Let me add in the original bit that I quoted... So that we've got some context here...
Let's also face facts there are many problems with the english language in general that don't make much sense at all from the way you pronounce a vowel or word and the way it is spelled. Not to mention the strange special cases of silent consonants and the like.
All of which is carefully documented, just like the proper use of parenthesis and semicolons and whatnot is documented in a programming language.
To which document are you referring? MLA? Chicago? APA? Which version? APA just released their new standards. Are you referring to APA version five or six? You argue that "it's not a matter of opinion;" however, depending on the standard, you have different syntactical rules to which you must adhere.
So it looks like we're talking about spelling, pronunciation, silent consonants... All of which would be documented in a dictionary. Granted, there are a few different ones out there... But they largely agree on things like spelling and pronunciation.
If you want to talk about specific styles of writing, that's fine. But that isn't what I was referring to.
Generally speaking, your professor will dictate what style to use. Or, failing that, the department will. Or the college will have a standard. I know that when I went to school it was noted in the syllabus for any class that involved heavy writing...
Further, the various writing styles generally refer to how a paper is formatted and documented. How you format a citation, what kind of spacing to use, a reference page, a title page... Things like that. They don't generally dictate which rules of grammar or spelling do or do not apply.
"Because" is still spelled "because" - regardless of whether you're using MLA or APA.
It's like the modern saying, "I love standards, there's so many to choose from." I have a paper from my days in college, studying English, which one teacher gave an "A" and another gave the exact same paper an "F" for grammar because it really is just a matter of opinion.
If nobody actually dictated a writing style anywhere, then I would suggest that you could probably dispute your grade successfully. Assuming, of course, that you actually used a specific writing style and didn't just make it all up as you went along.
You don't have to be much of a science fiction fan to appreciate the opportunities created by a serious presence in space. Even if we teleoperated everything from the ground, orbital power is a winner. Asteroid mining to prevent the destruction of our own environment down here is a winner. And human history has proven time and time again that opportunities can be opened up by endeavors and scientific discovery that we couldn't even begin to imagine at the outset.
The problem is that, at least right now, the profit just isn't there.
If you could point at some asteroid and say it'll cost us $10 billion to get there and set up shop... And then you could ship home $100 billion worth of profit every month they'd be launching rockets in a heartbeat.
The cost of getting something out there just to analyze the asteroids and find a useful one... Then to set up shop... Then to haul the materials back here... And the time delays involved at every step... Even if it was all teleoperated, the profits just aren't there right now.
There's so much more we should be doing up there. The shuttle was just farting around in LEO. We should end it to do something better, not end it to abandon a manned presence in space. If we're not going to move forward up there, other nations will. And we will have ceded the high frontier.
There's certainly a lot of neat stuff humans can do in space... Lots of good science... But I'm not certain that a manned presence is really necessary at this stage. It seems to me that a lot of the most productive stuff has been un-manned.
Maybe NASA could sell or license some of this "cool tech" to private industry. The private sector would have more to work with and the space agency would get more money for the projects they are left to focus on. And maybe some of the specialists at NASA could fork their own companies with the technology, keeping more people employed.
Maybe they already do this. But the tone of the post makes it sound like they don't.
The problem is that there's little immediate return on investment.
Sure, give it a few years and we get nifty things like GPS and freeze-dried ice cream... But in the short term it's just pure science. And nobody likes pure science anymore.
So what this demonstrates is that universities are not adapting as fast as the English language is. It makes sense in the information age that our language would be evolving at unprecedented rates. We could be like the L'academie Francaise and dictate that because it wasn't invented in an ivory tower it's not the true language; but English has historically been a living language - that is it's greatest strength. (We all know what 'cuz' means; don't TAs and Professors?)
There are uses for more formal linguistics, in the same way Latin was used well past the end of the Roman empire, to sound regal or intellectual - but it's really all for show.
And a formal test in a college class is probably a good place to use a formal language, don't you think?
Do you want to lose points on a test because you used the language in an odd way that your professor didn't understand?
You claim that we all know what 'cuz' means... Honestly, the first thing that pops into my mind is 'cousin' - I have a number of family members from the south who refer to cousins as 'cuz'.
So... We could take a pile of words like "cuz he said so" and translate that as either "because he said so" or "cousin, he said so." And if you're going to use the language in vague ways like that, you're going to have to accept the possibility of misunderstandings. And points taken off of your exam.
I think the point is that currently the language is "de"-volving.
It's ok to create new compound words for new ideas and technologies. It's ok to have colloquial words included in the official language because everybody uses them. It's not OK to simply encourage laziness and sloppiness under the pretext of an evolving language. Maybe fast food restaurants prefer to use a sign that says "Drive Thru" instead of "Drive Through" because the sign is smaller (and therefore cheaper). That's no excuse to use the word "thru" in a thesis.
Exactly.
