I assume you always pick the right decision yourself then...
Come on man, humanity chooses wrong paths all the time with the best of intentions, because none of us (apart from you apparently) can predict the future. We do our best to evaluate the future results of our actions, but our foreknowledge is always sketchy at best.
They just need to think. That's what they study for (ideally). Thinking people with open minds can tackle anything, including the "scale of the internet".
When I was in high school, I used a slide rule. When I entered university, I got me a calculator. Did maths or problem solving abilities change or improve because of the calculator? no. Student today can jolly well learn about networking on small LANs, or learn to manage small datasets on aging university computers, so long as what they learn is good, they'll be able to transpose their knowledge on a vaster scale, or invent the next Big Thing. I don't see the problem.
I usually read ebooks with WORM displays (write-once-read-many): they're designed like Kinko cameras: they're cheap, disposable, and have a MTBF of several decades. They're called "books". What's more, I suspect the number of dead trees used to make such a book is less than the amount of trees necessary to manufacture and power an ebook of any kind over its usable lifespan.
If IBM had said "we have batteries that can last 500 miles", and Stanley Kubrick shot videos of the long-range electric car in a Hollywood studio, then it would be like the moon landing.
personally I think the higher up front cost of nuclear is more than offset by the stability it provides
Not sure about that. Uranium is a finite resource too, much more finite than fossil fuels in fact. If the world suddenly switched massively to nuclear power, there would be about a decade worth of uranium to extract. See this page.
So in short, yes you're right, nuclear is great *for you* (and inhabitants of a few other rich politically stable countries), provided (1) it stays fairly unpopular and (2) other countries don't have access to the technology, so that *you* keep enjoying it for a long time.
They sure have a great marketing team at Lichtblick and Volkswagen: so much rah-rah to describe a generator made out of recycled WV engines, that's pure genius.
If they had any sense whatsoever, all that data would be stored on the server and the card would simply have an ID number (and MAYBE a name) programmed into it. The fact that their system simply believes what's on the card and doesn't check a central database to make sure that the card hasn't been tampered with is just plain stupid.
So instead, they should trust the ID number? How is a number pointing to a block of data on a remote server is safer than the block of data itself? That's what credit cards are (they have a number in them, that ATMs and pay points check against the credit company's database), and this particular industry is rife with electronic fraud.
"Microsoft will pay Yahoo $50 million a year for three years and will hire at least 400 Yahoo employees as part of the companies' recent search agreement, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
50 mil and those 400 employees' salaries are pocket money for Microsoft. They have paid a great many times more than that in various out-of-court settlements over the years.
Incidentally, another comment that springs to mind is that Yahoo must be quite desperate: $50M is nothing for a large intarweb company these days.
Microsoft and Yahoo joining efforts will probably produce nothing good at all though: they both have mediocre search businesses, and they'll end up with a mediocre shared search business. Nothing for the big G to worry about I reckon.
Notice how you now require several glasses for several ranges; one pair for close, one for far, and some progressive. You have to switch manually between those glasses. The invention now reduces the switch action to adjusting a slide.
No it doesn't. I'd still have to have progressives and a pair of magic-slider glasses. So instead of three pairs, I'd have two. Unless of course I can have glasses with 3 settings (progressive, fixed/near and fixed/far), in which case I'd gladly buy them.
I really don't see what the big deal is. Can someone please explain why progressive lenses are so despised?
I like mine, but my mom can't get used to them. At all. They give her headaches and she just doesn't "get it", as you say. And she doesn't like bifocals much either.
She bought her 6th pair of glasses with progressive lenses about 2 weeks ago, because the optometrist told her it was a "new generation" of lenses for people who just couldn't get used to them. She paid a princely sum for them too. The result, as always, is that her brand spanking new glasses sit in a box alongside the other 5 pairs and she still switches between the near and far glasses that dangle around her neck all the time.
Because you don't want to walk around with huge glasses that goes Bzzz...Bzzzz... all day long, move your head around when the autofocus fails to reckon where the focal point is, and wear a battery-pack on your belt to power the thing.
Try using a manual-focus SLR camera for a day or two, and you'll realize your own autofocus (your brain) works way better than any piece of electronics.
