If I say "bike sales are 6% of cars sales" does that also confuse you? The headline does not say that ebooks make up 6% of total sales, it says that ebook sales are 0.06 times printed book sales. If printed books sale are x then ebook sales are 0.06x.
Well they were comparing modern browsers and I don't know any one who considers IE8 in that category....
Just what do you consider modern? IE 8 was released in March of last year. It's actually the newest piece of software from Microsoft on my PC.
Personaly I think it was there just to show how much the IE team has really improved performance, to be homiest I am impressed.
Well I'm not. Why should I be impressed when a company the size of Microsoft takes 9 versions and 15 years to achieve acceptable performance? If they were on a par with Chrome I'd be impressed but it's not, it's slower than every other competitor except the Firefox 4.0 beta.
So you'd limit "cyborg" to only those systems that include a direct machine-nerve interface? Seems pretty restrictive. You'd even exclude neuromancer-like mirrorshades, since they're essentially surgically implanted night vision goggles. You'd exclude most of the existing powered prostheses, which are controlled by shoulder or stump motion. No myoelectric limbs have a direct neural interface, but use EMG (if they use any biopotential signal at all), which is a neural signal amplified by residual muscle.
I wouldn't want to be that restrictive. By "directly controlled by the nervous system" I was trying to make the distinction between something operated by conventional means such as manual controls and something operated more directly but I don't think it should require a direct neural interface necessarily. So prostheses operated by stump motion would be included.
There's no argument that if we were to have all technology/tools removed and even lose our ability to create primitive tools the human carrying capacity of the earth would be at most a few million, maybe only a few hundred thousand. So I guess you could say that 99.99% of us are "cyborgs".
If you make the definition of "cyborg" so broad as to include any basic tool use (as Kevin Kelly does) then the term loses it's usefulness, IMHO. It's actually pretty hard to define the word. I'd want to include active prosthetics such as myoelectric limbs and cochlear implants but not artificial limbs that aren't directly controlled by the nervous system or sensors that merely modify, filter or enhance stimulus for an existing sense organ (I don't think wearing night-vision goggles makes you a cyborg). I think the term is most useful to describe people who have been enhanced beyond the human norm, not merely those using technology to replace functions they individually don't have.
You changed the argument. If they said "one eighth the size of an iPhone pixel" it would be no clearer whether they are talking about area or width.
My point is that statements like "eight times smaller" are ambiguous, It doesn't really matter whether it's the "eight times" or the "smaller" that causes the issue. In both cases it's simply sloppiness - there is no reason why the author couldn't be precise ("pixels 10 microns across rather than the 78 micron wide pixels in the iPhone 4"). Using terms like "eight times smaller" just causes unnecessary confusion.
Wow, I never thought of that phrase as ambiguous in the least. "8 times smaller/slower" always means divide by 8 and "8 times larger/faster" always means multiply by 8. I wouldn't use it in a scientific paper, but it should be okay in informal usage.
Always? "8 times faster than walking pace" is pretty obvious, sure. What about "8 times faster than a blink of an eye"?
In this case "8 times small than a iPhone pixel" are they talking about area or width?
If we're dealing with #1 then simple passwords are perfect AS LONG AS SOMEONE IS MONITORING THE ACCOUNT FOR FAILED LOGIN ATTEMPTS and dealing with them (and having a delay between individual attempts).
You are only thinking about the individual's situation. Yes, a simple password is fine for a particular account if that account is monitored to prevent a dictionary attack. But in a lot of cases an attacker doesn't need to breach a particular account - any account will do. Instead of attacking a single account with thousands of passwords an attacker can simply attack thousands of accounts with a single password (or even different passwords from a dictionary - it doesn't matter).
Well it's not that easy, I think. Someone like Christopher Reuel Tolkien (age 85) is still publishing - at that age you are more likely to be interested in earning money for your family or descendents rather than yourself.
But why should certain professions even have this ability to generate ongoing income for their descendants? Joe Taxi-driver can only invest the money he makes during his lifetime to provide ongoing income. Other artists such as painters and sculptors don't get ongoing income from their work. Why should some authors and entertainers be treated differently?
When that happens I'm sure the bank will be happy to consider working with him. In the meantime the bank has no evidence that this will ever be the case.
The bank may then be happy to work with him but will he be happy to work with that bank? The bank has no way of telling which 10% of it's customers will end up being the 10% most profitable so you think they should annoy all their customers on the assumption that each one will probably be in the 90% least profitable.
Do you have any idea how expensive it is for a large bank to have policies that are inconsistent? It's unbelievably complicated and expensive. If a large bank is going to change the rules for you they'll need some sort of reason to believe you are worth the hassle and extra cost.
