What do you think IrDA is (was)? Same thing using infrared LEDs is all. It supported up to 115.2 kbit/s, and that's just on one "channel" (LED). Back in 2004 I bitbanged IrDA with a micro-controller in a homebrew PS1 controller adapter that allowed me to use the controller with a Pocket PC. It was one-way communication, because the controller just needed to communicate button presses to the Pocket PC. It worked quite well. Anyway, assuming there is a relatively low-level access for toggling the LEDs on or off on a [insert device name here], such a method of transmitting data is patently obvious... The "scary" thing is that communications of this sort are far beyond the refresh rate of the human eye, and so the end result is that the LED simply looks about half the normal brightness and does not appear to pulsate or anything.
Self driving vehicles will have a profound affect on: * The truck driving industry ($726 billion industry) * The auto insurance market ($200 billion) * Speeding ticket revenue ($6.2 billion annually - only counting speeding tickets and not other moving violations) * Taxi and limousine services ($19 billion)
Just to mention a few of the obvious ones I bothered to get some numbers on. Self driving vehicles will represent the largest and fastest impact on humanity that technology has ever caused. Even the introduction of the automobile itself was of limited and slow impact, because the primitive road system and lack of fuel sources severely curtailed their use. We will hit some critical adoption point in self driving cars which will cause an avalanche in adoption. When self driving semi trucks reach a point of stability and usability, trucking companies will have no choice but immediately adopt them or else their competitors will crush them with lower shipping rates (say it costs $40,000 add-on for self-driving technology, which is the average annual salary of a truck driver - it would pay for itself in about 3-4 months, as a self driving truck can operate 24/7 without stopping, driving the equivalent amount a truck driver does in an entire year in just a few months).
At some critical threshold, government will begin to designate certain lanes, and then entire roadways, for self-driving car use only, as a 100% system of self driving cars can operate at much faster speeds and dynamically adjust speed to match terrain in order to optimize energy efficiency. A 100% self driving car system needs no road signs, stop signs, or traffic signals of any kind, and vehicles will not ever have to stop until they reach their destination. All of these benefits will accelerate adoption of self driving cars significantly once some certain threshold of adoption occurs.
Point of fact, there are a very small number of ways to solve simple, college level problems.
From a algorithmic sense yes, from an implementation sense, no. You are to write a function to calculate the nth number in the Fibonacci sequence, using only operators inherent to the language (IE no math libraries). What will you name the function? What will you name your variables? Will you use an iterative method, and thus will you use a for loop, or a do...while loop. Will you count up or count down? Or will you use a recursive function? Or perhaps you do some research and discover Binet's formula which calculates a Fibonacci number without iteration.
I guarantee you if you ask 20 developers to write that function, you will get 20 different implementations that differ quite enough to tell they are not copies of one another.
Back in the early 90s I was an assistant to a CS instructor, and one of my jobs was to grade assignments (if you ever have the opportunity I strongly recommend doing so - it's amazing to see the very different ways students go about solving a problem, as well as the vast difference in coding styles, etc). It was blatantly obvious when students had collaborated, and I would point out to the instructor which students appeared to have shared code with one another.
Also at this point in time in the 90s, the ability to find source code for use in very specific programming assignments was very difficult if not impossible. The WWW was in its infancy, and the only real options were gopher or Usenet. In the case of the latter, it was very clear when people were asking others to do their assignment for them, and typically several posters would call them out on that.
In fact, this is the only historical topic that is regulated by penal law.
Oh really? Do you just make this up as you go along? Try discussing "Tiananmen Square" online in China. Or, well, nearly anything in North Korea that doesn't portray their history in a glowing light.
This brings up an interesting philosophical / moral issue. The release of this kind of source code, by Wikileaks and others, is literally giving military grade weapons to anyone with the modicum of technical knowledge required to wield it. Fortunately, in this case, the person setting it loose didn't have the technical aptitude (or couldn't even be bothered with) looking at the code and disabling or properly securing the "kill switch".
It makes me wonder if those responsible for releasing and distributing this tool to the public could be held responsible (at least in civil courts) for the damage caused by it.