We already have words for a great many things. Nice, specific words that mean almost exactly what you're trying to say. But people don't bother to learn these words... And then try to convey meaning by using a different word, or mashing some other words together.
An example from my own life...
One of my co-workers was trying to describe where his arm was sore after moving furniture over the weekend. He said that the "top of the upper part" of his arm was sore. Not the shoulder... Not the bones... "the muscle... on top, like when you flex..." He demonstrated, and pointed at the sore muscle. His biceps.
Or how about all those lovely people who say "literally" when they really mean it figuratively, but just want to emphasize the statement.
Language evolves with how people use it...... and speak it. The so-called "misuse" of grammar is kind of idiotic given that language is invented and grammar changes naturally over time.
We aren't discussing how people speak words to each-other. We're discussing how they write formal essays and tests. There is a specific syntax for these things, to ensure comprehension.
Sure, pseudocode is good for getting ideas across to other human beings and developing a rough idea of program flow... But it isn't going to compile. And it doesn't matter how much you argue that programming languages evolve over the years and get new features added and whatnot, your pseudocode still isn't going to compile.
Try reading a really old king james version of the bible. It's still "english" and the 'grammar' may be correct but you don't speak like that and it's not necessarily 'english' you'd recognize as how you think or speak in your own voice.
Actually, we have words for these things. Which is part of the complaint about the decline of the English language... Instead of using perfectly good words that describe exactly what you're trying to say, you borrow some other word that you already know, or stuff a bunch of random words together, and hope it conveys the right idea.
The main reason the old King James Version bibles read oddly is because they were written in Early Modern English - a period when folks were still trying to agree on the correct spelling of words. It doesn't help matters that they intentionally avoided modern (at the time) idioms in favor of already-archaic (but more impressive) ones... Or that they were trying to find English equivalents for Latin.
Let's also face facts there are many problems with the english language in general that don't make much sense at all from the way you pronounce a vowel or word and the way it is spelled. Not to mention the strange special cases of silent consonants and the like.
All of which is carefully documented, just like the proper use of parenthesis and semicolons and whatnot is documented in a programming language.
People like efficiency, while some may think this is an expression of illiteracy others just see it as the most efficient way to express an idea.
The problem is, this isn't a matter of opinion.
In day-to-day discussion, it might be enough to say that pi = "three-ish"... But on a math test, or an engineering project, they're going to expect quite a bit more precision.
And if you're writing an essay for a college class... Or taking some kind of placement exam... Then it isn't a matter of opinion. There is a right way and a wrong way to put your words together. And if you do it wrong, you will be graded accordingly.
The problem isn't that people put words together differently when they're speaking to another human being... Or when they're writing en email to a friend... Or posting a comment on a blog... Or throwing together a text message... The problem is that people do not know how to put words together when they are taking a test or writing an essay.
It isn't a matter of choice - such as when an author deliberately emulates the speaking style of a character. It's a matter of ignorance.
I think you prove the point that people only hear what they want. MSNBC is just as biased as Fox News. CNN is trying to stay in the middle, but they are getting the same pressures to target an audience. The most popular cable news shows draw 1-3 million people daily (1% of the US population), they don't have an incentive to be balanced and general. I suspect newspapers, online and paper, magazines, etc. all have the same issues. DON'T piss off the target audience.
I don't know if I could call MSNBC biased the same way that Fox News is...
Certainly most of the "reporters" on MSNBC are biased... But not all in the same direction. Compare Morning Joe to Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Quite the difference of bias there.
Fox News, on the other hand, seems to have a very fixed message they're trying to deliver 24/7.
CNN, in my opinion, ceased to actually be a news network years ago. The reason it seems more neutral is because it doesn't deliver anything of substance. It's hard to work up much of a bias when all you talk about is kids floating away in balloons and which celebrity is sleeping with which.
But you are certainly right. These days people can see what they want to see. If all they want to hear about is food, or pets, or reality TV... There's probably a network out there dedicated to their tastes.
My ears are deaf to these arguments as long as the mainstream press continues to do such a terrible job of keeping the public informed.
That's the entire point.
The mainstream press is delivering what people want to see, rather than what they need to see. Namely, lots of celebrity gossip and very little of substance.
People like fluffy stories... They like to hear about who is sleeping with who... They're interested in shiny bits of tinsel and sparkly rocks...
Businesses, including those who print newspapers, like money.
So the businesses print stories that appeal to people, so the people will buy their newspapers, and the businesses will make money.
And the depressing, complicated, truly important stories that people don't really want to read about... But really should... Get dropped in favor of popular fluff.
I'd like to see a tablet done right. Microsoft really hasn't delivered that yet. Maybe apple can. I've been impressed with their iPhone/iPod Touch.
But I guess I just don't see what all the excitement is about. It's a new piece of hardware. Sure, I like gadgets and all... But folks have been frenetically hunting down any hint of rumor about this thing for a year or so.
