Absolutely. My wife, she of the toothpick-sized fingers, does pretty well on her iPod Touch. She prefers my Blackberry keyboard for any sort of serious data entry, but then again she has little need for that on a phone - that's what her netbook is for.
Personally, I can't type three consecutive letters on the iPod Touch or an iPhone without screwing it up. But I can burn through text like a sonofabitch with my Blackberry.
I used each phone in its default mode, as it would present to a brand-new user out of the box. I counted one error for each wrong word in the main text and for each wrong character in the phone number, web address, username and password. In every test I tried not to look at the screen and typed as quickly as I could, allowing the phone to correct any errors. I’m not the world’s fastest typist, so I’m sure some of you could easily beat the absolute times, but as a comparison between devices it’s reasonably valid.
There's a LOT of use of the word "I" in there. Could it be that he went through an exhaustive process to determine which phone met *gasp* his own personal preferences?
Well, Paul, that's fantastic. In fact, I happen to agree with you. But you haven't settled the "debate" for anyone but yourself. I think most (but NOT ALL) people would likely agree that a hard keyboard is really tough to beat when you want to type in a lot of text. I know typing anything into my wife's iPod Touch is, for my massively meaty paws, an exercise in utter frustration. I think entering anything more than a URL in it should be given a "circle of hell" difficulty level. And I've really honestly tried to make it work. For those apps that support rotation, the wide-format keyboard is just barely adequate, but WHY DOESN'T SAFARI SUPPORT THIS!?!?!?
(breathes) But I digress.
I've seen people who can absolutely whiz-bang on soft keyboards. I don't understand it, but they can. I've also seen people who (believe it or not) do not need to enter any major Tolstoy works into their mobile phone browser on a routine basis. For those people, a hard keyboard is an utter waste of what could be useful screen.
Personally, you can have my Blackberry 8310 smartphone when you pry it from my cold, dead thumbs. Or replace it with a newer Blackberry Curve (oooh! shiny! 3G please!) or something else with a hard keyboard in a similar form factor. I don't like the postage stamp of a screen, but I enter text. A lot. And I need a physical keyboard until voice recognition stops getting me visits from HR when "I like your idea" gets transcribed as "I'll lick you my dear". I also want something durable, and slideouts seem rather breakable in my big meaty paws.
So the wide-candybar format with a postage stamp screen is a reasonable compromise. I've been carrying it for about a year and a half now, and while there's always the "wow, if I could get a bigger screen I could have seen that", there's constantly the "oh, dear, I gotta type a whole paragraph, thank FSM for this real keyboard - wonder twin thumbs, ACTIVATE!" I can type about 1/4 to 1/2 as fast as I can on a desktop keyboard, special characters are just one extra keypress unless they are truly bizarro ones, and it just gets done what I need to get done quickly.
J. L. Slimfingers might be able to throw an iPhone in the air and type "Moby Dick" on it while in flight before it lands. For him, a large screen format is an excellent choice.
D. Elly Catflower might keep it in a shockproof case and only bring it out with great ceremony and lay it on a safety pad of fine Corinthian leather before using it. For her, a slideout is ideal. Lots of screen, full-on keyboard, and they'll treat it right.
Me? Big meaty paws, a tendency to bash it against stuff, and a need to enter a lot of text. I got the Blackberry 8310, put it in a big rubbery slipcover, and put that inside an 8800-style leather case. It's at a year and a half, I don't dread typing on it, and it's still going strong with about 2 days of battery life between charges. I haven't even managed to scratch the screen (though the stick-on screen protector helps). I think I chose well.
Although it is hard to see why this would be better than placing huge billboar[d]s - but still I put nothing past an advertiser with enough intent.
[phone rings] Facebook: "Hello, this is Facebook Advertising. How may I be of service today?" MegaCorp: "Yes, I've noticed that a lot of people on your site post pictures and videos that have billboards, signs, t-shirts, and stuff that have my competitor's name on them." FB: "Sir, that's something we have little control over, since the content is submitted by users." MC: "No, I'm not complaining, I'm making you an offer." FB: "Please continue." MC: "I'll give you $50 million to replace every occurrence of my competitor's logo and artwork with my own for one year." FB: "We'll have it coded by the time the the check clears, sir. Would you like to have your logo added in subtle ways to other photos and videos as well? That's an extra $50 mil" MC: "Done."
