Far be it from me to "defend" word (a plain text editor and TeX is more my style), but do really blame the programmers for the bulk of Word's shortcomings? I suspect it wasn't a programmer who said, "hey, let's have a talking paperclip!"
If it's buggy and crashing all the time, then it's poor programming, poor QA, or unrealistic timeframes set by the higher-ups. If it's the features that are completely useless and laughable, then I wouldn't be blaming the programmers. But that's just me...
Although it is entirely possible to have the lens be the limiting factor in terms of resolution (e.g., an 8MP sensor but a "4MP lens" resulting in 8MP images with only 4MP worth of image information).
My sense -- perhaps completely off base -- is that even if "ISP Google" doesn't use a modicum of data, it's still a Good Idea for Google to offer high-speed internet on the cheap. The more you use the internet, the more potential there is to make money on ad revenue. And if you have lousy internet, you're more liable to resort to other, less-monetizable forms of entertainment.
I like to think -- and this is again perhaps a bit naive -- that there's some overlap between what Google wants and what I want with regards to internet access (although for different reasons).
as always - things that HAVE NOT EVER been a problem.
Sure, but much of what I use the internet for doesn't "solve a problem," it's just convenience. When I wanted to look up a word, I used to grab a dictionary, instead of googling. When I wanted to learn about some event in history or similar, I'd grab the encyclopedia, instead of wikipedia. Once laptops became commonplace, it was about the same speed to look it up on the net (assuming I had to wake up the laptop first); now that smartphones are ubiquitous, it's decidedly faster to just whip out your phone.
The only "problem" that was solved was some gains in efficiency. Now it seems we're at the point of diminishing returns to be sure, but that doesn't mean that setting an alarm/adding items to a shopping list/etc. can't be streamlined a tiny but more.
Personally, the killer app as I see it is having a more robust silent alert (I sometimes don't feel the vibration from my phone) along with the ability to quickly see if I should just ignore the alert or address it (it takes about 1s to glance at a watch and determine if something requires my attention, vs. several seconds to take my watch out of my pocket -- and the former can be done without significant hand movement).
My limited experience with this is based off of a $15 "smart" watch which was extremely flaky, but when it worked I was certainly happy with the workflow.
Nice. I was thinking more in terms of computational power required for arbitrary photo-realistic graphics at this resolution. I'm not even sure if that's a well-posed question, though. But perhaps one could decide the minimum size of a polygon/size of textures required/etc., and come up with some heuristic argument for theoretical GPU requirements that could provide an imperceptibly high frame rate at the "44.1kHz/16bit video" resolution/bitdepth, displaying an arbitrarily complex (up to the limit of human perception) scene.
I like and agree with your calculation, up to (perhaps?) a factor of two due to ol' Nyquist–Shannon and whatnot (e.g., human hearing is often quoted as good to 20kHz, but we require twice that or ~40kHz due to sampling). Also, the human eye has a phenomenal dynamic range, so the bitdepth might need to pretty high, although the full dynamic range is only realized over a very slow timescale I think (we can see just fine in the sunlight at ~1kW/m^2 illumination, but we can also see object outlines at night when an entire room is lit only by an LED pushing 100 mW).
So, is is there an analogous specification for video cards? The 44.1kHz @ 16bit is pretty easily justified (Nyquist–Shannon + reasonable dynamic range). Can a visual equivalent be easily justified? That is to say, at sort of "eye limited" (retina, in Apple lingo) resolution and field of view, how many polygons can be said to make up the human perception of reality, and what sort of graphics processing muscle would be required to drive this?
I of course have no idea, just wondering out loud. Just trying to approach OP's question in a pseudo-scientific fashion.
In the vast majority of cases, I certainly agree. However, there are some instances where -- at least in a very narrow sense -- "big business" has more-or-less similar interests as the consumer. As an example, Netflix and Google both have seemingly reasonable stances on internet openness (at least in the USA). Whether you want to look at this as big business doing The Right Thing or as big business looking to lower their costs to increase their bottom line is up to you.
