At least, compressed hydrogen gas is really questionable.
Besides the well-known problems associated with containing hydrogen, I'm skeptical that it makes sense to build out a whole new distribution system. We have an extensive network in place for distributing gasoline and smaller ones for distributing compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquid propane (LP), but hydrogen gas is very different from any of those three. We also have a network in place for distributing electricity. Granted that it will have to be beefed up in many ways to support a society of all electric vehicles, that still seems like a much easier task. Particularly since with the increasing deployment of home PV generation, the electric grid might not need to be beefed up as much as we think.
It all really comes down to the cost of batteries. The only saving grace of compressed hydrogen vs batteries is that big batteries are expensive. And somewhat heavy, but probably not much heavier than the tanks needed to contain hydrogen. So is it cheaper to build lots of batteries and improve the electric grid where needed, or to build out an entirely new distribution infrastructure?
My money is on electric vehicles. Battery prices are falling just due to small incremental improvements plus scaling, and there are a number of technologies on the horizon that promise to significantly increase the kWh/$ ratio. Yes, yes, many of them have been "on the horizon" for a while, but there are so many promising technologies that it seems very probable that at least one will work out. Note that I'm not talking about recharge times, because Tesla has already solved that problem... given ~300 miles range and a one-hour recharge time, you're good even for cross-country trips.
Another option that might make a lot of sense is fuel cells that run on gasoline or CNG. Those would have many of the benefits of an EV (quiet, powerful electric drive; very simple, low-maintenance drive train), but could use existing fueling infrastructure. They still emit some CO2, but less than ICEs.
It's reprehensible that they leverage this incredibly popular brand to teach girls to code when they could be using it to sell Happy Meals and next year's landfill fodder. Shame, shame!
You're missing the point: Disney is exploiting the incredible popularity of Hour of Code among young girls in order to boost their poorly-performing movie.
That might be shameful if it weren't so completely ludicrous.
After all, they have like 98% marketshare, while the 2% belong to those more questionable networks (the ones that advertise for sites that Google won't touch - e.g., torrent sites and the like).
Actually, 33%. They're by far the biggest single player, but aren't anywhere close to 98%. Google's share of mobile ads is larger, at 56%.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/06/13/in-online-ads-theres-google-and-then-everybody-else/ (that's 2013, but things haven't changed much in 2014, and I couldn't find a 2014 link that included both all digital and mobile ads).
Eh? The C++ standard explicitly forbids "void main()". From the standard:
An implementation shall not predefine the main function. This function shall not be overloaded. It shall
have a return type of type int, but otherwise its type is implementation-defined. All implementations shall
allow both of the following definitions of main:
It's quite obvious, actually... it's not the default because it doesn't work as well for most people. Verbatim is good when you're searching for fairly specific terms, spelled correctly. If you're asking a more general question, with words that may appear in many variations, or if you don't spell well or are lazy, then the "new" Google works dramatically better.
I think a lot of complaints about Google search today, especially by people who have been around for a while, really boil down to the fact that the old search tricks don't work very well any more. In the early days of search we all learned how to create effective search queries, by picking carefully targeted search terms, combining them in particular ways, omitting any extraneous or "filler" words and lots more that make search queries look very different from natural language. But the search engines (or at least Google) have been changing along with the user base, which is now comprised of almost entirely non-technical people who haven't been using the web for long enough or heavily enough that they learned to compose searches that catered to the engines' weaknesses.
So, today, Google focuses on optimizing for the now-common case of search queries which are most often natural language questions, typed quickly and carelessly. The search engine tries hard to figure out what the user meant, rather than what they said. To those accustomed to being very precise and saying exactly what they mean, this is somewhat infuriating, because they don't want the machine to guess at what they meant, they told it what they meant. For the average user, though, who is more accustomed to dealing with people, who are good at guessing what is meant, the new system works much better.
Personally, I've adapted to the new reality. I tend to type complete sentences for my search queries, framed as questions, including typing the question mark (not because I think it's useful but just because I'm thinking a question sentence, so my fingers emit a question mark). I also don't worry much about typos. I find it works very well, often much better than what I can get with an "old-style" query, with or without "verbatim".
