One of my first interactions in the state after being in California for a couple of years was at a Wendy's drive-though. The attendant was kind enough to tell me "I put you some salt and ketchup in the bag." Is there such a thing as hillbillionics?
Someday I'm going to run for public office, and this thread is going to come back and bit me in the ass. I just know it.
There are 350 million people in the US - and probably more than 400 Million by 2020. This mandate means that 75% of the population will be excluded from the mandate, and probably put on the back burner to make it law. I have decent internet (3Mb/$25) but there are folks just 20 miles down the road who pay more than $70/mo for 384k/128k service.
I like the thought, but I'd rather see better regulation of what the various terms mean. "Unlimited," or any term which suggests that there is no cap on download quantity should be forbidden for any line which does not have a allowable greater than (max burst d/l+u/l speed x 30 days). I'm okay with defining terms for internet speed, as long as all ranges have a defined name (think of RF spectrum bands).
If they want better rollout, they need to include more than just the city centers.
I skimmed the wiki article, and didn't see any direct causation between PCOS and morbid obesity. There is correlation, and those with PCOS may be predisposed to weight gain, but one of the treatments is weight loss through diet and exercise.
I'm technically overweight - 6' tall and 190-195lbs. I have some sympathy for obese people because it really is hard to fight your body's tendency to shift from your "settling point" (mine is about 205lbs - I won't gain more, but it takes effort to drop below 195).
If you're spending 2-3 hours in the gym doing high level aerobic activity, eating 800 calories a day, and still gaining weight, you are a miracle case. Even if you could survive with a Basal metabolic rate half of normal, you'd burn almost 1000 calories a day without exercise. Any good exercise should burn at least 175-200 cal/hour. Just running a 12 minute mile (almost a fast walk) should be good for 500 calories an hour.
I have no doubt that being fat sucks, and it takes a shitload of willpower to drop the weight. I would venture, though, that most people (and by most, I mean greater than 95%) who have weight problems simply lack the willpower to fix it.
Yeah, I saw the video after I posted. It's like a mobile version of Windows Media Center. That's okay, but they're going to have to do a whole lot more than what I say - it looks like they made the navigation the whole point of the device. It was simple, but took forever to get where you wanted to go. It shouldn't take more than 2 swipes/clicks to get anywhere you go 98% of the time. They looked like they went through about 5 to get to some locations.
So you feel sorry for the guy reading an 11" screen and typing on a 90% sized keyboard, but reading a 9.5" screen and trying to touch type on a touchscreen is going to be comfortable?
I'll be the first to admit that my Acer is not quite as comfortable as my Dell Precision workstation laptop, but I just can't imagine getting anything useful or fun done on an iPad, unless I happen to be comparting the experience to my phone.
I generally found 80% or so of the pages I handed out reusable.
Ouch. Even at 99% reusable, this paper is more expensive (including super-expensive toner in small OEM cartridges) than regular paper. I suspect they're about an order of magnitude off in pricing - both for paper and printer - to make this economical. That's not to say it won't get cheaper in time...
I thought about one. Problem is, nothing else on the iPhone worked for me. Standalone GPS (I regularly travel to places w/o phone or data service) - fail. Tethering to my netbook so I don't have to pay for two data connections - fail. Really good calendaring (I'm a PocketInformant geek) - didn't look like it from playing with it in the store. Most everything on the WinMo platform works well - it just isn't as nicely integrated as the iPhone. The iPhone, otoh, is well integrated but lacks several key features I find necessary on my mobile device.
Yes, I want my cake and I want to eat it, too. (AT&T doesn't bother me - my HTC TouchPro is on AT&T already)
Well, the video looks less enticing than the text description. I'm afraid it's more like Windows Media Center on a phone. I hope it's better in its final incarnation.
How long ago was that? I've had a winmo phone for 3.5 years now (okay, technically two since I upgraded). I can't remember the last time the phone kept me from answering a call. Dead headset? yes. Hitting the wrong button on the car's bluetooth interface? yup. Having the phone lock up? Nope. About the only time I have to reset is when a poorly behaved application causes a UI issue (I'm looking at you, Opera).
