Like...sixteen different branded "social media" attempts by everybody and their brother...
*Sigh*
Don't get me wrong. Technically, I think VR is cool.
As an end-user, and one who's getting older and less tolerant of bullshit, the current and even upcoming additions to VR a just nowhere even CLOSE.
Honestly, it's really 10+ years from market ready. And even further from "widespread adoption".
Mainly because people keep trying to reinvent solutions to 2D problems for a 3D medium. Rather than actually figuring out what a 3D VR environment is good for on its own and using that as the "killer app".
The universe is expanding. As it expands, attractant forces (like gravity) hold less and less sway over things. Without that "drag", more distant objects are speeding up. We're starting to get to the point that certain objects are far enough away that, unless we find a BIG loophole in physics someplace, we'll never be able to reach them. And unless we find it SOON, we'll lose track of these objects, thus pretty much negating our ability to plot a course to them at all.
That's the nice thing about the scientific method.
Also, in the case of nuclear, and just general environmentalism, cheaper, cleaner power that destroys our dependency on fossil fuels and just generally leaving the earth a cleaner place than we left it is NEVER a bad idea. REGARDLESS of what any given person thinks about global warming/cooling/climate change/what-have-you.
And NO, we don't have to use 50 year old fission-based BWR forever. There are advanced reactor designs out there that are much MUCH safer. Once our power infrastructure is in place, we can pursue even cleaner nuclear fusion.
Renewables (plus storage) will help us cut off problems with peak demand. But anyone telling you that we can go it alone on JUST renewables is lying, selling you something (see lying) or doing some really NASTY hallucinogens and grossly misinformed.
Because hey! Analog audio from a digital source is warmer 'eh?
Because hey! Pops and cracks show higher fidelity, right?
Because using the entire disk and recording out to the end, resulting in lousier sound quality is just the COOL thing to do, hmm?
Or is it just the fact that an irrelevant market of dopey hipster wannabes and nostalgia junkies have convinced themselves of something that is staving off final death of the medium? And that the industry's revenue outlook is so bad that they'll jump onto this little gravy train and ride it like a $5 whore with a time limit.
Occam's Razor pretty much illuminates our way at several quadrillion candle power here.
Anyone who thought that tablets were going to cannibalize the entire PC sector were delusional at best. There was no way in hell this was going to happen.
Yes, for a small segment, mainly those who can get away with cheap, lightweight laptops, a tablet was probably a better fit.
But for any sort of power use, or business productivity? There's no way in hell a tablet was EVER going to replace high-end laptops and workstations. The form-factor was just too rigidly circumscribed and limited.
Yes. But I also KEEP and REREAD my books. So I ammortize out the cost of the book over multiple years. Hell, I have books I've been reading for 20-30 years! $5.99/360=1.663 cents/month. And, if I don't buy another book this month, I still have all the books I've already read. They don't get taken away from me until I pay my sub again.
What if we include everybody listening to that beady-eyed mop-headed 70's hippie John Denver? If we pipe his crappy folk music into the air will it absorb some of the carbon?
No, but if I understand movies right, lots of people will die in mysterious, Rube Goldberg-ian ways.
No. I fully believe that the cars HAVE reached that point.
The thing is, many people (including legislators and insurance underwriters) don't trust such a system yet. Thus, the car has conventional controls as a "failover to manual" in cases of catastrophic systems failure.
Honestly, while I believe that you can build self-driving cars. And that they can be safer. *I*, personally, don't want one. Put simply, I refuse to relinquish that level of control over my driving experience. Ever.
Well, maybe when I'm in my 80's or something. By that point, I'll have little left to lose.
Sorry, but it HAS been shown that pain can be an effective teacher.
I'd rather it be the pain of an occasional swat on the ass building an aversion to a dangerous activity than something far worse (like following through on said dangerous activity and being injured).
Most of these are little sweatshop ops out of India, China and Eastern Europe.
Microsoft can scream at the FTC all damn day. These guys, if caught, just uproot, disappear, and come back under another business name, registering new phone numbers, etc.
Sorry, but your right to harass and harangue me ends when I tell you it does.
If you insist on carrying it further, be prepared for the repercussions.
You still have the right to free speech. You simply don't have the right to force people to listen to your drivel.
And yes, I'm one of those people who, when they say "Leave me the fuck alone or I'll blow your head off." MEANS "Leave me the fuck alone or I'll blow your head off."
What conflict? Some jackass gets up in my face, telling me what I "ought to do" or "ought to say" or "ought to be", I tell them to fuck off and tongue my ass-crack while they're at it.
If they persist in getting in my face, I claim self defense and shoot the motherfucker in the face with a high-caliber weapon to insure INSTANT harmony.
Seriously. This kinds of shit is why they pissed away their market lead and utterly destroyed their entire market share.
They keep going for a minute market segment that barely exists, and thinks that the rest of us will hop on board to be with "the cool kids".
What they don't understand is that they've drawn themselves a venn diagram and aimed for the absolute smallest piece of the pie.
Yes, it doesn't require the kind of investment that aiming for a larger market segment does.
But, if you miss with that segment, you crash and burn.