I didn't advocate inconsistent policies.
Look, I've worked very closely with bankers for years. It is a relationship business. After all, the banker is selling an undifferentiated product - one money market fund is pretty much the same as any other money market fund.
Exactly. So why should banks foul their customer relations by introducing punitive fee structures? Why jeopardise future potential for less than $50 per year?
Your mortgage doesn't earn them "tens of thousands of dollars a year" unless you have an absolutely gigantic mortgage. The interest they receive is 5-7% annually. For a typical mortgage of $200K (close to the average in the US) that works out to $7000-15000 in revenue which steadily decreases over time.
Why did you assume I was in the US? I am not. I didn't just pull that number out of my ass - I know exactly how much interest I have paid on my mortgage and I assure you it is in the tens of thousands per year. The average new mortgage in Australia is in excess of $350K and the interest rates are around 6.5%. You do the maths.
You also are not considering the cost side of the equation. Chances are good those future interest payments have been securitized and sold already anyway so the bank may already be effectively out of your mortgage anyway.
In which case the bank has already realised their profit. Mortgages are where the profit is for consumer banks, are they not? Customers are more likely to take out a mortgage with a bank they already use, right?
The only justification for charging more than the cost of those accounts is that they can get away with it. That doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
Sorry, but I don't have a lot of pity for people that don't plan things out and expect everything to go perfect tomorrow. Comments like yours somewhat demonstrate the commonality of this problem though. "Why should I bother with that, all I have to do is make sure everything goes perfect and I'll be fine". No thank you. Not where my money and health are concerned.
You're making a few unwarranted assumptions there. As it happens I have a mortgage so all the "emergency" features you're talking about using a credit card for I can use my mortgage for - at a much lower rate. I also keep a few thousand in a savings account.
I have managed to forget to pay my balance off on time occasionally - maybe 3 times in 10 years. But having a lower rate for that rare situation is not worth losing the other features of the card I've got.
I've heard though that they classify customers like me as "dead beats" because we don't carry a balance for them to charge interest on. I suppose it's possible that's why I got sacked. It's just a shame to have to cancel your first credit card, that helped you establish credit, that you've had for almost 20 years.
If you don't carry a balance and are therefore not paying any interest then what difference does the rate make to you?
Now I'd never really actually used it, and only had $50 or so in it
So you were providing them basically no money whatsoever to invest. Do you know how a bank works? They take in deposits and then invest the money deposited. In return they provide you security and safe access to your money and perhaps a bit of interest. The amount of interest that can be earned on $50.00 is less than the cost to send you your statements. Your $50 costs them money. Not a lot and probably not $2.00 but more than zero. Why would the bank want to do business with a customer that costs them money each month?
You speak as though the savings account was this guys only account with the bank. It wasn't. Because they nickel-and-dimed him on the savings account he closed his checking account with an undisclosed amount in it. You also need to consider future potential. Maybe this guy was small-fry, but tomorrow he might want a big loan to start a business or buy a house. Maybe one day he'll be in a decision making position with a large company. No doubt he'll show this bank the same amount of loyalty that they've shown him.
They institute the fee specifically to drive away unprofitable customers.
But those tactics also drive away profitable customers. If my bank tried to take $2 a month from me on my $100 savings account they'd lose all my business - including the mortgage that earns them tens of thousands of dollars a year. Sure, most people are too lazy to change but it still generates a lot of ill will and for what? $50 a year in fees? Banks get away with this shit because they're about the most profitable industry there is. But don't try claim that it's sensible, reasonable, or intelligent behaviour.
I've had a smart phone for years, work in IT and have never ever needed to use copy and paste! I don't know why people worry about it so much???? It really is one of those, who gives a rats arse about it, features!!!!
I've never used it either. Though I don't write emails on my phone. I can imagine that if you needed it one day and it wasn't there it'd be rather frustrating.
Cher has a last name, as most likely did Homer and Virgil and everyone else, they're last names might have been "from _____ or the ______", but they still had one.
Cher had a last name at birth. But her legal name is now "Cher", with no last or middle name. She legally changed her name in 1979.
Are you swearing off all Chinese made products? If not you are a hypocrite. Foxconn also makes non-Apple devices & products. Are you going to swear off buying these too?
I am swearing off everything that is not necessary for me to live. I don't have an iPod, iPad, iPhone, Intel-branded motherboard, Dell, HP, PS2, PS3, WII, XBox, Motorola phone, Kindle and Cisco. I will try to buy as few as possible products made in China.
But you're still going to use the net even though Cisco produce the majority of hardware it's made from?
