1) This example is absurd. A cromulent contrast would be "pure text" vs. "mixed text and images". Novels work fine with flowing layouts that adjust to the size and pixel density of the display. Doesn't matter if they're fiction, non-fiction, or historical fiction. However, if you have material with a lot of pictures and diagrams (textbook, magazine, etc.) then printed books have a distinct advantage. Most e-readers are not good at handling images and re-flowing the content can separate images from their associated text. However, that is starting to change. The iPad and a few Android tablets are sporting 2048x1536 displays which have enough pixels to adequately reproduce something pretty close to the quality of a printed page. And now there's the Nexus 10 at 2560x1600 that does an even better job.
Also, pretty significant advances have been made in the design of electronic "printed" media. I used to work for a large magazine when they were first starting to produce content for phones and tablets, the result was pretty crude. I took a look at what they're producing today on Google Magazine using my Nexus 10 and it's amazing. Razor sharp text, sliding columns, Pullup/pullout sidebars, print quality images, etc. So even the "mixed text and images" presentations are improving significantly on portable devices. It's just a matter of time before color e-ink is available in densities of 300ppi or higher, bringing a similar experience outdoors.
2) While I may be an early adopter, I'm not much of an early consumer on the content side. I didn't use my first e-reader much until I had a way to remove DRM from the content. Amazon's Kindle hardware and content sales were booming long before I started making content purchases. That was regular folks who were dazzled by the tech and didn't care about the high prices and content controls. Ebooks outsold paper books at Amazon over 1.5 years ago.
The author says 59% have no interest in ebooks. So that means as many as 41% do have an interest in a new form of literature consumption that's only been around for a few years. That's one hell of an adoption rate. Amazon's done for print distribution what Apple did for music distribution.
3) Oh, my gosh! People who are being paid to market a new thing might be exaggerating. That's unpossible!
4) LP to cassette to CD to MP3. VHS to Laserdisc to DVD to Blu-Ray. Same thing. So people re-purchase their favorite titles in a big chunk when they get the device then slow down to their regular rate of buying 5-10 books per year. That seems like the expected pattern for existing content being re-released on new media.
5) This statement makes no sense at all. The fact that I can read my content on my phone and tablet has increased my adoption of ebooks. When I had to carry a dedicated reader, ebooks were far less convenient. There was little advantage over a regular book because it was still a single-purpose object that had to be carried around. Now I can read anywhere on my phone because I always have my phone with me. And it syncs with my tablet so I can pick up where I left off on either device. So if I know I'm going to have some downtime, I can bring the tablet. If I have unexpected downtime, I've got my phone. And, since I've stripped the DRM from all of my purchased content, it doesn't matter which device I used to buy the titles. I can see how there would be adoption problems for people who get stymied by DRM. That is the kind of thing that will turn people off.
6) I actually agree that ebook pricing is bullshit. I can understand premium prices for new releases but, once a title gets to "paperback" phase, the price should be significantly cheaper than paperbacks because so much of the production and distribution cost has been eliminated. As I said, I worked for a large magazine. I know what it costs to print and ship all those dead trees. Not to mention the coordination required to make sure everything happens at just the right moment.
2008 technology. Seems more like three universities are getting stuck with it than anything else. The parts will be 5 years old by the time everything is divided up and distributed. That's fine if you're redistributing old desktops to set up a lab for kids to type up term papers or something but supercomputers are supposed to be cutting edge. Maybe they can use it for a computer history class. "This is how we built supercomputers back in the day."
Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?
If the part that's lost is the scabby, rot-mouth tweaker who steals power tools to pawn for $20 to get that next hit, sounds good to me. It hardly sounds like this procedure is so precise, tho. Like trimming fingernails with a chainsaw. And the success rate is just shy of 50% in their very limited study. I'd want high 90s before I'd consider letting some Dr. Nick stick wires in my brain.
Fortunately, my only addiction is tasty food and that's socially acceptable in America.
I can see it. Switch to 1080p and fullscreen. You can see the two red lights controlling the two left turn lanes in the red car's direction of travel. You can also see that the opposing traffic has "straight" green lights as the red car is entering the intersection tho those lights pass out of frame before the accident.
