Using a car isn't wasting time; using public transportation is wasting time. The public transportation goes from a specific location to another specific location (so it takes time to walk to and from those locations), and costs even more time when you transfer or wait for the next bus or train. It also might not go in a straight line and probably stops at many places along the way which you would not do in a car.
Perhaps, but at least I can do productive things while riding the bus (thanks to my smartphone). Now if only I could afford to ride the bus (a monthly bus pass costs $200, or I can continue to spend $50 per month on gas).
I love my kindle. It's one of the original models. I see no compelling reason to upgrade it. It's not like I need a feaster processor or more memory or anything. So if most kindle owners are like me, kindles won't be replaced very rapidly like the more power-hungry tablets. I think there are enough kindle users that the product won't go away -- it just won't have super high-volume sales.
And now that it's proven its worth to me, if I do ever have to replace it, I'll be willing to pay the extra cost over a tablet because I know it'll last for years and years.
In the 1920s, only about a third of households reported having a washer or a vacuum, and refrigerators were even rarer. But just 20 years later, refrigerator ownership was common, with more than two-thirds of Americans owning an icebox.
Hold on a second, so in the 1920s, fewer than 1/3 of Americans owned a refrigerator. By the 1940s, more than 2/3 of Americans owned an icebox. How many owned iceboxes in the 1920s? How many owned refrigerators in the 1940s? These items served the same purpose, but are most certainly not the same thing.
"... the flush toilet developed and popularized by Thomas Crapper"
No, contrary to widespread misconceptions, Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
Amazingly, this is mentioned in the 2nd sentence of the wikipedia article linked to in the slashdot article. If only the poster had actually read the link he provided, he might not have made this mistake.
Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It's important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.
I really wish companies would drop the BS when announcing things like this. Customers aren't going to be confused. Amazon doesn't want to sell products that compete with their own, fine. I just wish they didn't pretend like they were doing this to make customers happier.
Poorly organized systems give lots of problems to people with duplicate names. My friend named John Smith shares a birthday with another John Smith, who happens to be a felon. According to the DMV, my friend and the felon are the same person, in spite the fact that they live in different states, and have different skin colors, eye colors, different SSNs, etc. This means my friend has to go through hell every time he tries to renew his license.
Is it true that Bennet Hasselton smokes crack and molests children?
I'm not saying it's true, I'm just asking questions.
I read the article, and apparently, only positive reviews are visible for a person until that person signs up. Fortunately, I suspect there's a workaround... continuing with your example:
Of all the accused crack-smoking child molesters, Bennet Hasselton is by far the best!
I'd rather have a car that goes from 0 to 60 in 6.4 seconds and goes 500 miles. 250 miles just doesn't cut in some parts of the US (out West).
You should probably tell that to someone at Tesla. I'm sure they have no idea that people are interested in electric cars with increased range. Maybe if enough people complain, they'll start figuring out how to improve battery technology.
"Put all the kids in a group so the smart kids can carry the dumb kids and then on paper it looks like everyone is doing well." Here is the way a "group project" worked at my old school:
1) Put at least one smart kid (like me) in each group (with the dumb and mediocre kids) 2) Smart kid does all the work because he/she actually wants an "A" 3) Dumb and mediocre kids do fuck all, learn fuck all, and accomplish fuck all, Mostly they just nap or play on their cellphones while the smart kid works. 4) Group gets an "A" because the smart kid works his/her ass off 5) Dumb and mediocre kids get an "A," look on paper like they're really improving and learning
EDUCATION!
Yup, I had exactly the same experience. It made me hate all forms of group activities. It wasn't until I entered the working world where I began working with groups of people who actually wanted to try hard (because the low-performers eventually leave or fired). Now, the lower-performing members of my teams aren't slackers, but just folks with less experience who are actually interested in learning -- working with them is a joy. At work, it is normal for me to both learn and teach new things in any group activity. This never happened in all my years of education.
The Raspberry Pi was meant to be an affordable, educational computer for children. Not a $35 replacement for a $300 media box.
Funny, that's exactly what I'm using my pi for. It does a great job running Kodi. The old PC it replaced would sometimes drop frames at 1080p, but not my pi2. (I can't speak to the streaming options like Netflix, as all my media is local.)
We've known for a long time that going to mars would be difficult, and living there even more so. This is not news.
Also, and I feel silly that this is even worth saying, but just because something is difficult does not mean it's not worth doing. Personally, I'd rather stay in bed all day, yet I chose to go to work.
One thing the article forgot to mention was that rental titles could not be rewound. You could pause, but not back up (much less watch it more than once during your rental period.)