I almost* feel sorry for the telcos; they're sort of a necessary evil in that they don't offer anything other than a means to an end -- a required but largely thankless service. Netflix has movies, I want to watch them, and the fact that they have to go over a series of tubes to get to me isn't something I really care about or even notice, unless it doesn't work flawlessly.
I think it's "carte blanche" -- not trying to be a dick or anything. But then I guess it's pretty much impossible to correct someone over the intertubes and not sound like a dick...:(
Yeah, pretty sure you're right about h265 on the RPi -- it does h264, VC1 and MPEG2 with hardware decode. (I think the RPi2 is fast enough to do MPEG2 in software, not sure though.)
I have an Odroid C1 (not C1+), but I never got it working as smoothly as I wanted. I think h265 worked, IIRC, but I had problems with audio passthrough, MPEG2 stuttering, and I think some of my BD rips (either h264 or VC1, can't recall) likewise had some jitter. Plus, the HDMI-CEC support never worked for me...though maybe I should dust it off and give it another shot -- haven't played with it in some time. I guess I know what I'm doing tonight...:)
As a parting aside, I also find it mildly ridiculous that some high end TVs still include built-in audio (see, for instance, Samsung's UN88JS9500FXZA). If you're spending ~$20k on a TV, you'd think you would use your own surround sound receiver+speakers...
For local content, an RPi2 works flawlessly ($35). For streaming, a first generation Chromecast works flawlessly ($35). For anything else, a laptop and a long HDMI cable does the trick.
If my Chromecast gets infected, that would be a bummer but I'd be out $35. If my RPi2 gets infected, I'll wipe it and start over again.
Say what you will about the US, but as it is, I can access any of a number of ridiculously pro-USA websites just the same as I can access any of a number of ridiculously anti-USA websites.
To (roughly) continue with the analogy though, will we get to a point where companies (ahem, Microsoft...) can be held liable for the bandwidth usage of something not explicitly requested by the user?
I know that if I had, say, a "smart bathtub" that decided to go rogue (due to no fault of my own) and waste thousands of gallons of water, I would certainly want the bathtub manufacturer to be held liable for the water usage charge. Will a similar thing end up happening with broadband?
I could be wrong, but I doubt that Netflix wants to implement any kind of geo-restrictions on its content. The problem -- as I understand it -- is that the rights to various media follow an extremely antiquated system, where one group might own the north American rights, another the European Union rights, another the Oceania rights, etc.
Again, this is just my understanding, but I think Netflix couldn't care less about who has access to their content; but if the studio execs get word that Netflix is allowing users to "illegally" access content, then they face revocation of the content rights.
Well, Trump is actually a patch -- the simulation is using too much RAM, so we need to install walls to limit our worldsize. Likewise, the computer running the general EU area is running out of RAM, too, hence the whole Brexit thing.
To quote TFS, "Tell me what's wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?"
(And this general line of thinking is nothing new -- see, for instance, the Boltzmann brain.)
Not sure why this is modded down -- I walked into the lab one day to realize that our computer had decided to upgrade to 10. I rejected the EULA, and it restored 7 (it didn't even take too long).
Yeah but a machine doesn't require benefits, insurance, sick days, vacation, workman's comp, schedule changes or a training...
Sure -- but how many times has your computer been out-of-commission as it's updating itself/botched update (= sick days), your device (ahem, Google...) been completely orphaned (= I quit), or your device been broken outside of warranty (= needs insurance)?
That said, I largely agree that human jobs -- particularly entry-level ones -- will be replaced by robots, but the cost analysis isn't as simple as, "robots don't need health insurance so they're better."
Slashdot Mirror
Far be it from me to "defend" word (a plain text editor and TeX is more my style), but do really blame the programmers for the bulk of Word's shortcomings? I suspect it wasn't a programmer who said, "hey, let's have a talking paperclip!"
If it's buggy and crashing all the time, then it's poor programming, poor QA, or unrealistic timeframes set by the higher-ups. If it's the features that are completely useless and laughable, then I wouldn't be blaming the programmers. But that's just me...