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but on Android, not search. All of the above is just my personal experience plus speculation, not inside information.)
With the failure of this GR, it is clear that I can not trust Debian to ensure that systemd remains optional.
Why is this important to you? Serious question. I don't really have an opinion on it, myself, but it seems to me that all of the arguments against systemd are based on factual errors (e.g., that it's monolithic, and therefore not UNIXy) and inertia, or on defects that are clearly just packaging/configuration bugs. I found Russ Allberry's analysis pretty compelling. Why do you disagree?
I'm really wondering what I'm missing here, because this seems like much ado about nothing, and I haven't been able to get anyone who is really concerned about it to explain why it's really a big problem.
You start by saying that the proposal, that packagers be required to maintain support for systems without systemd, is untenable. Then you point out that Debian should realize that users can code rc-init support for packages if they want to. I agree with all of that: Debian is going systemd, and shouldn't burden package maintainers with supporting non-systemd initialization, and users who don't like that can code rc-init scripts for the packages.
But then you say that Debian should give users the choice. Did you just finish pointing out the users do have the choice, since they can code it themselves if they want, and that the burden for this shouldn't be placed on maintainers?
Also, I think you meant to say "wealth", rather than "dearth" (which means a lack, not an abundance). But maybe you did mean dearth and I'm just not understanding what you're trying to say.
The reason we require insurance coverage for cabs is that we had many accidents in which people were severely injured, including pedestrians who never contracted with the cab driver, and it turned out that the cab driver didn't have enough insurance to cover them.
Which is why Uber now provides a $1M policy covering all of their drivers. Does that address that issue?
The reason we require a hack license is that, among other things, we want cab drivers to go through a police check to make sure they haven't committed crimes in the past.
Okay, but is there any evidence that actually accomplishes anything? Assuming that there is, and that it's useful, then why not just require a background check?
Uber claims they screen their drivers but it's up to them to convince us that they screen them as well as the hack bureau does.
Is there any evidence their screening is inadequate?
And what about a medallion? Bonding? And is race discrimination a problem at Uber or Lyft (or in any cab company these days)?
I do have to give you that you're the first to even attempt to dig into the underlying issues, though. Kudos for that.
Right. So part of the reason for medallions, etc., is that they provide a reputation system that allows riders to trust the vehicle and driver. Uber and Lyft provide alternative reputation systems. Is there some evidence that those systems are not working?
I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be regulations. I'm arguing that the regulations should exist for actual, important reasons not "just because that's they way we've always done it", which is essentially what people arguing that Lyft and Uber should have to follow the taxi regs are saying.
Step back a moment and think. What are the regs supposed to accomplish? Do they solve actual problems in the new context?
I notice that no one who has responded to my questions actually even tried to answer them.
Well maybe your colleagues in the UI department could really be steared in the right direction.
Well, I like their direction. Quite a lot. Different strokes, I suppose.
Amoled screens don't use power for black, while they consume a lot for white colors. Traditional LCD screens are backlit so they consume power whatever color you're displaying.
Meh. You don't typically spend enough time on system screens for this to matter, and all of the regular apps do their own thing anyway. The apps which cause me to keep the screen on for a long time are video players (which are all black except for the video which mostly isn't), games (which are all over the place palette-wise, depending on the nature of the game) and e-books (which I switch to a sepia-on-black mode anyway).
direct trade of cocoa with the farmers to help ensure that farmers get paid enough to keep cocoa a viable crop
While I think that's a good initiative, it seems to me that deficits like those mentioned in the summary will take care of that. There must be stocks of cocoa on hand which are being depleted, and when those run down the law of supply and demand will drive the price up. If farmers are abandoning cocoa because it's more work than it's worth, then the only way to motivate them to produce enough to keep up with actual demand will be to pay more. Your initiative will hopefully avoid the need to hit a real shortage before prices readjust (and, for a time, overcompensate) and farmers switch back to cocoa, but it'll ultimately happen regardless.
