I do chemometric analysis of spectroscopic data. When developing the algorithms I use Mathematica without fail; it is the most complete math program as it will do anything mathematical both symbolic and numerical. When I move to routine analysis I generally transfer the algorithm to matlab, but with the new, faster version of numerics in Mathematica that may no longer be necessary. When I move to very large scale theoretical problems, I port the mathematica code to C and call the standard LAPACK type routines. If I could have only one it would be Mathematica because it can do anything and they are improving the numerical speed.
There is no doubt that the many urban problems you cite exist and we need to solve them, however the urban changes that would make the Segway even remotely useful (combined residential/business, paths, etc) would also make all other common forms of transportation equally useful. Any city designed to accomodate a Segway would probably be better suited to a bicycle (smaller, greater range, more flexible). A little planning on the part of individuals would also help... if you don't want to spend 2+ hours in traffic, plan your work and residence so that you don't have to... The Segway is simply unrelated to urban problems. I already have the better Segway... a Litespeed bicycle... of course it costs about the same:(
Bike laws vary by state. In all states a bike is considered a car when it is on the street unless it is posted that bikes are not allowed (ie interstates). In some states (KY for one) a bike is considered a pedestrian when on the sidewalk and a vehicle when on the street. This is a dangerous law.
I have XM radio and consider it a must for all the talk channels, BBC, old radio, comedy, etc. I don't listen to the music channels at home because the sound quality is noticably worse than CD... of course in the Mustang going 90 it doesn't matter much. The XM radio has really made road tripping better. The subscriptions are too expensive... I would feel fine with $2-3/month, but $9.99 makes me thing about cancelling it every month.
While the article is not particularly coherent, it is possible that lossy compression could alter the "brain wiring" used to detect sound. A similar effect happens when you treat people for tinnitus. You make them wear a small earpiece that plays gaussian noise into their ear for a couple of days or so. This teaches the brain to ignore white noise and reduces the patient's perception of the ringing associated with tinnitus. By listening to lossy compression I guess it is possible to teach your brain to ignore certain sounds or combinations of sounds thereby reducing your overall ability to hear.
Well, I'm a scientist and have never cited a paper that I have not read. The real problem lies in that many (most?) scientists will cite a lot of their own papers so that overall it looks like their works are heavily cited and therefore more significant.
Of course then there's Wolfram who apparently invented everything since he wrote a 10 lb tome (New Kind of Science) and essentially cited no one.
The sound quality of a downloadable file is worse than CD so they are charging you almost the price of a CD for an inferior product. I hope this doesn't catch on. CDs sound bad enough as it is. We need more SACD, DVD-A, and vinyl.
Norman Spinrad predicted this in his incredible novel Little Heros in which the music industry was able to generate artificial personalities to become music performers. They found that they could (based on market research) create a program that would sell to a large number of consumers every time, but... they found that while they had many large sellers they were never any super-mega popular bands... everything became generic.
I had a Palm IIIx for three years with no problems what so ever. My father had a IIIx that slowly began to digitize the pen strokes less and less accuratley. I write very very softly on the Palm; my father writes very very heavily.
We both upgraded to m505's when they came out. After three days I dropped mine onto a concrete parking lot and kicked it into a puddle of water. Badly scratched, but still works perfectly.
My father's m505 would never sync. He called tech support and they had a refurbished one to him overnight. The backlight came on when he hit the power button for the first time and never went off; Palm very graciously overnighted him a 3rd one. This one would not recognize the memory cards that were put into it. Again Palm overnight him another one. That one would not sync. I think he is on his fifth one now and it seems to work perfectly. Palm went above and beyond to help him and get him new ones quickly. It does seem that Palm's quality control is among the worst out there.
It's too bad because I have found no other PDA that will do everything I want and still get lost in the pocket of my jeans.
If I don't have it, it doesn't help me.
If I know I have it in my pocket, it's uncomfortable.
