Ha, try renting a car with cash. You can't do it. I found this out the hard way when I arrived by plane about 70 miles from my destination and tried to pick up the car I had reserved. I thought it was beyond odd that they wanted a credit card and wouldn't take cash on the barrelhead. I eventually figured it out, but I'll never again feel trust, sympathy, or any certainty toward any car rental company after having to walk across some of the less interesting parts of Knoxville, TN to find the bus station. The (very) occasional car rental is the only earthly reason I have for maintaining a credit card. (They won't take debit cards, either. Found *that* out in time, but had to make very hasty arrangements.)
"Of course, since the US cent is worth less than the UK (new) penny, it would make real sense for them just to ditch everything below a nickel (5c IIRC)."
Not to me. I recently rolled up the contents of my penny jar and wound up with enough money to take the family out to dinner. (Okay, not a *fancy* dinner.) Not bad wages for a second or two a week chunking coins in, and five minutes counting and rolling them.
I'm told that the physical design of the U.S. banknote was based mainly on the dimensions of a man's shirt pocket, so what do you expect? Nope, all bills are the same size. Usually, though, the larger denominations (which see less use) tend to still feel like paper, while the $1 bill usually seems more like a strip cut from old underwear.:-)
IIRC Dutch money has had Braille markings on it for years. And to the sighted USian it all looks like Monopoly money: bright colors (every denomination a different set), all different sizes, etc.
I wouldn't like money any less myself if it were printed in dark gray on light gray paper with no pictures or scrollwork and "DULL BORING DULL BORING" watermarked all across it, so long as it works. I do think that the Braille imprinting is something we ought to be doing, though.
Species have been dying out for millions of years. Seen any live trilobites? Me neither. Loss of species is normal.
Losing species is not *in itself* a problem. Even bobbles in the total number of species are not a problem. Sustained (over millennia) downward trends would probably be a problem, but we don't even (so far as I've ever heard) have a handle on how many new species split off from their forebears each year (unlike the regular announcements of numbers of species lost, which are probably reported with more significant digits than we could honestly claim).
Anyway, my point is that the Earth would not have been static forever if humans had never invented civilization and technology. It changes, with or without us. To assume that the causes of change are *entirely* due to human activity will lead to poor solutions, and might even make *worse* problems than we see now. It may not be possible to "change everything back" even if humans disappeared tomorrow -- the minimum-energy state sans humans 500 years from now may be very unlike the minimum-energy state was before humans.
It isn't necessary to change everything back to a state which may no longer be stable. Another state might be roughly as livable, as pleasant, and way less costly than pushing the river back upstream. Instead of considering some arbitrary point in the planet's career to be "normal", we need to look at what states are achievable, how desirable they are, and what it costs to achieve them. If we want to plan for the long term, we also should look at how the bundle of affordable states will change over time.
But that will be a lot of hard work. It's a lot easier to say, "I don't need a car, so you get rid of your car."* Way easier than even to reach a consensus on how desirable a given state is, these days.
---------------- * No, I don't claim that you said that.
Yup, bird migration and plant budding schedules are already different from what they were on the day we started thinking it would be good to know what they are. There's no reason to think that the observations back then are any more "correct" than today's. Back then was correct for then, today's are correct for today.
It's depressing to see how many people who will jump up and down and scream if someone so much as suggests that evolution might not be true, assume that all change ended the day science began.
The important thing is, what's this going to do to us, and what are we going to do about any parts of that we don't like? How do we need to adapt to our ever-changing environment, and (since we can) how might we adapt it to our requirements?
While you're informing us US Customary unit folks, you might go ahead and remind us that 1 degree C or K is about 1.8 degrees F. So, we're looking at average temperatures up to twenty Fahrenheit degrees warmer, about the difference between "I might need a jacket" and "man, it's hot today."
Ok. They are free to continue to do their darndest to drive away my business. I'll shop with the people whose sites don't give me a sick headache in seconds.
Sorry, got confused between this article and the one further down about "Google Plans Free VoIP in UK".
Ahem. Okay, this is indeed about usability. And the article sounds like it's a way to push *more* gunk into web pages. I suppose that webmail (for which I still feel no need) is about the only "web application" that would *not* be made even worse by nailing things onto the side of HTML.
Basically any time some words, like "richer" or "tightly integrated", enter a discussion, I find I want the opposite of whatever is being enthused about. I want a more ascetic experience.
Well, yeah, but I wouldn't use *any* of those. I haven't seen a webmail service yet that didn't feel like typing with mittens on, compared to Pine and my own mail spool.
Nice way to sidetrack, though. I wasn't talking about usability at all.
You're asking the wrong question. Not, "will this harm businesses who are repackaging the data," but, "whose data are they?" The U.S. taxpayer paid for the work, and it seems to me that he owns the data.
There's a similar wrangle right now over research funded by the public through NIH (which wanted to require open publication of the results, so that we who paid for them and own them could read them without a middleman) vs. journal publishers who want to continue charging us $3000/yr for access to our own property.
Actually I don't see anything there that I, as the object of the design process, wouldn't live happily without. Pages that crawl, buzz, flash, or otherwise do stuff other than lie there quietly for me to read are an anti-feature.