Agree. Transmitting from a chip to PC or vice-versa, is no big deal. The fact he put it inside his body doesn't alter that ability.
Unfortunately superapecommando chose a very poorly written version of the story to submit and for some reason samzenpus chose that one to post. If you read a more informative version, like this one, or this one, you'd know that what the guy is claiming to have done is to have infected an implanted RFID device with a virus and had the virus infect his PC when it accessed the device. That's actually quite concerning.
English isn't my native language, so I'm probably missing something here, but what construct is "21 year veteran with mandatory raises is pry a nice chunk of change"?
English is my native language and I have no idea WTF he means by "pry".
I agree it remains to be seen as to what degree this will or will not be enforceable. This is a sort of reverse tivoization though if it works. Sure we sold you the hardware and you have the right to do anything you want with it; never mind we control the software and the hardware is worse than useless with out it.
I can see how the camera manufacturer may have a claim against the purchaser as the purchase of a camera can be taken to be acceptance of the license agreement for the software in the camera. ANAL, but I don't see how the MPEG-LA has any claim as they were not party to the sale.
I don't really like software patents but I can accept that the work that went into developing algorithms as complex as video codecs deserves some protection. The problem here is that the MPEG-LA is not just claiming the right to fees from software developers who want to implement their algorithm, they're claiming the right to fees from end users using the software in the process of creating video, apparently even if the final saleable from of the video doesn't employee their codecs. That's like a pen manufacturer claiming royalties on a book because the author used one of their pens to write the first draft.
How do you know that the media paid for the device? How do you know they didn't pay for the story and get given the device so they could track down the owner to return it?
Nevermind, I see Gizmodo have pretty much admitted to paying for it now.
It was given back... after it was sold to the media. Whoops.
How do you know that the media paid for the device? How do you know they didn't pay for the story and get given the device so they could track down the owner to return it?
It is far more likely that the device you struggle to use is "difficult" due to lack of any effort, not because of a specific effort to make it difficult.
Slashdot Mirror
If I say "bike sales are 6% of cars sales" does that also confuse you? The headline does not say that ebooks make up 6% of total sales, it says that ebook sales are 0.06 times printed book sales. If printed books sale are x then ebook sales are 0.06x.
Well they were comparing modern browsers and I don't know any one who considers IE8 in that category....
Just what do you consider modern? IE 8 was released in March of last year. It's actually the newest piece of software from Microsoft on my PC.
Personaly I think it was there just to show how much the IE team has really improved performance, to be homiest I am impressed.
Well I'm not. Why should I be impressed when a company the size of Microsoft takes 9 versions and 15 years to achieve acceptable performance? If they were on a par with Chrome I'd be impressed but it's not, it's slower than every other competitor except the Firefox 4.0 beta.
You're confusing RPG with MMO or the variant of MMORPG
Diablo has the same sort of mechanisms and it's considered an RPG, right? I don't think the MMO part has much relevance.
So you'd limit "cyborg" to only those systems that include a direct machine-nerve interface? Seems pretty restrictive. You'd even exclude neuromancer-like mirrorshades, since they're essentially surgically implanted night vision goggles. You'd exclude most of the existing powered prostheses, which are controlled by shoulder or stump motion. No myoelectric limbs have a direct neural interface, but use EMG (if they use any biopotential signal at all), which is a neural signal amplified by residual muscle.
I wouldn't want to be that restrictive. By "directly controlled by the nervous system" I was trying to make the distinction between something operated by conventional means such as manual controls and something operated more directly but I don't think it should require a direct neural interface necessarily. So prostheses operated by stump motion would be included.
There's no argument that if we were to have all technology/tools removed and even lose our ability to create primitive tools the human carrying capacity of the earth would be at most a few million, maybe only a few hundred thousand. So I guess you could say that 99.99% of us are "cyborgs".
If you make the definition of "cyborg" so broad as to include any basic tool use (as Kevin Kelly does) then the term loses it's usefulness, IMHO. It's actually pretty hard to define the word. I'd want to include active prosthetics such as myoelectric limbs and cochlear implants but not artificial limbs that aren't directly controlled by the nervous system or sensors that merely modify, filter or enhance stimulus for an existing sense organ (I don't think wearing night-vision goggles makes you a cyborg). I think the term is most useful to describe people who have been enhanced beyond the human norm, not merely those using technology to replace functions they individually don't have.
I HAD to TURN ON FLASH because otherwise I would NOT have been able to watch it. I for one am glad I had the option to do so!
Plays fine on my iPad without Flash.
You changed the argument. If they said "one eighth the size of an iPhone pixel" it would be no clearer whether they are talking about area or width.