The vast bulk of this kind of ad infested crap I see on Facebook is from sponsored content (IE paid ads) that have nothing to do with my actual newsfeed (as in the friends and pages I have elected to follow). They are not viral things being shared, but content actively promoted by Facebook for money. Many of these sites are so polluted with ads and broken up into so many pages you have to click through that they literally are non-functional. I wonder if Facebook is going to reduce their revenue and prevent these kinds of sponsored content?
I find the prose and opinion in these kinds of news stories to be annoying. Whether or not I agree or disagree with the bias of this particular story, the "Back to the poor workers, though" bit had me wondering if one of the worker's grandmothers wrote this news or what.
You can't kill a cartoon character. You can drop an anvil on his head. You can slingshot him into a mountain. You can blow him up with TNT. All these things (and more) happen to a particular coyote, and yet every week, he still comes back. Maybe limping and wrapped in bandages, or blackened from the explosion, but alive nonetheless.
Everyone in Toon Town knows how to kill a cartoon character - a solution of turpentine, acetone, and benzene.
Since more scientists are better, why doesn't the government just employ ALL the scientists? This 18 member panel didn't actually do scientific work, but they reviewed the scientific work of the actual working scientists, so that makes them more like bureaucratic scientists? The scientific work produced by the EPA should be peer reviewed in any case, and not reviewed by a static group of scientists that almost certainly have a net bias towards the viewpoints of whatever administration made the decision to hire each of them.
The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term.
Well that's just ridiculous. I hope no one believed that had any merit in reality.
Yeah, because brick and mortar stores have never had flash sales and temporary price reductions people would literally have to run across the store to take advantage of. And Home Shopping Network, QVC, etc, never reduced prices on things at different times of the day or when inventory didn't sell as expected.
While I didn't understand all the technical details, I thought it was fantastic that he presented that level of detail. Thank you!
I am curious about the sodium vs lithium characteristics, as he mentioned them several times. He stated the sodium discharge rate is 0.3 V less than lithium (three times, to be exact). What exactly does this mean? Would a sodium battery have to be larger / heavier than a lithium ion to generate the same voltage? Does it mean it cannot charge or discharge as fast? I'm just curious what the ramifications are. For many applications, like storage of solar generated power in a home, size and weight is not an issue at all. If sodium based batteries are cheaper and safer, even if they were double the size, they would still win out in that application.
Same here. I got mine towards the end of its life cycle apparently, just before TI stopped selling them. In fact I think the price was reduced tremendously because of that. I was around 10 at the time. I did always envy my friend's C64 though. The TI cartridge games were pretty decent for the time, but its BASIC was very limited and slow, so the TI versions of the programs in Compute! magazine were always pretty pitiful compared to the C64 versions.
Ahh, the mysteries of the universe that we cannot fathom. Such as why this is a dupe of a story posted just yesterday.... https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...
Why is the FCC, which is responsible for regulation of the use of the radio spectrum, considering social aspects when making decisions regarding the technical feasibility of using cell phones on planes? The only factor should be whether or not the use of these devices interferes with the avionics of the aircraft, which we know is not an issue (although the airlines always threw that nebulous excuse out there in the past). I once worked in a hospital that wouldn't let the doctors install a WiFi access point in their private lounge (back when WiFi first came on the scene) because "it would probably interfere with the telemetry of the medical equipment". Both are red herrings and using technical aspects as an excuse to cover for other reasons (unreasonable fear of culpability, protecting monopolistic practices, etc).
My point is that the FCC should not be in a *conversation* with the airlines regarding what they may or may not prefer when the FCC makes *technical* decisions regarding the use of radio devices.
I noticed this in the mainstream media. Suddenly every branch of government in the executive branch is now "The Trump Administration". Well, at least when it can be reported in a negative light. US Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security, requested the information. We might as well just rename every single part of the Executive branch "The Trump Administration" to make the cost of printing letterheads and business cards much cheaper (you know, bulk discount).
For instance, take a look at this article about Fast and Furious: http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27/... CNN reported that the ATF did this, and not "The Obama Administration".
I just find the incessant and obviously biased reporting annoying.
Ahhh. You mean something like federal laws regarding the repair of your personal vehicle. Like, for example, the federal law that says you cannot replace a wheel on your vehicle with another one unless it has TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) sensors in them compatible with the vehicle, and the sensors have been configured and interfaced with the vehicle's computer, which for many vehicles requires proprietary diagnostic hardware costing thousands of dollars. So in other words I can't undo 5 lug nuts and swap out my wheel with that off another vehicle thanks to federal law.