If I hadn't already decided to buy your stuff, I wouldn't be reading your page. You don't need to attract my attention; my presence proves that you already have it.
Oh, yes. Another way to look at the story is that, if we do make a serious dent in the production of greenhouse gases, but can't make a balancing reduction in particulates, the hordes of Chicken Littles will be running around shouting "Global Cooling!" instead of "Global Warming!" in a few years. Won't *that* be fun to watch. "Due to more water being locked up in the polar caps, millions of hectares will soon be, uh, DEinundated." ('s probably bad for the fish, of course. Everything's bad for the fish.)
At least it gives people something new to View With Alarm. The old stuff is soooo last-century.
OTOH if we're lucky some people will begin to catch a clue to the inherent complexity of climate management.
The *officially recognized* uses of the SSN (paying taxes) are such that there's no point in stealing one or a million.
The officially recognized uses of a general-purpose personal ID card backed by the word of the government would be easily seen as worth stealing, and hence worthy of vigorous protection.
OTOH we probably shouldn't spin up another big government program just to encourage private laziness. How many organizations' need to identify people ever goes beyond "this is the same person who initiated the relationship"? A long list of identifiers issued by everybody and his brother would be more secure, and it wouldn't really be any less useful than One Number to Rule Them All.
}enable broken-record{ Organizations needing unique personal identifiers really need to start by asking the question, "what do we actually mean by 'identify'?" The answer to that question should tell you whence the identifiers should come.
Actually, Indiana driver licenses used to have the SSN on them. This time around I was asked if I still wanted it on mine and I said, "no." Some organizations do catch on.
Hear, hear. Stolen SSNs would not be news if there weren't many, many organizations using them as identifiers without any specific need (other than that someone was too lazy to write a serial-number generator and wants to sponge off the SSA's.)
Clue: if your *department* does not report taxes to the government, it has no use for SSNs. They confer no significant benefit and are a heapin' helpin' of bad press waiting for just the wrong moment.
Slashdot Mirror
You should see what some sites look like in Lynx. You have to fish around for a long time to find out where they hid the page you want.
Of course, some sites look like a rubbish heap no matter *what* browser you use.
Ha, try renting a car with cash. You can't do it. I found this out the hard way when I arrived by plane about 70 miles from my destination and tried to pick up the car I had reserved. I thought it was beyond odd that they wanted a credit card and wouldn't take cash on the barrelhead. I eventually figured it out, but I'll never again feel trust, sympathy, or any certainty toward any car rental company after having to walk across some of the less interesting parts of Knoxville, TN to find the bus station. The (very) occasional car rental is the only earthly reason I have for maintaining a credit card. (They won't take debit cards, either. Found *that* out in time, but had to make very hasty arrangements.)
"Of course, since the US cent is worth less than the UK (new) penny, it would make real sense for them just to ditch everything below a nickel (5c IIRC)."
Not to me. I recently rolled up the contents of my penny jar and wound up with enough money to take the family out to dinner. (Okay, not a *fancy* dinner.) Not bad wages for a second or two a week chunking coins in, and five minutes counting and rolling them.
Just about all of the $2 bills disappeared into collections immediately since it was widely believed that nobody would ever use them.
I'm told that the physical design of the U.S. banknote was based mainly on the dimensions of a man's shirt pocket, so what do you expect? Nope, all bills are the same size. Usually, though, the larger denominations (which see less use) tend to still feel like paper, while the $1 bill usually seems more like a strip cut from old underwear. :-)
IIRC Dutch money has had Braille markings on it for years. And to the sighted USian it all looks like Monopoly money: bright colors (every denomination a different set), all different sizes, etc.
I wouldn't like money any less myself if it were printed in dark gray on light gray paper with no pictures or scrollwork and "DULL BORING DULL BORING" watermarked all across it, so long as it works. I do think that the Braille imprinting is something we ought to be doing, though.
Oh, if I had my computer-folks hat on, I'd have read 11K as 11,264 degrees. :-)
Species have been dying out for millions of years. Seen any live trilobites? Me neither. Loss of species is normal.
Losing species is not *in itself* a problem. Even bobbles in the total number of species are not a problem. Sustained (over millennia) downward trends would probably be a problem, but we don't even (so far as I've ever heard) have a handle on how many new species split off from their forebears each year (unlike the regular announcements of numbers of species lost, which are probably reported with more significant digits than we could honestly claim).
Anyway, my point is that the Earth would not have been static forever if humans had never invented civilization and technology. It changes, with or without us. To assume that the causes of change are *entirely* due to human activity will lead to poor solutions, and might even make *worse* problems than we see now. It may not be possible to "change everything back" even if humans disappeared tomorrow -- the minimum-energy state sans humans 500 years from now may be very unlike the minimum-energy state was before humans.
It isn't necessary to change everything back to a state which may no longer be stable. Another state might be roughly as livable, as pleasant, and way less costly than pushing the river back upstream. Instead of considering some arbitrary point in the planet's career to be "normal", we need to look at what states are achievable, how desirable they are, and what it costs to achieve them. If we want to plan for the long term, we also should look at how the bundle of affordable states will change over time.
