The Slashdot-linked review didn't seem to have the price, either, and that is listed as between $123.12 and $148.12, depending on what features you wanted.
As the price of LCDs/video display hardware comes down in price and weight (rollup plastic, I suppose, being the holy grail), you're going to find these displays plastered on everything from teeshirts to bookbags to menus, but the first place we'll see them would be on laptops because they're high-ticket items, get a lot of gee-wiz word-of-mouth hype and cars are too big.
Now all we need is for thermoptic camoflage technology to catch up... =)
Image a beowulf of these connected by Tolkien-ring with DRM and I'm not going to buy one until it supports the Ogg Vorbis format and...oh, I'll just STFU now...
I've seen more than enough movies to realize that this is a mere cover story to hide the real purpose of this "container" -- sheilding a priveleged few thousand against a rogue earthbound asteroid.
I'll bet you ten bucks that nobody knows where Bruce Willis is right now, either.
From the article: The Durabooks technology allows for another way to tire your hand while taking a bath with an erotica book. "If you masturbate in the bathtub, that's part of the idea -- even though it doesn't say it in the promotional material," Mohanraj said. "If you get distracted, it's not so bad to drop the book in the bathtub." Mohanraj said the book's pages withstand not only bath water, but also bodily fluids and sex oils. Wine, however, will stain the pages.
I'm not even going to sully this visual with my own commentary.
My advice would be to come up with a good idea and use your skills to implement it. Sure, maxims like "they'll always have a need for more programmers" might come and go like so many packets but one thing that really never will die is the need to buy goods and services. Provide one or the other and do it smartly and you'll probably be a lot better off than you could have dreamed working for someone else.
Kilmor writes: "what version of windows are you using?" "its a dell."
My all-time fave is:
"Ok, you're gonna have to get out your Windows CD." "Where would I find that?" [long pause] "...you're asking me where you'd find your Windows CD?" [No hint of anger or sarcasm] "Yes."
While I greatly appreciate his taking the time to write this thing, I'm somewhat amused that he signed it with his in-game moniker. If this is such a vile addiction and he theoretically recognizes it as such...why is he still playing?
Again, David, if you're reading this, I don't intend this as a flame. I doubt I'd ever start playing but your post pretty much put the nail in the coffin and for that I'd like to thank you for your efforts. But...jeepers. Just stop.
First, thanks for your intelligent and well thought-out reply. It's kinda rare these days. Hence my sig. Anyway...
balloonhead writes: "The book itself I have read some of - it makes a series of excellent points; one of which in the tagline - "notes on an imperfect science". We don't know very much about the human body compared to how much there is. All a doctor has to go on is a series of symptoms and an examination, followed by some lab tests. Most illnesses are diagnosed from the symptoms. Surprisingly few from the examination. Lab tests are mostly non-specific - they can confirm or refute your diagnosis, but a minority will actually make a diagnosis on their own."
"The problem is that symptoms are very non-specific. Only a tiny minority of people with chest pain have a cardiac (or other "serious")cause for it. At the same time, a few people will have a serious disease but the symptoms are not typical of it. Do you investigate everyone for every disease? No, takes far too much resources with only a tiny return. What is done instead is the doctor listens to the story, examines the patient, and tests for the likely (in view of his findings) causative process, and also any serious (i.e. missing these would be bad shit) things which might give similar symptoms."
Agreed. But this is why I placed the "with a rate of success that is expected for that same illness or complication" caveat.
"Bear in mind another few things - half of all people are below average intelligence; i.e. half of physicians are of below average ability; symptoms are often misleading, and tests and investigative surgery can cause their own problems, and you see my point - any area of medicine is a risk/benefit analysis. At the end of the day it's all probability - gambling with your life, in essence."
Mm. Good point there. Elimination of the lower half would just raise the bar and create a new level of "deficiency."
"One or both of them might be competent or not. But the fact that someone suffers a complication is a far more difficult question to deal with - it may be that no one is at fault. Some of these things simply just happen."
I agree. But it is the reaction to it that I'm concerned about. I believe that if a panel of peers (ie, doctors) cannot unanimously or near-unanimously agree that the doctor was greviously in error they should not be cited for it. I think fellow doctors would be sensitive to what a doctor can and cannot do. But then you have the invisible flipside -- the financial pressure on an institution when a lawsuit is brought to bear. Then the doc is the sacrificial lamb. So I would advise that the review board be entirely seperate from the organization or institution with which the doctor is affiliated.