Actually, this is why the iPhone is a success. Developers don't have to wonder which of the 400 variants of phone might be using their software, at what resolution, with what hardware capabilities. The iPhone works because there is a great deal less development required to get software to work on the devices - less testing and fewer hardware options makes for a much easier job on the software end.
The one thing Apple has right is unifying the user experience. There's no shame in taking that part they do well and improving on that to make it useful for people that use their phone to work for a living.
No goofy shading and transitions? Simple design? No backgrounds?
This has promise. I'm a "black screen wallpaper" guy, and until Windows 7 I used the "classic" look in windows (I'm still considering switching back, as the whole translucent thing is more a distraction than anything else).
What I want is a finger-operable OS that allows quick access to all my programs (and easy program switching), is finger operable, makes scrolling and web browsing easy (I've yet to see a browser that can reliably determine the difference in a small swipe vs a click), is finger controllable, and allows customizable parameters for most actions (when to ring, when not to, when to wake, when to sleep, when to check email, etc.), and - most importantly - is finger controllable.
I know that there are lots of people who want a PDA instead of a phone, and prefer using a stylus. Really - it's a phenomenal annoyance to have to pull out a stylus for practically every operation because the icons are the size of a piece of glitter. It's nice to see that they might be moving into the 21st century with their UI.
You've got it backwards...the rise of online media will save the new and mid-level acts (and authors) who are actually worth something. The larger producers and publishers spend a great deal of money preventing those people from getting any useful press so that they can concentrate sales to their highly promoted acts/authors. With nearly zero stocking cost, online retailers can keep far more "inventory" from all areas of the arts on hand for sale. The online corporate giants may just end up as the ultimate backstreet music shop, with more selection than could ever be imagined. With things like the music genome project, it will become possible to actually find acts you've never heard of, but play "your style" of music.
For all things IP, the mom and pop stores are, indeed, on their last legs. The only ones left will be specialty collector stores for hard-copy versions. It is the relentless march of time and progress.
Publishers currently spend foolish amounts of money "promoting" the next big book. The goal is to get massive sales to pay back the large cost of advances to superstar authors, basic publishing prep costs, and the massive first run that has to be sold to pay for all of that. No doubt those publishing prep costs will not change, but if you eliminate the superstar advances and the irrational marketing pushes to sell a million warehoused copies, $10 a copy really isn't a huge deal. If you believe the publishers, they want to charge more so they can provide additional services (author interviews, etc.). Really? It sounds like they just want us to pick up more of the tab on their marketing costs.
Amazon exists to sell books. They probably get a (roughly) fixed amount for each sale, so the cheaper they can sell the more they make. I think that they are more on our side than the publishers are.
We don't print them out and then scan them back in. We print to PDF, digitally sign the documents, then print them for clients. Since our clients are generally out constructing buildings, they don't have any useful means except paper to read the prints. And if you've ever seen a set of prints on a job site, you'd know that you don't want anything electronic there.
As for reviewing or reading documents - find me an acrobat (or TIFF) reader that can show a 30x42 sheet full size and flip through pages - showing the entire thing - at 5-10 sheets per second. And software that allows you to "put a finger" in 3 - four pages so your can flip back and forth in less than 0.1 seconds. Or better yet, show a "split screen" with part of one page and part of another with no delay. Make sure I write notes on it in color. And make is cost less than $2000 with a 100% uptime. When you have that - get back to me.
I still can't find a use where the usage of the paper is gentle (so it can be reused 1000 times), and the end user neither keeps the sheet nor makes any marks on the paper whatsoever. At the cost of the paper, the break-even point is between 100-600 reuses per sheet depending on how expensive your toner costs are. You would have to use the same sheet every single day for a year just to break even. I can't imagine what that sheet would look like by then in the hands of...well, any grade student.
Maybe tests where the answers are filled in on other sheets, and the student must use another sheet as scrap/calculation paper? That would be one. Lunch menus or internally distributed, short time horizon announcements (though our teachers use email for this) might be another.
Also, for the cost of each printer and a pack of 1000 sheets, you could print 300,000 sheets of paper on a leased commercial copier (given typical copy rates). I don't know how many copies your district actually makes, if you put just one of these printers and a pack of paper in each of (say) 40 schools, that's the same as the cost of 12 million single sheets. And you couldn't mark on or send a single one of those sheets home.
