1. Refresh time on turning pages. I know that it doesn't bother some people, but I do notice it. I'm told that it's getting better, though, and that gives me some hope. I've been reading a Kindle since the third day after release. I was annoyed by the page turn for about 10 minutes, and then my buffer adjusted. Most of us, when reading the last line on a page, skim the last few words of that line, and process it as we turn the page. With the slightly increased page turn time of the Kindle, I just had to learn to buffer a little more of the last line. Now, I don't even notice the page turn.
Oh, and if you haven't tried e-ink for at least half an hour, you should do it before you compare your PDA/Laptop/SmartPhone to it. It's not the same. Not even close. I can stare at a backlit screen for about an hour before my eyes start to burn. I can read the Kindle for hours and hours and never get the slightest eye strain.
I spend a lot of time on public transportation in the Seattle area. They have wifi on the ferries and it's being rolled out as a trial on certain bus routes. All this is good news because I want to do a little surfing, chatting, and email while I'm riding. I was excited to see the Nokia and the Sony products coming to market, but I couldn't justify the purchase price for something my phone will do, albiet with a clunky interface. I also refuse to carry a laptop. I had given up, until I heard about Opera for the DS.
I'm just waiting for the US release. It's a cheaper solution, and the DS plays games. Brain Age, anyone?
This guy is way off the mark. We can't even get reliable mobile phone service to all parts of our country, and somehow the coming mobile revolution is going to transform society?
I live on Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from the wonderfully techie city of Seattle. The distance is eight miles. The island is populated with a lot of really wealthy, successful, and in a lot of cases, technical people. (I'm only technical!) I had Verizon Wireless when I moved here from Texas, and a quick check of their coverage map showed good coverage for the entire island and surrounding areas.
When I arrived here, the house we rented is in a dead spot. Completely dead. "Searching for service"-style dead. I called Verizon, and they admit there is a problem with the coverage. I was informed there are "no plans for a build-out" in my area. Verizon's suggestion? Switch to a GSM carrier, like Cingular.
Mobile tech is great, but it's only as good as the signal which carries the data. We're not going to be truly mobile until we can carry our devices everywhere, into every city and *populated* area in the country/world, and use them without having to worry about signal strength.
And that's only going to happen when the wireless carriers wake up and realize they are holding back adoption of expensive services by failing to provide the infrastructure capable of handling the load and servicing the areas of demand.
"How can the human race survive the next hundred years?"
Human race: How many living humans must we have to consider the collected set of them to be the "human race?"
Survive: Does this mean scratching out an existence on the periphery of planet which has seen a new dominant life-form emerge? Or does this mean maintaining our current (or higher) level of technology and knowledge? There are many possible interpretations for the question.
In one extreme, I can picture a single human, the last living exemplar of the species, working on a small patch of ground, trying to grow or capture enough food to survive another day. In this example, to put a checkmark in the "did it" column, this solitary dead-end to the human race must only survive until 4 July 3006.
In the other extreme, I can picture a society much as it exists today: a huge number of humans, embracing technology and modifying the environment and ecosphere as they see fit.
Would either of these examples count as having "survived?"
Barring a cosmic accident, I think sheer math indicates that there will be some humans on the planet in 100 years. Even if we are visited by a deadly virus, or we attempt to annihilate ourselves with Weapons of Mass Destruction(TM), I believe we still have societies who are distant enough that they will find a way to continue some form of existence. I don't imagine it as a pleasant experience.
But, in the end, the math isn't on our side. I don't know the exact odds, but we're due for a mass extinction right about now. The planet has a history of rearranging its occupants every few million years. This is not even counting events coming from space: giant solar flares, big rocks falling from the sky, etc. I'm thinking more of the giant belches of CO(2) or sulfur or whatever, which come bubbling up from the depths of the ocean, or perhaps the emergence of a new species which is particularly adapted to its environment, and suddenly wreaks havoc on the stability on the ecosystem.
So, even if we don't (or can't) kill ourselves, there is still a small, but non-zero, chance that no one from our species will be alive one hundred years hence.
The only viable answer to the question must involve migrating away from the Earth, and establishing self-sufficient colonies on other planets, around other stars. I know this can seem to be unrealistic or impossible, but mathematically speaking, it's the only way to be sure.
This isn't just a possibility. It's an inevitability. The human race on this planet will become extinct. Whether that's within the next one hundred years is tough to predict. But I don't think it's the kind of chance we ought to take. Our number one priority for all the sciences should be developing the technology to reach, colonize, and inhabit other worlds.
Now that I've come this far, I might as well go all the way.