Ooooooohhhhh, wait. You're wanting a federal law the does the exact opposite of what the existing federal laws actually accomplish... Yeah, fat chance. Let the feds keep their sticky fingers out of my life as much as possible, thank you very much.
Yes, but isn't it always better when the government is the one making the decisions on where to redistribute that money? Since they, in their infinite wisdom, always know best?
This gives me an opportunity to rant about Apple, in regards to another self-serving, money-grabbing practice. I bought an Apple Watch from the local state government surplus. This is a place where surplus government property ends up when it is no longer needed. It is also where stuff from airports ends up - items that were confiscated (knives, corkscrews, toys that look in any way like a weapon, and other "dangerous" items) and stuff that was lost and never claimed.
I bought the watch knowing it may not even function (although it looked to be in perfect condition), because they did not have the means to charge and test it. They just liquidate whatever comes down the pipe. So I charge the watch and pair it up, and find it has an Activation Lock on it. Now this is a watch that sat at the airport for the prescribed legal amount of time and was never claimed, and then it went to the state level where it was also never claimed. So many months later (or a year or more - it's first gen watch) it was legally sold by the government to me.
So I came to a realization. I have no way of contacting the original owner. I can see that they have a gmail address, but Apple will not show the entire address. Apple will not contact them on my behalf, or otherwise do anything for me to get this watch back into their possession. I cannot use the watch. No one can (I spent a lot of time searching, and there is no way to circumvent at this time). In January Apple removed their online tool that lets people check if a phone or watch has an Activation Lock, so there is not even any good way to know a used Apple product of these types are usable.
So who does this serve? That's easy. Apple. Because I cannot get the watch back to the person who lost it, and because I cannot use it, this watch has been taken off the market. Each instance of a product taken off the market is one that does not complete against the sales of new products. Imagine if iPhones and Apple Watches could never be resold - it would result in a huge increase in sales of new devices (which are the only ones Apple profits off of directly). That is what this accomplishes, because you just never know if a used device is actually usable. It pretty much shuts down the ability for private individuals to resell on Ebay or any other way online that cannot be finalized in person, where the buyer can check the device before they buy it.
Sure, as a side affect, perhaps this reduces the theft of devices to some degree. I argue that is merely a minor side affect. Thieves are going to grab any device they have a good opportunity to take, because it could be an Android phone, or maybe an iPhone that was not registered with iCloud's Find my Device. But I argue the primary purpose is to increase Apple's profit margins further by "destroying" a significant number of devices that cannot be used by anyone else.
Let me play devil's advocate here. Let's say for a moment that the CIA does indeed have whatever hardware is required to easily brute force modern encryption with the current key lengths we are using. Maybe that's some sort of quantum device or perhaps they have access to standard computing power beyond what anyone imagines. That part doesn't matter for the sake of this argument.
What would you do if you were the CIA? How about release exactly the information we see here - information about some actual tools of some value, in addition to misinformation that makes appear they are stymied by the encryption and must instead go after the endpoints. So we feel all smug and secure, while in reality they can simply access the data in transit. They then use these tools and methods described in the leak as the smokescreen in court (when needed) to show standard methods for acquiring data that is more traditional and highly targeted to a specific device, both to keep their data legal as admissible evidence and to hide their true capabilities.
Or am I giving the CIA way, way too much credit here?
My system posts to twitter accounts automatically. I don't know if these are considered "bots" - they just post community alerts (weather and stuff), and that's all. However, I have noticed that within seconds of when my system tweets a URL, that URL is hit by upwards of 20 times (not by twitter) within a couple seconds. I presume these are the "bots" in question. Further, that happens to accounts that I just set up that don't even have any followers yet.
Men tend to initiate sex much more than women do. Men also tend to watch porn much more than women do. So I have a hunch the ease of access to porn has resulted in men getting their gratification alone while watching porn, thus less sex is taking place. Additionally the normal, average woman does not compare to your typical porn star, which may also result in men developing unrealistic standards and thus not having sex with their partner as much due to higher expectations.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you think IrDA is (was)? Same thing using infrared LEDs is all. It supported up to 115.2 kbit/s, and that's just on one "channel" (LED). Back in 2004 I bitbanged IrDA with a micro-controller in a homebrew PS1 controller adapter that allowed me to use the controller with a Pocket PC. It was one-way communication, because the controller just needed to communicate button presses to the Pocket PC. It worked quite well. Anyway, assuming there is a relatively low-level access for toggling the LEDs on or off on a [insert device name here], such a method of transmitting data is patently obvious...