Although it is entirely possible to have the lens be the limiting factor in terms of resolution (e.g., an 8MP sensor but a "4MP lens" resulting in 8MP images with only 4MP worth of image information).
Of course, that's not at all what was stated...
My sense -- perhaps completely off base -- is that even if "ISP Google" doesn't use a modicum of data, it's still a Good Idea for Google to offer high-speed internet on the cheap. The more you use the internet, the more potential there is to make money on ad revenue. And if you have lousy internet, you're more liable to resort to other, less-monetizable forms of entertainment.
I like to think -- and this is again perhaps a bit naive -- that there's some overlap between what Google wants and what I want with regards to internet access (although for different reasons).
...and if you fall really far behind, they only let you stream educational kids shows.
Amazon even has this for free!
as always - things that HAVE NOT EVER been a problem.
Sure, but much of what I use the internet for doesn't "solve a problem," it's just convenience. When I wanted to look up a word, I used to grab a dictionary, instead of googling. When I wanted to learn about some event in history or similar, I'd grab the encyclopedia, instead of wikipedia. Once laptops became commonplace, it was about the same speed to look it up on the net (assuming I had to wake up the laptop first); now that smartphones are ubiquitous, it's decidedly faster to just whip out your phone.
The only "problem" that was solved was some gains in efficiency. Now it seems we're at the point of diminishing returns to be sure, but that doesn't mean that setting an alarm/adding items to a shopping list/etc. can't be streamlined a tiny but more.
Personally, the killer app as I see it is having a more robust silent alert (I sometimes don't feel the vibration from my phone) along with the ability to quickly see if I should just ignore the alert or address it (it takes about 1s to glance at a watch and determine if something requires my attention, vs. several seconds to take my watch out of my pocket -- and the former can be done without significant hand movement).
My limited experience with this is based off of a $15 "smart" watch which was extremely flaky, but when it worked I was certainly happy with the workflow.
To paraphrase the quote oft attributed to Churchill, "Nuclear energy is the most dangerous form of energy, except for all the others."
Nice. I was thinking more in terms of computational power required for arbitrary photo-realistic graphics at this resolution. I'm not even sure if that's a well-posed question, though. But perhaps one could decide the minimum size of a polygon/size of textures required/etc., and come up with some heuristic argument for theoretical GPU requirements that could provide an imperceptibly high frame rate at the "44.1kHz/16bit video" resolution/bitdepth, displaying an arbitrarily complex (up to the limit of human perception) scene.
I like and agree with your calculation, up to (perhaps?) a factor of two due to ol' Nyquist–Shannon and whatnot (e.g., human hearing is often quoted as good to 20kHz, but we require twice that or ~40kHz due to sampling). Also, the human eye has a phenomenal dynamic range, so the bitdepth might need to pretty high, although the full dynamic range is only realized over a very slow timescale I think (we can see just fine in the sunlight at ~1kW/m^2 illumination, but we can also see object outlines at night when an entire room is lit only by an LED pushing 100 mW).
It seems that it's not entirely unparsable.
...44.1kHz 16 bit audio is relatively trivial...
So, is is there an analogous specification for video cards? The 44.1kHz @ 16bit is pretty easily justified (Nyquist–Shannon + reasonable dynamic range). Can a visual equivalent be easily justified? That is to say, at sort of "eye limited" (retina, in Apple lingo) resolution and field of view, how many polygons can be said to make up the human perception of reality, and what sort of graphics processing muscle would be required to drive this?
I of course have no idea, just wondering out loud. Just trying to approach OP's question in a pseudo-scientific fashion.
I'm sure this doesn't have anything to do with it...
And perhaps even continuously, assuming the "powering bandwidth" is larger than the transmitting bandwidth.
Yeah, but only if the wifi drivers are working...
(Only joking -- I've never had a serious problem with wifi under Linux...)