I'm thinking of a guy I saw in traffic the other day. There was a sign indicating that the left lane was closed ahead. A short line of cars were stuck in traffic in the right lane, waiting for the congestion to clear enough to allow us to move forward. The guy I saw came flying down the left lane, drove all the way up to the cones, and turned on his signal to get over. Following his example came other cars and the left lane was soon as backed up as the right lane. Now, not only were we slowed by the construction, but we had the added delay of merging with traffic which didn't need to be there. One guy jumped ahead to better his own position, regardless of the impact his actions had on the rest of us. Enough people became jealous of his position that they caused all of us, themselves included, to suffer more than we would have if everyone had simply lined up in the right-hand lane to begin with. Each individual in our subgroup made a choice, and enough of them made the self-serving choice to make it worse for the entire group.
And that's the problem. We have to figure out a way to overcome this natural tendency in
I wasn't going to reply, but I read all the posts and couldn't help myself.
TFA is so over-the-top it has to be a joke. It might sound like an unreasoned argument against running Boot Camp for the first page. But if you read all the way to the end, the whole thing spirals into farce. The article is a joke, and because it's not April 1st, many of us fell for it.
I say "us" there, because I wanted to be indignant, too. But by the end, I couldn't. It's just too funny.
I doubt this will impact how marketers choose their time slots. The response of people to ads is already one of the most observed and studied topics on the planet. If people are more receptive to ads in the morning, you can bet the marketing folks have already cottoned on to that fact.
There is still the problem of timing. Some groups of people aren't targetable at the times they're most likely to be receptive. But ad firms are making inroads. I was surprised (not pleasantly) to discover bulletin boards in my son's (private) school advertising stuff. I knew there were ads in the TV-based morning update at the public school he used to attend. Now I guess it's becoming unavoidable.
December, hell! It's getting closer and closer to September. Every year, some big retailer backs up the start date just another couple of days. It's getting to the point where leaving the Christmas lights up all year is practical. Maybe the Rednecks were right on that point.
If you really want to support an artist, buy a t-shirt or a keychain from their website. Or better yet, buy a concert ticket and get your t-shirt at the show.
You can't compare an album by one artist to another album by another artist. What if the guy who sold fewer copies just sucks more? One album by one artist is not a control group.
Does Microsoft lean more towards rigidly enforced coding standards as a way to prevent exploitable bugs, or does the company focus more on brute-force bug detection during testing?
I know the easy answer is to say "both, of course" but a 50/50 split is unlikely. So, does testing take the backseat, or does the code?
It's a testament to our relentless drive for forward progress that someone can write "traditional Wi-Fi network" and no one notices. I look forward to the time someone writes "traditional interface model."
Re:One man who works in the oil industry
on
Pornified
·
· Score: 1
Internet porn is here to stay. Every technological advance ever made by mankind has been used to facilitate the spread of sexual thought. The telephone, mobile phone, ascii art, copy machine, Bluetooth, two-way pager, fax machine, pen and paper, stone tablet, gun, knife, club, airplane, automobile, cart, domestication of the horse, television, VCR, home video camera, IM, DVD player, the computer, and finally the Internet have all been used to disseminate (pardon the pun) sexual thoughts, facilitate the personal connections necessary for sexual intercourse, or make one potential mate more attractive than the others.
It doesn't matter what the rules are, or what the government says. Everything people do, in one way or another relates back to reproduction. It's in our genes at the most basic level. We're going to have sex no matter what. We are programmed to seek sexual pleasure in whatever form is available. We'd all prefer to have that pleasure be shared with a warm-bodied partner, but we will also seek the pleasure alone, or through the stimulation of one or more of our senses.
How many activities do we engage in which use all five of our senses? There are two of them. Eating and fucking. But if we have a head-cold and can't taste or smell food, we will still eat based on sight, sounds, and texture. If we can't touch the object of our sexual interest, we still become stimulated by the sight or sound of that person. Porn is just a variation on a theme. And it's going to remain popular until something better (like the Holo-deck) comes along and steals porn's thunder the way VHS porn did to printed porn.
Now get that banana out of your ear, and get back to work.
We all watched the cartoons, with their dirt and specks and the occasional hair. I never felt there was anything wrong with that stuff. It was just part of the animation and broadcast processes. It doesn't detract from the cartoons. Going back and "fixing" these minor defects would be like filling in the cracks in the paint on the Mona Lisa. It was art before it was perfect. Now, I'm not so sure.
What about setting up a server with something like Word Press, and configuring it to accept encrypted email, and have it post those messages? A few email forwarders in places outside the "repressive" country would probably obscure the origins enough. If you had a friend on the outside, they could maintain the system, forward important messages, etc.
Nothing is foolproof, and any communication is interceptible. The two weakest points in any private communication system are when it's initially set up, and the risks of social engineering.
Conversations like this always remind me of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by R. A. Heinlein.
