Apple got its dominate position by creating a effective and user freindly UI to a useful and stylish bit of hardware.
It's funny that so many people say that the iPod is only popular due to advertising. I've looked at a MP3 players, and for what I need, the iPod is far superior - and I don't pay attention to advertising (I Tivo my TV, don't listen to radio, run a pop up blocker on my browser...) and when I see ads, I think about the product rather than the messgae.
I want a good UI. I don't want a voice recorder, FM, calendar, camera... I won't rent or subscribe to a music library. I don't buy any DRM'd music.
Doesn't anyone remember that the Statue of Liberty was actually a gift from France to the US? Why is their lack of involvement in the "War on Terror(tm)" reason enough to hate on them? Get over it.
They gave us a beautiful piece of art many, many years before I was born - so I don't really see it as relevant.
Why do I hate the French? I spent the fall of '84 in Europe. I spent 4 months on trains and busses, staying in youth hostels, buying food at local markets, restaurants and cafes. I tried to learn as much of the local language and customs as possible. Every place I went (Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, England, Scotland, Switzerland...) the people treated me with open arms and respect. The French were dicks. I had the same behavior in every country, and was treated like shit by the French while being welcomed by people everywhere else.
I hate those jerkoffs for the way they treated me. I don't give a damn how they acted in this silly little war, but I'll never go back and spend a dime there. I'll pressure my politicians to not help them, and I'll try and convince people who travel to Europe to avoid France.
The numbers of SUVs on the road vs. VW micro busses on the road, make your argument meaningless.
I used to live in a town with lots of VWs and lots of hippies (actually just unwashed unemployed kids) claiming they were "more green" because of their VW. I cover them with black smoke from my hotrodded Diesel truck and drive away.
However, I do like your motorcycle proposal. I've never ridden one of those dual sports, but they are way frikkin' cool.
The least expensive, most bulletproof bike is the KLR 650. You can buy a used one (which is identical to new ones) for $2,000 - $3,000 and are super cheap to maintain. They get 40-50 mpg, can cruise at 70+ mph and can jump curbs if needed. They are really tall, so you can see over traffic in front of you. You also need to be kind of tall to ride one.
I don't think this is about putting kid gloves and nerf on the car.
In a way it is, and in a way it isn't.
Pick up any enthusiast auto magazine (AutoWeek being the best) and you'll read that a good driver can put in better lap times in a car with the electronics turned off.
What does that mean? The electronics take over well before the car reaches its limits, and a well trained human can get closer to those limits.
I'm certainly not suggesting that the average driver is "well trained" or even "awake".
However, I'd like to see cars become less safe. Imagine this: You have 47 air bags, anti-lock brakes, RADAR assisted brakes that keep you from tailgaiting (available on some Benz's) and every safety related gadget ever thought of. - VS a car that would blow up and kill you if it was in an accident. Which one would you drive more safely? Which one would case you to be more aware of other drivers?
I think we've dumbed down the average driver because the cars are so safe. People don't pay attention any more because they are lulled into a feeling off immortality in their rolling airbag.
Seriously, I'd like to see a government mandated spike in the middle of the steering wheel rather than an airbag.
I'd like to see similar data for emissions. I was a motorcycle rider in Mountain View when I lived there, and I heard that motorcycles had more emissions than cars - esp. for short journeys. Something to do with them not (often) having catalytic converters?
Anyone
I don'tt have specific answers for you, but you're on the right track.
Screw the hippies who claim that their VW Microbus is "better for the environment" than a new SUV. Sure, the SUV gets crappy mileage, but so does a VW Microbus. At the same time, the VW has no catalytic converter and is carburated and air cooled (I'm talking about the really old ones). Carburated, air cooled vehicle simply don't run as cleanly as a water cooled, fuel injected engine. New emmision controolled engines are so much cleaner than anything we've ever had.
If you want to get rid of the big polluters, get rid of lawnmowers. They are horrible for many reasons. Very few of them are correctly tuned, and tend to run rich (a greater fuel:air ratio than is needed), they have no emmision controlls.
Motorcycles are a mixed bag. New bikes are almost always fuel injected, have cats and meet the Euro specs that are cleaner that those in the US. There are, of course, a lot of older bikes with no cats that pollute more than a current car. However, the majority of bikes are ridden far fewer miles than the average car. I recently bought a '98 Kawasaki KLR650 with 15,000 miles on it. That's an average of not much more than 100 miles a month.
