST to give up their guns? If you said "criminals", YOU'RE RIGHT!
One last time: not a practical solution. You can wish all you want, but until you have a workable solution, you have nothing to contribute. Any post that boils down to "I wish guns would disappear" has no value.
You know the famous spam solution checklist that contains all the reasons any particular spam-fighting measure won't work? We need to have one of those for anti-gun laws. In particular, the line
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
which would be changed to
( ) Requires too much cooperation from criminals
> Time to get rid of guns. It will take a while.
Like, forever.
a) I was joking.
b) I said nothing about texting. When holding a phone with one hand--a common occurrence--you can reach EVERY corner of the screen--not just where the letters are. One-handed, I can unlock my 3.5" phone, hit any icon on the screen, and swipe from every edge and corner as needed. I can launch a drawing app and draw a perfect X, corner to corner.
> Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What
> does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos
> and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot
> from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust
> your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a
> recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?
LOL. I can show you a million examples of both a) people with degrees who don't know a damn thing and b) people who don't have degrees who are masters at what they do.
If you plotted the smartness of people with degrees and without degrees you'd get two bell curves and the "with" one might be a little more on the "smarter" side, but having a degree is by no means a guarantee of intelligence, and not having a degree is not a guarantee of the opposite.
From talking to many people that do hiring for many places, a degree MIGHT tip the scales in favor of someone who is better at what they do, but in real life it's never that close. If you really do have a choice between two people who are nearly identical (and that almost never happens) the nod will RARELY go to one just for having a degree when the other doesn't. The person hiring will pick the one he likes more, or gets a better feeling about, or who he just thinks will work harder, etc.
> Legally getting guns should be a process designed to
> aggravate and filter out the nutcases.
It is, somewhat. Laws vary from state to state, but for the most part (like in the biggest states, i.e. New York and California) you have to buy from a licensed dealer, and you have to pass a background check. Other states (like Florida) allow private sales. In any case, you never know someone is a "nut" (like the subject of the day) until the first time they do something "nutty." So even that has questionable effectiveness.
> Most felons are filtered out as well but they are sane and
> it does not take much to get around bureaucracy...
News flash: it is already illegal in the United States for felons to possess guns at all. (Not just "can't buy new ones"--they can't own any at all. If they owned one already and kept it, or someone gives a gun to them for free, they're still breaking the law.) But even if they don't have a gun, how do felons get guns? THEY BUY THEM ILLEGALLY.
See? THEY DON'T FOLLOW THE LAW. That's why they're called "criminals."
> Victims are still going to happen with or without guns
> and it should be obvious the number of victims will go
> down without guns.
You know that when you make guns illegal, it's not like you snap your fingers and they're all gone, right? There are about 300 million people in this country and about as many guns. (Estimates vary.) And the country is almost 4 million square miles. How exactly do you plan to make them not available to criminals? Oh, right, by passing a law. Right. Because the same people that break laws today will not break this new law. Got it.
> If you can not realize this then you are not smart enough to waste time trying to argue with.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
That's why I said that it's "a practical impossibility." How do you propose to find (estimates vary) about a quarter billion pieces of easily-concealable metal scattered around 3.8 million square miles? Hint: when guns become illegal, criminals don't say "Damn, I can't rob anyone anymore. Time to go turn in all my guns to the police." Anyone who thinks "once something is illegal, no one does it anymore" does not have a grasp of reality at all.
> Once people experience ad free programming
> it becomes very addictive.
DVRs serve that purpose too. Like you, I've been living largely ad-free for about 10 years now. I'm happy with cable (satellite, actually... DirecTV, in fact) for several reasons.
1) Internet problems do not lead to TV problems. Playback is always smooth. :-) ) Up until 6 months ago I was on 1.5MB down/256k up DSL which MAYBE would work with decent quality video (definitely not HD) from SOME sources, SOMETIMES. I'm on 18MB service now and it's still not perfect. Generally very good, but not perfect. There's a big difference between 95% and 98% and 99% and 100%. TV pretty much JUST ALWAYS WORKS.
2) Works with any Internet service. (Or without, in fact.
3) The UI is generally better than any other set-top box or app (like Hulu Desktop) on a traditional computer. (I still <3 my TiVo but the newer generic DTV boxes are pretty good. Worse in some ways, better in others... overall, both are pretty OK.)
4) There are LOTS of good shows (especially smaller shows from smaller networks) that aren't available online.
5) No delay. Shows are still on TV first. I don't have to wait a day, or 3 days, or a week. When it's "on TV", I can watch it. Period.
6) DVRs solve most of the problems (mainly, ads and scheduling) that people associate with traditional TVs.
7) I actually LIKE some ads. In particular, I like seeing ads during shows for other similar shows. If an ad looks good I'll watch it, and if turns out it wasn't good, I'll skip it next time it's on. I just prefer that to "If you liked this, you also might like..." kind of stuff. (I also like browsing books in a library or bookstore. Call me crazy.)
8) It's all in one place. I don't have to look at Hulu and Netflix and individual networks' sites to find what I want. All the channels are just THERE. Also, no worries about having the latest version of any kind of software.