My point is that statements like "eight times smaller" are ambiguous, It doesn't really matter whether it's the "eight times" or the "smaller" that causes the issue. In both cases it's simply sloppiness - there is no reason why the author couldn't be precise ("pixels 10 microns across rather than the 78 micron wide pixels in the iPhone 4"). Using terms like "eight times smaller" just causes unnecessary confusion.
Wow, I never thought of that phrase as ambiguous in the least. "8 times smaller/slower" always means divide by 8 and "8 times larger/faster" always means multiply by 8. I wouldn't use it in a scientific paper, but it should be okay in informal usage.
Always? "8 times faster than walking pace" is pretty obvious, sure. What about "8 times faster than a blink of an eye"?
In this case "8 times small than a iPhone pixel" are they talking about area or width?
Tyre makes me think of a tire in a pyre. Wiktionary agrees with me that this is, at best, archaic.
Wiktionary states that "tyre" is currently used in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK. That's hardly "archaic".
If we're dealing with #1 then simple passwords are perfect AS LONG AS SOMEONE IS MONITORING THE ACCOUNT FOR FAILED LOGIN ATTEMPTS and dealing with them (and having a delay between individual attempts).
You are only thinking about the individual's situation. Yes, a simple password is fine for a particular account if that account is monitored to prevent a dictionary attack. But in a lot of cases an attacker doesn't need to breach a particular account - any account will do. Instead of attacking a single account with thousands of passwords an attacker can simply attack thousands of accounts with a single password (or even different passwords from a dictionary - it doesn't matter).
Well it's not that easy, I think. Someone like Christopher Reuel Tolkien (age 85) is still publishing - at that age you are more likely to be interested in earning money for your family or descendents rather than yourself.
But why should certain professions even have this ability to generate ongoing income for their descendants? Joe Taxi-driver can only invest the money he makes during his lifetime to provide ongoing income. Other artists such as painters and sculptors don't get ongoing income from their work. Why should some authors and entertainers be treated differently?
When that happens I'm sure the bank will be happy to consider working with him. In the meantime the bank has no evidence that this will ever be the case.
The bank may then be happy to work with him but will he be happy to work with that bank? The bank has no way of telling which 10% of it's customers will end up being the 10% most profitable so you think they should annoy all their customers on the assumption that each one will probably be in the 90% least profitable.
Do you have any idea how expensive it is for a large bank to have policies that are inconsistent? It's unbelievably complicated and expensive. If a large bank is going to change the rules for you they'll need some sort of reason to believe you are worth the hassle and extra cost.
I didn't advocate inconsistent policies.
Look, I've worked very closely with bankers for years. It is a relationship business. After all, the banker is selling an undifferentiated product - one money market fund is pretty much the same as any other money market fund.
Exactly. So why should banks foul their customer relations by introducing punitive fee structures? Why jeopardise future potential for less than $50 per year?
Your mortgage doesn't earn them "tens of thousands of dollars a year" unless you have an absolutely gigantic mortgage. The interest they receive is 5-7% annually. For a typical mortgage of $200K (close to the average in the US) that works out to $7000-15000 in revenue which steadily decreases over time.
Why did you assume I was in the US? I am not. I didn't just pull that number out of my ass - I know exactly how much interest I have paid on my mortgage and I assure you it is in the tens of thousands per year. The average new mortgage in Australia is in excess of $350K and the interest rates are around 6.5%. You do the maths.
You also are not considering the cost side of the equation. Chances are good those future interest payments have been securitized and sold already anyway so the bank may already be effectively out of your mortgage anyway.
In which case the bank has already realised their profit. Mortgages are where the profit is for consumer banks, are they not? Customers are more likely to take out a mortgage with a bank they already use, right?
The only justification for charging more than the cost of those accounts is that they can get away with it. That doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
Sorry, but I don't have a lot of pity for people that don't plan things out and expect everything to go perfect tomorrow. Comments like yours somewhat demonstrate the commonality of this problem though. "Why should I bother with that, all I have to do is make sure everything goes perfect and I'll be fine". No thank you. Not where my money and health are concerned.
You're making a few unwarranted assumptions there. As it happens I have a mortgage so all the "emergency" features you're talking about using a credit card for I can use my mortgage for - at a much lower rate. I also keep a few thousand in a savings account.
I have managed to forget to pay my balance off on time occasionally - maybe 3 times in 10 years. But having a lower rate for that rare situation is not worth losing the other features of the card I've got.
I've heard though that they classify customers like me as "dead beats" because we don't carry a balance for them to charge interest on. I suppose it's possible that's why I got sacked. It's just a shame to have to cancel your first credit card, that helped you establish credit, that you've had for almost 20 years.