I'm all for saving money in school. We're in a minor crisis ourselves - I say "we" as I have a 2nd grader and my wife volunteers about 10 hours a week at the school. This stuff just looks expensive except in the most ideal cases.
There are certainly advantages to contracting, and in some areas it works well. Other areas it doesn't. Most of the time it's more a matter of politics - what and where the money goes. (though, in Reagan's defense, it's way to hard to fire/RIF government employees)
The biggest challenge in transition is corporate knowledge. NASA needs a level of continuity that isn't necessary in a "maintenance" operation (which it _has_ turned into with the shuttle). It's kind of an oddball in the government in that it's expected to innovate rather than manage.
That doesn't mean we don't generate paper. I go through 500-1000LF of 36" wide paper a month, plus probably 1500-2000 sheets of letter (we only have 4 employees). What we don't do is keep the paper. Everything either gets scanned and the paper recycled, or printed to PDF and never committed to dead tree form. The savings isn't in paper and printing - it's in storage. I was looking at having to buy storage space and filing cabinets (very expensive for large format drawings). At $1-$1.50 a sheet at the service house, it was cheaper to scan and recycle than to buy cabinets and store. Two years ago we dropped $15k on a large format scanner (well, it copies and prints, too). The result is everything we've ever designed it on the servers (and backed up in two places) and at our fingertips in less than a minute, and I'm not paying for a storage unit somewhere.
It looks like paper, is lighter than a full stack of these sheets, and can be rewritten a many times as you want. For about 1/12 the cost of the printer alone.
Did you notice that the printouts in the video looked a bit washed out, like it doesn't really get a good black?
Most people who are actually engaged in a meeting will make notes (or just doodle) on the handouts. Even if only 1 in 10 marks their sheets, you've cut the duty cycle on this paper to 1/100 of its design life (and made the sheets essentially $0.33 each).
If I give someone a draft to review, I expect it to come back with editing marks on it - in a color which stands out (like red). That will make the sheets useless.
Unless you are making a hard copy original to send to a printer for reproduction, the best copies are digital and are printed in multiples rather than photocopied. There are still some large corporations which will have a physical copy center, but even many of those have transitioned to using electronic (often PDF or TIFF) originals.
Architectural firms will print a single "original" that gets sent out for reproduction, but that's usually because it has to be hand signed or crimped with a seal (which would make the set non-reusable yet again). Electronic signatures can be used now, but at that point you could just send the digital file for reproduction.
Don't get me wrong - this is pretty cool - but I don't think it has the mass market capability at anywhere near this price point. It might be very useful in special environments like high-class clean rooms.
I know, I know, I just dumped on this in a previous post - but I've found an application (at least for my office).
I deal with architectural prints which are usually D or E size (thats ~A1/A0 I believe). Often we'll have architects send us 6 or 7 revisions of 10-20 sheets for a small project. It's nice to be able to see them "full size" and make minor marks, but when the next revision comes out that set gets recycled. We could easily reuse these sheets several times. Of course, we'd need some kind of heat pen (and we usually like to use red).
Still, the cost would have to come down a lot. Since I can't send these prints out (without paying a fortune per sheet), it would have to be a purpose machine - and really only worth half of what a "real" printer would cost - maybe $2500 for a 36" wide print head. And the sheets would have to be priced noticeably favorable paper with break even somewhere this side of 20 re-printings (so about $0.25/square foot).
This is nice, but misses the purpose of more than half of most printing - to distribute to other people and to mark up your own copies. If I give anyone else the sheet, it's no longer recyclable by me. If I mark up a hard copy - or just make notes while I'm in a meeting - it's no longer reuseable. What about staples?
If I've got a dozen people in my office, it would be cheaper to simply buy them each a KindleDX - and I'll never run out of paper there.
(Yes, I'm being negative today. I'm sure this has a niche - like a training center where you can update your handouts for each class, as long as thy can't take them home)
Slashdot Mirror
One of my first interactions in the state after being in California for a couple of years was at a Wendy's drive-though. The attendant was kind enough to tell me "I put you some salt and ketchup in the bag." Is there such a thing as hillbillionics?
Someday I'm going to run for public office, and this thread is going to come back and bit me in the ass. I just know it.