The "scary" thing is that communications of this sort are far beyond the refresh rate of the human eye, and so the end result is that the LED simply looks about half the normal brightness and does not appear to pulsate or anything.
Self driving vehicles will have a profound affect on:
* The truck driving industry ($726 billion industry)
* The auto insurance market ($200 billion)
* Speeding ticket revenue ($6.2 billion annually - only counting speeding tickets and not other moving violations)
* Taxi and limousine services ($19 billion)
Just to mention a few of the obvious ones I bothered to get some numbers on. Self driving vehicles will represent the largest and fastest impact on humanity that technology has ever caused. Even the introduction of the automobile itself was of limited and slow impact, because the primitive road system and lack of fuel sources severely curtailed their use. We will hit some critical adoption point in self driving cars which will cause an avalanche in adoption. When self driving semi trucks reach a point of stability and usability, trucking companies will have no choice but immediately adopt them or else their competitors will crush them with lower shipping rates (say it costs $40,000 add-on for self-driving technology, which is the average annual salary of a truck driver - it would pay for itself in about 3-4 months, as a self driving truck can operate 24/7 without stopping, driving the equivalent amount a truck driver does in an entire year in just a few months).
At some critical threshold, government will begin to designate certain lanes, and then entire roadways, for self-driving car use only, as a 100% system of self driving cars can operate at much faster speeds and dynamically adjust speed to match terrain in order to optimize energy efficiency. A 100% self driving car system needs no road signs, stop signs, or traffic signals of any kind, and vehicles will not ever have to stop until they reach their destination. All of these benefits will accelerate adoption of self driving cars significantly once some certain threshold of adoption occurs.
Point of fact, there are a very small number of ways to solve simple, college level problems.
From a algorithmic sense yes, from an implementation sense, no. You are to write a function to calculate the nth number in the Fibonacci sequence, using only operators inherent to the language (IE no math libraries). What will you name the function? What will you name your variables? Will you use an iterative method, and thus will you use a for loop, or a do...while loop. Will you count up or count down? Or will you use a recursive function? Or perhaps you do some research and discover Binet's formula which calculates a Fibonacci number without iteration.
I guarantee you if you ask 20 developers to write that function, you will get 20 different implementations that differ quite enough to tell they are not copies of one another.
Back in the early 90s I was an assistant to a CS instructor, and one of my jobs was to grade assignments (if you ever have the opportunity I strongly recommend doing so - it's amazing to see the very different ways students go about solving a problem, as well as the vast difference in coding styles, etc). It was blatantly obvious when students had collaborated, and I would point out to the instructor which students appeared to have shared code with one another.
Also at this point in time in the 90s, the ability to find source code for use in very specific programming assignments was very difficult if not impossible. The WWW was in its infancy, and the only real options were gopher or Usenet. In the case of the latter, it was very clear when people were asking others to do their assignment for them, and typically several posters would call them out on that.
In fact, this is the only historical topic that is regulated by penal law.
Oh really? Do you just make this up as you go along? Try discussing "Tiananmen Square" online in China. Or, well, nearly anything in North Korea that doesn't portray their history in a glowing light.
This brings up an interesting philosophical / moral issue. The release of this kind of source code, by Wikileaks and others, is literally giving military grade weapons to anyone with the modicum of technical knowledge required to wield it. Fortunately, in this case, the person setting it loose didn't have the technical aptitude (or couldn't even be bothered with) looking at the code and disabling or properly securing the "kill switch".
It makes me wonder if those responsible for releasing and distributing this tool to the public could be held responsible (at least in civil courts) for the damage caused by it.
The vast bulk of this kind of ad infested crap I see on Facebook is from sponsored content (IE paid ads) that have nothing to do with my actual newsfeed (as in the friends and pages I have elected to follow). They are not viral things being shared, but content actively promoted by Facebook for money. Many of these sites are so polluted with ads and broken up into so many pages you have to click through that they literally are non-functional. I wonder if Facebook is going to reduce their revenue and prevent these kinds of sponsored content?