In the vast majority of cases, I certainly agree. However, there are some instances where -- at least in a very narrow sense -- "big business" has more-or-less similar interests as the consumer. As an example, Netflix and Google both have seemingly reasonable stances on internet openness (at least in the USA). Whether you want to look at this as big business doing The Right Thing or as big business looking to lower their costs to increase their bottom line is up to you.
I almost* feel sorry for the telcos; they're sort of a necessary evil in that they don't offer anything other than a means to an end -- a required but largely thankless service. Netflix has movies, I want to watch them, and the fact that they have to go over a series of tubes to get to me isn't something I really care about or even notice, unless it doesn't work flawlessly.
*Well...actually not at all.
I think it's "carte blanche" -- not trying to be a dick or anything. But then I guess it's pretty much impossible to correct someone over the intertubes and not sound like a dick... :(
Switched to i3 a few years back (previously fluxbox, dwm, and maybe a few others). Fantastic WM!
The town provides a glorified fiber LAN. The ISP is presumably responsible for connecting to the Internet.
Yeah, pretty sure you're right about h265 on the RPi -- it does h264, VC1 and MPEG2 with hardware decode. (I think the RPi2 is fast enough to do MPEG2 in software, not sure though.)
:)
I have an Odroid C1 (not C1+), but I never got it working as smoothly as I wanted. I think h265 worked, IIRC, but I had problems with audio passthrough, MPEG2 stuttering, and I think some of my BD rips (either h264 or VC1, can't recall) likewise had some jitter. Plus, the HDMI-CEC support never worked for me...though maybe I should dust it off and give it another shot -- haven't played with it in some time. I guess I know what I'm doing tonight...
As a parting aside, I also find it mildly ridiculous that some high end TVs still include built-in audio (see, for instance, Samsung's UN88JS9500FXZA). If you're spending ~$20k on a TV, you'd think you would use your own surround sound receiver+speakers...
For local content, an RPi2 works flawlessly ($35). For streaming, a first generation Chromecast works flawlessly ($35). For anything else, a laptop and a long HDMI cable does the trick.
If my Chromecast gets infected, that would be a bummer but I'd be out $35. If my RPi2 gets infected, I'll wipe it and start over again.
Say what you will about the US, but as it is, I can access any of a number of ridiculously pro-USA websites just the same as I can access any of a number of ridiculously anti-USA websites.
To (roughly) continue with the analogy though, will we get to a point where companies (ahem, Microsoft...) can be held liable for the bandwidth usage of something not explicitly requested by the user?
I know that if I had, say, a "smart bathtub" that decided to go rogue (due to no fault of my own) and waste thousands of gallons of water, I would certainly want the bathtub manufacturer to be held liable for the water usage charge. Will a similar thing end up happening with broadband?
I could be wrong, but I doubt that Netflix wants to implement any kind of geo-restrictions on its content. The problem -- as I understand it -- is that the rights to various media follow an extremely antiquated system, where one group might own the north American rights, another the European Union rights, another the Oceania rights, etc.
Again, this is just my understanding, but I think Netflix couldn't care less about who has access to their content; but if the studio execs get word that Netflix is allowing users to "illegally" access content, then they face revocation of the content rights.
Well, Trump is actually a patch -- the simulation is using too much RAM, so we need to install walls to limit our worldsize. Likewise, the computer running the general EU area is running out of RAM, too, hence the whole Brexit thing.
To quote TFS, "Tell me what's wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?"
(And this general line of thinking is nothing new -- see, for instance, the Boltzmann brain.)
Not sure why this is modded down -- I walked into the lab one day to realize that our computer had decided to upgrade to 10. I rejected the EULA, and it restored 7 (it didn't even take too long).
Yeah but a machine doesn't require benefits, insurance, sick days, vacation, workman's comp, schedule changes or a training...
Sure -- but how many times has your computer been out-of-commission as it's updating itself/botched update (= sick days), your device (ahem, Google...) been completely orphaned (= I quit), or your device been broken outside of warranty (= needs insurance)?
That said, I largely agree that human jobs -- particularly entry-level ones -- will be replaced by robots, but the cost analysis isn't as simple as, "robots don't need health insurance so they're better."