There's nothing wrong with reading Atlas Shrugged, any more than there's something wrong with reading The Wizard of Oz. It's only a problem when you expect the real world to be like that.
Your mileage will vary, of course... But pretty much anything by Ayn Rand has an eye-hemorrhaging quality that I just don't find in The Wizard of Oz. I'm not talking about the substance of any of her arguments... Simply the fact that she couldn't write her way out of a paper bag.
So you'd be ok with that book not being readable in 10 years?
I can't say I'm terribly thrilled about it... But it happens. Today. In the real world.
Papers and inks degrade. Depending on when the book was produced, and how, it could very well be unreadable within 10 years.
Language changes can also make a book unreadable. Try handing your average Joe Sixpack an original-text copy of The Canterbury Tales and see what they think of it.
And then there's information that changes, making the original text basically un-usable. Compare a few textbooks released over the years and you'll see what I mean. Sure, it is technically readable... But you'd have a hard time actually teaching from the older books.
I'm not sure why you threw daycare centers in there. Often they are much more strictly monitored than a child's home life and probably have prevented more of these cases than caused them.
Maybe it's better in your area... But around here, the government's idea of nutrition is pretty miserable.
They'll serve some kind of frozen pizza for lunch at school... They consider the crust a grain, the sauce a vegetable, the cheese a dairy, and the pepperoni a meat. Perfectly nutritious!
Never mind the fact that this factory-produced frozen monstrosity is full of salt, fat, corn syrup, and whatever else.
, usually resulting from famine or starvation during the early stages of childhood.
And that's the real story: Parents who have turned their children over to the television, computer, and daycare centers of the world and neglecting basic nutrition. My sister is like that -- she is fed a diet of fast food and microwave meals because her parents can't be bothered to cook a meal (two income family). I don't think its intentional, people just assume there's no problem if it can't be seen.
Agreed.
You don't even need to get out in the sun that much... If you're eating right, you'll be getting plenty of vitamin D. Hell, just a glass of milk is full of the stuff.
The real story is that nutrition in general, in the United States, is all shot to hell. Folks are living off fast food, cans, boxes, and frozen dinners. Nobody eats real food anymore.
How do I know? I've been there!
Over the last couple of years my diet has gone straight to hell. I've been busy and overworked and stressed and whatnot, and it's just been easier to grab something quick than to eat right. A recent bit of bloodwork came back with "trace amounts" of vitamin D. Lowest the doctor had ever seen.
Initially they had me on some hefty vitamin D supplements... But that was just to get me up to where I should be quickly. Since then I've just been eating real food and haven't had any issues.
Chimney? What kind of nuclear plant did you live next to? Nuclear plants don't have chimneys. Are you thinking of the cooling towers? That isn't smoke coming out of the top of a cooling tower, that's water vapor.
I guess it wasn't clear...
I was referring to a fossil fuel power plant, like a coal burner for example, in comparison to thousands of small fossil fuel burning cars on the road.
And I suppose I should have called it a smoke stack, instead of a chimney.
I'm not worried about living next to a nuclear power plant. I grew up right near one... Just a mile or two outside of town. Of course I'm not the average American, so I can see your point...
But the nice thing about power plants, as opposed to internal combustion engines in your cars, is that they're centralized. One big chimney, instead of hundreds or thousands of them. A single chimney to inspect, regulate, filter, clean, whatever.
Sure, you've got to get the power to your cars... So there's transmission and storage losses to worry about... But I suspect we could cut down on emissions somewhat just by centralizing our power generation, even if we didn't move to a clean fuel source.
And if we were to standardize on electric cars, we're no longer quite so reliant on fossil fuels. Sure, for now, a lot of our electricity comes from fossil fuels... But electricity is electricity. Your electric car really doesn't care where that electricity comes from. It could be wind power, or solar, or nuclear, or whatever... And your car will work just the same.
People that think the Kindle is somehow locked down for Amazon only have been reading some conspiracy theory web site rather than getting an uncomfortable dose of reality.
So, what places other than Amazon will allow me to purchase a copy of Under the Dome for Kindle?
Last time I checked, though, iPods still didn't support FLAC. Since my entire music library is in this format (hey, disk space is cheap!), this means that the iPod is a non-starter for me unless I choose to transcode it to MP3.
Since I prefer lossless data formats that are also open standards based, this ain't gonna happen any time soon.
And yes, I know I'm the exception, not the rule.:)
Like I said... Least common denominator.
There are plenty of audio formats that are superior to MP3. But it's the easiest one for everyone to support. So... Here we are.
Hopefully it will be the Nooks & Sonys and whatever else which bury the Kindle, or at least see Amazon open up the device. Proprietary as most other devices are in some respect, it seems that they have rallied around EPUB + optional Adobe DRM. If DRM has to exist at least it should be device and vendor neutral.