[another phone rings] Google: "Hello, Google Maps Division, how may I help you today?"......
You can't see it because this is the internet but I'm giving Europe a standing ovation right now.
Yes, we can. Turn off your webcam. Or at least put on some pants. We don't need to know the details behind your "standing" ovation.:)
All kidding aside:
It's nice to see some people in power actually understand just how disgusting ACTA is.
Agreed. Now let's hope that this starts a new actual legislative movement in the EU, and eventually in the States and other places, to respect IP rights to a reasonable degree but also make copyright reasonable again.
I think even an exciting TV show would allow for snacking pretty easily. Grab handy foods during the commercials, and not matter how exciting the show your hands and mouth are still free while watching. You have an enforced break (commercial) to get food, and a continuous opportunity to consume it.
TV and food just go together. You have sufficient facilities free to eat continuously when watching TV (hands, mouth). You do not when on the computer. At best, all your surfing is done with the mouse and you have one hand free. But there will always be the need to get on the keyboard. So even if you had continuous flows of food provided to you, you'd tend to eat far less in front of a computer.
Not to mention opportunity. Start a commercial break with a picture some luscious food item, and your audience will use the rest of the commercial break checking out the fridge to see what is available to eat during the next ten minutes of programming. At the end of the commercial break, they will grab whatever is the most prepared and easiest to eat in front of the TV and rush back. Next commercial, repeat.
That can be as many as 4 snacks per hour (they still only do 4 5-minute breaks an hour, right?).
If you don't choose your foods really wisely, you could easily end up eating several hundred calories during a single hour of television.
Computers don't generally offer that opportunity. The distraction is continuous, since by and large you have control of the experience.
I'm nibbling on a snack right now, but I don't feel the "need" to eat all the time in front of a computer, because most of the time my hands are busy typing.
When I watched commercial TV, I tended to feel like I had to have something to do, and the TV stations set up time every (what is it now, ten minutes) where I can go get food. I'd graze almost constantly, because my hands were free. When I surf the Web, I will occasionally snack, but not nearly as often. Oddly enough, I still have a small snack in the evening around 8PM, which used to be the "sit down in front of the TV" time, and I think that snack is a carryover from that. But the snack is a lot smaller than it was when we had a TV (and I still watch recorded shows on the computer, but I keep my hands busy with my smartphone instead of food).
If commercials didn't exist, or were only run between shows rather than every few minutes, I don't think we'd eat as much either. Commercial break comes on, we go off and put together some food. Break is only 2-3 minutes long (or is it still that short?) so you can't really prepare anything even vaguely healthy. You go for prepared comfort foods that can be eaten easily.
I realize this is one person's anecdote, and this may only apply to me, but I strongly suspect that several important factors differentiate TV from computers,
- TV is an almost completely passive activity, whereas the computer engages you and distracts you from thoughts of food.
- With TV, your hands are completely or almost completely free so you can easily stuff food continuously, with a computer you might reach out to grab a handful of snack every few minutes.
- Good-looking foods are shown to you every ten minutes or so on the TV, with enforced breaks to allow you the opportunity to get food. On a computer, you largely set your own breaks and people tend to get up less to get food. And when they do, there's no absolute rush to get back and beat the commercials so you might even get healthier foods.
If computing could be done while leaving the hands and mouth completely free, I'd suspect people would start munching more.
I'm not saying that everyone who watches TV is constantly stuffing their maw with junk food, or that computer users constantly starve themselves, but I think the differences between the activities can lead to very different eating behaviors.
And don't dismiss the calories burned by typing.:)
Well, there is certainly that risk. 50% chance with surgery, 75% chance (from an untrusted source) with this doc, unknown chance of complications. It's not an easy choice.
Twitter's business plan involves keeping expenses low and profiting on margin.
Most of the companies that died when the bubble burst were doing things that could not be maintained under any circumstances. Companies would actually PAY YOU 50 cents an hour to run a banner bar when they weren't making that much money on the ads you were ignoring, or deliver your groceries to you without charging for shipping and with no order minimum, or buy million-dollar ads in the Superbowl that didn't even mention their company or what they did.