In every email program/service I've ever used, I've always set it to text-only. If I need to set something apart for emphasis, I've used regular punctuation and correct word choice. I've never needed to use large fonts or colored text to get my point across. Instead of useless features like bold and italics, why not work on a feature such as downloading email from my existing POP accounts, so I can consolidate all my email into one service?
Slashdot Mirror
The ARNO 4003 is a nice, inexpensive chair. Comfortable, high back. Leather-ish. If you have the option, I'd recommend at least giving it a spin.
This is just another spoke in the wheel of reincarnation. This too shall pass.
I spend a lot of time on public transportation in the Seattle area. They have wifi on the ferries and it's being rolled out as a trial on certain bus routes. All this is good news because I want to do a little surfing, chatting, and email while I'm riding. I was excited to see the Nokia and the Sony products coming to market, but I couldn't justify the purchase price for something my phone will do, albiet with a clunky interface. I also refuse to carry a laptop. I had given up, until I heard about Opera for the DS.
I'm just waiting for the US release. It's a cheaper solution, and the DS plays games. Brain Age, anyone?
This guy is way off the mark. We can't even get reliable mobile phone service to all parts of our country, and somehow the coming mobile revolution is going to transform society?
I live on Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from the wonderfully techie city of Seattle. The distance is eight miles. The island is populated with a lot of really wealthy, successful, and in a lot of cases, technical people. (I'm only technical!) I had Verizon Wireless when I moved here from Texas, and a quick check of their coverage map showed good coverage for the entire island and surrounding areas.
When I arrived here, the house we rented is in a dead spot. Completely dead. "Searching for service"-style dead. I called Verizon, and they admit there is a problem with the coverage. I was informed there are "no plans for a build-out" in my area. Verizon's suggestion? Switch to a GSM carrier, like Cingular.
Mobile tech is great, but it's only as good as the signal which carries the data. We're not going to be truly mobile until we can carry our devices everywhere, into every city and *populated* area in the country/world, and use them without having to worry about signal strength.
And that's only going to happen when the wireless carriers wake up and realize they are holding back adoption of expensive services by failing to provide the infrastructure capable of handling the load and servicing the areas of demand.
"How can the human race survive the next hundred years?"
Human race: How many living humans must we have to consider the collected set of them to be the "human race?"
Survive: Does this mean scratching out an existence on the periphery of planet which has seen a new dominant life-form emerge? Or does this mean maintaining our current (or higher) level of technology and knowledge? There are many possible interpretations for the question.
In one extreme, I can picture a single human, the last living exemplar of the species, working on a small patch of ground, trying to grow or capture enough food to survive another day. In this example, to put a checkmark in the "did it" column, this solitary dead-end to the human race must only survive until 4 July 3006.
In the other extreme, I can picture a society much as it exists today: a huge number of humans, embracing technology and modifying the environment and ecosphere as they see fit.
Would either of these examples count as having "survived?"
Barring a cosmic accident, I think sheer math indicates that there will be some humans on the planet in 100 years. Even if we are visited by a deadly virus, or we attempt to annihilate ourselves with Weapons of Mass Destruction(TM), I believe we still have societies who are distant enough that they will find a way to continue some form of existence. I don't imagine it as a pleasant experience.
But, in the end, the math isn't on our side. I don't know the exact odds, but we're due for a mass extinction right about now. The planet has a history of rearranging its occupants every few million years. This is not even counting events coming from space: giant solar flares, big rocks falling from the sky, etc. I'm thinking more of the giant belches of CO(2) or sulfur or whatever, which come bubbling up from the depths of the ocean, or perhaps the emergence of a new species which is particularly adapted to its environment, and suddenly wreaks havoc on the stability on the ecosystem.
So, even if we don't (or can't) kill ourselves, there is still a small, but non-zero, chance that no one from our species will be alive one hundred years hence.
The only viable answer to the question must involve migrating away from the Earth, and establishing self-sufficient colonies on other planets, around other stars. I know this can seem to be unrealistic or impossible, but mathematically speaking, it's the only way to be sure.
This isn't just a possibility. It's an inevitability. The human race on this planet will become extinct. Whether that's within the next one hundred years is tough to predict. But I don't think it's the kind of chance we ought to take. Our number one priority for all the sciences should be developing the technology to reach, colonize, and inhabit other worlds.
Now that I've come this far, I might as well go all the way.
I'm thinking of a guy I saw in traffic the other day. There was a sign indicating that the left lane was closed ahead. A short line of cars were stuck in traffic in the right lane, waiting for the congestion to clear enough to allow us to move forward. The guy I saw came flying down the left lane, drove all the way up to the cones, and turned on his signal to get over. Following his example came other cars and the left lane was soon as backed up as the right lane. Now, not only were we slowed by the construction, but we had the added delay of merging with traffic which didn't need to be there. One guy jumped ahead to better his own position, regardless of the impact his actions had on the rest of us. Enough people became jealous of his position that they caused all of us, themselves included, to suffer more than we would have if everyone had simply lined up in the right-hand lane to begin with. Each individual in our subgroup made a choice, and enough of them made the self-serving choice to make it worse for the entire group.