The first time I ran X on my home computer, I had to call Diamond to get the timings for my SpeedStar card so I could calculate the correct values to put in my xconfig file. And the person who answered the phone knew exactly what I needed, flipped thru a binder, and read off the numbers.
What's the oldest system anyone has that's still in use?
I've got a Dell Dimension XPS Pro 200n that's been going nearly 24/7 since the late 90s, shut down only to move locations. It hosts a Citadel BBS for a small group of old timers. I replaced the hard drive last year when it started making alarming noises and crashing randomly but everything else is original. Some day soon, I'm going to virtualize it and find a cheap host. Of course, I've been saying that for over a year.
I've toured several sites on the "Atomic Tourist" list and seeing this places in person is much different than looking at pictures in a book. And, at several places, I had tour guides who had actually been posted at the locations in pretty senior positions. That's something that even a museum won't be able to replicate and, quite frankly, those people aren't going to be around much longer. If you ever want to have a full day to bend the ear of someone in the heart of nuclear weapons development, take the public tour at the Nevada National Security Site (nee: Nevada Test Site). I can't recommend it enough and it's free. It's booked well in advance but a few people can usually get on standby because there are usually a few open seats.
The guys conducting those tours are the real deal. They're the ones who were working on the base when they were lighting off nuclear explosions, lighting off even bigger ones out on the pacific atolls, and may or may not have worked at Area 51. If you want to understand the mentality of that era, these are the guys to talk to. One thing I wish was on the regular NNSS tour is a walk through the Ice Cap building. Seeing the instrument rig of the last scheduled full scale test hanging over that hole really drives home the scale of what went on there. (Yeah, I pushed it and watched it swing.)
I've also had a tour of a Titan Missile silo from a man who was stationed in that very silo. Again, he was able to give insights to that experience that no book will ever capture. Half a day exploring every nook and cranny of that place with someone able to explain exactly what everything did and provide anecdotes about living in a silo.
I've been to the Trinity site and that just wasn't the same experience. Informational signs, a short presentation, exhibits at the McDonald Ranch. But there was nobody there who could provide a first-hand account of the spirit of what occurred there. Nobody to look you in the eye and explain how it felt to be part of that event. But being able to go there and see the site was still pretty meaningful. I'm glad I had the chance to see it. Another decade or two and the previous two sites will be the same. Second and third hand accounts.
My most recent nuclear explosion site visit was Project Faultless. That's the only test site I've been to with absolutely no access controls. Just a single plaque and some graffiti.
Back in the CRT days, "pokers" were annoying. There's no need to physically touch the screen to point at something on it. Just get close. It was worse with early LCDs because they were very fragile. Pokey-McGee could destroy a $500 14" monitor with a single jab. "Do you see the colors bloom when you do that? That's not a good thing!"
At least we have Gorilla Glass and similar compounds to protect the panels these days but I still wouldn't want to work on a schmootzy screen or have people smear my laptop screen with their "french fry" fingers flicking thru a document instead of using the PigUp/Down keys. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to clean my 27" monitors every day because of the practice.
I like my tablet but I have to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the prints off it. Same with the phone. It's tolerable because these are "sometimes" devices that I don't stare at for hours a day.
So it was bad when MS tried to force people to use IE but it would be good if they could deny the inclusion of third party software. Yep. That sounds real smrt.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not Microsoft's place to tell Company XYZ how to package and present the product that Company XYZ sells. If you don't like the way Company XYZ presents the product, don't buy it. Buy your computers from Company CBA which is known for having very clean OS installs.
That's what I did with my Android devices. I bought from the Nexus line so I would get the cleanest default OS installation available.
Slashdot Mirror
It's called The Library. Seriously. My library system lend ebooks and audio books.
Point by point.
1) This example is absurd. A cromulent contrast would be "pure text" vs. "mixed text and images". Novels work fine with flowing layouts that adjust to the size and pixel density of the display. Doesn't matter if they're fiction, non-fiction, or historical fiction. However, if you have material with a lot of pictures and diagrams (textbook, magazine, etc.) then printed books have a distinct advantage. Most e-readers are not good at handling images and re-flowing the content can separate images from their associated text. However, that is starting to change. The iPad and a few Android tablets are sporting 2048x1536 displays which have enough pixels to adequately reproduce something pretty close to the quality of a printed page. And now there's the Nexus 10 at 2560x1600 that does an even better job.