Compared to that, Twitter is a marvel of planning and execution. I'm not saying in the real world it is, but compared to the companies that died with the bubble, they are. And they'll probably do OK.
His patients, too, are risk takers (supposing they have been properly informed about the subject).
Me, too, but I doubt they have been. You yourself have probably done more research than many of his patients, and what you've found would give the the screaming willies.
He's got an insignificantly-sized study that he authored himself stating that no complications happened over a short enough amount of time that the kinds of complications we're worried about wouldn't have happened yet?
Oblig. car analogy:
"In my study, which I did myself, 100 2-year-olds were sent off with cars onto the freeway. 75% of those 2-year-olds were still driving in a straight line and obviously enjoying themselves ten seconds after starting off. 25% of them drifted harmlessly into the breakdown lane and became stuck. So I can conclude that a great way to entertain a 2-year-olds is to have them drive on the freeway!"
The outcome of a study is frequently associated with the length of the followup term. That goes double for cancer-risk studies.
That's best, but not practical. Basic cable exists today as a simple on/off analog signal that is sent over the cable to all customers. "Extended basic analog" is sent the same way, except they put a filter on customers who don't pay for it. It's only when you get into the "premium" or digital channels that it becomes worth the money to put in a specialized tuner.
That's why true "a la carte" programming is so impractical. They are just pumping a consistent signal over all the wires in the network.
I suppose they could simply move ABC up to the "extended basic" tier, though, with all the other cable channels that they have to pay for content. Then they could just add whatever Disney wants for ABC to the "extended basic" charge.
No, what I'm saying is that, if you engage in treatments that are not FDA approved and your insurance company finds out about it, they can screw with your coverage.
The FDA exists to approve substances as "reasonably safe". If you take something that is not found to be "reasonably safe" and you die of it, your insurance company could very feasibly deny claims.
I can't go that far. In this case, the FDA should at least be ensuring that the patients are informed that that their insurance companies now have valid cause to deny claims, and that the treatment is not proven to do any good, and that it might actually kill them, but that no one really knows for sure.
If, at that point, the patient wishes to proceed, I agree - the FDA can be heavyhanded on this sort of thing, and informed consent of the patient should trump FDA authority.
The patient should then be able to proceed.
Oh, one little detail. After canceling their insurance policy, signing a wavier saying that Medicare/Medicaid don't have to spend tax dollars to cover them. Once those little details are covered, they can proceed as they like.
Weight is one of the smaller of her problems. In fact, her doctors aren't really worried too much about her weight.
She's got to exercise to strengthen her muscles (and heart, and lung capacity) to increase her chances of surviving surgery. But she's on heavy duty painkillers (occasionally up to and including morphine) just to be able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
Something like this, if it was really true, might allow her to start building cardio capacity without screaming in pain. I imagine she'd GLADLY accept the risk of cancer, because her prognosis at surgery is not good and getting worse.
I hear ya. I have a few friends who would benefit greatly from something like this, and one just ended up taking some really risky surgery (for her) so she could start exercising and get healthy enough for knee surgery. Something like this would be nothing short of miraculous.
I honestly hope this works out, and all the current patients do well and end up with normal cancer rates, and in a decade or so this becomes a commonplace treatment.
But I'd have to be in a big shitload of pain and wealthy enough to pay my own medical bills from here on in to take a risk on an untested procedure.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no '???'. The path to profit is pretty clear.
I know, I know, it deserves a -5, "misuse of meme".
Absolutely. My wife, she of the toothpick-sized fingers, does pretty well on her iPod Touch. She prefers my Blackberry keyboard for any sort of serious data entry, but then again she has little need for that on a phone - that's what her netbook is for.
Personally, I can't type three consecutive letters on the iPod Touch or an iPhone without screwing it up. But I can burn through text like a sonofabitch with my Blackberry.
From TFA:
I used each phone in its default mode, as it would present to a brand-new user out of the box. I counted one error for each wrong word in the main text and for each wrong character in the phone number, web address, username and password. In every test I tried not to look at the screen and typed as quickly as I could, allowing the phone to correct any errors. I’m not the world’s fastest typist, so I’m sure some of you could easily beat the absolute times, but as a comparison between devices it’s reasonably valid.
