I used to believe that the basics of insurance was to spread the risk and cost of accidents among a group of individuals. The size of that group can very from a national level to a few persons. In the matter of driver-behavior influenced cost of insurance I think the group of individuals are getting rather little. This initiative seems more like insuring the better-driving individual against the worse-driving individual withing the same insurance group.
The worst part is that, as a customer, your are entering a deal based on your self-assessed driving-skills, but are charged on a complex model of objective measures that will be different from your own assessment.
A more fair model with be that some authority (government, car/insurance industry...) would come up with a an open and shared model that maps the driving-pattern into to a risk-factor ( a lot like a standard for fuel efficiency). Companies could build certified "black-boxes" (that would be a lot lighter in color), customers could measure their own risk-factor and choose the insurance that fit their needs.
In the model of the OP insurance companies biggest win is to have customers paying for their own wrong assessment of driving-skills.
Why did they choose the Java language? Because they needed a safe, statically typed, garbage collected language that people had experience with and that there were tools for. There is little else out there that fits the bill (C# wasn't an option at the time they started).
Objective-C on iPhone is a pain to learn, but at least the iPhone will not go down in flames from companies fighting over rights to language, runtime, tools and access to application markets.
The idea of a piracy tax on internet connection seems to pop up every know and then. I think it is pretty easy to convince most people way this is a bad idea with the following arguments
Music is not the only pirated content, and most likely not the most pirated content. Think of movies, games, pictures, articles, electronic books and pretty much every other digital experiences. Even the smallest tax on any content would open the door for all other types of content.
Content produceres will have to split the tax between them. It will require a decent size organisation to register fair uses and estimate illegal uses and pay out the tax. The cost of having this organisation would likely be taken out of the tax it self, effectivelly parsing the bill on the the tax payers.
The tax would be set in relation to the damage of the illegal use, which will only suggest to the providers to higher the prices. To me it seems, that the prices on digital content all ready are abitrary at best. Think of the difference in the price of sending a bunch of bits as voice, sms, email or internet access from your mobile. Forcing buyers to pay a price that is set by the seller seems like a bad idea.
Hi,
Here in Copenhagen, Denmark we got a new university a few years ago focusing in information technologies hence the IT-University Copenhagen.
The atrium is decorated by two installations by John Maeda. He writes
the user inputs a number having several digits, such as a telephone number (6133788991) or a special date (06211992). The computer processes the number uses a generic art synthesis program, and the resulting dynamic graphical content appears on the display. and
The user is presented with a series of dialog boxes for two or three voices. Either alone or with friends, the user inputs text to simulate a verbal exchange. The resulting conversation appears on the display. These two styles of content reflect both an abstract art concept as well as a concrete communication Depending on the ambitions of your CS Dept Office I think you should aim as high as possible. Pick a well-know hero from with in your field and let them spend the time and money on making something exceptional.
Remember that good ideas are born inside a single brain...
I know this is a cheap shot... but here in Denmark we are actually providing that kind of 'dashboard' information to our citizens. And yes it is the government that publish nice simple (semi-)understandable statistics.
It states that here in Denmark we are getting close to 18% in renewable energy. That is in a country with the highest point of ~170 meter above sea level (no hydroelectrics for us) and a policy on no nuclear production (weapon or power).
One of the reasons why we can do that is that our government put a 180% sales tax on cars. Sure it is steep, but it does seem to work when looking at or dependency on foreign oil etc...
I guess my point is. It is not about what car you are buying, but what government you elect!
I just want to point out that the three things that matters most for the web came together in freak coincidence with the launch of the iPhone.
When Steve Jobs (who cares about the user experience) demonstrated the iPhone, he choose to point the browser to New York Times (who cares about clean HTML) which ran an add for Edward Tufte (who cares about information design) it all came together...
None of this could have happened if it was not for the hand coded HTML of New York Times. HTML is not only about presenting information, it is about marking it up in a reusable way.
If you want to follow some of the thoughts on the browser as information broker I suggest starting at Alex Faaborg from the Mozilla Team. If you want to read about interaction design I recommend Bill Moggridge.
If you want to learn something new I recommend you to take some courses and stop reading too many comments on slashdot:-)
I have recently set up a one-man-company to do a little consulting. I had to pick a name for the child and it should help me focus on creation and collaboration using computers among people in organisations.
out came 3cpo...
Am I getting myself into all kind of trouble by choosing that name?
And yes I am not a.com so why bother registering that domain. I am located in Denmark so I will not clutter up the bigger namespaces:-).
First off all... Why would you ever call this a review? Shame on Tom's hardware. I remember five years ago when I considered Tom's to be a reference source of information.
Second... why would Slashdot post this story? Shame on Slashdot. I remember five years ago when I considered Slashdot to be a reference source of information.
And then on to a few questions that pops up...
1) Would your mom be able to install/run Windows Vista?
Personally my mom had a great experience shifting from Windows XP to a Mac OS. A lot fewer settings, and most things work out of the box and is fairly simple, most importantly wifi and file manager. I know it is a touchy subject, but viruses does matter too.