My nook can certainly handle EPUB stuff just fine... And Barnes & Noble claims they're going to move their entire library over to EPUB eventually... But I don't know how open and friendly the Barnes & Noble store actually is. EPUB lets you embed whatever DRM you might want. I don't know that a B&N DRMed EPUB would actually work on anything besides a nook.
The fly in the ointment is Apple and what they intend to do. They're not exactly known for embracing standards except as a bait and switch for their own proprietary ones, so they may well support EPUB, but not the DRM everyone else is gravitating around. After all, that would let their users buy their books from anywhere and Apple simply can't allow that.
Apple has enough market penetration that they might just be able to force a kind of "lowest common denominator" as standard... Like it did with MP3s.
Everyone was playing around with their own weird DRM and file formats and everything... And then iTunes came along. And while Apple does do their own DRM thing, and their own file format, it's very easy to convert them to MP3. And everyone else got scared. You couldn't very well release your songs in a format that wouldn't work with iTunes and iPods, because they were everywhere. So you either dumped your stuff into iTunes, or you released it in some way that converted to MP3 without too much trouble.
I said "if you get a Kindle you're largely stuck buying your books from Amazon."
Look at that link you provided.
Project Gutenberg is free public domain books... FreeKindleBooks is just the Gutenberg stuff reformatted for Kindle. PDFBooks is the Gutenberg stuff in PDF for the Kindle. World Public Library is just that - a library. The disclaimer on Mobipocket indicates that only demos and free books can be read on the Kindle. ManyBooks is again the Gutenberg stuff. Munseys is more free stuff. MobileRead is free out-of-copyright books. Zinepal is just RSS converted to Kindle.
So, of that list you provided... You can buy your books from Amazon (380,000 titles) or Fictionwise (no indication of how many titles are available) or Webscriptions (1,000 titles) or Feedbooks (4,000 titles) or Christian Classics Ethereal Library (no indication of how many titles are available).
Which means that by far the largest retailer of Kindle ebooks is Amazon. You'll notice that there's no mention of any other big-name book retailers on that page, because the Kindle can't read ebooks from Barnes & Noble, nor can it read ebooks from Borders. So, if you've got a Kindle, you're largely stuck buying your ebooks from them.
Sure, if I just want a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I've got plenty of choices. I can download it for free from any number of places.
But if I want to purchase a copy of a new book like Under the Dome, I have to buy it from Amazon.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the kindle (and E Ink in general) most efficient as displaying the same thing? Why would I want something with a frame rate killing my kindle battery?
That was my first thought as well.
I don't know about the battery life... It'll certainly go down... But the refresh rate is going to be crap.
I'm not sure why they want to release the Zagat guide as an app... I guess so it's more searchable? Or it can update in real-time? Seems like that would work pretty well as just a standard ebook... Or an emagazine subscription...
As far as games go... Something like sudoku or crosswords or something will probably work reasonably ok... But the refresh rate is not going to be very good, and the UI is going to be very clunky.
I dunno... The Kindle is fairly specialized hardware... I'm not sure how well it will handle something other than displaying text.
People can already SSH into their Kindles. If I were Amazon, I would be worried about this kind of support making jailbreaks more attractive, possibly putting a nail into the coffin of their future ebook sales.
Actually... I think that opening the platform up (be it intentionally, or by jailbreaking) will eventually be what makes ereaders a real, viable alternative to printed books.
Right now, if you get a Kindle you're largely stuck buying your books from Amazon. You can't just go to any ebook retailer and pick up whatever you want.
Right now, if you get a nook you're largely stuck buying your books from Barnes & Noble. You can't just go to any ebook retailer and pick up whatever you want.
If they can open up the platform (either with a jailbreak, or an official update, or an app, or whatever) then you'll be able to buy your ebooks wherever you want. Amazon will lose it's vendor lock-in... But they'll pick up sales from folks with nooks and Sonys and whatever else.
I don't see the big news here. At close range it's easy to kill. Even something like a $5 potato cannon can kill people at close range. Being in close proximity to exploding things has never really been good for your health..
I dunno... 10 meters isn't really what I would personally call "close range." That's 30ish feet... Roughly the height of a three-story building. That's a good amount of distance between you and the target.
And I wonder what the area of affect is like... Is this a single-target thing, or a crowd-dispersal thing? Because if it's designed for crowd control, I'm imagining it's got a pretty big area of effect... And you can fit an awful lot of people in a 30' cone... All of which would be permanently injured or killed.
If you look at the article...
According to company data, the system generates 60 to 100 bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds.
One standard 12-kilogram LPG gas canister (retail cost: about $25) can produce up to 5,000 shock bursts.
"That's more than enough for hours of continuous operation,"
Slashdot Mirror
Let me add in the original bit that I quoted... So that we've got some context here...
To which document are you referring? MLA? Chicago? APA? Which version? APA just released their new standards. Are you referring to APA version five or six? You argue that "it's not a matter of opinion;" however, depending on the standard, you have different syntactical rules to which you must adhere.