The prestige, money, respect and social status that come with being a doctor comes with a commensurate price -- that price being an extremely high expectation of capability. I don't have a problem with this. If you aren't damned sure that you can handle the complications of an illness with a rate of success that is expected for that same illness or complication, then you shouldn't be a doctor.
I'm not advocating open season on doctors without a good cause. Some things just can't be fixed. My father had a heart attack (first and last) at the age of 38 and died in front of a 30 year old doctor who I'm told was seriously rattled by losing so young a patient. I don't blame him in any way whatsoever, my father treated his body like crap. But if a good, sincere, well-meaning doctor does fumble the ball then I don't have a problem with stripping them of the fruits of their 8 years of college.
I'm not sure that we should view a doctors credentials as any more sacred than that doctor views their patients life.
Pat__ writes: "When my phone is lying around somewhere in the house or in my pocket while I am driving and it rings, ringtones (used with caller groups) allow me to know if it is some friend calling and I can find the phone and check out who later when I am free or some urgent call from work so I know I should interrupt whatever I am doing/pull over and answer or call back asap."
I agree that distinctive rings can be useful and even enjoyable with such advances as polyphonic capabilities, but I don't see it becoming some cultural wave that the article implies. Not here.
From the article: Approximately 50 percent of Europeans under the age of 30 have downloaded ring tones, according to Stonefield, who believes the U.S. market is ripe for similar growth. "There is no way that kind of distribution is going to be held back; it is a real social trend," he said.
Yes, it is a social trend, but not a U.S. one.
Most of the fads we see tend to have some obvious -- if obnoxious -- logic to it. Macarena? Catchy and annoying as all get-out. Pokemon? Competition, community, kids running around saying dumb things (which is precisely what kids are supposed to do). Micro RC cars? Cute and disturbingly entertaining to everyone but our employers and cats. I could go on for quite some time but because I wish to annoy you, the gracious reader, as little as possible, I'll get right to the point.
What do frickin' ringtones offer?
"Oh, hey! Cool, Rock Me Amadaeus as a ringtone! Sweet!... Hm. Hey, so anyway, did you watch Friends last night?..."
This is not a U.S. phenomenon and it won't ever be a U.S. phenominon. I'm not trying to imply that the United States is somehow more sophisticated, I'm suggesting that Americans tend to view cellphones ringing about as enjoyable as listening to a car alarm going off. And not because they're boring, monotone and tedious, either. We dislike the phone because it represents an interruption, rendered jarringly, like an audial ICQ popup (though I'm told they don't do that anymore).
Again, from the article: "This is huge," said Jay A. Samit, senior vice president for new media at music label EMI Group PLC. "This is the largest growth area for music companies and our artists."
This is a sign that companies are literally scraping the bottom of the barrel, not the bleeding edge of the Next Great Thing.
Stories about wiring up your house for Christmas -- I don't care how you go about doing it -- should not ever hit Slashdot unless it can be seen from space.
What would be really sweet is if they could hook up some really enormous piledriver-like devices all over the park and synchronize them falling with the steps of the anamatron. That way it would have that hyper-realistic whole-earth-shuddering effect during each footfall.
"Mom,...where is my computer??" "Your... Oh! Well, see...uh...your father...bowling......oh dear..." [at the lanes] "Biff, any idea why your ball hit the ten-pin and exploded, man?"
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.bit-tech.net/review/77/
http://www.matrixorbital.com/products/vk204-25.htm
The Slashdot-linked review didn't seem to have the price, either, and that is listed as between $123.12 and $148.12, depending on what features you wanted.
As the price of LCDs/video display hardware comes down in price and weight (rollup plastic, I suppose, being the holy grail), you're going to find these displays plastered on everything from teeshirts to bookbags to menus, but the first place we'll see them would be on laptops because they're high-ticket items, get a lot of gee-wiz word-of-mouth hype and cars are too big.
Now all we need is for thermoptic camoflage technology to catch up... =)
Image a beowulf of these connected by Tolkien-ring with DRM and I'm not going to buy one until it supports the Ogg Vorbis format and ...oh, I'll just STFU now...
You know, I noticed that counter too, but it didn't occur to me what would happen as a result.
That's going to be one confused webmaster...
"What the 1234 is a 'Slashdot'??"