And worse, they aren't even doing the research to even verify the market segment they're aiming for:
A) Can handle the entrance of the device. B) Exists in the first palce
RIM has been dogfooding so long that they're institutionally blind.
I had a buddy at RIM try to tell me their tablet device was going to rock the market. Couldn't understand why I laughed and laughed and fell on the floor and laughed some more when he told me I basically had to buy into RIM's entire hardware ecosystem to take advantage of the thing. That it wasn't available as a stand-alone device.
Not sure that he still works there. Hopefully the high-decibel flushing sound that's been going on at RIM for the last decade or so will have infused him with a little perspective. Even if his bosses are still acid-tripping on ground up Blackberry 10 phones.
Basically what you're saying is that you've been brainwashed into "vinyl is better". People keep talking about the "experience".
I've listened to good music on vinyl. I've listened to good music on high definition digital audio.
I've also listened to good music compressed down to 128K MP3 files.
I'm VERY aware of the difference.
It's like kopi luwak coffee. It's not that the end product is really and truly better. It's that there's a marketing ploy behind it. They're not selling a physical product. They're selling a story and a mindset.
If you want to buy into it, great. But you're pretty much going to have to put up with everyone else laughing at you.
Meanwhile, an industry pro WITH A VESTED INTEREST IN THE SUCCESS OF VINYL offers his take on the endless debate of audio differences between analog records and digital formats
Slashdot Mirror
Yup! VR is The Next Big Thing!
It's going to change the world!
Like...touchscreens..
Like...tablets...
Like...webcams...
Like...sixteen different branded "social media" attempts by everybody and their brother...
*Sigh*
Don't get me wrong. Technically, I think VR is cool.
As an end-user, and one who's getting older and less tolerant of bullshit, the current and even upcoming additions to VR a just nowhere even CLOSE.
Honestly, it's really 10+ years from market ready. And even further from "widespread adoption".
Mainly because people keep trying to reinvent solutions to 2D problems for a 3D medium. Rather than actually figuring out what a 3D VR environment is good for on its own and using that as the "killer app".
The universe is expanding.
As it expands, attractant forces (like gravity) hold less and less sway over things.
Without that "drag", more distant objects are speeding up.
We're starting to get to the point that certain objects are far enough away that, unless we find a BIG loophole in physics someplace, we'll never be able to reach them. And unless we find it SOON, we'll lose track of these objects, thus pretty much negating our ability to plot a course to them at all.
Because agreement isn't required.
That's the nice thing about the scientific method.
Also, in the case of nuclear, and just general environmentalism, cheaper, cleaner power that destroys our dependency on fossil fuels and just generally leaving the earth a cleaner place than we left it is NEVER a bad idea. REGARDLESS of what any given person thinks about global warming/cooling/climate change/what-have-you.
And NO, we don't have to use 50 year old fission-based BWR forever. There are advanced reactor designs out there that are much MUCH safer.
Once our power infrastructure is in place, we can pursue even cleaner nuclear fusion.
Renewables (plus storage) will help us cut off problems with peak demand. But anyone telling you that we can go it alone on JUST renewables is lying, selling you something (see lying) or doing some really NASTY hallucinogens and grossly misinformed.
As hipster douchebaggery does.
Because hey! Analog audio from a digital source is warmer 'eh?
Because hey! Pops and cracks show higher fidelity, right?
Because using the entire disk and recording out to the end, resulting in lousier sound quality is just the COOL thing to do, hmm?
Or is it just the fact that an irrelevant market of dopey hipster wannabes and nostalgia junkies have convinced themselves of something that is staving off final death of the medium? And that the industry's revenue outlook is so bad that they'll jump onto this little gravy train and ride it like a $5 whore with a time limit.
Occam's Razor pretty much illuminates our way at several quadrillion candle power here.
Are they going to get Kevin Trudeau to hawk it?
Anyone who thought that tablets were going to cannibalize the entire PC sector were delusional at best.
There was no way in hell this was going to happen.
Yes, for a small segment, mainly those who can get away with cheap, lightweight laptops, a tablet was probably a better fit.
But for any sort of power use, or business productivity? There's no way in hell a tablet was EVER going to replace high-end laptops and workstations. The form-factor was just too rigidly circumscribed and limited.
Amortizing the cost doesn't decrease it, it just spreads it out over a period of time
Yes. But taking the amortized cost of my library versus an ongoing $10/month subscription fee?
Buying the books is still a better investment long-term.
Do you spend $120 a year on books?
Yes. But I also KEEP and REREAD my books. So I ammortize out the cost of the book over multiple years. Hell, I have books I've been reading for 20-30 years! $5.99/360=1.663 cents/month.
And, if I don't buy another book this month, I still have all the books I've already read. They don't get taken away from me until I pay my sub again.
What if we include everybody listening to that beady-eyed mop-headed 70's hippie John Denver? If we pipe his crappy folk music into the air will it absorb some of the carbon?
No, but if I understand movies right, lots of people will die in mysterious, Rube Goldberg-ian ways.
That might help balance things out.
I wanna know when *I* am going to get an internet connection worth a tinker's damn!
If not, then no.