And that's the problem. We have to figure out a way to overcome this natural tendency in
I wasn't going to reply, but I read all the posts and couldn't help myself.
TFA is so over-the-top it has to be a joke. It might sound like an unreasoned argument against running Boot Camp for the first page. But if you read all the way to the end, the whole thing spirals into farce. The article is a joke, and because it's not April 1st, many of us fell for it.
I say "us" there, because I wanted to be indignant, too. But by the end, I couldn't. It's just too funny.
I doubt this will impact how marketers choose their time slots. The response of people to ads is already one of the most observed and studied topics on the planet. If people are more receptive to ads in the morning, you can bet the marketing folks have already cottoned on to that fact.
There is still the problem of timing. Some groups of people aren't targetable at the times they're most likely to be receptive. But ad firms are making inroads. I was surprised (not pleasantly) to discover bulletin boards in my son's (private) school advertising stuff. I knew there were ads in the TV-based morning update at the public school he used to attend. Now I guess it's becoming unavoidable.
December, hell! It's getting closer and closer to September. Every year, some big retailer backs up the start date just another couple of days. It's getting to the point where leaving the Christmas lights up all year is practical. Maybe the Rednecks were right on that point.
If you really want to support an artist, buy a t-shirt or a keychain from their website. Or better yet, buy a concert ticket and get your t-shirt at the show.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Apples != Oranges
You can't compare an album by one artist to another album by another artist. What if the guy who sold fewer copies just sucks more? One album by one artist is not a control group.
Probably because of the word "Royal" in the name of the publication. 90% of Royal anything comes from Europe.
But, I understand your point.
Does Microsoft lean more towards rigidly enforced coding standards as a way to prevent exploitable bugs, or does the company focus more on brute-force bug detection during testing?
I know the easy answer is to say "both, of course" but a 50/50 split is unlikely. So, does testing take the backseat, or does the code?
Oil man's coworker: "Does anyone else smell Astroglide?"
Surely you meant "petroleum jelly." No self-respecting Oil Man is going to use a synthetic lube.
That was funny. Thanks for the laugh. :)
Internet porn is here to stay. Every technological advance ever made by mankind has been used to facilitate the spread of sexual thought. The telephone, mobile phone, ascii art, copy machine, Bluetooth, two-way pager, fax machine, pen and paper, stone tablet, gun, knife, club, airplane, automobile, cart, domestication of the horse, television, VCR, home video camera, IM, DVD player, the computer, and finally the Internet have all been used to disseminate (pardon the pun) sexual thoughts, facilitate the personal connections necessary for sexual intercourse, or make one potential mate more attractive than the others.
It doesn't matter what the rules are, or what the government says. Everything people do, in one way or another relates back to reproduction. It's in our genes at the most basic level. We're going to have sex no matter what. We are programmed to seek sexual pleasure in whatever form is available. We'd all prefer to have that pleasure be shared with a warm-bodied partner, but we will also seek the pleasure alone, or through the stimulation of one or more of our senses.
How many activities do we engage in which use all five of our senses? There are two of them. Eating and fucking. But if we have a head-cold and can't taste or smell food, we will still eat based on sight, sounds, and texture. If we can't touch the object of our sexual interest, we still become stimulated by the sight or sound of that person. Porn is just a variation on a theme. And it's going to remain popular until something better (like the Holo-deck) comes along and steals porn's thunder the way VHS porn did to printed porn.
Now get that banana out of your ear, and get back to work.
This won't work, because the length of a light-saber is adjustable. Unless, of course, the red lines are adjustable, too.
We all watched the cartoons, with their dirt and specks and the occasional hair. I never felt there was anything wrong with that stuff. It was just part of the animation and broadcast processes. It doesn't detract from the cartoons. Going back and "fixing" these minor defects would be like filling in the cracks in the paint on the Mona Lisa. It was art before it was perfect. Now, I'm not so sure.
This thread is useless without pics.
Oops. Wrong website. Sorry.
Nothing is foolproof, and any communication is interceptible. The two weakest points in any private communication system are when it's initially set up, and the risks of social engineering.
Conversations like this always remind me of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by R. A. Heinlein.
I was just trying to be funny. Don't take everything so seriously.
Shouldn't this be under "Your Rights Online?"
Props for the increased space, though.
Skynet officials were quoted as saying, "yeah, but she's no Sarah Conner."