I've seen more than enough movies to realize that this is a mere cover story to hide the real purpose of this "container" -- sheilding a priveleged few thousand against a rogue earthbound asteroid.
I'll bet you ten bucks that nobody knows where Bruce Willis is right now, either.
Can't fool ME.
Leave it to the Russians to come up with a solution that is, in essence, one big matrioshka doll.
Now I want to see the heir of the peasant who invented these things sue for IP infringement.
From the article:
The Durabooks technology allows for another way to tire your hand while taking a bath with an erotica book. "If you masturbate in the bathtub, that's part of the idea -- even though it doesn't say it in the promotional material," Mohanraj said. "If you get distracted, it's not so bad to drop the book in the bathtub." Mohanraj said the book's pages withstand not only bath water, but also bodily fluids and sex oils. Wine, however, will stain the pages.
I'm not even going to sully this visual with my own commentary.
I was three and I remember this because a fish vendor asked me how old I was and I said, amazingly enough, "three." =)
My advice would be to come up with a good idea and use your skills to implement it. Sure, maxims like "they'll always have a need for more programmers" might come and go like so many packets but one thing that really never will die is the need to buy goods and services. Provide one or the other and do it smartly and you'll probably be a lot better off than you could have dreamed working for someone else.
Kilmor writes:
"what version of windows are you using?"
"its a dell."
My all-time fave is:
"Ok, you're gonna have to get out your Windows CD."
"Where would I find that?"
[long pause] "...you're asking me where you'd find your Windows CD?"
[No hint of anger or sarcasm] "Yes."
While I greatly appreciate his taking the time to write this thing, I'm somewhat amused that he signed it with his in-game moniker. If this is such a vile addiction and he theoretically recognizes it as such ...why is he still playing?
...jeepers. Just stop.
Again, David, if you're reading this, I don't intend this as a flame. I doubt I'd ever start playing but your post pretty much put the nail in the coffin and for that I'd like to thank you for your efforts. But
First, thanks for your intelligent and well thought-out reply. It's kinda rare these days. Hence my sig. Anyway...
balloonhead writes:
"The book itself I have read some of - it makes a series of excellent points; one of which in the tagline - "notes on an imperfect science". We don't know very much about the human body compared to how much there is. All a doctor has to go on is a series of symptoms and an examination, followed by some lab tests. Most illnesses are diagnosed from the symptoms. Surprisingly few from the examination. Lab tests are mostly non-specific - they can confirm or refute your diagnosis, but a minority will actually make a diagnosis on their own."
I would have more respect for this angle if doctors weren't so opposed to tools specifically designed to aid them dramatically in this area.
"The problem is that symptoms are very non-specific. Only a tiny minority of people with chest pain have a cardiac (or other "serious")cause for it. At the same time, a few people will have a serious disease but the symptoms are not typical of it. Do you investigate everyone for every disease? No, takes far too much resources with only a tiny return. What is done instead is the doctor listens to the story, examines the patient, and tests for the likely (in view of his findings) causative process, and also any serious (i.e. missing these would be bad shit) things which might give similar symptoms."
Agreed. But this is why I placed the "with a rate of success that is expected for that same illness or complication" caveat.
"Bear in mind another few things - half of all people are below average intelligence; i.e. half of physicians are of below average ability; symptoms are often misleading, and tests and investigative surgery can cause their own problems, and you see my point - any area of medicine is a risk/benefit analysis. At the end of the day it's all probability - gambling with your life, in essence."
Mm. Good point there. Elimination of the lower half would just raise the bar and create a new level of "deficiency."
"One or both of them might be competent or not. But the fact that someone suffers a complication is a far more difficult question to deal with - it may be that no one is at fault. Some of these things simply just happen."
I agree. But it is the reaction to it that I'm concerned about. I believe that if a panel of peers (ie, doctors) cannot unanimously or near-unanimously agree that the doctor was greviously in error they should not be cited for it. I think fellow doctors would be sensitive to what a doctor can and cannot do. But then you have the invisible flipside -- the financial pressure on an institution when a lawsuit is brought to bear. Then the doc is the sacrificial lamb. So I would advise that the review board be entirely seperate from the organization or institution with which the doctor is affiliated.
The prestige, money, respect and social status that come with being a doctor comes with a commensurate price -- that price being an extremely high expectation of capability. I don't have a problem with this. If you aren't damned sure that you can handle the complications of an illness with a rate of success that is expected for that same illness or complication, then you shouldn't be a doctor.