There's a LOT of use of the word "I" in there. Could it be that he went through an exhaustive process to determine which phone met *gasp* his own personal preferences?
Well, Paul, that's fantastic. In fact, I happen to agree with you. But you haven't settled the "debate" for anyone but yourself. I think most (but NOT ALL) people would likely agree that a hard keyboard is really tough to beat when you want to type in a lot of text. I know typing anything into my wife's iPod Touch is, for my massively meaty paws, an exercise in utter frustration. I think entering anything more than a URL in it should be given a "circle of hell" difficulty level. And I've really honestly tried to make it work. For those apps that support rotation, the wide-format keyboard is just barely adequate, but WHY DOESN'T SAFARI SUPPORT THIS!?!?!?
(breathes) But I digress.
I've seen people who can absolutely whiz-bang on soft keyboards. I don't understand it, but they can. I've also seen people who (believe it or not) do not need to enter any major Tolstoy works into their mobile phone browser on a routine basis. For those people, a hard keyboard is an utter waste of what could be useful screen.
Personally, you can have my Blackberry 8310 smartphone when you pry it from my cold, dead thumbs. Or replace it with a newer Blackberry Curve (oooh! shiny! 3G please!) or something else with a hard keyboard in a similar form factor. I don't like the postage stamp of a screen, but I enter text. A lot. And I need a physical keyboard until voice recognition stops getting me visits from HR when "I like your idea" gets transcribed as "I'll lick you my dear". I also want something durable, and slideouts seem rather breakable in my big meaty paws.
So the wide-candybar format with a postage stamp screen is a reasonable compromise. I've been carrying it for about a year and a half now, and while there's always the "wow, if I could get a bigger screen I could have seen that", there's constantly the "oh, dear, I gotta type a whole paragraph, thank FSM for this real keyboard - wonder twin thumbs, ACTIVATE!" I can type about 1/4 to 1/2 as fast as I can on a desktop keyboard, special characters are just one extra keypress unless they are truly bizarro ones, and it just gets done what I need to get done quickly.
J. L. Slimfingers might be able to throw an iPhone in the air and type "Moby Dick" on it while in flight before it lands. For him, a large screen format is an excellent choice.
D. Elly Catflower might keep it in a shockproof case and only bring it out with great ceremony and lay it on a safety pad of fine Corinthian leather before using it. For her, a slideout is ideal. Lots of screen, full-on keyboard, and they'll treat it right.
Me? Big meaty paws, a tendency to bash it against stuff, and a need to enter a lot of text. I got the Blackberry 8310, put it in a big rubbery slipcover, and put that inside an 8800-style leather case. It's at a year and a half, I don't dread typing on it, and it's still going strong with about 2 days of battery life between charges. I haven't even managed to scratch the screen (though the stick-on screen protector helps). I think I chose well.
For me.
Not for everyone else.
Tuesday. In the morning. From 8:15 AM to 8:25 AM. On a slow day.
Seems kinda more "Doctor Evil" than actual evil, doesn't it?
"I demand.." [brings pinkie to lip] ".. one MILLION dollars."
[collective governments of the world laugh with relief]
"That's an awfully nice looking email server you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."
Although it is hard to see why this would be better than placing huge billboar[d]s - but still I put nothing past an advertiser with enough intent.
[phone rings]
Facebook: "Hello, this is Facebook Advertising. How may I be of service today?"
MegaCorp: "Yes, I've noticed that a lot of people on your site post pictures and videos that have billboards, signs, t-shirts, and stuff that have my competitor's name on them."
FB: "Sir, that's something we have little control over, since the content is submitted by users."
MC: "No, I'm not complaining, I'm making you an offer."
FB: "Please continue."
MC: "I'll give you $50 million to replace every occurrence of my competitor's logo and artwork with my own for one year."
FB: "We'll have it coded by the time the the check clears, sir. Would you like to have your logo added in subtle ways to other photos and videos as well? That's an extra $50 mil"
MC: "Done."