Allow me to quote the article:
Cartrivision employed analog-rights management: rented tapes, offered in red casings, could be rewound only with equipment available at retailers. That ensured that a consumer could only watch a movie once.
... but how does the software in the car know that the vehicle's emissions are being tested in the first place?
I am curious too. I also imagine it varies quite a bit from location to location. In Denver, for example, they often setup emission detectors near highway onramps. They test and photograph license plates as people drive by. If you pass, they'll send notice in the mail that you don't have to bother visiting an actual emissions station.
I was standing in a long line, and watched two people at the counter trying to simultaneously mail parcels and talk on their phone. In both cases the postal worker had to explain things multiple times, and wait for them to finish chatting for a second before paying.
Fortunately, I'm not friends with any such people, but I wonder if the phone conversation can be any less distracted than the in-person one. The person on the other end must know their friend is at the post office, and hear half of the conversation with the employee. I presume this person is multi-tasking both conversations equally poorly.
If I were on the phone with someone, and they said "Hold on a moment, I'm next in line at the post office", I would not be offended.
Also, watched a fireworks show in Ottawa in August and the three teens sitting in front of us pretty much watched the whole thing through their phones recording it. How asinine is that?
Don't you see? They're collecting very useful data! Today, our grandparents can tell us how much better everything was when they were young, but they can't prove it. When these teenagers grow up and become grandparents, they will have video proof that the fireworks of their day were better than the ones their grandkids have.
people say they used their cellphone during their most recent social activity, whether it was texting, checking the web, or snapping a picture
One of these things is not like the others. Snapping a picture is part of the in-person interaction. Snapping a picture of the people you're with is quite different from sending a text to a person who's not there.
A wearable wrist device can show you that alert at a single glance... or at worst, a slight movement of the wrist to tilt the corresponding information into view.
Um, I wasn't asking about the value of a wearable device, but of a bendable screen. That's why I started my comment with "Yeah, my current watch has a non-bendable screen"
Yeah, my current watch has a non-bendable screen. But that screen is also a convenient place to look for whatever information is being displayed. If the screen curved around my wrist, it would be capable of displaying more things than I could see at one time without moving my wrist. So functionally speaking, I don't see much advantage.
But if they do a good job with the aesthetics, and it actually looks good, I suppose that's worth something.
I used to think so too, but then I tried apple's touchpad. The fact that it's quite large, and handles a variety of gestures make it quite useful. (Not as nice as having an actual mouse, but we're talking laptops, after all.)
In my experience people who hate telephone calls are the flakes who never answer email or texts and then when the shit hits the fan they claim they never got it.
I hate telephone calls, but not because I want to flake out on things. Perhaps it's social anxiety, but I don't like being thrown into conversation with no warning. At least today, I can tell who's calling me before I answer (I can never identify people by their voice, so the days before caller ID were horrible for me). If you send me a text or e-mail, I can give my response more thought than I could on a live call. But I will respond, and usually do so very quickly.
I guess from my point of view, calling me feels similar to you showing up at my door unannounced. I can handle it, and it might even be a good time. But I'd really prefer if you gave me some warning first.
As someone who is just a little older than you mellenials, I can't understand why you don't like the phone. Actually I can't even understand why you don't like voice mail.
I'm probably your age, and I never use voicemails anymore. (Back when I had a landline, owning an answering machine made sense, but we have better options now.) It really comes down to the interface. I can quickly and easily read text messages. Listening to voicemail takes a bit of effort - I need to be in an environment where it's convenient to call, where there aren't too many background noises, etc. And if it includes information like an address, or something else that I'd write down, I have to find a pen and paper, and run the risk of writing something wrong.
If I call a friend, and they don't answer, I won't leave a voicemail. They know that I called, and if they feel like it, they'll call me back. If I had something important to say, I'll send them a text.
My friends behave the same as I do. My parents are the only people who ever leave me voicemails, and their messages generally boil down to "call us back". So I'll generally call them back, and then delete the message without listening to it. (If for some reason, I can't call them, I will listen to the message, just in case it contained something important.)
Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back
I agree with a lot of what you said. But this one can actually make sense, provided the person has a valid reason to call you instead of e-mailing. If you asked a question that can be answered in a sentence or two, then the response should absolutely be an e-mail. But if you asked a question that requires clarification, or has a complicated answer and the responder doesn't know how much background information you already have, then some form of real-time communication makes a lot more sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Using a car isn't wasting time; using public transportation is wasting time. The public transportation goes from a specific location to another specific location (so it takes time to walk to and from those locations), and costs even more time when you transfer or wait for the next bus or train. It also might not go in a straight line and probably stops at many places along the way which you would not do in a car.