But that will be a lot of hard work. It's a lot easier to say, "I don't need a car, so you get rid of your car."* Way easier than even to reach a consensus on how desirable a given state is, these days.
----------------
* No, I don't claim that you said that.
Yup, bird migration and plant budding schedules are already different from what they were on the day we started thinking it would be good to know what they are. There's no reason to think that the observations back then are any more "correct" than today's. Back then was correct for then, today's are correct for today.
It's depressing to see how many people who will jump up and down and scream if someone so much as suggests that evolution might not be true, assume that all change ended the day science began.
The important thing is, what's this going to do to us, and what are we going to do about any parts of that we don't like? How do we need to adapt to our ever-changing environment, and (since we can) how might we adapt it to our requirements?
While you're informing us US Customary unit folks, you might go ahead and remind us that 1 degree C or K is about 1.8 degrees F. So, we're looking at average temperatures up to twenty Fahrenheit degrees warmer, about the difference between "I might need a jacket" and "man, it's hot today."
"Why not just say 11C?"
:-)
Eleven hundred degrees' rise is still awfully hot.
Why not say "11 degrees K" if, like me, you can't figure out the compose sequence to give a degree symbol?
(As bad as CNN saying "31/2 years". Why didn't they just say "15.5 years" like normal people?
Cut the Microsoft Tax by $750,000,000.00 and we'll all have more money to give to worthy causes.
Ok. They are free to continue to do their darndest to drive away my business. I'll shop with the people whose sites don't give me a sick headache in seconds.
"Shop for Dysentery at Amazon!"
Well, it would allow me to install MS Windows (when I have to) without *any* media player. I don't want one. I don't need one.
Why on earth would any portion of Windows Media be an "essential component" of a server?
Sorry, got confused between this article and the one further down about "Google Plans Free VoIP in UK".
Ahem. Okay, this is indeed about usability. And the article sounds like it's a way to push *more* gunk into web pages. I suppose that webmail (for which I still feel no need) is about the only "web application" that would *not* be made even worse by nailing things onto the side of HTML.
Basically any time some words, like "richer" or "tightly integrated", enter a discussion, I find I want the opposite of whatever is being enthused about. I want a more ascetic experience.
Well, yeah, but I wouldn't use *any* of those. I haven't seen a webmail service yet that didn't feel like typing with mittens on, compared to Pine and my own mail spool.
Nice way to sidetrack, though. I wasn't talking about usability at all.
You're asking the wrong question. Not, "will this harm businesses who are repackaging the data," but, "whose data are they?" The U.S. taxpayer paid for the work, and it seems to me that he owns the data.
There's a similar wrangle right now over research funded by the public through NIH (which wanted to require open publication of the results, so that we who paid for them and own them could read them without a middleman) vs. journal publishers who want to continue charging us $3000/yr for access to our own property.
They probably reserve the right to archive the bitstreams and let everyone in the world search them. :-)
Actually I don't see anything there that I, as the object of the design process, wouldn't live happily without. Pages that crawl, buzz, flash, or otherwise do stuff other than lie there quietly for me to read are an anti-feature.
If I hadn't already decided to buy your stuff, I wouldn't be reading your page. You don't need to attract my attention; my presence proves that you already have it.
Oh, yes. Another way to look at the story is that, if we do make a serious dent in the production of greenhouse gases, but can't make a balancing reduction in particulates, the hordes of Chicken Littles will be running around shouting "Global Cooling!" instead of "Global Warming!" in a few years. Won't *that* be fun to watch. "Due to more water being locked up in the polar caps, millions of hectares will soon be, uh, DEinundated." ('s probably bad for the fish, of course. Everything's bad for the fish.)
At least it gives people something new to View With Alarm. The old stuff is soooo last-century.
OTOH if we're lucky some people will begin to catch a clue to the inherent complexity of climate management.
The *officially recognized* uses of the SSN (paying taxes) are such that there's no point in stealing one or a million.
The officially recognized uses of a general-purpose personal ID card backed by the word of the government would be easily seen as worth stealing, and hence worthy of vigorous protection.
OTOH we probably shouldn't spin up another big government program just to encourage private laziness. How many organizations' need to identify people ever goes beyond "this is the same person who initiated the relationship"? A long list of identifiers issued by everybody and his brother would be more secure, and it wouldn't really be any less useful than One Number to Rule Them All.
}enable broken-record{
Organizations needing unique personal identifiers really need to start by asking the question, "what do we actually mean by 'identify'?" The answer to that question should tell you whence the identifiers should come.
Actually, Indiana driver licenses used to have the SSN on them. This time around I was asked if I still wanted it on mine and I said, "no." Some organizations do catch on.
Hear, hear. Stolen SSNs would not be news if there weren't many, many organizations using them as identifiers without any specific need (other than that someone was too lazy to write a serial-number generator and wants to sponge off the SSA's.)
Clue: if your *department* does not report taxes to the government, it has no use for SSNs. They confer no significant benefit and are a heapin' helpin' of bad press waiting for just the wrong moment.