[another phone rings] ... ...
Google: "Hello, Google Maps Division, how may I help you today?"
4. Profit!
No, it works, but the picture wasn't blue. Only blue has inherent cooling properties.
They might also be Krynoids. Very dangerous, and they always travel in pairs.
Are you running the KDE variant of Gnome on that, and the Reiser/EXT4 filesystem?
You can't see it because this is the internet but I'm giving Europe a standing ovation right now.
Yes, we can. Turn off your webcam. Or at least put on some pants. We don't need to know the details behind your "standing" ovation. :)
All kidding aside:
It's nice to see some people in power actually understand just how disgusting ACTA is.
Agreed. Now let's hope that this starts a new actual legislative movement in the EU, and eventually in the States and other places, to respect IP rights to a reasonable degree but also make copyright reasonable again.
I think even an exciting TV show would allow for snacking pretty easily. Grab handy foods during the commercials, and not matter how exciting the show your hands and mouth are still free while watching. You have an enforced break (commercial) to get food, and a continuous opportunity to consume it.
TV and food just go together. You have sufficient facilities free to eat continuously when watching TV (hands, mouth). You do not when on the computer. At best, all your surfing is done with the mouse and you have one hand free. But there will always be the need to get on the keyboard. So even if you had continuous flows of food provided to you, you'd tend to eat far less in front of a computer.
Not to mention opportunity. Start a commercial break with a picture some luscious food item, and your audience will use the rest of the commercial break checking out the fridge to see what is available to eat during the next ten minutes of programming. At the end of the commercial break, they will grab whatever is the most prepared and easiest to eat in front of the TV and rush back. Next commercial, repeat.
That can be as many as 4 snacks per hour (they still only do 4 5-minute breaks an hour, right?).
If you don't choose your foods really wisely, you could easily end up eating several hundred calories during a single hour of television.
Computers don't generally offer that opportunity. The distraction is continuous, since by and large you have control of the experience.
Yeah, but not to the extent that TV allows.
I'm nibbling on a snack right now, but I don't feel the "need" to eat all the time in front of a computer, because most of the time my hands are busy typing.
When I watched commercial TV, I tended to feel like I had to have something to do, and the TV stations set up time every (what is it now, ten minutes) where I can go get food. I'd graze almost constantly, because my hands were free. When I surf the Web, I will occasionally snack, but not nearly as often. Oddly enough, I still have a small snack in the evening around 8PM, which used to be the "sit down in front of the TV" time, and I think that snack is a carryover from that. But the snack is a lot smaller than it was when we had a TV (and I still watch recorded shows on the computer, but I keep my hands busy with my smartphone instead of food).
If commercials didn't exist, or were only run between shows rather than every few minutes, I don't think we'd eat as much either. Commercial break comes on, we go off and put together some food. Break is only 2-3 minutes long (or is it still that short?) so you can't really prepare anything even vaguely healthy. You go for prepared comfort foods that can be eaten easily.
I realize this is one person's anecdote, and this may only apply to me, but I strongly suspect that several important factors differentiate TV from computers,
- TV is an almost completely passive activity, whereas the computer engages you and distracts you from thoughts of food.
- With TV, your hands are completely or almost completely free so you can easily stuff food continuously, with a computer you might reach out to grab a handful of snack every few minutes.
- Good-looking foods are shown to you every ten minutes or so on the TV, with enforced breaks to allow you the opportunity to get food. On a computer, you largely set your own breaks and people tend to get up less to get food. And when they do, there's no absolute rush to get back and beat the commercials so you might even get healthier foods.
If computing could be done while leaving the hands and mouth completely free, I'd suspect people would start munching more.
I'm not saying that everyone who watches TV is constantly stuffing their maw with junk food, or that computer users constantly starve themselves, but I think the differences between the activities can lead to very different eating behaviors.
And don't dismiss the calories burned by typing. :)
Well, there is certainly that risk. 50% chance with surgery, 75% chance (from an untrusted source) with this doc, unknown chance of complications. It's not an easy choice.
Actually, you laugh, but....
Twitter's business plan involves keeping expenses low and profiting on margin.