Also, pretty significant advances have been made in the design of electronic "printed" media. I used to work for a large magazine when they were first starting to produce content for phones and tablets, the result was pretty crude. I took a look at what they're producing today on Google Magazine using my Nexus 10 and it's amazing. Razor sharp text, sliding columns, Pullup/pullout sidebars, print quality images, etc. So even the "mixed text and images" presentations are improving significantly on portable devices. It's just a matter of time before color e-ink is available in densities of 300ppi or higher, bringing a similar experience outdoors.
2) While I may be an early adopter, I'm not much of an early consumer on the content side. I didn't use my first e-reader much until I had a way to remove DRM from the content. Amazon's Kindle hardware and content sales were booming long before I started making content purchases. That was regular folks who were dazzled by the tech and didn't care about the high prices and content controls. Ebooks outsold paper books at Amazon over 1.5 years ago.
The author says 59% have no interest in ebooks. So that means as many as 41% do have an interest in a new form of literature consumption that's only been around for a few years. That's one hell of an adoption rate. Amazon's done for print distribution what Apple did for music distribution.
3) Oh, my gosh! People who are being paid to market a new thing might be exaggerating. That's unpossible!
4) LP to cassette to CD to MP3. VHS to Laserdisc to DVD to Blu-Ray. Same thing. So people re-purchase their favorite titles in a big chunk when they get the device then slow down to their regular rate of buying 5-10 books per year. That seems like the expected pattern for existing content being re-released on new media.
5) This statement makes no sense at all. The fact that I can read my content on my phone and tablet has increased my adoption of ebooks. When I had to carry a dedicated reader, ebooks were far less convenient. There was little advantage over a regular book because it was still a single-purpose object that had to be carried around. Now I can read anywhere on my phone because I always have my phone with me. And it syncs with my tablet so I can pick up where I left off on either device. So if I know I'm going to have some downtime, I can bring the tablet. If I have unexpected downtime, I've got my phone. And, since I've stripped the DRM from all of my purchased content, it doesn't matter which device I used to buy the titles. I can see how there would be adoption problems for people who get stymied by DRM. That is the kind of thing that will turn people off.
6) I actually agree that ebook pricing is bullshit. I can understand premium prices for new releases but, once a title gets to "paperback" phase, the price should be significantly cheaper than paperbacks because so much of the production and distribution cost has been eliminated. As I said, I worked for a large magazine. I know what it costs to print and ship all those dead trees. Not to mention the coordination required to make sure everything happens at just the right moment.
2008 technology. Seems more like three universities are getting stuck with it than anything else. The parts will be 5 years old by the time everything is divided up and distributed. That's fine if you're redistributing old desktops to set up a lab for kids to type up term papers or something but supercomputers are supposed to be cutting edge. Maybe they can use it for a computer history class. "This is how we built supercomputers back in the day."
Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?
If the part that's lost is the scabby, rot-mouth tweaker who steals power tools to pawn for $20 to get that next hit, sounds good to me. It hardly sounds like this procedure is so precise, tho. Like trimming fingernails with a chainsaw. And the success rate is just shy of 50% in their very limited study. I'd want high 90s before I'd consider letting some Dr. Nick stick wires in my brain.
Fortunately, my only addiction is tasty food and that's socially acceptable in America.
I can see it. Switch to 1080p and fullscreen. You can see the two red lights controlling the two left turn lanes in the red car's direction of travel. You can also see that the opposing traffic has "straight" green lights as the red car is entering the intersection tho those lights pass out of frame before the accident.
The first time I ran X on my home computer, I had to call Diamond to get the timings for my SpeedStar card so I could calculate the correct values to put in my xconfig file. And the person who answered the phone knew exactly what I needed, flipped thru a binder, and read off the numbers.
They're announcing an email outage so I'm not quite sure how your plan would work.
No kidding. Going off to camp is supposed to be about social growth. Meet new kids, do new things, spend time outdoors, swim in the lake.
I don't think you know what a line printer is (was). They printed over 500 lines per minute back in the 1950s.
What's the oldest system anyone has that's still in use?