If you don't carry a balance and are therefore not paying any interest then what difference does the rate make to you?
Now I'd never really actually used it, and only had $50 or so in it
So you were providing them basically no money whatsoever to invest. Do you know how a bank works? They take in deposits and then invest the money deposited. In return they provide you security and safe access to your money and perhaps a bit of interest. The amount of interest that can be earned on $50.00 is less than the cost to send you your statements. Your $50 costs them money. Not a lot and probably not $2.00 but more than zero. Why would the bank want to do business with a customer that costs them money each month?
You speak as though the savings account was this guys only account with the bank. It wasn't. Because they nickel-and-dimed him on the savings account he closed his checking account with an undisclosed amount in it. You also need to consider future potential. Maybe this guy was small-fry, but tomorrow he might want a big loan to start a business or buy a house. Maybe one day he'll be in a decision making position with a large company. No doubt he'll show this bank the same amount of loyalty that they've shown him.
They institute the fee specifically to drive away unprofitable customers.
But those tactics also drive away profitable customers. If my bank tried to take $2 a month from me on my $100 savings account they'd lose all my business - including the mortgage that earns them tens of thousands of dollars a year. Sure, most people are too lazy to change but it still generates a lot of ill will and for what? $50 a year in fees? Banks get away with this shit because they're about the most profitable industry there is. But don't try claim that it's sensible, reasonable, or intelligent behaviour.
I've had a smart phone for years, work in IT and have never ever needed to use copy and paste! I don't know why people worry about it so much???? It really is one of those, who gives a rats arse about it, features!!!!
I've never used it either. Though I don't write emails on my phone. I can imagine that if you needed it one day and it wasn't there it'd be rather frustrating.
Cher has a last name, as most likely did Homer and Virgil and everyone else, they're last names might have been "from _____ or the ______", but they still had one.
Cher had a last name at birth. But her legal name is now "Cher", with no last or middle name. She legally changed her name in 1979.
According to this BBC article there is a New Zealander legally called "Number 16 Bus Shelter".
Are you swearing off all Chinese made products? If not you are a hypocrite. Foxconn also makes non-Apple devices & products. Are you going to swear off buying these too?
I am swearing off everything that is not necessary for me to live. I don't have an iPod, iPad, iPhone, Intel-branded motherboard, Dell, HP, PS2, PS3, WII, XBox, Motorola phone, Kindle and Cisco. I will try to buy as few as possible products made in China.
But you're still going to use the net even though Cisco produce the majority of hardware it's made from?
Agree. Transmitting from a chip to PC or vice-versa, is no big deal. The fact he put it inside his body doesn't alter that ability.
Unfortunately superapecommando chose a very poorly written version of the story to submit and for some reason samzenpus chose that one to post. If you read a more informative version, like this one, or this one, you'd know that what the guy is claiming to have done is to have infected an implanted RFID device with a virus and had the virus infect his PC when it accessed the device. That's actually quite concerning.
English isn't my native language, so I'm probably missing something here, but what construct is "21 year veteran with mandatory raises is pry a nice chunk of change"?
English is my native language and I have no idea WTF he means by "pry".
I agree it remains to be seen as to what degree this will or will not be enforceable. This is a sort of reverse tivoization though if it works. Sure we sold you the hardware and you have the right to do anything you want with it; never mind we control the software and the hardware is worse than useless with out it.
I can see how the camera manufacturer may have a claim against the purchaser as the purchase of a camera can be taken to be acceptance of the license agreement for the software in the camera. ANAL, but I don't see how the MPEG-LA has any claim as they were not party to the sale.
I don't really like software patents but I can accept that the work that went into developing algorithms as complex as video codecs deserves some protection. The problem here is that the MPEG-LA is not just claiming the right to fees from software developers who want to implement their algorithm, they're claiming the right to fees from end users using the software in the process of creating video, apparently even if the final saleable from of the video doesn't employee their codecs. That's like a pen manufacturer claiming royalties on a book because the author used one of their pens to write the first draft.
How do you know that the media paid for the device? How do you know they didn't pay for the story and get given the device so they could track down the owner to return it?
Nevermind, I see Gizmodo have pretty much admitted to paying for it now.
It was given back... after it was sold to the media. Whoops.
How do you know that the media paid for the device? How do you know they didn't pay for the story and get given the device so they could track down the owner to return it?
It is far more likely that the device you struggle to use is "difficult" due to lack of any effort, not because of a specific effort to make it difficult.
Oh, well that's so much better then. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/04/19/2339252#