I think that we should all but new motorcycles as a way to save fuel, un-clog the roads and weed out the crappy drivers.
Homeowners' Association. Created by CCR's (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions), these delightful little private fiefdoms were originally used to keep blacks and Jews from moving into neighborhoods. Now they're used to keep out anybody who might want a basketball hoop in their front yard or paint their house any color besides the four approved colors.
I don't like HOA as much as you do, but they are voted in by the land owners who live there. If you don't like their rules (can't ride a motorcycle in the neighborhood, can't change your own oil...) don't buy a house/condo there.
HOA rules aren't a secret, and they'll be happy to share them with you before you buy a house.
That being said, I would never live in an area with a HOA, as they usually have rules to "my kind" from moving in. My kind has a fascination with internal combustion engines and large, loud tools.
I'm currently in the process of moving to Southern Oregon, where the local government won't issue building permits on parcels of land smaller than five acres (20,234 square meters for our Euro Friends).
In England, we don't have guns and have a far lower crime rate than you. Sorry to spoil your little theory...
I think you missed some local politics here... San Francisco voted to ban guns, yet San Jose (which is just a few miles away) made no such restriction. San Fran has a laptop problem, yet San Jose doesn't.
There are two very similar cities, with different crime problems and differnt gun laws. This doesn't really translate to England because of the similar cities so close to each other.
However, someboddy brough up th epoint that SF is a walking city, and SJ isn't. I feel that is a much larger contributer to the problem than guns.
The real reason for laptop theft is that there's not much else portable to steal any more. Used TVs? Forget it. Used computers? Can't give them away. Jewelry? Crooks can't tell a diamond from a cubic zircon. Watches? A joke. Cash? Nobody carries that much since ATMs came in. Credit cards? Hard to fence. Cars? Anti-theft systems now smarter than low-end crooks. Stealing from stores? All have cameras now. Banks? Forget it.
True, but my question was why SF and not the surrounding areas. I'm not suggesting that it's because of gun laws, but it's an odd coincidence.
"So far, San Francisco appears to the only major Bay Area city to be hit by the problem. San Jose has been hit by laptop thefts, but it has yet to experience many of the robberies. "We haven't seen it yet,'' said Sgt. Nick Muyo of the San Jose police."
I doubt there's a correlation, but SF recently voted against gun ownership. In theory, everybody in SF is now unarmed, but there's a chance for legal carry in SJ.
I agree with that sentiment completely... but there are a great many people with an incredibly flimsy understanding of how to operate their computer. They have problems understanding the difference between an icon on the desktop and a minimized app in the taskbar. Directory structures are a mystery to them. Documents get saved to wherever applications default to. Copying files with the explorer is pretty much an insurmountable task to them, and even those with a bit more understanding see it as a hassle. They NEED a shiny GUI that pops up when the device is connected and holds their hands. I have actually seen someone reviewing an MP3 player and calling it too complicated to use because it required you to copy files "manually".
I'm not a computer idiot, and have been using them since the early 80's. I have full comprehension of all the things you mention.
However, copying files manually is nowhere near as simple as using iTunes - in some cases. If your music collection is larger than the capacity of your player, you have to decide what goes on it. With iTunes, I just created a playlist of 30GB of random music and it copies when I plug in the iPod. It takes almost none of my time after I create the playlist the first time (about 30 seconds).
To pull a random sample of 30GB from a directory structure sucks.
I borrowed an iPod from a friend for a road trip when my CD/MP3 player in my truck started to die. I'd buy one, but I'd break it at work.
I'd like to see a non "screw the customer" PayPal type service. Before I think that Google can do it, I'd like to see what percentage of PayPal comes from eBay.
Obviously, without a court order, eBay won't let GPay (or whatever it's called) be used on the auction site. I use PayPal once every two or three months, and mostly for eBay.
3400+ Sempron 512 GB RAM 160 GB HD DVD burner onboard video good enough for whatever he does (no FPS) good onboard sound and speakers media card reader USB 2.0 & Firewire on the front and back 17" CRT Good keyboard, OK mouse 3 year "if you can hose it, bring it to us and we'll reinstall the OS for you" warranty from the local Staples 10/100 NIC modem (the only PCI card installed on the box) A ton of free software (my choices) Firefox, Thunderbird, Picasa...
It's an HP/Compaq
$600 out the door ($500 after a mail in rebate)
He may get a 17" LCD one of these days (hmmmm, he has a birthday in March)
It's fast, reliable, has a warranty, uses off the shelf parts, and since I didn't build it I don't have to deal with too many problems after he learns the OS and 3 or 4 apps.