9) I have nearly no incentive to EVER go to legally-questionable sites. It's not a HUGE deal, but yeah, I'd rather avoid the hassle of some multi-thousand-dollar lawsuit, regardless of the odds and whether the suit is bullshit or not.
There are some downsides compared to streaming and there are some neat features that streaming offers, but there is no single perfect solution, and for me, traditional TV service plus a DVR works very well. I'm not saying I don't watch or get ANY video online, but I'm a LONG way from "cutting the cord." (Which is such a HORRIBLE misnomer, by the way--all you're doing is TRADING one cord for another. And both cords are controlled by the same companies, so if the day comes that they're losing too much money over here, they'll just raise the rates over there.)
Lots of things are great for lazy parents. Many of these same things are good for active parents too. We watch Nick Jr. (among other channels) with our kid and he's learned a lot with that. When you have a kid, you are not magically transformed into an infinite supplies of creativity, information, and energy. It's good to have helpers. Like anything else, it can be used well, or not.
I was hoping the story linked under "Big Data analytics" would be interesting but it wasn't. It only has vague statements and a couple small examples. A much better story is "Target knows you're pregnant" from earlier this year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
It has been shown repeatedly that 3.5" is the ideal size for a touchscreen phone. The majority of the population can hold the phone in one hand and reach every corner with their thumb. Phones that are 4, 4.3, or 5" are just stupid.
Unless Apple makes one that size. Then it'll be awesome. ;-)
Right. NOTHING bad happens in countries where citizens don't have guns. Banning guns leads to ponies and rainbows every day.
But in America, today, banning guns is a practical impossibility. Like it or not, there are just too many out there, and guess what? -- criminals won't give up theirs. (Interesting fact: it's ALREADY ILLEGAL for felons to own guns, but many do.) If you ban guns, all you're doing is creating a whole nation of helpless victims. Yes, you'd get to (as my friend says) "just arrest anyone you see with a gun", but unfortunately, by the time you SEE the gun, it's already too late.
Yes, it sucks when a guy shoots up a theater, or when people fly planes into buildings. But more people are killed by car crashes and obesity every year than mass killings like this. As much as everyone here hates the nanny state, laws about seatbelts and motorcycle helmets and happy meals and large sodas will probably save more lives than letting the TSA or HCI have their way. (Not that I'm a fan of either of the linked laws or organizations. Just sayin' they'd probably do more.)
> That said, do you really think he could have killed 12 and
> injured 50 had he burst into the theatre armed with a flint
> knife and an atlatl?
He would have had a hard time racking up those numbers inside a theater, but he could kill and injure just as many by driving a pickup truck through a public area--city sidewalk, public park, etc. Or, as another poster said, by setting a fire.
My ideal office machine:
- Windows 2000
- Office 97
- Just don't use it to browse the Web.
A clean install of W2K on a 1 GHz PIII with 256-512 MB RAM runs like a Swiss watch.
How does "loser pays" work when a little guy goes after a big company like Apple, Google, or Microsoft with a legitimate complaint but gets defeated because the big company was able to spend 100,000x more on their lawyers?
Even 24x24 would be enough to help you navigate around as you walk. That would be a HUGE step up from being blind. Also, by moving your eye around a bit, you could probably get more effective detail--like how if you move your head while looking through showerglass you can get a better idea of what's behind it.* Or, you can be standing near the frame of a door that's open 2mm and by moving your head back and forth you can get a pretty good idea of what's on the other side.**
OK, better example: watch some really tiny video, like 160x120. While it's playing, you can see a good amount of detail, but if you pause a frame, the details are barely discernible.
* No, I am not a peeping Tom.
** Really, I'm not. :-)
We also believe that developers will overwhelmingly support our approach, because 75 percent of applications are already designed in HTML5...
Wrong. The ability to make money by writing for a platform generally determines if developers will flock to that platform. Even if the apps are already in HTML5, if it's not worth a developer's time to spend 5 minutes making an app bundle and uploading it, they won't bother, no matter how simple you make it. And platforms aren't free. Even if you could snap your fingers and make a version for Mozilla, that's still yet another platform and yet another group of users you have to support.
Also:
By... adopting standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, we want to attract hundreds of thousands of web developers on OS Firefox. No need to learn the development languages of Apple or Google.
One word (ok, sorta two): PhoneGap
And finally: how did "ZOMG apps can be written in HTML5!!!!!11" work out for Palm?
Is it like Digg? :-)
If we ever get a new TV, I might just go 3D. Some friends of ours recently got one (Vizio) and the price wasn't too bad. As it happens, we had just come from a 3D movie (Brave--meh) and we had our *ahem* souvenir 3D glasses with us. My friends put on a movie and I was very happy to see that the glasses from the theater (Real 3D) worked with their set. Especially happy since the set of glasses that came with the TV didn't include any kid-sized ones, but the movie theater does supply them.
I don't overly care for 3D in general but some things, like CGI kids movies, are kind of fun with the effect. And, if this September's Finding Nemo is any indication, someone finally realized that you can make any old CGI movie 3D just by re-rendering it with a new camera angle, so I expect we'll see 3D versions of every movie back to Toy Story in the coming years.