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I do chemometric analysis of spectroscopic data. When developing the algorithms I use Mathematica without fail; it is the most complete math program as it will do anything mathematical both symbolic and numerical. When I move to routine analysis I generally transfer the algorithm to matlab, but with the new, faster version of numerics in Mathematica that may no longer be necessary. When I move to very large scale theoretical problems, I port the mathematica code to C and call the standard LAPACK type routines. If I could have only one it would be Mathematica because it can do anything and they are improving the numerical speed.
There is no doubt that the many urban problems you cite exist and we need to solve them, however the urban changes that would make the Segway even remotely useful (combined residential/business, paths, etc) would also make all other common forms of transportation equally useful. Any city designed to accomodate a Segway would probably be better suited to a bicycle (smaller, greater range, more flexible). A little planning on the part of individuals would also help... if you don't want to spend 2+ hours in traffic, plan your work and residence so that you don't have to... The Segway is simply unrelated to urban problems. I already have the better Segway... a Litespeed bicycle... of course it costs about the same :(
Bike laws vary by state. In all states a bike is considered a car when it is on the street unless it is posted that bikes are not allowed (ie interstates). In some states (KY for one) a bike is considered a pedestrian when on the sidewalk and a vehicle when on the street. This is a dangerous law.
I have XM radio and consider it a must for all the talk channels, BBC, old radio, comedy, etc. I don't listen to the music channels at home because the sound quality is noticably worse than CD... of course in the Mustang going 90 it doesn't matter much. The XM radio has really made road tripping better. The subscriptions are too expensive... I would feel fine with $2-3/month, but $9.99 makes me thing about cancelling it every month.
While the article is not particularly coherent, it is possible that lossy compression could alter the "brain wiring" used to detect sound. A similar effect happens when you treat people for tinnitus. You make them wear a small earpiece that plays gaussian noise into their ear for a couple of days or so. This teaches the brain to ignore white noise and reduces the patient's perception of the ringing associated with tinnitus. By listening to lossy compression I guess it is possible to teach your brain to ignore certain sounds or combinations of sounds thereby reducing your overall ability to hear.
Well, I'm a scientist and have never cited a paper that I have not read. The real problem lies in that many (most?) scientists will cite a lot of their own papers so that overall it looks like their works are heavily cited and therefore more significant.
Of course then there's Wolfram who apparently invented everything since he wrote a 10 lb tome (New Kind of Science) and essentially cited no one.
The sound quality of a downloadable file is worse than CD so they are charging you almost the price of a CD for an inferior product. I hope this doesn't catch on. CDs sound bad enough as it is. We need more SACD, DVD-A, and vinyl.
It definitely seems that programmer rely on the faster hardware to have the same performance with less efficient code.
Norman Spinrad predicted this in his incredible novel Little Heros in which the music industry was able to generate artificial personalities to become music performers. They found that they could (based on market research) create a program that would sell to a large number of consumers every time, but... they found that while they had many large sellers they were never any super-mega popular bands... everything became generic.
It seems that every time someone wants me to read a MS Office file, they feel compelled to give it to me on a floppy....
I had a Palm IIIx for three years with no problems what so ever. My father had a IIIx that slowly began to digitize the pen strokes less and less accuratley. I write very very softly on the Palm; my father writes very very heavily.
We both upgraded to m505's when they came out. After three days I dropped mine onto a concrete parking lot and kicked it into a puddle of water. Badly scratched, but still works perfectly.
My father's m505 would never sync. He called tech support and they had a refurbished one to him overnight. The backlight came on when he hit the power button for the first time and never went off; Palm very graciously overnighted him a 3rd one. This one would not recognize the memory cards that were put into it. Again Palm overnight him another one. That one would not sync. I think he is on his fifth one now and it seems to work perfectly. Palm went above and beyond to help him and get him new ones quickly. It does seem that Palm's quality control is among the worst out there.
It's too bad because I have found no other PDA that will do everything I want and still get lost in the pocket of my jeans.
If I don't have it, it doesn't help me.
If I know I have it in my pocket, it's uncomfortable.