Byoo'-nah Vis'-tah
The locals have taken the whole diphthong pronunciation (when two vowels go walking...) to an extreme.
We also have Staunton, which is pronounced Stan-tun (short a sound).
It's Naw-Fuck.
And it's nowhere near as embarrassing as how we pronounce Buena Vista.
I'd be careful not to put them anywhere you don't want to be searched. Just sayin'...
There are 350 million people in the US - and probably more than 400 Million by 2020. This mandate means that 75% of the population will be excluded from the mandate, and probably put on the back burner to make it law. I have decent internet (3Mb/$25) but there are folks just 20 miles down the road who pay more than $70/mo for 384k/128k service.
I like the thought, but I'd rather see better regulation of what the various terms mean. "Unlimited," or any term which suggests that there is no cap on download quantity should be forbidden for any line which does not have a allowable greater than (max burst d/l+u/l speed x 30 days). I'm okay with defining terms for internet speed, as long as all ranges have a defined name (think of RF spectrum bands).
If they want better rollout, they need to include more than just the city centers.
It sounds like they already know where they are - or at least the ones that are in the path of the construction.
I skimmed the wiki article, and didn't see any direct causation between PCOS and morbid obesity. There is correlation, and those with PCOS may be predisposed to weight gain, but one of the treatments is weight loss through diet and exercise.
I'm technically overweight - 6' tall and 190-195lbs. I have some sympathy for obese people because it really is hard to fight your body's tendency to shift from your "settling point" (mine is about 205lbs - I won't gain more, but it takes effort to drop below 195).
If you're spending 2-3 hours in the gym doing high level aerobic activity, eating 800 calories a day, and still gaining weight, you are a miracle case. Even if you could survive with a Basal metabolic rate half of normal, you'd burn almost 1000 calories a day without exercise. Any good exercise should burn at least 175-200 cal/hour. Just running a 12 minute mile (almost a fast walk) should be good for 500 calories an hour.
I have no doubt that being fat sucks, and it takes a shitload of willpower to drop the weight. I would venture, though, that most people (and by most, I mean greater than 95%) who have weight problems simply lack the willpower to fix it.
Yeah, I saw the video after I posted. It's like a mobile version of Windows Media Center. That's okay, but they're going to have to do a whole lot more than what I say - it looks like they made the navigation the whole point of the device. It was simple, but took forever to get where you wanted to go. It shouldn't take more than 2 swipes/clicks to get anywhere you go 98% of the time. They looked like they went through about 5 to get to some locations.
So you feel sorry for the guy reading an 11" screen and typing on a 90% sized keyboard, but reading a 9.5" screen and trying to touch type on a touchscreen is going to be comfortable?
I'll be the first to admit that my Acer is not quite as comfortable as my Dell Precision workstation laptop, but I just can't imagine getting anything useful or fun done on an iPad, unless I happen to be comparting the experience to my phone.
I generally found 80% or so of the pages I handed out reusable.
Ouch. Even at 99% reusable, this paper is more expensive (including super-expensive toner in small OEM cartridges) than regular paper. I suspect they're about an order of magnitude off in pricing - both for paper and printer - to make this economical. That's not to say it won't get cheaper in time...
I thought about one. Problem is, nothing else on the iPhone worked for me. Standalone GPS (I regularly travel to places w/o phone or data service) - fail. Tethering to my netbook so I don't have to pay for two data connections - fail. Really good calendaring (I'm a PocketInformant geek) - didn't look like it from playing with it in the store. Most everything on the WinMo platform works well - it just isn't as nicely integrated as the iPhone. The iPhone, otoh, is well integrated but lacks several key features I find necessary on my mobile device.
Yes, I want my cake and I want to eat it, too. (AT&T doesn't bother me - my HTC TouchPro is on AT&T already)
Well, the video looks less enticing than the text description. I'm afraid it's more like Windows Media Center on a phone. I hope it's better in its final incarnation.
How long ago was that? I've had a winmo phone for 3.5 years now (okay, technically two since I upgraded). I can't remember the last time the phone kept me from answering a call. Dead headset? yes. Hitting the wrong button on the car's bluetooth interface? yup. Having the phone lock up? Nope. About the only time I have to reset is when a poorly behaved application causes a UI issue (I'm looking at you, Opera).