For his use, it was far smarter to buy one, as I doubt you could build one and buy a copy of Windows. He has some GPS/mapping software that requires Windows, and there's no way in hell I'd recommend a Linux box to him anyway (am I wrong here?).
On the other hand, I really enjoy the ARS guids, and have used them in the past to speed up my research for a good box.
So I've been wondering why Google is sudenly "evil" for filtering it's content for Chinese users.
Here's my understanding, and I hope somebody can show me where my thinking is wrong.
1) When a Chinese surfer searches on google.com (not google.cn) they get a list of 1,650,000 hits on "tiananmen square". However, the vast majority of them are blocked by the "great firewall of China".
2) When a Chinese surfer searches google.cn they get 16,300 hits - and all of them are reachable.
Isn't google.cn just removing the results that cannot be reached by Chinese users anyway?
how different is this from online radio? I could customize my station, pay a small charge (say for Yahoo music) and get to rent most of the artists! and I dont need to upload (imagine gigs of upload) anything nor worry about their servers.
As long as all your music is relativly mainstream...
On the other hand, I just searched ITMS for 4 of my favorite bands, and was 0 for 4.
Deadbillys, Black Monday (a/. reader's band!), Luck of the Draw and Logos Eye. Sure, they're all local and fairly small, but AFAIK, they haven't signed with a RIAA lable, so I'm still willing to pay cash for their music and t-shirts.
Another quick check shows that I can get a few of Speedbuggy's CDs from ITMS, but not the entire catalog. I guess that 0-4-1 me vs ITMS.
The house itself also tends to benefit from constant temperature as well. I found out the hard way that temperature swings can make drywall crack after I heated the house back up after cutting the heat back to 50 when I went away for several days. Frequent temperature variations also start to work loose fasteners such as nails and screws as well, and can eventually result in squeaky floors, cracked grout, and nail pops in drywall as well.
My guess is that this happened beacuse of changes in humidity rather than changes in temperature.
In short: All sources of energy (electric, hydraulic, pneumatic, gravity, steam...) are identified and marked Anything that can move, or harm is isolated and marked.
As a person entering a dangerous area for maintenance, you'd have a lock, or set of locks. Each marked item is locked by your lock (or the locks of everybody entereing). You keep the key.
In the end, nobody can turn the power (or whatever) back on until you unlock the control. If everybody going in has locked out the power source, nobody dies.
You have to do it every time you enter a dangerous space.
My company, a large beverage manufacturing plant that is full of deadly threats, has gone almost two years without a serious (no days away from work) injury.
There's no need for meat grinders to kill people. Sadly, the employees of slaughterhouses tend to be illegal/undocumented and have no voice. There's money to be made, an dthe owners look the other way. LOTO is slower than just jumping into a threatening environment, so it costs a company a bit of down time to follow procedures.
Fortunately, I work in a good union shop, and my boss cannot force me to skip safety procedures, unlike the slaughterhouse industy. Read "Fast Food Nation" for an interesting look at the fast food industry, as well as slaughterhouses, in the US.
12.5 inches wide x 5 inches deep x 1 inch thick and is arranged in alphabetical order.
I use a keyboard like this at work, and it's living hell. It's all caps, has a numeric keypad, 26 letter keys and two modifiers; control & function. There is no hell worse than an alphabetical keyboard.
You can have my QWERTY keyboard when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Just for the record, my horrible keyboard is attached to a forklift.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple got its dominate position by creating a effective and user freindly UI to a useful and stylish bit of hardware.
It's funny that so many people say that the iPod is only popular due to advertising. I've looked at a MP3 players, and for what I need, the iPod is far superior - and I don't pay attention to advertising (I Tivo my TV, don't listen to radio, run a pop up blocker on my browser...) and when I see ads, I think about the product rather than the messgae.
I want a good UI.
I don't want a voice recorder, FM, calendar, camera...
I won't rent or subscribe to a music library.
I don't buy any DRM'd music.
So, I if I buy an iPod I'm a sheep?
What's with all the France bashing?
Doesn't anyone remember that the Statue of Liberty was actually a gift from France to the US? Why is their lack of involvement in the "War on Terror(tm)" reason enough to hate on them? Get over it.
They gave us a beautiful piece of art many, many years before I was born - so I don't really see it as relevant.