So it looks like we're talking about spelling, pronunciation, silent consonants... All of which would be documented in a dictionary. Granted, there are a few different ones out there... But they largely agree on things like spelling and pronunciation.
If you want to talk about specific styles of writing, that's fine. But that isn't what I was referring to.
Generally speaking, your professor will dictate what style to use. Or, failing that, the department will. Or the college will have a standard. I know that when I went to school it was noted in the syllabus for any class that involved heavy writing...
Further, the various writing styles generally refer to how a paper is formatted and documented. How you format a citation, what kind of spacing to use, a reference page, a title page... Things like that. They don't generally dictate which rules of grammar or spelling do or do not apply.
"Because" is still spelled "because" - regardless of whether you're using MLA or APA.
It's like the modern saying, "I love standards, there's so many to choose from." I have a paper from my days in college, studying English, which one teacher gave an "A" and another gave the exact same paper an "F" for grammar because it really is just a matter of opinion.
If nobody actually dictated a writing style anywhere, then I would suggest that you could probably dispute your grade successfully. Assuming, of course, that you actually used a specific writing style and didn't just make it all up as you went along.
You don't have to be much of a science fiction fan to appreciate the opportunities created by a serious presence in space. Even if we teleoperated everything from the ground, orbital power is a winner. Asteroid mining to prevent the destruction of our own environment down here is a winner. And human history has proven time and time again that opportunities can be opened up by endeavors and scientific discovery that we couldn't even begin to imagine at the outset.
The problem is that, at least right now, the profit just isn't there.
If you could point at some asteroid and say it'll cost us $10 billion to get there and set up shop... And then you could ship home $100 billion worth of profit every month they'd be launching rockets in a heartbeat.
The cost of getting something out there just to analyze the asteroids and find a useful one... Then to set up shop... Then to haul the materials back here... And the time delays involved at every step... Even if it was all teleoperated, the profits just aren't there right now.
There's so much more we should be doing up there. The shuttle was just farting around in LEO. We should end it to do something better, not end it to abandon a manned presence in space. If we're not going to move forward up there, other nations will. And we will have ceded the high frontier.
There's certainly a lot of neat stuff humans can do in space... Lots of good science... But I'm not certain that a manned presence is really necessary at this stage. It seems to me that a lot of the most productive stuff has been un-manned.
Maybe NASA could sell or license some of this "cool tech" to private industry. The private sector would have more to work with and the space agency would get more money for the projects they are left to focus on. And maybe some of the specialists at NASA could fork their own companies with the technology, keeping more people employed.
Maybe they already do this. But the tone of the post makes it sound like they don't.
The problem is that there's little immediate return on investment.
Sure, give it a few years and we get nifty things like GPS and freeze-dried ice cream... But in the short term it's just pure science. And nobody likes pure science anymore.
So what this demonstrates is that universities are not adapting as fast as the English language is. It makes sense in the information age that our language would be evolving at unprecedented rates. We could be like the L'academie Francaise and dictate that because it wasn't invented in an ivory tower it's not the true language; but English has historically been a living language - that is it's greatest strength. (We all know what 'cuz' means; don't TAs and Professors?)
There are uses for more formal linguistics, in the same way Latin was used well past the end of the Roman empire, to sound regal or intellectual - but it's really all for show.
And a formal test in a college class is probably a good place to use a formal language, don't you think?
Do you want to lose points on a test because you used the language in an odd way that your professor didn't understand?
You claim that we all know what 'cuz' means... Honestly, the first thing that pops into my mind is 'cousin' - I have a number of family members from the south who refer to cousins as 'cuz'.
So... We could take a pile of words like "cuz he said so" and translate that as either "because he said so" or "cousin, he said so." And if you're going to use the language in vague ways like that, you're going to have to accept the possibility of misunderstandings. And points taken off of your exam.
I think the point is that currently the language is "de"-volving.
It's ok to create new compound words for new ideas and technologies. It's ok to have colloquial words included in the official language because everybody uses them. It's not OK to simply encourage laziness and sloppiness under the pretext of an evolving language. Maybe fast food restaurants prefer to use a sign that says "Drive Thru" instead of "Drive Through" because the sign is smaller (and therefore cheaper). That's no excuse to use the word "thru" in a thesis.
Exactly.
We already have words for a great many things. Nice, specific words that mean almost exactly what you're trying to say. But people don't bother to learn these words... And then try to convey meaning by using a different word, or mashing some other words together.
An example from my own life...
One of my co-workers was trying to describe where his arm was sore after moving furniture over the weekend. He said that the "top of the upper part" of his arm was sore. Not the shoulder... Not the bones... "the muscle... on top, like when you flex..." He demonstrated, and pointed at the sore muscle. His biceps.
Or how about all those lovely people who say "literally" when they really mean it figuratively, but just want to emphasize the statement.