2) Would you, as a sysadm, recommend/allow your users to install Windows Vista?
I do have quite a problem with XP in an environments of Linux, Mac and Windows. Problems with centralized account management, file sharing and deployment of applications. Looking at the features in Vista I dont think the average user, would get any benifits from the upgrade.
3) Would you actually buy a full license for Windows Vista for your own home computer?
It seems to me there is a few different use cases mixed up here. I am thinking gaming, media, internet and office appliances. My guess is that there will be Xbox/PS/Ninetendo in the gaming/media corner. An internet/office installation on a Windows, Mac or Linux box in the other corner. But the crucial question here is why buy an upgrade to windows for this?
I am not gonna make any bold conclusions from this, but if I had my retirement savings in Microsoft shares I would either hope for all chinese people to buy Xbox's or get ride of all my shares ASAP... Seriously, if this is the best Microsoft can do on the Personal Computer OS, they have to find another way to make money...
There has been rumors about a red iPod... With a 150USD extra to get your Mac evil black, why not color it red, charge same price and send 150USD to Kofi Annan and Bono to spend on that Global Found...
I am pretty sure Aids, TB and Malari is a better reason for overprizing then a cool black hat hacker MacBook...
Maybe I did not read the Stanford talk from Jobs correct... I thought he started thinking about live, death and stuff. Then again I never really have understood Californian Global Thinking....
So I suggest.. buy that White MacBook and go spend your saved money on a pair of cool Converse at http://www.joinred.com/
It happend again. Why would any designer in their right mind choose two different layouts for scrollbars on the web search and the image search. For some reason it reminds me of some menu items hidding in MS Word...
Doing my first search a number of recent searches shows up. I am pretty sure I never used www.live.com before and I am not quite sure where what search engine I have been using... most likely not msn...
Any ways, if I remember correct cookies left by one domain is not accesible by others.
A wild guess is that it might have to do with firefox's search field from the toolbar but I might be off...
Last time I saw a note about the problem (nature some 4 months ago I think...) two problems where mentioned.
One aproach to remove to relatitivy of the mass definition is to define the kilo as the weight of a number of atoms. The solution suggested was based on a sphere of pure crystalin silicon, and here the problems starts...
The sphere has to be as close to perfect as possible. And for the time the most perfect spheres produces are floating around in a satelit messuring some Einstein Relativ Gravitational force. The accuracy of these spheres are in the size that the accuracy of the silicon sphere definition is no better then current 50 microgram tolerance.
I am guessing the the problems creating a perfect sphere also applies to the production of a near to perfect cylinder.
Even if it was possible to make a very-close-to-perfect sphere it is still very hard to make sure that it contains only one kind of atoms. The purity of scentific grade silicon is very close to perfect, but even with very small fraction of different atoms the weight will again be off. And without new and better methods for producing pure silicon the tolerance will add up to about the 50 micrograms.
And again I am guessing the producing pure silicon crystals is no harder then producing any other long lasting composite alloy.
So I think we a stuck with a brick in jar in Paris for another decade or two...
Slashdot Mirror
The worst part is that, as a customer, your are entering a deal based on your self-assessed driving-skills, but are charged on a complex model of objective measures that will be different from your own assessment.
A more fair model with be that some authority (government, car/insurance industry...) would come up with a an open and shared model that maps the driving-pattern into to a risk-factor ( a lot like a standard for fuel efficiency). Companies could build certified "black-boxes" (that would be a lot lighter in color), customers could measure their own risk-factor and choose the insurance that fit their needs.
In the model of the OP insurance companies biggest win is to have customers paying for their own wrong assessment of driving-skills.
killall -9 server (and then some)
Why did they choose the Java language? Because they needed a safe, statically typed, garbage collected language that people had experience with and that there were tools for. There is little else out there that fits the bill (C# wasn't an option at the time they started).
Objective-C on iPhone is a pain to learn, but at least the iPhone will not go down in flames from companies fighting over rights to language, runtime, tools and access to application markets.
16x16 pixels in 256 colors... that would be about the roundest number 65536.... which is well below the number of registered domains....
The atrium is decorated by two installations by John Maeda. He writes the user inputs a number having several digits, such as a telephone number (6133788991) or a special date (06211992). The computer processes the number uses a generic art synthesis program, and the resulting dynamic graphical content appears on the display. and The user is presented with a series of dialog boxes for two or three voices. Either alone or with friends, the user inputs text to simulate a verbal exchange. The resulting conversation appears on the display. These two styles of content reflect both an abstract art concept as well as a concrete communication Depending on the ambitions of your CS Dept Office I think you should aim as high as possible. Pick a well-know hero from with in your field and let them spend the time and money on making something exceptional. Remember that good ideas are born inside a single brain...
I know this is a cheap shot... but here in Denmark we are actually providing that kind of 'dashboard' information to our citizens. And yes it is the government that publish nice simple (semi-)understandable statistics.