Actually, this is why the iPhone is a success. Developers don't have to wonder which of the 400 variants of phone might be using their software, at what resolution, with what hardware capabilities. The iPhone works because there is a great deal less development required to get software to work on the devices - less testing and fewer hardware options makes for a much easier job on the software end.
The one thing Apple has right is unifying the user experience. There's no shame in taking that part they do well and improving on that to make it useful for people that use their phone to work for a living.
No goofy shading and transitions? Simple design? No backgrounds?
This has promise. I'm a "black screen wallpaper" guy, and until Windows 7 I used the "classic" look in windows (I'm still considering switching back, as the whole translucent thing is more a distraction than anything else).
What I want is a finger-operable OS that allows quick access to all my programs (and easy program switching), is finger operable, makes scrolling and web browsing easy (I've yet to see a browser that can reliably determine the difference in a small swipe vs a click), is finger controllable, and allows customizable parameters for most actions (when to ring, when not to, when to wake, when to sleep, when to check email, etc.), and - most importantly - is finger controllable.
I know that there are lots of people who want a PDA instead of a phone, and prefer using a stylus. Really - it's a phenomenal annoyance to have to pull out a stylus for practically every operation because the icons are the size of a piece of glitter. It's nice to see that they might be moving into the 21st century with their UI.
You've got it backwards...the rise of online media will save the new and mid-level acts (and authors) who are actually worth something. The larger producers and publishers spend a great deal of money preventing those people from getting any useful press so that they can concentrate sales to their highly promoted acts/authors. With nearly zero stocking cost, online retailers can keep far more "inventory" from all areas of the arts on hand for sale. The online corporate giants may just end up as the ultimate backstreet music shop, with more selection than could ever be imagined. With things like the music genome project, it will become possible to actually find acts you've never heard of, but play "your style" of music.
For all things IP, the mom and pop stores are, indeed, on their last legs. The only ones left will be specialty collector stores for hard-copy versions. It is the relentless march of time and progress.
Publishers currently spend foolish amounts of money "promoting" the next big book. The goal is to get massive sales to pay back the large cost of advances to superstar authors, basic publishing prep costs, and the massive first run that has to be sold to pay for all of that. No doubt those publishing prep costs will not change, but if you eliminate the superstar advances and the irrational marketing pushes to sell a million warehoused copies, $10 a copy really isn't a huge deal. If you believe the publishers, they want to charge more so they can provide additional services (author interviews, etc.). Really? It sounds like they just want us to pick up more of the tab on their marketing costs.
Amazon exists to sell books. They probably get a (roughly) fixed amount for each sale, so the cheaper they can sell the more they make. I think that they are more on our side than the publishers are.
Just asking...
I know, don't feed the trolls, but...
We don't print them out and then scan them back in. We print to PDF, digitally sign the documents, then print them for clients. Since our clients are generally out constructing buildings, they don't have any useful means except paper to read the prints. And if you've ever seen a set of prints on a job site, you'd know that you don't want anything electronic there.
As for reviewing or reading documents - find me an acrobat (or TIFF) reader that can show a 30x42 sheet full size and flip through pages - showing the entire thing - at 5-10 sheets per second. And software that allows you to "put a finger" in 3 - four pages so your can flip back and forth in less than 0.1 seconds. Or better yet, show a "split screen" with part of one page and part of another with no delay. Make sure I write notes on it in color. And make is cost less than $2000 with a 100% uptime. When you have that - get back to me.
I still can't find a use where the usage of the paper is gentle (so it can be reused 1000 times), and the end user neither keeps the sheet nor makes any marks on the paper whatsoever. At the cost of the paper, the break-even point is between 100-600 reuses per sheet depending on how expensive your toner costs are. You would have to use the same sheet every single day for a year just to break even. I can't imagine what that sheet would look like by then in the hands of...well, any grade student.
Maybe tests where the answers are filled in on other sheets, and the student must use another sheet as scrap/calculation paper? That would be one. Lunch menus or internally distributed, short time horizon announcements (though our teachers use email for this) might be another.