Language evolves with how people use it... ... and speak it. The so-called "misuse" of grammar is kind of idiotic given that language is invented and grammar changes naturally over time.
We aren't discussing how people speak words to each-other. We're discussing how they write formal essays and tests. There is a specific syntax for these things, to ensure comprehension.
Sure, pseudocode is good for getting ideas across to other human beings and developing a rough idea of program flow... But it isn't going to compile. And it doesn't matter how much you argue that programming languages evolve over the years and get new features added and whatnot, your pseudocode still isn't going to compile.
Try reading a really old king james version of the bible. It's still "english" and the 'grammar' may be correct but you don't speak like that and it's not necessarily 'english' you'd recognize as how you think or speak in your own voice.
Actually, we have words for these things. Which is part of the complaint about the decline of the English language... Instead of using perfectly good words that describe exactly what you're trying to say, you borrow some other word that you already know, or stuff a bunch of random words together, and hope it conveys the right idea.
The main reason the old King James Version bibles read oddly is because they were written in Early Modern English - a period when folks were still trying to agree on the correct spelling of words. It doesn't help matters that they intentionally avoided modern (at the time) idioms in favor of already-archaic (but more impressive) ones... Or that they were trying to find English equivalents for Latin.
Let's also face facts there are many problems with the english language in general that don't make much sense at all from the way you pronounce a vowel or word and the way it is spelled. Not to mention the strange special cases of silent consonants and the like.
All of which is carefully documented, just like the proper use of parenthesis and semicolons and whatnot is documented in a programming language.
People like efficiency, while some may think this is an expression of illiteracy others just see it as the most efficient way to express an idea.
The problem is, this isn't a matter of opinion.
In day-to-day discussion, it might be enough to say that pi = "three-ish"... But on a math test, or an engineering project, they're going to expect quite a bit more precision.
And if you're writing an essay for a college class... Or taking some kind of placement exam... Then it isn't a matter of opinion. There is a right way and a wrong way to put your words together. And if you do it wrong, you will be graded accordingly.
The problem isn't that people put words together differently when they're speaking to another human being... Or when they're writing en email to a friend... Or posting a comment on a blog... Or throwing together a text message... The problem is that people do not know how to put words together when they are taking a test or writing an essay.
It isn't a matter of choice - such as when an author deliberately emulates the speaking style of a character. It's a matter of ignorance.
I think you prove the point that people only hear what they want. MSNBC is just as biased as Fox News. CNN is trying to stay in the middle, but they are getting the same pressures to target an audience. The most popular cable news shows draw 1-3 million people daily (1% of the US population), they don't have an incentive to be balanced and general. I suspect newspapers, online and paper, magazines, etc. all have the same issues. DON'T piss off the target audience.
I don't know if I could call MSNBC biased the same way that Fox News is...
Certainly most of the "reporters" on MSNBC are biased... But not all in the same direction. Compare Morning Joe to Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Quite the difference of bias there.
Fox News, on the other hand, seems to have a very fixed message they're trying to deliver 24/7.
CNN, in my opinion, ceased to actually be a news network years ago. The reason it seems more neutral is because it doesn't deliver anything of substance. It's hard to work up much of a bias when all you talk about is kids floating away in balloons and which celebrity is sleeping with which.
But you are certainly right. These days people can see what they want to see. If all they want to hear about is food, or pets, or reality TV... There's probably a network out there dedicated to their tastes.
My ears are deaf to these arguments as long as the mainstream press continues to do such a terrible job of keeping the public informed.
That's the entire point.
The mainstream press is delivering what people want to see, rather than what they need to see. Namely, lots of celebrity gossip and very little of substance.
People like fluffy stories... They like to hear about who is sleeping with who... They're interested in shiny bits of tinsel and sparkly rocks...
Businesses, including those who print newspapers, like money.
So the businesses print stories that appeal to people, so the people will buy their newspapers, and the businesses will make money.
And the depressing, complicated, truly important stories that people don't really want to read about... But really should... Get dropped in favor of popular fluff.
I'd like to see a tablet done right. Microsoft really hasn't delivered that yet. Maybe apple can. I've been impressed with their iPhone/iPod Touch.
But I guess I just don't see what all the excitement is about. It's a new piece of hardware. Sure, I like gadgets and all... But folks have been frenetically hunting down any hint of rumor about this thing for a year or so.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
My company pays me to do a job. That job, hopefully, earns my company money. Generally more money than they're paying me.
So, they're generating more revenue... But they're still paying me.
Fortunately, that quarter of a tank will still get us as far as we need to go and then some.
And just how far is it that we need to go?
I understand that the universe will out-live me by several orders of magnitude... And my children... And my children's children... Etc...
I understand that the Earth will be consumed by our sun long before the universe dies...
But I'm just wondering what "as far as we need to go" means...
There's nothing wrong with reading Atlas Shrugged, any more than there's something wrong with reading The Wizard of Oz. It's only a problem when you expect the real world to be like that.