The glasses have a tiny adjustable slider on the bridge of the frame that makes it possible to focus alternately on the page of a book, a computer screen, or a mountain range in the distance
Whowever designed this has obviously never worn progressive lenses. In real, ordinary life, you don't "decide" to focus on something for a minute and adjust the slider accordingly, you adjust your focal point *all the time*, unconsciously. What progressive lenses do is allow your neck muscle to "emulate" what your eye muscles would normally do if you weren't an old fart.
I just don't see myself (pun intended) spending the day with a finger on the rim of my glasses to do the same. If I want to be comfortable for an extended period of time in front of the computer, or to drive, I put on my near or far glasses. For the rest of the time (90% of my day), I put on the progressive glasses. Perhaps the adjustable lenses would allow me to have one pair of comfy glasses instead of two, but I ain't giving up my progressives. At any rate, my reading glasses are on the table, and my driving glasses are in the car, so it's not really a problem in the first place.
(On a side note, I've just realized I'm talking about my presbyopia on Slashdot, and the dreaded word "middle-aged" comes to my mind.)
The idea behind truly open standards is to create a level playing field so that everyone can compete on an equal and fair basis. The benefits are obvious: it ensures a true Darwinian selection process is possible
Microsoft, just like tha *AAs, find themselves in the same position as the dinosaurs after the comet strike winter: their surroundings (markets) are changing and they are unable to adapt. So they try to adapt their environment to themselves. In the case of companies, this is done by "educating" (think "don't copy that floppy"), threatening and cajoling their customers. But in the end, they'll meet the same fate as the dinos.
Slashdot Mirror
Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up
That's the kind of job I want.
I assume you always pick the right decision yourself then...
Come on man, humanity chooses wrong paths all the time with the best of intentions, because none of us (apart from you apparently) can predict the future. We do our best to evaluate the future results of our actions, but our foreknowledge is always sketchy at best.
Better than colonslashers I suppose...
They just need to think. That's what they study for (ideally). Thinking people with open minds can tackle anything, including the "scale of the internet".
When I was in high school, I used a slide rule. When I entered university, I got me a calculator. Did maths or problem solving abilities change or improve because of the calculator? no. Student today can jolly well learn about networking on small LANs, or learn to manage small datasets on aging university computers, so long as what they learn is good, they'll be able to transpose their knowledge on a vaster scale, or invent the next Big Thing. I don't see the problem.
I usually read ebooks with WORM displays (write-once-read-many): they're designed like Kinko cameras: they're cheap, disposable, and have a MTBF of several decades. They're called "books". What's more, I suspect the number of dead trees used to make such a book is less than the amount of trees necessary to manufacture and power an ebook of any kind over its usable lifespan.
Now all I need is a portable sun to read in bed.
If IBM had said "we have batteries that can last 500 miles", and Stanley Kubrick shot videos of the long-range electric car in a Hollywood studio, then it would be like the moon landing.
personally I think the higher up front cost of nuclear is more than offset by the stability it provides
Not sure about that. Uranium is a finite resource too, much more finite than fossil fuels in fact. If the world suddenly switched massively to nuclear power, there would be about a decade worth of uranium to extract. See this page.
So in short, yes you're right, nuclear is great *for you* (and inhabitants of a few other rich politically stable countries), provided (1) it stays fairly unpopular and (2) other countries don't have access to the technology, so that *you* keep enjoying it for a long time.
They sure have a great marketing team at Lichtblick and Volkswagen: so much rah-rah to describe a generator made out of recycled WV engines, that's pure genius.
You show your age my friend. Talk to most 15 year olds of today and they don't know anything older than Doom, much less Pong.
Star Raiders was a hit on its home platform but now seems to have fallen into obscurity
In other news, Pong was a hit on its home platform, but now seems to have fallen into obscurity.
If they had any sense whatsoever, all that data would be stored on the server and the card would simply have an ID number (and MAYBE a name) programmed into it. The fact that their system simply believes what's on the card and doesn't check a central database to make sure that the card hasn't been tampered with is just plain stupid.
So instead, they should trust the ID number? How is a number pointing to a block of data on a remote server is safer than the block of data itself? That's what credit cards are (they have a number in them, that ATMs and pay points check against the credit company's database), and this particular industry is rife with electronic fraud.