I've got a Dell Dimension XPS Pro 200n that's been going nearly 24/7 since the late 90s, shut down only to move locations. It hosts a Citadel BBS for a small group of old timers. I replaced the hard drive last year when it started making alarming noises and crashing randomly but everything else is original. Some day soon, I'm going to virtualize it and find a cheap host. Of course, I've been saying that for over a year.
ASCII porn on the line printer.
Who should I root for when I want both sides to lose?
Go, banana!
Actually, it's nothing like that. Not even remotely. The dealer does not have that information so it would do no good to give them $100.
I've toured several sites on the "Atomic Tourist" list and seeing this places in person is much different than looking at pictures in a book. And, at several places, I had tour guides who had actually been posted at the locations in pretty senior positions. That's something that even a museum won't be able to replicate and, quite frankly, those people aren't going to be around much longer. If you ever want to have a full day to bend the ear of someone in the heart of nuclear weapons development, take the public tour at the Nevada National Security Site (nee: Nevada Test Site). I can't recommend it enough and it's free. It's booked well in advance but a few people can usually get on standby because there are usually a few open seats.
The guys conducting those tours are the real deal. They're the ones who were working on the base when they were lighting off nuclear explosions, lighting off even bigger ones out on the pacific atolls, and may or may not have worked at Area 51. If you want to understand the mentality of that era, these are the guys to talk to. One thing I wish was on the regular NNSS tour is a walk through the Ice Cap building. Seeing the instrument rig of the last scheduled full scale test hanging over that hole really drives home the scale of what went on there. (Yeah, I pushed it and watched it swing.)
I've also had a tour of a Titan Missile silo from a man who was stationed in that very silo. Again, he was able to give insights to that experience that no book will ever capture. Half a day exploring every nook and cranny of that place with someone able to explain exactly what everything did and provide anecdotes about living in a silo.
I've been to the Trinity site and that just wasn't the same experience. Informational signs, a short presentation, exhibits at the McDonald Ranch. But there was nobody there who could provide a first-hand account of the spirit of what occurred there. Nobody to look you in the eye and explain how it felt to be part of that event. But being able to go there and see the site was still pretty meaningful. I'm glad I had the chance to see it. Another decade or two and the previous two sites will be the same. Second and third hand accounts.
My most recent nuclear explosion site visit was Project Faultless. That's the only test site I've been to with absolutely no access controls. Just a single plaque and some graffiti.
Did you have something useful to add to the conversation or was that the extent of your contribution?
^THIS^
Back in the CRT days, "pokers" were annoying. There's no need to physically touch the screen to point at something on it. Just get close. It was worse with early LCDs because they were very fragile. Pokey-McGee could destroy a $500 14" monitor with a single jab. "Do you see the colors bloom when you do that? That's not a good thing!"
At least we have Gorilla Glass and similar compounds to protect the panels these days but I still wouldn't want to work on a schmootzy screen or have people smear my laptop screen with their "french fry" fingers flicking thru a document instead of using the PigUp/Down keys. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to clean my 27" monitors every day because of the practice.
I like my tablet but I have to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the prints off it. Same with the phone. It's tolerable because these are "sometimes" devices that I don't stare at for hours a day.
WALK
Easiest setup in history...
Get on the floor.
I predict that someone mentally ill enough to trade his kidney for an ipad will not handle his 1.47 million yuan in a prudent manner.
As for privacy concerns the city says it cannot connect the MAC address collected to the device owner.
Until they arrest someone and subpoena any data related to that person's MAC. Then they've got a nice bit of tracking data.
I think your fuser's too hot.
That girl's standing over there listening and you're telling him about our back doors?
Do you have any idea how dumb you sound?
So it was bad when MS tried to force people to use IE but it would be good if they could deny the inclusion of third party software. Yep. That sounds real smrt.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not Microsoft's place to tell Company XYZ how to package and present the product that Company XYZ sells. If you don't like the way Company XYZ presents the product, don't buy it . Buy your computers from Company CBA which is known for having very clean OS installs.
That's what I did with my Android devices. I bought from the Nexus line so I would get the cleanest default OS installation available.
It's just complete ignorance. Welcome to modern "journalism". Anyone with a clue knows this is a vendor issue, not an OS issue.