Why do I hate the French? I spent the fall of '84 in Europe. I spent 4 months on trains and busses, staying in youth hostels, buying food at local markets, restaurants and cafes. I tried to learn as much of the local language and customs as possible. Every place I went (Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, England, Scotland, Switzerland...) the people treated me with open arms and respect. The French were dicks. I had the same behavior in every country, and was treated like shit by the French while being welcomed by people everywhere else.
I hate those jerkoffs for the way they treated me. I don't give a damn how they acted in this silly little war, but I'll never go back and spend a dime there. I'll pressure my politicians to not help them, and I'll try and convince people who travel to Europe to avoid France.
Experience is the reason I hate and bash them.
The numbers of SUVs on the road vs. VW micro busses on the road, make your argument meaningless.
I used to live in a town with lots of VWs and lots of hippies (actually just unwashed unemployed kids) claiming they were "more green" because of their VW. I cover them with black smoke from my hotrodded Diesel truck and drive away.
However, I do like your motorcycle proposal. I've never ridden one of those dual sports, but they are way frikkin' cool.
The least expensive, most bulletproof bike is the KLR 650. You can buy a used one (which is identical to new ones) for $2,000 - $3,000 and are super cheap to maintain. They get 40-50 mpg, can cruise at 70+ mph and can jump curbs if needed. They are really tall, so you can see over traffic in front of you. You also need to be kind of tall to ride one.
Try http://klr650.net/ for more info. I have one and love it.
I don't think this is about putting kid gloves and nerf on the car.
In a way it is, and in a way it isn't.
Pick up any enthusiast auto magazine (AutoWeek being the best) and you'll read that a good driver can put in better lap times in a car with the electronics turned off.
What does that mean? The electronics take over well before the car reaches its limits, and a well trained human can get closer to those limits.
I'm certainly not suggesting that the average driver is "well trained" or even "awake".
However, I'd like to see cars become less safe.
Imagine this: You have 47 air bags, anti-lock brakes, RADAR assisted brakes that keep you from tailgaiting (available on some Benz's) and every safety related gadget ever thought of. - VS a car that would blow up and kill you if it was in an accident. Which one would you drive more safely? Which one would case you to be more aware of other drivers?
I think we've dumbed down the average driver because the cars are so safe. People don't pay attention any more because they are lulled into a feeling off immortality in their rolling airbag.
Seriously, I'd like to see a government mandated spike in the middle of the steering wheel rather than an airbag.
Hmm...what kind of scary-ass place do you live where there are invisible cars???
I live in the woods, and we call our invisible traffic "woods rats", "venison" and "deer".
Only the "poor" will have to drive fully automatic cars.
They already do, but we spell "fully automatic car" B - U - S
Miles/gallon != emissions
I'd like to see similar data for emissions. I was a motorcycle rider in Mountain View when I lived there, and I heard that motorcycles had more emissions than cars - esp. for short journeys. Something to do with them not (often) having catalytic converters?
Anyone
I don'tt have specific answers for you, but you're on the right track.
Screw the hippies who claim that their VW Microbus is "better for the environment" than a new SUV. Sure, the SUV gets crappy mileage, but so does a VW Microbus. At the same time, the VW has no catalytic converter and is carburated and air cooled (I'm talking about the really old ones). Carburated, air cooled vehicle simply don't run as cleanly as a water cooled, fuel injected engine. New emmision controolled engines are so much cleaner than anything we've ever had.
If you want to get rid of the big polluters, get rid of lawnmowers. They are horrible for many reasons. Very few of them are correctly tuned, and tend to run rich (a greater fuel:air ratio than is needed), they have no emmision controlls.
Motorcycles are a mixed bag. New bikes are almost always fuel injected, have cats and meet the Euro specs that are cleaner that those in the US. There are, of course, a lot of older bikes with no cats that pollute more than a current car. However, the majority of bikes are ridden far fewer miles than the average car. I recently bought a '98 Kawasaki KLR650 with 15,000 miles on it. That's an average of not much more than 100 miles a month.
I think that we should all but new motorcycles as a way to save fuel, un-clog the roads and weed out the crappy drivers.
Homeowners' Association. Created by CCR's (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions), these delightful little private fiefdoms were originally used to keep blacks and Jews from moving into neighborhoods. Now they're used to keep out anybody who might want a basketball hoop in their front yard or paint their house any color besides the four approved colors.
I don't like HOA as much as you do, but they are voted in by the land owners who live there. If you don't like their rules (can't ride a motorcycle in the neighborhood, can't change your own oil...) don't buy a house/condo there.