I bet they head-hunted members of the Windows XP team to implement this in the UK. That can't be a coincidence. Great move guys...
"Microsoft will pay Yahoo $50 million a year for three years and will hire at least 400 Yahoo employees as part of the companies' recent search agreement, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
50 mil and those 400 employees' salaries are pocket money for Microsoft. They have paid a great many times more than that in various out-of-court settlements over the years.
Incidentally, another comment that springs to mind is that Yahoo must be quite desperate: $50M is nothing for a large intarweb company these days.
Microsoft and Yahoo joining efforts will probably produce nothing good at all though: they both have mediocre search businesses, and they'll end up with a mediocre shared search business. Nothing for the big G to worry about I reckon.
Also shows that Valve continues to support their existing games
As someone whose last favorite game is Duke Nukem, I can see the appeal of that.
every product that uses the Microsoft CryptoAPI is still vulnerable, including Internet Explorer and Outlook
Every product that uses the Microsoft [insert name here] is still vulnerable, including Internet Explorer and Outlook.
Notice how you now require several glasses for several ranges; one pair for close, one for far, and some progressive. You have to switch manually between those glasses. The invention now reduces the switch action to adjusting a slide.
No it doesn't. I'd still have to have progressives and a pair of magic-slider glasses. So instead of three pairs, I'd have two. Unless of course I can have glasses with 3 settings (progressive, fixed/near and fixed/far), in which case I'd gladly buy them.
I really don't see what the big deal is. Can someone please explain why progressive lenses are so despised?
I like mine, but my mom can't get used to them. At all. They give her headaches and she just doesn't "get it", as you say. And she doesn't like bifocals much either.
She bought her 6th pair of glasses with progressive lenses about 2 weeks ago, because the optometrist told her it was a "new generation" of lenses for people who just couldn't get used to them. She paid a princely sum for them too. The result, as always, is that her brand spanking new glasses sit in a box alongside the other 5 pairs and she still switches between the near and far glasses that dangle around her neck all the time.
Because you don't want to walk around with huge glasses that goes Bzzz...Bzzzz... all day long, move your head around when the autofocus fails to reckon where the focal point is, and wear a battery-pack on your belt to power the thing.
Try using a manual-focus SLR camera for a day or two, and you'll realize your own autofocus (your brain) works way better than any piece of electronics.
Water-based eyeglasses
The glasses have a tiny adjustable slider on the bridge of the frame that makes it possible to focus alternately on the page of a book, a computer screen, or a mountain range in the distance
Whowever designed this has obviously never worn progressive lenses. In real, ordinary life, you don't "decide" to focus on something for a minute and adjust the slider accordingly, you adjust your focal point *all the time*, unconsciously. What progressive lenses do is allow your neck muscle to "emulate" what your eye muscles would normally do if you weren't an old fart.
I just don't see myself (pun intended) spending the day with a finger on the rim of my glasses to do the same. If I want to be comfortable for an extended period of time in front of the computer, or to drive, I put on my near or far glasses. For the rest of the time (90% of my day), I put on the progressive glasses. Perhaps the adjustable lenses would allow me to have one pair of comfy glasses instead of two, but I ain't giving up my progressives. At any rate, my reading glasses are on the table, and my driving glasses are in the car, so it's not really a problem in the first place.
(On a side note, I've just realized I'm talking about my presbyopia on Slashdot, and the dreaded word "middle-aged" comes to my mind.)
Gee, thanks for ruining my day man. When I read your post, I immediately pictured Steve Balmers on his knees undoing my belt. Eew.
How is this surprising? TFA explains it best:
The idea behind truly open standards is to create a level playing field so that everyone can compete on an equal and fair basis. The benefits are obvious: it ensures a true Darwinian selection process is possible
Microsoft, just like tha *AAs, find themselves in the same position as the dinosaurs after the comet strike winter: their surroundings (markets) are changing and they are unable to adapt. So they try to adapt their environment to themselves. In the case of companies, this is done by "educating" (think "don't copy that floppy"), threatening and cajoling their customers. But in the end, they'll meet the same fate as the dinos.
It's called Photoshop.
So what happens when you're thin enough? How do you avoid going down to dangerously low amounts of stored fat?
You start ordering supersize. How do you think you got the fat in in the first place?