Take a look at energy statistic report.It states that here in Denmark we are getting close to 18% in renewable energy. That is in a country with the highest point of ~170 meter above sea level (no hydroelectrics for us) and a policy on no nuclear production (weapon or power).
One of the reasons why we can do that is that our government put a 180% sales tax on cars. Sure it is steep, but it does seem to work when looking at or dependency on foreign oil etc...
I guess my point is. It is not about what car you are buying, but what government you elect!
I just want to point out that the three things that matters most for the web came together in freak coincidence with the launch of the iPhone.
:-)
When Steve Jobs (who cares about the user experience) demonstrated the iPhone, he choose to point the browser to New York Times (who cares about clean HTML) which ran an add for Edward Tufte (who cares about information design) it all came together...
None of this could have happened if it was not for the hand coded HTML of New York Times. HTML is not only about presenting information, it is about marking it up in a reusable way.
If you want to follow some of the thoughts on the browser as information broker I suggest starting at Alex Faaborg from the Mozilla Team. If you want to read about interaction design I recommend Bill Moggridge.
If you want to learn something new I recommend you to take some courses and stop reading too many comments on slashdot
I have recently set up a one-man-company to do a little consulting. I had to pick a name for the child and it should help me focus on creation and collaboration using computers among people in organisations.
.com so why bother registering that domain. I am located in Denmark so I will not clutter up the bigger namespaces :-).
out came 3cpo...
Am I getting myself into all kind of trouble by choosing that name?
And yes I am not a
And then on to a few questions that pops up...
1) Would your mom be able to install/run Windows Vista?
Personally my mom had a great experience shifting from Windows XP to a Mac OS. A lot fewer settings, and most things work out of the box and is fairly simple, most importantly wifi and file manager. I know it is a touchy subject, but viruses does matter too.
2) Would you, as a sysadm, recommend/allow your users to install Windows Vista?
I do have quite a problem with XP in an environments of Linux, Mac and Windows. Problems with centralized account management, file sharing and deployment of applications. Looking at the features in Vista I dont think the average user, would get any benifits from the upgrade.
3) Would you actually buy a full license for Windows Vista for your own home computer?
It seems to me there is a few different use cases mixed up here. I am thinking gaming, media, internet and office appliances. My guess is that there will be Xbox/PS/Ninetendo in the gaming/media corner. An internet/office installation on a Windows, Mac or Linux box in the other corner. But the crucial question here is why buy an upgrade to windows for this?
I am not gonna make any bold conclusions from this, but if I had my retirement savings in Microsoft shares I would either hope for all chinese people to buy Xbox's or get ride of all my shares ASAP... Seriously, if this is the best Microsoft can do on the Personal Computer OS, they have to find another way to make money...
Not to be picky... but I am pretty sure there is only one of them... at around chr1:4,618,578-4,618,626
Actually you usually only have to have a sequence 8-10 basepairs long to locate one unique position in the whole genome.
I am pretty sure Aids, TB and Malari is a better reason for overprizing then a cool black hat hacker MacBook...
Maybe I did not read the Stanford talk from Jobs correct... I thought he started thinking about live, death and stuff. Then again I never really have understood Californian Global Thinking....
So I suggest.. buy that White MacBook and go spend your saved money on a pair of cool Converse at http://www.joinred.com/
It happend again. Why would any designer in their right mind choose two different layouts for scrollbars on the web search and the image search. For some reason it reminds me of some menu items hidding in MS Word...
Why?
Doing my first search a number of recent searches shows up. I am pretty sure I never used www.live.com before and I am not quite sure where what search engine I have been using... most likely not msn...
Any ways, if I remember correct cookies left by one domain is not accesible by others.
A wild guess is that it might have to do with firefox's search field from the toolbar but I might be off...
Last time I saw a note about the problem (nature some 4 months ago I think...) two problems where mentioned.
One aproach to remove to relatitivy of the mass definition is to define the kilo as the weight of a number of atoms. The solution suggested was based on a sphere of pure crystalin silicon, and here the problems starts...
The sphere has to be as close to perfect as possible. And for the time the most perfect spheres produces are floating around in a satelit messuring some Einstein Relativ Gravitational force. The accuracy of these spheres are in the size that the accuracy of the silicon sphere definition is no better then current 50 microgram tolerance.
I am guessing the the problems creating a perfect sphere also applies to the production of a near to perfect cylinder.
Even if it was possible to make a very-close-to-perfect sphere it is still very hard to make sure that it contains only one kind of atoms. The purity of scentific grade silicon is very close to perfect, but even with very small fraction of different atoms the weight will again be off. And without new and better methods for producing pure silicon the tolerance will add up to about the 50 micrograms.
And again I am guessing the producing pure silicon crystals is no harder then producing any other long lasting composite alloy.
So I think we a stuck with a brick in jar in Paris for another decade or two...
Don't worry...
just send it through your gmail...
and you will also get a few adds about rings and flowers to go with that...
Mads