Your mileage will vary, of course... But pretty much anything by Ayn Rand has an eye-hemorrhaging quality that I just don't find in The Wizard of Oz. I'm not talking about the substance of any of her arguments... Simply the fact that she couldn't write her way out of a paper bag.
So you'd be ok with that book not being readable in 10 years?
I can't say I'm terribly thrilled about it... But it happens. Today. In the real world.
Papers and inks degrade. Depending on when the book was produced, and how, it could very well be unreadable within 10 years.
Language changes can also make a book unreadable. Try handing your average Joe Sixpack an original-text copy of The Canterbury Tales and see what they think of it.
And then there's information that changes, making the original text basically un-usable. Compare a few textbooks released over the years and you'll see what I mean. Sure, it is technically readable... But you'd have a hard time actually teaching from the older books.
I'm not sure why you threw daycare centers in there. Often they are much more strictly monitored than a child's home life and probably have prevented more of these cases than caused them.
Maybe it's better in your area... But around here, the government's idea of nutrition is pretty miserable.
They'll serve some kind of frozen pizza for lunch at school... They consider the crust a grain, the sauce a vegetable, the cheese a dairy, and the pepperoni a meat. Perfectly nutritious!
Never mind the fact that this factory-produced frozen monstrosity is full of salt, fat, corn syrup, and whatever else.
, usually resulting from famine or starvation during the early stages of childhood.
And that's the real story: Parents who have turned their children over to the television, computer, and daycare centers of the world and neglecting basic nutrition. My sister is like that -- she is fed a diet of fast food and microwave meals because her parents can't be bothered to cook a meal (two income family). I don't think its intentional, people just assume there's no problem if it can't be seen.
Agreed.
You don't even need to get out in the sun that much... If you're eating right, you'll be getting plenty of vitamin D. Hell, just a glass of milk is full of the stuff.
The real story is that nutrition in general, in the United States, is all shot to hell. Folks are living off fast food, cans, boxes, and frozen dinners. Nobody eats real food anymore.
How do I know? I've been there!
Over the last couple of years my diet has gone straight to hell. I've been busy and overworked and stressed and whatnot, and it's just been easier to grab something quick than to eat right. A recent bit of bloodwork came back with "trace amounts" of vitamin D. Lowest the doctor had ever seen.
Initially they had me on some hefty vitamin D supplements... But that was just to get me up to where I should be quickly. Since then I've just been eating real food and haven't had any issues.
Chimney? What kind of nuclear plant did you live next to? Nuclear plants don't have chimneys. Are you thinking of the cooling towers? That isn't smoke coming out of the top of a cooling tower, that's water vapor.
I guess it wasn't clear...
I was referring to a fossil fuel power plant, like a coal burner for example, in comparison to thousands of small fossil fuel burning cars on the road.
And I suppose I should have called it a smoke stack, instead of a chimney.
I'm not worried about living next to a nuclear power plant. I grew up right near one... Just a mile or two outside of town. Of course I'm not the average American, so I can see your point...
But the nice thing about power plants, as opposed to internal combustion engines in your cars, is that they're centralized. One big chimney, instead of hundreds or thousands of them. A single chimney to inspect, regulate, filter, clean, whatever.
Sure, you've got to get the power to your cars... So there's transmission and storage losses to worry about... But I suspect we could cut down on emissions somewhat just by centralizing our power generation, even if we didn't move to a clean fuel source.
And if we were to standardize on electric cars, we're no longer quite so reliant on fossil fuels. Sure, for now, a lot of our electricity comes from fossil fuels... But electricity is electricity. Your electric car really doesn't care where that electricity comes from. It could be wind power, or solar, or nuclear, or whatever... And your car will work just the same.
People that think the Kindle is somehow locked down for Amazon only have been reading some conspiracy theory web site rather than getting an uncomfortable dose of reality.
So, what places other than Amazon will allow me to purchase a copy of Under the Dome for Kindle?
Last time I checked, though, iPods still didn't support FLAC. Since my entire music library is in this format (hey, disk space is cheap!), this means that the iPod is a non-starter for me unless I choose to transcode it to MP3.
Since I prefer lossless data formats that are also open standards based, this ain't gonna happen any time soon.
And yes, I know I'm the exception, not the rule. :)
Like I said... Least common denominator.
There are plenty of audio formats that are superior to MP3. But it's the easiest one for everyone to support. So... Here we are.
Hopefully it will be the Nooks & Sonys and whatever else which bury the Kindle, or at least see Amazon open up the device. Proprietary as most other devices are in some respect, it seems that they have rallied around EPUB + optional Adobe DRM. If DRM has to exist at least it should be device and vendor neutral.
My nook can certainly handle EPUB stuff just fine... And Barnes & Noble claims they're going to move their entire library over to EPUB eventually... But I don't know how open and friendly the Barnes & Noble store actually is. EPUB lets you embed whatever DRM you might want. I don't know that a B&N DRMed EPUB would actually work on anything besides a nook.