Perhaps, but at least I can do productive things while riding the bus (thanks to my smartphone). Now if only I could afford to ride the bus (a monthly bus pass costs $200, or I can continue to spend $50 per month on gas).
We in the US have chip and signature, and are therefore immune to any such attack involving a PIN.
I love my kindle. It's one of the original models. I see no compelling reason to upgrade it. It's not like I need a feaster processor or more memory or anything. So if most kindle owners are like me, kindles won't be replaced very rapidly like the more power-hungry tablets. I think there are enough kindle users that the product won't go away -- it just won't have super high-volume sales.
And now that it's proven its worth to me, if I do ever have to replace it, I'll be willing to pay the extra cost over a tablet because I know it'll last for years and years.
In the 1920s, only about a third of households reported having a washer or a vacuum, and refrigerators were even rarer. But just 20 years later, refrigerator ownership was common, with more than two-thirds of Americans owning an icebox.
Hold on a second, so in the 1920s, fewer than 1/3 of Americans owned a refrigerator. By the 1940s, more than 2/3 of Americans owned an icebox. How many owned iceboxes in the 1920s? How many owned refrigerators in the 1940s? These items served the same purpose, but are most certainly not the same thing.
"... the flush toilet developed and popularized by Thomas Crapper"
No, contrary to widespread misconceptions, Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
Amazingly, this is mentioned in the 2nd sentence of the wikipedia article linked to in the slashdot article. If only the poster had actually read the link he provided, he might not have made this mistake.
Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It's important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.
I really wish companies would drop the BS when announcing things like this. Customers aren't going to be confused. Amazon doesn't want to sell products that compete with their own, fine. I just wish they didn't pretend like they were doing this to make customers happier.
Or people with duplicate names.
Poorly organized systems give lots of problems to people with duplicate names. My friend named John Smith shares a birthday with another John Smith, who happens to be a felon. According to the DMV, my friend and the felon are the same person, in spite the fact that they live in different states, and have different skin colors, eye colors, different SSNs, etc. This means my friend has to go through hell every time he tries to renew his license.
Is it true that Bennet Hasselton smokes crack and molests children?
I'm not saying it's true, I'm just asking questions.
I read the article, and apparently, only positive reviews are visible for a person until that person signs up. Fortunately, I suspect there's a workaround... continuing with your example:
Of all the accused crack-smoking child molesters, Bennet Hasselton is by far the best!
Kids tend to eat the tastiest thing on their plate.
I think the retailers just saw it as too much hassle to make all merchants put in card readers which face the customer instead of the employees.
Nearly every retailer I use has a customer-facing credit card reader. At least that's been the case for the past decade or so anyway.
I'd rather have a car that goes from 0 to 60 in 6.4 seconds and goes 500 miles. 250 miles just doesn't cut in some parts of the US (out West).
You should probably tell that to someone at Tesla. I'm sure they have no idea that people are interested in electric cars with increased range. Maybe if enough people complain, they'll start figuring out how to improve battery technology.
"Put all the kids in a group so the smart kids can carry the dumb kids and then on paper it looks like everyone is doing well." Here is the way a "group project" worked at my old school:
1) Put at least one smart kid (like me) in each group (with the dumb and mediocre kids)
2) Smart kid does all the work because he/she actually wants an "A"
3) Dumb and mediocre kids do fuck all, learn fuck all, and accomplish fuck all, Mostly they just nap or play on their cellphones while the smart kid works.
4) Group gets an "A" because the smart kid works his/her ass off
5) Dumb and mediocre kids get an "A," look on paper like they're really improving and learning
EDUCATION!
Yup, I had exactly the same experience. It made me hate all forms of group activities. It wasn't until I entered the working world where I began working with groups of people who actually wanted to try hard (because the low-performers eventually leave or fired). Now, the lower-performing members of my teams aren't slackers, but just folks with less experience who are actually interested in learning -- working with them is a joy. At work, it is normal for me to both learn and teach new things in any group activity. This never happened in all my years of education.
The Raspberry Pi was meant to be an affordable, educational computer for children. Not a $35 replacement for a $300 media box.
Funny, that's exactly what I'm using my pi for. It does a great job running Kodi. The old PC it replaced would sometimes drop frames at 1080p, but not my pi2. (I can't speak to the streaming options like Netflix, as all my media is local.)
We've known for a long time that going to mars would be difficult, and living there even more so. This is not news.
Also, and I feel silly that this is even worth saying, but just because something is difficult does not mean it's not worth doing. Personally, I'd rather stay in bed all day, yet I chose to go to work.