Video games can be serious pass-times, and have their own internal/external structures to foster competition.
But they are NOT "sports", any more than "competitive long-duration sitting" is a sport.
Yes, a certain modicum of physical skill is required for competitive play.
However, some of it can be substituted for using technology.
No. I fully believe that the cars HAVE reached that point.
The thing is, many people (including legislators and insurance underwriters) don't trust such a system yet. Thus, the car has conventional controls as a "failover to manual" in cases of catastrophic systems failure.
Honestly, while I believe that you can build self-driving cars. And that they can be safer. *I*, personally, don't want one.
Put simply, I refuse to relinquish that level of control over my driving experience. Ever.
Well, maybe when I'm in my 80's or something. By that point, I'll have little left to lose.
Sorry, but it HAS been shown that pain can be an effective teacher.
I'd rather it be the pain of an occasional swat on the ass building an aversion to a dangerous activity than something far worse (like following through on said dangerous activity and being injured).
*Scratch*
*Flingpoo*
Anyone got a banana?
Of course, this is how it starts.
Next thing we know: Planet of the Apes!
Okay. A simple spanking is not "physical violence".
A spanking is a proxy for the pain certain dangerous activities could inflict.
We are NOT talking about beating a kid black and blue. We're talking a simple swat or two on the landing gear.
A friend of my parents subscribed to the whole "no spanking" line.
Her son kept coming into the kitchen while she was cooking and trying to get into the oven.
She used a gate. He'd get over it.
She'd physically move him elsewhere in the house, he'd come back.
She'd yell at him. He'd cry, then come right back.
Finally, he wound up searing his hands on an open oven door. Stuff that required painful reconstructive surgery later in life.
So I ask you. What would have been worse for him? A couple swats on the ass? Or what happened to him?
Most of these are little sweatshop ops out of India, China and Eastern Europe.
Microsoft can scream at the FTC all damn day. These guys, if caught, just uproot, disappear, and come back under another business name, registering new phone numbers, etc.
You apparently didn't read what I said. I wouldn't be shooting you for disagreeing with me. I'd be shooting you for assaulting me.
As for "physically threatening". I've alive, you're dead. Whose testimony on the subject is going to be believed?
Think of it as "The Golden Rule, with a lead binder"
Sorry, but your right to harass and harangue me ends when I tell you it does.
If you insist on carrying it further, be prepared for the repercussions.
You still have the right to free speech. You simply don't have the right to force people to listen to your drivel.
And yes, I'm one of those people who, when they say "Leave me the fuck alone or I'll blow your head off." MEANS "Leave me the fuck alone or I'll blow your head off."
Sorry, I have to work around sales-schmucks all day long.
Contamination...
"ongoing cultural conflict"
What conflict? Some jackass gets up in my face, telling me what I "ought to do" or "ought to say" or "ought to be", I tell them to fuck off and tongue my ass-crack while they're at it.
If they persist in getting in my face, I claim self defense and shoot the motherfucker in the face with a high-caliber weapon to insure INSTANT harmony.
End of story.
Seriously. This kinds of shit is why they pissed away their market lead and utterly destroyed their entire market share.
They keep going for a minute market segment that barely exists, and thinks that the rest of us will hop on board to be with "the cool kids".
What they don't understand is that they've drawn themselves a venn diagram and aimed for the absolute smallest piece of the pie.
Yes, it doesn't require the kind of investment that aiming for a larger market segment does.
But, if you miss with that segment, you crash and burn.
And worse, they aren't even doing the research to even verify the market segment they're aiming for:
A) Can handle the entrance of the device.
B) Exists in the first palce
RIM has been dogfooding so long that they're institutionally blind.
I had a buddy at RIM try to tell me their tablet device was going to rock the market. Couldn't understand why I laughed and laughed and fell on the floor and laughed some more when he told me I basically had to buy into RIM's entire hardware ecosystem to take advantage of the thing. That it wasn't available as a stand-alone device.
Not sure that he still works there. Hopefully the high-decibel flushing sound that's been going on at RIM for the last decade or so will have infused him with a little perspective. Even if his bosses are still acid-tripping on ground up Blackberry 10 phones.
The myth that owning guns automatically ensures safety is a product of ignorant, agenda-pushing, wussies.
Yep. And the agenda most of them are pushing is for gun control.
Since nobody with an actual brain in their head thinks that a gun *automatically* ensures safety.
In a word...
MANBEARPIG!
Basically what you're saying is that you've been brainwashed into "vinyl is better". People keep talking about the "experience".
I've listened to good music on vinyl. I've listened to good music on high definition digital audio.
I've also listened to good music compressed down to 128K MP3 files.
I'm VERY aware of the difference.
It's like kopi luwak coffee. It's not that the end product is really and truly better.
It's that there's a marketing ploy behind it. They're not selling a physical product. They're selling a story and a mindset.
If you want to buy into it, great. But you're pretty much going to have to put up with everyone else laughing at you.
Meanwhile, an industry pro WITH A VESTED INTEREST IN THE SUCCESS OF VINYL offers his take on the endless debate of audio differences between analog records and digital formats
There. Fixed that for you.