Most of the companies that died when the bubble burst were doing things that could not be maintained under any circumstances. Companies would actually PAY YOU 50 cents an hour to run a banner bar when they weren't making that much money on the ads you were ignoring, or deliver your groceries to you without charging for shipping and with no order minimum, or buy million-dollar ads in the Superbowl that didn't even mention their company or what they did.
Compared to that, Twitter is a marvel of planning and execution. I'm not saying in the real world it is, but compared to the companies that died with the bubble, they are. And they'll probably do OK.
Yup, and we'll do it again.
The response to every one of your excellent points with..
"With greater risks come greater rewards."
And what better way to risk than by breaking the law? The government will reward you by bailing your ass out! As long as you're still rich.
His patients, too, are risk takers (supposing they have been properly informed about the subject).
Me, too, but I doubt they have been. You yourself have probably done more research than many of his patients, and what you've found would give the the screaming willies.
He's got an insignificantly-sized study that he authored himself stating that no complications happened over a short enough amount of time that the kinds of complications we're worried about wouldn't have happened yet?
Oblig. car analogy:
"In my study, which I did myself, 100 2-year-olds were sent off with cars onto the freeway. 75% of those 2-year-olds were still driving in a straight line and obviously enjoying themselves ten seconds after starting off. 25% of them drifted harmlessly into the breakdown lane and became stuck. So I can conclude that a great way to entertain a 2-year-olds is to have them drive on the freeway!"
The outcome of a study is frequently associated with the length of the followup term. That goes double for cancer-risk studies.
That's best, but not practical. Basic cable exists today as a simple on/off analog signal that is sent over the cable to all customers. "Extended basic analog" is sent the same way, except they put a filter on customers who don't pay for it. It's only when you get into the "premium" or digital channels that it becomes worth the money to put in a specialized tuner.
That's why true "a la carte" programming is so impractical. They are just pumping a consistent signal over all the wires in the network.
I suppose they could simply move ABC up to the "extended basic" tier, though, with all the other cable channels that they have to pay for content. Then they could just add whatever Disney wants for ABC to the "extended basic" charge.
Oops. You're right. Thanks for the correction.
Sorry, that was an attempt at sarcasm.
In reality, he's a reckless asshole. But, for his patients' sake, I hope he's right.
No, what I'm saying is that, if you engage in treatments that are not FDA approved and your insurance company finds out about it, they can screw with your coverage.
The FDA exists to approve substances as "reasonably safe". If you take something that is not found to be "reasonably safe" and you die of it, your insurance company could very feasibly deny claims.
I can't go that far. In this case, the FDA should at least be ensuring that the patients are informed that that their insurance companies now have valid cause to deny claims, and that the treatment is not proven to do any good, and that it might actually kill them, but that no one really knows for sure.
If, at that point, the patient wishes to proceed, I agree - the FDA can be heavyhanded on this sort of thing, and informed consent of the patient should trump FDA authority.
The patient should then be able to proceed.
Oh, one little detail. After canceling their insurance policy, signing a wavier saying that Medicare/Medicaid don't have to spend tax dollars to cover them. Once those little details are covered, they can proceed as they like.
Suicide isn't covered.
You do realize, of course, that stem cells don't always turn into what scientists want them to?
The short-term complications are as you describe, but the long-term complications could include cancer.
Weight is one of the smaller of her problems. In fact, her doctors aren't really worried too much about her weight.
She's got to exercise to strengthen her muscles (and heart, and lung capacity) to increase her chances of surviving surgery. But she's on heavy duty painkillers (occasionally up to and including morphine) just to be able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
Something like this, if it was really true, might allow her to start building cardio capacity without screaming in pain. I imagine she'd GLADLY accept the risk of cancer, because her prognosis at surgery is not good and getting worse.
I hear ya. I have a few friends who would benefit greatly from something like this, and one just ended up taking some really risky surgery (for her) so she could start exercising and get healthy enough for knee surgery. Something like this would be nothing short of miraculous.
I honestly hope this works out, and all the current patients do well and end up with normal cancer rates, and in a decade or so this becomes a commonplace treatment.
But I'd have to be in a big shitload of pain and wealthy enough to pay my own medical bills from here on in to take a risk on an untested procedure.