Also, for the cost of each printer and a pack of 1000 sheets, you could print 300,000 sheets of paper on a leased commercial copier (given typical copy rates). I don't know how many copies your district actually makes, if you put just one of these printers and a pack of paper in each of (say) 40 schools, that's the same as the cost of 12 million single sheets. And you couldn't mark on or send a single one of those sheets home.
I'm all for saving money in school. We're in a minor crisis ourselves - I say "we" as I have a 2nd grader and my wife volunteers about 10 hours a week at the school. This stuff just looks expensive except in the most ideal cases.
There are certainly advantages to contracting, and in some areas it works well. Other areas it doesn't. Most of the time it's more a matter of politics - what and where the money goes. (though, in Reagan's defense, it's way to hard to fire/RIF government employees)
The biggest challenge in transition is corporate knowledge. NASA needs a level of continuity that isn't necessary in a "maintenance" operation (which it _has_ turned into with the shuttle). It's kind of an oddball in the government in that it's expected to innovate rather than manage.
That doesn't mean we don't generate paper. I go through 500-1000LF of 36" wide paper a month, plus probably 1500-2000 sheets of letter (we only have 4 employees). What we don't do is keep the paper. Everything either gets scanned and the paper recycled, or printed to PDF and never committed to dead tree form. The savings isn't in paper and printing - it's in storage. I was looking at having to buy storage space and filing cabinets (very expensive for large format drawings). At $1-$1.50 a sheet at the service house, it was cheaper to scan and recycle than to buy cabinets and store. Two years ago we dropped $15k on a large format scanner (well, it copies and prints, too). The result is everything we've ever designed it on the servers (and backed up in two places) and at our fingertips in less than a minute, and I'm not paying for a storage unit somewhere.
It looks like paper, is lighter than a full stack of these sheets, and can be rewritten a many times as you want. For about 1/12 the cost of the printer alone.
Did you notice that the printouts in the video looked a bit washed out, like it doesn't really get a good black?
Those all sound great, until you realize-
Most people who are actually engaged in a meeting will make notes (or just doodle) on the handouts. Even if only 1 in 10 marks their sheets, you've cut the duty cycle on this paper to 1/100 of its design life (and made the sheets essentially $0.33 each).
If I give someone a draft to review, I expect it to come back with editing marks on it - in a color which stands out (like red). That will make the sheets useless.
Unless you are making a hard copy original to send to a printer for reproduction, the best copies are digital and are printed in multiples rather than photocopied. There are still some large corporations which will have a physical copy center, but even many of those have transitioned to using electronic (often PDF or TIFF) originals.
Architectural firms will print a single "original" that gets sent out for reproduction, but that's usually because it has to be hand signed or crimped with a seal (which would make the set non-reusable yet again). Electronic signatures can be used now, but at that point you could just send the digital file for reproduction.
Don't get me wrong - this is pretty cool - but I don't think it has the mass market capability at anywhere near this price point. It might be very useful in special environments like high-class clean rooms.
I know, I know, I just dumped on this in a previous post - but I've found an application (at least for my office).
I deal with architectural prints which are usually D or E size (thats ~A1/A0 I believe). Often we'll have architects send us 6 or 7 revisions of 10-20 sheets for a small project. It's nice to be able to see them "full size" and make minor marks, but when the next revision comes out that set gets recycled. We could easily reuse these sheets several times. Of course, we'd need some kind of heat pen (and we usually like to use red).
Still, the cost would have to come down a lot. Since I can't send these prints out (without paying a fortune per sheet), it would have to be a purpose machine - and really only worth half of what a "real" printer would cost - maybe $2500 for a 36" wide print head. And the sheets would have to be priced noticeably favorable paper with break even somewhere this side of 20 re-printings (so about $0.25/square foot).
Still, it's a real use for this kind of thing.
This is nice, but misses the purpose of more than half of most printing - to distribute to other people and to mark up your own copies. If I give anyone else the sheet, it's no longer recyclable by me. If I mark up a hard copy - or just make notes while I'm in a meeting - it's no longer reuseable. What about staples?
If I've got a dozen people in my office, it would be cheaper to simply buy them each a KindleDX - and I'll never run out of paper there.
(Yes, I'm being negative today. I'm sure this has a niche - like a training center where you can update your handouts for each class, as long as thy can't take them home)