(BTW, fellow Utahn here. What is your company? I'd like to try your chocolate:-))
Oh, actually, I think I missed an assumption of the author. He said "widescreen" tablets, by which I think he meant that he's holding the tablet in landscape orientation. In landscape you can get to the menu by swiping the edges, but you probably do have to use an index finger to operate the controls, because they're a long way from the edges. I suppose they could have had the menu come down wherever you swiped to fix that, but then the location would be inconsistent which creates its own issues.
So... I guess I do see the problem, though I can't say that it bothers me. At all.
I have a Nexus 10 with Lollipop on it and I really don't see the complaint, at least not the one mentioned in the summary.
Yes, the two swipe-down menus have been unified... but you can still swipe down from the edges to get at it, and in fact you get all of the functionality that used to be in the left and right side swipes from either side now, which means you can get to all of it even if you don't have a hand on each side. Or you can swipe down from the middle. After the unified menu comes up you have to reach over to it with your thumbs to operate the controls and I suppose if you have very small hands that could be an issue. I just asked my wife to try it (she has small hands) and she can reach everything with a thumb while holding it two-handed. She does have to move the thumb hand, but it's a pretty natural motion that doesn't require letting go of the device.
I'm not saying there isn't substance to the complaint, just that the example quoted in the summary isn't really an issue.
Note that getting to the full quick settings UI requires swiping down twice; the first swipe gets you notifications, the second one adds the quick settings. Alternatively, you can do a two-finger swipe down and you get straight to the quick settings. I can't reliably do that with two thumbs (too hard to synchronize the swipes), so that method really does require fingers. But two quick swipes work fine.
On a related note, I like that it works exactly the same from the pre-lockscreen (pops up when you press the power button to turn on the display). The pre-lockscreen shows notifications (whether sensitive notifications can be seen on a locked device is configurable), as though you'd swiped down once, then another down swipe brings up the quick controls, without unlocking. I especially like this when I'm reaching for the flashlight on my phone; no need to unlock, just hit the power button to wake up the screen, then swipe, tap and there's light.
(Disclaimer: I'm an Android engineer at Google, though I work on the low-level security subsystems, not on UI, and have no problems criticizing changes I don't like. I have found very little in Lollipop that I don't like, however, and a lot that I really do like. My only significant complaint so far is the fact that the encryption by default means that when the device boots it can't read any of the storage until you enter your password to unlock it... including any alarms you have set. This means that if your phone/tablet randomly reboots during the night (rare, but it does happen), then your alarm won't go off. This hasn't bitten me, and I doubt it will, but it's not good. On the UI, though... when I go back to a device with KitKat it just feels clunky. Wow, this turned into a lot more than a disclaimer.)
there's work in progress on preventing you from shooting your foot off (by requiring you to fix your fstab before the installation completes)
That's good, but there are other ways that fstab could get out of sync with your hardware, e.g. a drive dies, or just screwed up, say, you added something post-installation and got it wrong. It's important that there be a way to boot the system up far enough that such repairs can be made, without having to get some other media to boot from.
Just at the federal level alone (think just the interstate highways), along with any taxes you're paying, we're incurring $10,000 per person of debt each year.
Well, you may think about the interstate highways, and yeah I do that occasionally too, but I more commonly think about bank bailouts or dropping bombs on brown people as places where the money goes.
You forgot social programs. Whether or not you think they're a good way to spend money, or a good reason to go into debt, you shouldn't leave them out because entitlements are a huge chunk of the federal budget. More than military or bailouts.
Slashdot Mirror
At least, compressed hydrogen gas is really questionable.
Besides the well-known problems associated with containing hydrogen, I'm skeptical that it makes sense to build out a whole new distribution system. We have an extensive network in place for distributing gasoline and smaller ones for distributing compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquid propane (LP), but hydrogen gas is very different from any of those three. We also have a network in place for distributing electricity. Granted that it will have to be beefed up in many ways to support a society of all electric vehicles, that still seems like a much easier task. Particularly since with the increasing deployment of home PV generation, the electric grid might not need to be beefed up as much as we think.
It all really comes down to the cost of batteries. The only saving grace of compressed hydrogen vs batteries is that big batteries are expensive. And somewhat heavy, but probably not much heavier than the tanks needed to contain hydrogen. So is it cheaper to build lots of batteries and improve the electric grid where needed, or to build out an entirely new distribution infrastructure?