HOA rules aren't a secret, and they'll be happy to share them with you before you buy a house.
That being said, I would never live in an area with a HOA, as they usually have rules to "my kind" from moving in. My kind has a fascination with internal combustion engines and large, loud tools.
I'm currently in the process of moving to Southern Oregon, where the local government won't issue building permits on parcels of land smaller than five acres (20,234 square meters for our Euro Friends).
In England, we don't have guns and have a far lower crime rate than you. Sorry to spoil your little theory...
I think you missed some local politics here... San Francisco voted to ban guns, yet San Jose (which is just a few miles away) made no such restriction. San Fran has a laptop problem, yet San Jose doesn't.
There are two very similar cities, with different crime problems and differnt gun laws. This doesn't really translate to England because of the similar cities so close to each other.
However, someboddy brough up th epoint that SF is a walking city, and SJ isn't. I feel that is a much larger contributer to the problem than guns.
The real reason for laptop theft is that there's not much else portable to steal any more. Used TVs? Forget it. Used computers? Can't give them away. Jewelry? Crooks can't tell a diamond from a cubic zircon. Watches? A joke. Cash? Nobody carries that much since ATMs came in. Credit cards? Hard to fence. Cars? Anti-theft systems now smarter than low-end crooks. Stealing from stores? All have cameras now. Banks? Forget it.
True, but my question was why SF and not the surrounding areas. I'm not suggesting that it's because of gun laws, but it's an odd coincidence.
"Um, unless someone is threatening your life, it's hard to get away with using a gun on them..."
You can point one without pulling the trigger. Some people stop moving when that happens.
Hmmm...
"So far, San Francisco appears to the only major Bay Area city to be hit by the problem. San Jose has been hit by laptop thefts, but it has yet to experience many of the robberies. "We haven't seen it yet,'' said Sgt. Nick Muyo of the San Jose police."
I doubt there's a correlation, but SF recently voted against gun ownership. In theory, everybody in SF is now unarmed, but there's a chance for legal carry in SJ.
More laptop thefts in an unarmed city?
- sitting back to watch the fireworks...
I agree with that sentiment completely... but there are a great many people with an incredibly flimsy understanding of how to operate their computer. They have problems understanding the difference between an icon on the desktop and a minimized app in the taskbar. Directory structures are a mystery to them. Documents get saved to wherever applications default to. Copying files with the explorer is pretty much an insurmountable task to them, and even those with a bit more understanding see it as a hassle. They NEED a shiny GUI that pops up when the device is connected and holds their hands. I have actually seen someone reviewing an MP3 player and calling it too complicated to use because it required you to copy files "manually".
I'm not a computer idiot, and have been using them since the early 80's. I have full comprehension of all the things you mention.
However, copying files manually is nowhere near as simple as using iTunes - in some cases. If your music collection is larger than the capacity of your player, you have to decide what goes on it. With iTunes, I just created a playlist of 30GB of random music and it copies when I plug in the iPod. It takes almost none of my time after I create the playlist the first time (about 30 seconds).
To pull a random sample of 30GB from a directory structure sucks.
I borrowed an iPod from a friend for a road trip when my CD/MP3 player in my truck started to die. I'd buy one, but I'd break it at work.
Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, then an imposter wrote a sequel (really).
To keep it from happening again, Cervantes wrote part III and killed him.
Oh yeah, baby. A pointless degree in Spanish Lit finally pays dividends on Slashdot!!!!
Once again, DRM free - but no bands you've ever heard of.
I already buy CDs from my local bands (that nobody else has heard of). I just don't understand how this marketing works. In fact, I think it wont.
Crappy interface too.
I'd like to see a non "screw the customer" PayPal type service. Before I think that Google can do it, I'd like to see what percentage of PayPal comes from eBay.
Obviously, without a court order, eBay won't let GPay (or whatever it's called) be used on the auction site. I use PayPal once every two or three months, and mostly for eBay.
I'm with you here.
I just helped my dad get a new computer.
3400+ Sempron
512 GB RAM
160 GB HD
DVD burner
onboard video good enough for whatever he does (no FPS)
good onboard sound and speakers
media card reader
USB 2.0 & Firewire on the front and back
17" CRT
Good keyboard, OK mouse
3 year "if you can hose it, bring it to us and we'll reinstall the OS for you" warranty from the local Staples
10/100 NIC
modem (the only PCI card installed on the box)
A ton of free software (my choices) Firefox, Thunderbird, Picasa...