One thing the article forgot to mention was that rental titles could not be rewound. You could pause, but not back up (much less watch it more than once during your rental period.)
Allow me to quote the article:
Cartrivision employed analog-rights management: rented tapes, offered in red casings, could be rewound only with equipment available at retailers. That ensured that a consumer could only watch a movie once.
... but how does the software in the car know that the vehicle's emissions are being tested in the first place?
I am curious too. I also imagine it varies quite a bit from location to location. In Denver, for example, they often setup emission detectors near highway onramps. They test and photograph license plates as people drive by. If you pass, they'll send notice in the mail that you don't have to bother visiting an actual emissions station.
I was standing in a long line, and watched two people at the counter trying to simultaneously mail parcels and talk on their phone. In both cases the postal worker had to explain things multiple times, and wait for them to finish chatting for a second before paying.
Fortunately, I'm not friends with any such people, but I wonder if the phone conversation can be any less distracted than the in-person one. The person on the other end must know their friend is at the post office, and hear half of the conversation with the employee. I presume this person is multi-tasking both conversations equally poorly.
If I were on the phone with someone, and they said "Hold on a moment, I'm next in line at the post office", I would not be offended.
Also, watched a fireworks show in Ottawa in August and the three teens sitting in front of us pretty much watched the whole thing through their phones recording it. How asinine is that?
Don't you see? They're collecting very useful data! Today, our grandparents can tell us how much better everything was when they were young, but they can't prove it. When these teenagers grow up and become grandparents, they will have video proof that the fireworks of their day were better than the ones their grandkids have.
people say they used their cellphone during their most recent social activity, whether it was texting, checking the web, or snapping a picture
One of these things is not like the others. Snapping a picture is part of the in-person interaction. Snapping a picture of the people you're with is quite different from sending a text to a person who's not there.
A wearable wrist device can show you that alert at a single glance... or at worst, a slight movement of the wrist to tilt the corresponding information into view.
Um, I wasn't asking about the value of a wearable device, but of a bendable screen. That's why I started my comment with "Yeah, my current watch has a non-bendable screen"
Yeah, my current watch has a non-bendable screen. But that screen is also a convenient place to look for whatever information is being displayed. If the screen curved around my wrist, it would be capable of displaying more things than I could see at one time without moving my wrist. So functionally speaking, I don't see much advantage.
But if they do a good job with the aesthetics, and it actually looks good, I suppose that's worth something.
I used to think so too, but then I tried apple's touchpad. The fact that it's quite large, and handles a variety of gestures make it quite useful. (Not as nice as having an actual mouse, but we're talking laptops, after all.)
In my experience people who hate telephone calls are the flakes who never answer email or texts and then when the shit hits the fan they claim they never got it.
I hate telephone calls, but not because I want to flake out on things. Perhaps it's social anxiety, but I don't like being thrown into conversation with no warning. At least today, I can tell who's calling me before I answer (I can never identify people by their voice, so the days before caller ID were horrible for me). If you send me a text or e-mail, I can give my response more thought than I could on a live call. But I will respond, and usually do so very quickly.
I guess from my point of view, calling me feels similar to you showing up at my door unannounced. I can handle it, and it might even be a good time. But I'd really prefer if you gave me some warning first.
As someone who is just a little older than you mellenials, I can't understand why you don't like the phone. Actually I can't even understand why you don't like voice mail.
I'm probably your age, and I never use voicemails anymore. (Back when I had a landline, owning an answering machine made sense, but we have better options now.) It really comes down to the interface. I can quickly and easily read text messages. Listening to voicemail takes a bit of effort - I need to be in an environment where it's convenient to call, where there aren't too many background noises, etc. And if it includes information like an address, or something else that I'd write down, I have to find a pen and paper, and run the risk of writing something wrong.
If I call a friend, and they don't answer, I won't leave a voicemail. They know that I called, and if they feel like it, they'll call me back. If I had something important to say, I'll send them a text.
My friends behave the same as I do. My parents are the only people who ever leave me voicemails, and their messages generally boil down to "call us back". So I'll generally call them back, and then delete the message without listening to it. (If for some reason, I can't call them, I will listen to the message, just in case it contained something important.)
Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back
I agree with a lot of what you said. But this one can actually make sense, provided the person has a valid reason to call you instead of e-mailing. If you asked a question that can be answered in a sentence or two, then the response should absolutely be an e-mail. But if you asked a question that requires clarification, or has a complicated answer and the responder doesn't know how much background information you already have, then some form of real-time communication makes a lot more sense.