My money is on electric vehicles. Battery prices are falling just due to small incremental improvements plus scaling, and there are a number of technologies on the horizon that promise to significantly increase the kWh/$ ratio. Yes, yes, many of them have been "on the horizon" for a while, but there are so many promising technologies that it seems very probable that at least one will work out. Note that I'm not talking about recharge times, because Tesla has already solved that problem... given ~300 miles range and a one-hour recharge time, you're good even for cross-country trips.
Another option that might make a lot of sense is fuel cells that run on gasoline or CNG. Those would have many of the benefits of an EV (quiet, powerful electric drive; very simple, low-maintenance drive train), but could use existing fueling infrastructure. They still emit some CO2, but less than ICEs.
(Disclaimer: I own an electric vehicle.)
It's reprehensible that they leverage this incredibly popular brand to teach girls to code when they could be using it to sell Happy Meals and next year's landfill fodder. Shame, shame!
You're missing the point: Disney is exploiting the incredible popularity of Hour of Code among young girls in order to boost their poorly-performing movie.
That might be shameful if it weren't so completely ludicrous.
Your wild guess about the future is as good as any.
So... you don't have any any rebuttal to his reasoning?
The interesting part of such prognostications isn't the conclusions, it's the rationale.
The only reference to helium is for leak detection tests.
Because you can measure hot air balloon leaks by looking for helium?
After all, they have like 98% marketshare, while the 2% belong to those more questionable networks (the ones that advertise for sites that Google won't touch - e.g., torrent sites and the like).
Actually, 33%. They're by far the biggest single player, but aren't anywhere close to 98%. Google's share of mobile ads is larger, at 56%.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/06/13/in-online-ads-theres-google-and-then-everybody-else/ (that's 2013, but things haven't changed much in 2014, and I couldn't find a 2014 link that included both all digital and mobile ads).
Fantastic link.
They have 2.36GB of data on me.
At least this is reassuring...
"It may take some time before it is ready to download. Don't worry, we'll email you when it's ready."
I'm not sure how to respond, as well as process the data load.
How much of that is your Gmail?
<counter-pedantic>Not in C++.</counter-pedantic>
Eh? The C++ standard explicitly forbids "void main()". From the standard:
WHY IT ISN'T THE DEFAULT - is anyone's guess.
It's quite obvious, actually... it's not the default because it doesn't work as well for most people. Verbatim is good when you're searching for fairly specific terms, spelled correctly. If you're asking a more general question, with words that may appear in many variations, or if you don't spell well or are lazy, then the "new" Google works dramatically better.
I think a lot of complaints about Google search today, especially by people who have been around for a while, really boil down to the fact that the old search tricks don't work very well any more. In the early days of search we all learned how to create effective search queries, by picking carefully targeted search terms, combining them in particular ways, omitting any extraneous or "filler" words and lots more that make search queries look very different from natural language. But the search engines (or at least Google) have been changing along with the user base, which is now comprised of almost entirely non-technical people who haven't been using the web for long enough or heavily enough that they learned to compose searches that catered to the engines' weaknesses.
So, today, Google focuses on optimizing for the now-common case of search queries which are most often natural language questions, typed quickly and carelessly. The search engine tries hard to figure out what the user meant, rather than what they said. To those accustomed to being very precise and saying exactly what they mean, this is somewhat infuriating, because they don't want the machine to guess at what they meant, they told it what they meant. For the average user, though, who is more accustomed to dealing with people, who are good at guessing what is meant, the new system works much better.
Personally, I've adapted to the new reality. I tend to type complete sentences for my search queries, framed as questions, including typing the question mark (not because I think it's useful but just because I'm thinking a question sentence, so my fingers emit a question mark). I also don't worry much about typos. I find it works very well, often much better than what I can get with an "old-style" query, with or without "verbatim".
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but on Android, not search. All of the above is just my personal experience plus speculation, not inside information.)
With the failure of this GR, it is clear that I can not trust Debian to ensure that systemd remains optional.