I'm not advocating open season on doctors without a good cause. Some things just can't be fixed. My father had a heart attack (first and last) at the age of 38 and died in front of a 30 year old doctor who I'm told was seriously rattled by losing so young a patient. I don't blame him in any way whatsoever, my father treated his body like crap. But if a good, sincere, well-meaning doctor does fumble the ball then I don't have a problem with stripping them of the fruits of their 8 years of college.
I'm not sure that we should view a doctors credentials as any more sacred than that doctor views their patients life.
Pat__ writes:
"When my phone is lying around somewhere in the house or in my pocket while I am driving and it rings, ringtones (used with caller groups) allow me to know if it is some friend calling and I can find the phone and check out who later when I am free or some urgent call from work so I know I should interrupt whatever I am doing/pull over and answer or call back asap."
I agree that distinctive rings can be useful and even enjoyable with such advances as polyphonic capabilities, but I don't see it becoming some cultural wave that the article implies. Not here.
From the article:
... Hm. Hey, so anyway, did you watch Friends last night?..."
Approximately 50 percent of Europeans under the age of 30 have downloaded ring tones, according to Stonefield, who believes the U.S. market is ripe for similar growth. "There is no way that kind of distribution is going to be held back; it is a real social trend," he said.
Yes, it is a social trend, but not a U.S. one.
Most of the fads we see tend to have some obvious -- if obnoxious -- logic to it. Macarena? Catchy and annoying as all get-out. Pokemon? Competition, community, kids running around saying dumb things (which is precisely what kids are supposed to do). Micro RC cars? Cute and disturbingly entertaining to everyone but our employers and cats. I could go on for quite some time but because I wish to annoy you, the gracious reader, as little as possible, I'll get right to the point.
What do frickin' ringtones offer?
"Oh, hey! Cool, Rock Me Amadaeus as a ringtone! Sweet!
This is not a U.S. phenomenon and it won't ever be a U.S. phenominon. I'm not trying to imply that the United States is somehow more sophisticated, I'm suggesting that Americans tend to view cellphones ringing about as enjoyable as listening to a car alarm going off. And not because they're boring, monotone and tedious, either. We dislike the phone because it represents an interruption, rendered jarringly, like an audial ICQ popup (though I'm told they don't do that anymore).
Again, from the article:
"This is huge," said Jay A. Samit, senior vice president for new media at music label EMI Group PLC. "This is the largest growth area for music companies and our artists."
This is a sign that companies are literally scraping the bottom of the barrel, not the bleeding edge of the Next Great Thing.
I am spending this Annual Gift Exchange holiday coding as usual. And happy about it, too.
From the article:
"Users are required to lock into a seven-month contract in return for a modem, or power socket."
Now all we need is a PCMCIA version. Then we'll have a modem that gets its electricity from the computer and the information from the wall outlet.
And you thought tech support had it rough now...
"Nono, sir, you don't..."
[BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZttt *spark, *fssszt]
Raetsel writes:
"...and featured a helmet shaker that would get your attention when you were about to run out of fuel."
Later models included a helmet puncher, throat throttler or nut twister as a standard option.
He should probably leave this thing on the rack today.
"MOM! MOM!! I just saw Stanta fly by!!"
*THUD!
[child sobbing]
http://www.dreamalitytechnologies.com/ultralight.h tm
Stories about wiring up your house for Christmas -- I don't care how you go about doing it -- should not ever hit Slashdot unless it can be seen from space.
KarmaWhiners writes:
"This account blacklists people who whine about karma."
Does this mean you blacklist yourself?
Oh, and while I'm at it:
http://www.fivefoot6.com/karma/index.html
prostoalex writes:
"...that is supposed to deliver a 1.5 TB (that's a terabyte and a half)..."
Is this for all the people who think that 1.5 means "one and a third"?
What would be really sweet is if they could hook up some really enormous piledriver-like devices all over the park and synchronize them falling with the steps of the anamatron. That way it would have that hyper-realistic whole-earth-shuddering effect during each footfall.
"Mom, ...where is my computer??" ...uh ...your father ...bowling... ...oh dear..."
"Your... Oh! Well, see
[at the lanes]
"Biff, any idea why your ball hit the ten-pin and exploded, man?"