It's an HP/Compaq
$600 out the door ($500 after a mail in rebate)
He may get a 17" LCD one of these days (hmmmm, he has a birthday in March)
It's fast, reliable, has a warranty, uses off the shelf parts, and since I didn't build it I don't have to deal with too many problems after he learns the OS and 3 or 4 apps.
For his use, it was far smarter to buy one, as I doubt you could build one and buy a copy of Windows. He has some GPS/mapping software that requires Windows, and there's no way in hell I'd recommend a Linux box to him anyway (am I wrong here?).
On the other hand, I really enjoy the ARS guids, and have used them in the past to speed up my research for a good box.
...for the company that named one of it's System Beeps Sosumi (pronounced "So Sue Me") when Apple Records tried to shut them down a while back.
I had always wondered where that wierd name came from.
Good one, Apple.
My dad just bought a new computer and ripped his CD collection (300?).
No teenagers.
While he was surfing his favorite websites, he put in discs. If he walked past the computer room on his way to the garage, he'd put in another disc.
It took about a week.
Simple.
Fast.
Problem solved.
So...
it's OK to send our manufactuing capability overseas
it's OK to uy most of our goods from overseas
it's wrong to sell them data
The fucking idiots we keep voting in.
So I've been wondering why Google is sudenly "evil" for filtering it's content for Chinese users.
Here's my understanding, and I hope somebody can show me where my thinking is wrong.
1) When a Chinese surfer searches on google.com (not google.cn) they get a list of 1,650,000 hits on "tiananmen square". However, the vast majority of them are blocked by the "great firewall of China".
2) When a Chinese surfer searches google.cn they get 16,300 hits - and all of them are reachable.
Isn't google.cn just removing the results that cannot be reached by Chinese users anyway?
What am I missing?
No. Really.
how different is this from online radio? I could customize my station, pay a small charge (say for Yahoo music) and get to rent most of the artists! and I dont need to upload (imagine gigs of upload) anything nor worry about their servers.
/. reader's band!), Luck of the Draw and Logos Eye. Sure, they're all local and fairly small, but AFAIK, they haven't signed with a RIAA lable, so I'm still willing to pay cash for their music and t-shirts.
As long as all your music is relativly mainstream...
On the other hand, I just searched ITMS for 4 of my favorite bands, and was 0 for 4.
Deadbillys, Black Monday (a
Another quick check shows that I can get a few of Speedbuggy's CDs from ITMS, but not the entire catalog. I guess that 0-4-1 me vs ITMS.
The house itself also tends to benefit from constant temperature as well. I found out the hard way that temperature swings can make drywall crack after I heated the house back up after cutting the heat back to 50 when I went away for several days. Frequent temperature variations also start to work loose fasteners such as nails and screws as well, and can eventually result in squeaky floors, cracked grout, and nail pops in drywall as well.
My guess is that this happened beacuse of changes in humidity rather than changes in temperature.
Acyually, it should be safe. If, and only if, all the proper "lock-out tag-out" procedures are followed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_and_tag
In short:
All sources of energy (electric, hydraulic, pneumatic, gravity, steam...) are identified and marked
Anything that can move, or harm is isolated and marked.
As a person entering a dangerous area for maintenance, you'd have a lock, or set of locks. Each marked item is locked by your lock (or the locks of everybody entereing). You keep the key.
In the end, nobody can turn the power (or whatever) back on until you unlock the control. If everybody going in has locked out the power source, nobody dies.
You have to do it every time you enter a dangerous space.
My company, a large beverage manufacturing plant that is full of deadly threats, has gone almost two years without a serious (no days away from work) injury.
There's no need for meat grinders to kill people. Sadly, the employees of slaughterhouses tend to be illegal/undocumented and have no voice. There's money to be made, an dthe owners look the other way. LOTO is slower than just jumping into a threatening environment, so it costs a company a bit of down time to follow procedures.
Fortunately, I work in a good union shop, and my boss cannot force me to skip safety procedures, unlike the slaughterhouse industy. Read "Fast Food Nation" for an interesting look at the fast food industry, as well as slaughterhouses, in the US.
12.5 inches wide x 5 inches deep x 1 inch thick and is arranged in alphabetical order.
I use a keyboard like this at work, and it's living hell.
It's all caps, has a numeric keypad, 26 letter keys and two modifiers; control & function. There is no hell worse than an alphabetical keyboard.
You can have my QWERTY keyboard when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Just for the record, my horrible keyboard is attached to a forklift.