I find the prose and opinion in these kinds of news stories to be annoying. Whether or not I agree or disagree with the bias of this particular story, the "Back to the poor workers, though" bit had me wondering if one of the worker's grandmothers wrote this news or what.
You can't kill a cartoon character. You can drop an anvil on his head. You can slingshot him into a mountain. You can blow him up with TNT. All these things (and more) happen to a particular coyote, and yet every week, he still comes back. Maybe limping and wrapped in bandages, or blackened from the explosion, but alive nonetheless.
Everyone in Toon Town knows how to kill a cartoon character - a solution of turpentine, acetone, and benzene.
Since more scientists are better, why doesn't the government just employ ALL the scientists? This 18 member panel didn't actually do scientific work, but they reviewed the scientific work of the actual working scientists, so that makes them more like bureaucratic scientists? The scientific work produced by the EPA should be peer reviewed in any case, and not reviewed by a static group of scientists that almost certainly have a net bias towards the viewpoints of whatever administration made the decision to hire each of them.
The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term.
Well that's just ridiculous. I hope no one believed that had any merit in reality.
Yeah, because brick and mortar stores have never had flash sales and temporary price reductions people would literally have to run across the store to take advantage of. And Home Shopping Network, QVC, etc, never reduced prices on things at different times of the day or when inventory didn't sell as expected.
While I didn't understand all the technical details, I thought it was fantastic that he presented that level of detail. Thank you!
I am curious about the sodium vs lithium characteristics, as he mentioned them several times. He stated the sodium discharge rate is 0.3 V less than lithium (three times, to be exact). What exactly does this mean? Would a sodium battery have to be larger / heavier than a lithium ion to generate the same voltage? Does it mean it cannot charge or discharge as fast? I'm just curious what the ramifications are. For many applications, like storage of solar generated power in a home, size and weight is not an issue at all. If sodium based batteries are cheaper and safer, even if they were double the size, they would still win out in that application.
Same here. I got mine towards the end of its life cycle apparently, just before TI stopped selling them. In fact I think the price was reduced tremendously because of that. I was around 10 at the time. I did always envy my friend's C64 though. The TI cartridge games were pretty decent for the time, but its BASIC was very limited and slow, so the TI versions of the programs in Compute! magazine were always pretty pitiful compared to the C64 versions.
Ahh, the mysteries of the universe that we cannot fathom. Such as why this is a dupe of a story posted just yesterday....
https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...
Why is the FCC, which is responsible for regulation of the use of the radio spectrum, considering social aspects when making decisions regarding the technical feasibility of using cell phones on planes? The only factor should be whether or not the use of these devices interferes with the avionics of the aircraft, which we know is not an issue (although the airlines always threw that nebulous excuse out there in the past). I once worked in a hospital that wouldn't let the doctors install a WiFi access point in their private lounge (back when WiFi first came on the scene) because "it would probably interfere with the telemetry of the medical equipment". Both are red herrings and using technical aspects as an excuse to cover for other reasons (unreasonable fear of culpability, protecting monopolistic practices, etc).
My point is that the FCC should not be in a *conversation* with the airlines regarding what they may or may not prefer when the FCC makes *technical* decisions regarding the use of radio devices.
I noticed this in the mainstream media. Suddenly every branch of government in the executive branch is now "The Trump Administration". Well, at least when it can be reported in a negative light. US Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security, requested the information. We might as well just rename every single part of the Executive branch "The Trump Administration" to make the cost of printing letterheads and business cards much cheaper (you know, bulk discount).
For instance, take a look at this article about Fast and Furious: http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27/...
CNN reported that the ATF did this, and not "The Obama Administration".
I just find the incessant and obviously biased reporting annoying.
Ahhh. You mean something like federal laws regarding the repair of your personal vehicle. Like, for example, the federal law that says you cannot replace a wheel on your vehicle with another one unless it has TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) sensors in them compatible with the vehicle, and the sensors have been configured and interfaced with the vehicle's computer, which for many vehicles requires proprietary diagnostic hardware costing thousands of dollars. So in other words I can't undo 5 lug nuts and swap out my wheel with that off another vehicle thanks to federal law.