Why is this important to you? Serious question. I don't really have an opinion on it, myself, but it seems to me that all of the arguments against systemd are based on factual errors (e.g., that it's monolithic, and therefore not UNIXy) and inertia, or on defects that are clearly just packaging/configuration bugs. I found Russ Allberry's analysis pretty compelling. Why do you disagree?
I'm really wondering what I'm missing here, because this seems like much ado about nothing, and I haven't been able to get anyone who is really concerned about it to explain why it's really a big problem.
Your comment confuses me.
You start by saying that the proposal, that packagers be required to maintain support for systems without systemd, is untenable. Then you point out that Debian should realize that users can code rc-init support for packages if they want to. I agree with all of that: Debian is going systemd, and shouldn't burden package maintainers with supporting non-systemd initialization, and users who don't like that can code rc-init scripts for the packages.
But then you say that Debian should give users the choice. Did you just finish pointing out the users do have the choice, since they can code it themselves if they want, and that the burden for this shouldn't be placed on maintainers?
Also, I think you meant to say "wealth", rather than "dearth" (which means a lack, not an abundance). But maybe you did mean dearth and I'm just not understanding what you're trying to say.
And those states should get their asses in gear. It's certainly not new technology.
It's not a question of technology... many states don't have toll roads.
The reason we require insurance coverage for cabs is that we had many accidents in which people were severely injured, including pedestrians who never contracted with the cab driver, and it turned out that the cab driver didn't have enough insurance to cover them.
Which is why Uber now provides a $1M policy covering all of their drivers. Does that address that issue?
The reason we require a hack license is that, among other things, we want cab drivers to go through a police check to make sure they haven't committed crimes in the past.
Okay, but is there any evidence that actually accomplishes anything? Assuming that there is, and that it's useful, then why not just require a background check?
Uber claims they screen their drivers but it's up to them to convince us that they screen them as well as the hack bureau does.
Is there any evidence their screening is inadequate?
And what about a medallion? Bonding? And is race discrimination a problem at Uber or Lyft (or in any cab company these days)?
I do have to give you that you're the first to even attempt to dig into the underlying issues, though. Kudos for that.
Right. So part of the reason for medallions, etc., is that they provide a reputation system that allows riders to trust the vehicle and driver. Uber and Lyft provide alternative reputation systems. Is there some evidence that those systems are not working?
I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be regulations. I'm arguing that the regulations should exist for actual, important reasons not "just because that's they way we've always done it", which is essentially what people arguing that Lyft and Uber should have to follow the taxi regs are saying.
Step back a moment and think. What are the regs supposed to accomplish? Do they solve actual problems in the new context?
I notice that no one who has responded to my questions actually even tried to answer them.
Cool. Thanks. I didn't really believe no one had thought about this :-)
And many states don't... and even in states that do, many roads don't.
Sure, that's the overcompensation I mentioned.
Well maybe your colleagues in the UI department could really be steared in the right direction.
Well, I like their direction. Quite a lot. Different strokes, I suppose.
Amoled screens don't use power for black, while they consume a lot for white colors. Traditional LCD screens are backlit so they consume power whatever color you're displaying.
Meh. You don't typically spend enough time on system screens for this to matter, and all of the regular apps do their own thing anyway. The apps which cause me to keep the screen on for a long time are video players (which are all black except for the video which mostly isn't), games (which are all over the place palette-wise, depending on the nature of the game) and e-books (which I switch to a sepia-on-black mode anyway).
More like people have larger incentives to adulterate chocolate. This is how free market usually works.
You're assuming they don't already adulterate it as far as they can get away with. I don't think that assumption is valid.
direct trade of cocoa with the farmers to help ensure that farmers get paid enough to keep cocoa a viable crop
While I think that's a good initiative, it seems to me that deficits like those mentioned in the summary will take care of that. There must be stocks of cocoa on hand which are being depleted, and when those run down the law of supply and demand will drive the price up. If farmers are abandoning cocoa because it's more work than it's worth, then the only way to motivate them to produce enough to keep up with actual demand will be to pay more. Your initiative will hopefully avoid the need to hit a real shortage before prices readjust (and, for a time, overcompensate) and farmers switch back to cocoa, but it'll ultimately happen regardless.