The fly in the ointment is Apple and what they intend to do. They're not exactly known for embracing standards except as a bait and switch for their own proprietary ones, so they may well support EPUB, but not the DRM everyone else is gravitating around. After all, that would let their users buy their books from anywhere and Apple simply can't allow that.
Apple has enough market penetration that they might just be able to force a kind of "lowest common denominator" as standard... Like it did with MP3s.
Everyone was playing around with their own weird DRM and file formats and everything... And then iTunes came along. And while Apple does do their own DRM thing, and their own file format, it's very easy to convert them to MP3. And everyone else got scared. You couldn't very well release your songs in a format that wouldn't work with iTunes and iPods, because they were everywhere. So you either dumped your stuff into iTunes, or you released it in some way that converted to MP3 without too much trouble.
You're Wrong
No I'm not.
I said "if you get a Kindle you're largely stuck buying your books from Amazon."
Look at that link you provided.
Project Gutenberg is free public domain books... FreeKindleBooks is just the Gutenberg stuff reformatted for Kindle. PDFBooks is the Gutenberg stuff in PDF for the Kindle. World Public Library is just that - a library. The disclaimer on Mobipocket indicates that only demos and free books can be read on the Kindle. ManyBooks is again the Gutenberg stuff. Munseys is more free stuff. MobileRead is free out-of-copyright books. Zinepal is just RSS converted to Kindle.
So, of that list you provided... You can buy your books from Amazon (380,000 titles) or Fictionwise (no indication of how many titles are available) or Webscriptions (1,000 titles) or Feedbooks (4,000 titles) or Christian Classics Ethereal Library (no indication of how many titles are available).
Which means that by far the largest retailer of Kindle ebooks is Amazon. You'll notice that there's no mention of any other big-name book retailers on that page, because the Kindle can't read ebooks from Barnes & Noble, nor can it read ebooks from Borders. So, if you've got a Kindle, you're largely stuck buying your ebooks from them.
Sure, if I just want a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I've got plenty of choices. I can download it for free from any number of places.
But if I want to purchase a copy of a new book like Under the Dome, I have to buy it from Amazon.
But the specs say that the Nook supports any eReader (FKA Palm eReader) file, and any ePub file (even with Adobe's DRM).
I have a nook.
It handles EPUB files just fine - most of my library is in EPUB format.
But it doesn't read Kindle format. So, while you've got some more options... You still can't go out and buy your ebooks from any place you want.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the kindle (and E Ink in general) most efficient as displaying the same thing? Why would I want something with a frame rate killing my kindle battery?
That was my first thought as well.
I don't know about the battery life... It'll certainly go down... But the refresh rate is going to be crap.
I'm not sure why they want to release the Zagat guide as an app... I guess so it's more searchable? Or it can update in real-time? Seems like that would work pretty well as just a standard ebook... Or an emagazine subscription...
As far as games go... Something like sudoku or crosswords or something will probably work reasonably ok... But the refresh rate is not going to be very good, and the UI is going to be very clunky.
I dunno... The Kindle is fairly specialized hardware... I'm not sure how well it will handle something other than displaying text.
People can already SSH into their Kindles. If I were Amazon, I would be worried about this kind of support making jailbreaks more attractive, possibly putting a nail into the coffin of their future ebook sales.
Actually... I think that opening the platform up (be it intentionally, or by jailbreaking) will eventually be what makes ereaders a real, viable alternative to printed books.
Right now, if you get a Kindle you're largely stuck buying your books from Amazon. You can't just go to any ebook retailer and pick up whatever you want.
Right now, if you get a nook you're largely stuck buying your books from Barnes & Noble. You can't just go to any ebook retailer and pick up whatever you want.
If they can open up the platform (either with a jailbreak, or an official update, or an app, or whatever) then you'll be able to buy your ebooks wherever you want. Amazon will lose it's vendor lock-in... But they'll pick up sales from folks with nooks and Sonys and whatever else.
I don't see the big news here. At close range it's easy to kill. Even something like a $5 potato cannon can kill people at close range. Being in close proximity to exploding things has never really been good for your health..
I dunno... 10 meters isn't really what I would personally call "close range." That's 30ish feet... Roughly the height of a three-story building. That's a good amount of distance between you and the target.
And I wonder what the area of affect is like... Is this a single-target thing, or a crowd-dispersal thing? Because if it's designed for crowd control, I'm imagining it's got a pretty big area of effect... And you can fit an awful lot of people in a 30' cone... All of which would be permanently injured or killed.
If you look at the article...
According to company data, the system generates 60 to 100 bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds.
One standard 12-kilogram LPG gas canister (retail cost: about $25) can produce up to 5,000 shock bursts.
"That's more than enough for hours of continuous operation,"
Imagine the potential for misuse.