Ooooooohhhhh, wait. You're wanting a federal law the does the exact opposite of what the existing federal laws actually accomplish... Yeah, fat chance. Let the feds keep their sticky fingers out of my life as much as possible, thank you very much.
alektorophobia
How many years have you been waiting for the opportunity to use that word?
He was going to use an NES console for the dock, but he didn't want to have to blow on the Switch every time he went to dock it.
I can't wait until self-driving cars become the norm and totally screw these local governments out of these sources of "revenue".
Yes, but isn't it always better when the government is the one making the decisions on where to redistribute that money? Since they, in their infinite wisdom, always know best?
This gives me an opportunity to rant about Apple, in regards to another self-serving, money-grabbing practice. I bought an Apple Watch from the local state government surplus. This is a place where surplus government property ends up when it is no longer needed. It is also where stuff from airports ends up - items that were confiscated (knives, corkscrews, toys that look in any way like a weapon, and other "dangerous" items) and stuff that was lost and never claimed.
I bought the watch knowing it may not even function (although it looked to be in perfect condition), because they did not have the means to charge and test it. They just liquidate whatever comes down the pipe. So I charge the watch and pair it up, and find it has an Activation Lock on it. Now this is a watch that sat at the airport for the prescribed legal amount of time and was never claimed, and then it went to the state level where it was also never claimed. So many months later (or a year or more - it's first gen watch) it was legally sold by the government to me.
So I came to a realization. I have no way of contacting the original owner. I can see that they have a gmail address, but Apple will not show the entire address. Apple will not contact them on my behalf, or otherwise do anything for me to get this watch back into their possession. I cannot use the watch. No one can (I spent a lot of time searching, and there is no way to circumvent at this time). In January Apple removed their online tool that lets people check if a phone or watch has an Activation Lock, so there is not even any good way to know a used Apple product of these types are usable.
So who does this serve? That's easy. Apple. Because I cannot get the watch back to the person who lost it, and because I cannot use it, this watch has been taken off the market. Each instance of a product taken off the market is one that does not complete against the sales of new products. Imagine if iPhones and Apple Watches could never be resold - it would result in a huge increase in sales of new devices (which are the only ones Apple profits off of directly). That is what this accomplishes, because you just never know if a used device is actually usable. It pretty much shuts down the ability for private individuals to resell on Ebay or any other way online that cannot be finalized in person, where the buyer can check the device before they buy it.
Sure, as a side affect, perhaps this reduces the theft of devices to some degree. I argue that is merely a minor side affect. Thieves are going to grab any device they have a good opportunity to take, because it could be an Android phone, or maybe an iPhone that was not registered with iCloud's Find my Device. But I argue the primary purpose is to increase Apple's profit margins further by "destroying" a significant number of devices that cannot be used by anyone else.
Let me play devil's advocate here. Let's say for a moment that the CIA does indeed have whatever hardware is required to easily brute force modern encryption with the current key lengths we are using. Maybe that's some sort of quantum device or perhaps they have access to standard computing power beyond what anyone imagines. That part doesn't matter for the sake of this argument.
What would you do if you were the CIA? How about release exactly the information we see here - information about some actual tools of some value, in addition to misinformation that makes appear they are stymied by the encryption and must instead go after the endpoints. So we feel all smug and secure, while in reality they can simply access the data in transit. They then use these tools and methods described in the leak as the smokescreen in court (when needed) to show standard methods for acquiring data that is more traditional and highly targeted to a specific device, both to keep their data legal as admissible evidence and to hide their true capabilities.
Or am I giving the CIA way, way too much credit here?
My system posts to twitter accounts automatically. I don't know if these are considered "bots" - they just post community alerts (weather and stuff), and that's all. However, I have noticed that within seconds of when my system tweets a URL, that URL is hit by upwards of 20 times (not by twitter) within a couple seconds. I presume these are the "bots" in question. Further, that happens to accounts that I just set up that don't even have any followers yet.
Men tend to initiate sex much more than women do. Men also tend to watch porn much more than women do. So I have a hunch the ease of access to porn has resulted in men getting their gratification alone while watching porn, thus less sex is taking place. Additionally the normal, average woman does not compare to your typical porn star, which may also result in men developing unrealistic standards and thus not having sex with their partner as much due to higher expectations.