(BTW, fellow Utahn here. What is your company? I'd like to try your chocolate :-))
Oh, actually, I think I missed an assumption of the author. He said "widescreen" tablets, by which I think he meant that he's holding the tablet in landscape orientation. In landscape you can get to the menu by swiping the edges, but you probably do have to use an index finger to operate the controls, because they're a long way from the edges. I suppose they could have had the menu come down wherever you swiped to fix that, but then the location would be inconsistent which creates its own issues.
So... I guess I do see the problem, though I can't say that it bothers me. At all.
I have a Nexus 10 with Lollipop on it and I really don't see the complaint, at least not the one mentioned in the summary.
Yes, the two swipe-down menus have been unified... but you can still swipe down from the edges to get at it, and in fact you get all of the functionality that used to be in the left and right side swipes from either side now, which means you can get to all of it even if you don't have a hand on each side. Or you can swipe down from the middle. After the unified menu comes up you have to reach over to it with your thumbs to operate the controls and I suppose if you have very small hands that could be an issue. I just asked my wife to try it (she has small hands) and she can reach everything with a thumb while holding it two-handed. She does have to move the thumb hand, but it's a pretty natural motion that doesn't require letting go of the device.
I'm not saying there isn't substance to the complaint, just that the example quoted in the summary isn't really an issue.
Note that getting to the full quick settings UI requires swiping down twice; the first swipe gets you notifications, the second one adds the quick settings. Alternatively, you can do a two-finger swipe down and you get straight to the quick settings. I can't reliably do that with two thumbs (too hard to synchronize the swipes), so that method really does require fingers. But two quick swipes work fine.
On a related note, I like that it works exactly the same from the pre-lockscreen (pops up when you press the power button to turn on the display). The pre-lockscreen shows notifications (whether sensitive notifications can be seen on a locked device is configurable), as though you'd swiped down once, then another down swipe brings up the quick controls, without unlocking. I especially like this when I'm reaching for the flashlight on my phone; no need to unlock, just hit the power button to wake up the screen, then swipe, tap and there's light.
(Disclaimer: I'm an Android engineer at Google, though I work on the low-level security subsystems, not on UI, and have no problems criticizing changes I don't like. I have found very little in Lollipop that I don't like, however, and a lot that I really do like. My only significant complaint so far is the fact that the encryption by default means that when the device boots it can't read any of the storage until you enter your password to unlock it... including any alarms you have set. This means that if your phone/tablet randomly reboots during the night (rare, but it does happen), then your alarm won't go off. This hasn't bitten me, and I doubt it will, but it's not good. On the UI, though... when I go back to a device with KitKat it just feels clunky. Wow, this turned into a lot more than a disclaimer.)
there's work in progress on preventing you from shooting your foot off (by requiring you to fix your fstab before the installation completes)
That's good, but there are other ways that fstab could get out of sync with your hardware, e.g. a drive dies, or just screwed up, say, you added something post-installation and got it wrong. It's important that there be a way to boot the system up far enough that such repairs can be made, without having to get some other media to boot from.
Digital systems simply couldn't get the accuracy for many years.
That makes no sense. While analog computers have inherent accuracy limitations, digital computers provide arbitrarily-accurate computations.
I suspect the problem was speed, not accuracy. More precisely, that digital computers couldn't compute sufficiently-accurate results fast enough.
Slide rules are very cool as well. I want to learn how to use one.
That they are. I recently taught myself to use one; it's fun. I can't say that I'm proficient, and I'm sure I never will be fast, but it is fun.
Just at the federal level alone (think just the interstate highways), along with any taxes you're paying, we're incurring $10,000 per person of debt each year.
Well, you may think about the interstate highways, and yeah I do that occasionally too, but I more commonly think about bank bailouts or dropping bombs on brown people as places where the money goes.
You forgot social programs. Whether or not you think they're a good way to spend money, or a good reason to go into debt, you shouldn't leave them out because entitlements are a huge chunk of the federal budget. More than military or bailouts.