In an emergency, it may be necessary to accelerate quickly, e.g. to get out of the way of another vehicle that's swerving into your lane, etc. If the behavior of the gas pedal suddenly changes in the middle of a crisis, it could CAUSE an accident.
My first instinct in a "oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-crash" situation isn't the accelerator (since if I'm going to get hit, I want to avoid increasing my momentum so I don't go careening off wildly and compound the problem). But, even if there is a situation where the answer is "go faster", it's unlikely to be "go 63% faster" but rather "pedal to the floor". Since we're talking about a difference in pressure and not in response (max speed is still max speed), the probability of this making a difference is low (though, granted, not non-zero). The probability of it being blamed, of course, is nearly 100%.
Or, let's say you've got a 25mph residential street that turns onto a 50mph highway. You're driving along at 50mph, and suddenly the GPS system mistakenly thinks you're close enough to the residential street that you should now be going 25mph. The ensuing weirdness with the gas pedal distracts the driver for a moment. Fantastic.
I don't trust the technology sufficiently either to make this sort of distinction and I don't want to pass judgment without seeing some trials with it...
But, of course, I'll defend it anyways just for the fun of it. The gas pedal isn't locked but harder to press. Assuming we're talking about an accurate change of zone and a difference of less than (let's be generous) a quarter of a mile, you shouldn't be accelerating into it anyways. But, since the accelerator isn't locked, you still could (but you'd be more aware of it) and you could always just coast into the lower speed zone. It's not like they're hitting the brakes for you.
Why doesn't this monitoring device simply slow the car down to the legal speed limit by cutting off gas?
You don't want a permanent "you may only go the speed limit" restriction. There are times (driving a ill or injured person to the hospital, for instance) that you need to speed.
All this does is remind people gently what the speed limit is and make them conscious of the fact they're breaking the law.
OK, I'll amend to "or proxy thereof". When I use iTMS, typically I need to enter my username/password (even when I select for it to be remembered) about half the time. The reason is, of course, because users of machines need to be authenticated (due to multiple users, on a family machine for instance). Cell phones, on the other hand, belong solely to one account that's billed regularly. Billing for songs is quicker, since the connection is automatically authenticated. It's an easier and more invisible process, leading to more impulse buys.
I explained above why those "barriers" don't exist for me with iTunes.
I corrected that statement for you.
Now, if you read my original comment, I was stating that if you hear a song in the car and wanted to download it, iTMS faces obstacles in being the venue that you download from. Your first objection doesn't apply to my argument, since I was assuming most people wouldn't download music while at their computer at work.
Your second statement assumes that you don't get distracted while on-line. IMs, e-mails and other errands might push music to the back of the list. Granted, less of an obstacle for the "always on" crowd (you've ignored dial-ups, which do still exist), but at the same time, everyone I've ever met has had times where they've gone to a computer with the intent of doing something, got distracted and forgot about it.
I stipulate that obstacles 3 and 5 exist in both environments. I don't have enough experience with cell-phone keyboards to comment on the relative ease of use.
I'm quite familiar with the tiered structure of iTunes. However, assuming that everyone chooses one-click is a bit over-simplistic. Some don't have their own computers (share with siblings, etc). Some don't want to accidentally click and download music they were just browsing. Some are just paranoid.
I don't think your arguments hold up; buying a single song on a cell phone might be a little easier in some cases for the extremely impatient people with lots of disposable income, but if one has any common sense at all, buying music through iTunes is simpler and cheaper.
Congratulations. You just discovered the teenage market.
I really doubt that there is any real connection between what people will pay for a ringtone and what they will pay for a song.
But is it really a purchase if you don't need to give a credit card? That's, realistically, the major hurdle for iTMS: getting people's credit cards out of their wallets. Every time you go for the wallet (or purse), you have an extra barrier for determining whether or not something is worth buying. iTMS is already fighting a few of those. Let's take a simple scenario... You hear a song on the radio in the car. You want to download it.
With iTMS, you have to go to your computer (obstacle 1), remember that you went on-line to buy the song (obstacle 2), find the song (obstacle 3), enter your credit card number (obstacle 4) and then download the song (obstacle 5).
With the phone, that barrier to entry might be lower (ringtones analogy). You've eliminated barriers 1, 2 and 4 since you're immediately connecting to the service and it gets charged to your cell phone tab regardless. Is it worth it? For the companies, of course. For the consumer, of course not. It's the same as all impulse buys.
All I have to ask is this: have the evangelical Christians been much more effective at discounting the theory of evolution in China than they have here? Kind of sounds like it...
No, but it sounds like they're finding traction discounting the theory of gravity.
Legos. Plastic bricks. The value in their logo is held up by showing consumers that Lego makes the most consistent blocks, with the easiest instructions and with the most fun creations.
Clearly, you never had grandparents who thought the one who could create the biggest pile of plastic toys on a budget won.
This may be useful for outright abuse, but you will have moderation wars when someone labels Anne Coulter's new book as "right-wing propoganda" or Al Franken's as "liberal whining". There is no best case in this situation; if everyone cancels each other out, then the tag stands. If one ideology dominates, then bias will become quickly evident.
The abstract is interesting, but it's WAAAAAY too early to start predicting this as a cure for anything.
Evolution is a very good learner. If the level of neutrophils is held lower, there's probably a valid reason. It may be unrelated (i.e. always having low levels is better than having occasional high levels in response to soot/allergens), but based on the 1918 flu pandemic (where strong immune systems attacked vigorously in the lungs and contributed to the cause of death), I think that it's plausible that extreme immune responses in the sensitive areas of the lungs may be a generic bad thing.
If so, that's not to say that this research is not useful. If we know that we can't up the response or rely on the host's higher immune response, then we need to focus our energy elsewhere. We can either mimic the response (provide protein via inhalation) or work on cooperative response (bacteriostatics, give the slow and steady approach more time). I'd tend towards the latter, with combinations of various classes of bacteriostatics to prevent selection of resistant strains.
So, in effect, your computer is at less risk if you download Sony published music from peer to peer networks than if you try to play your Sony CD on your computer.
OK, here are the options you have.
Sony CD: Contains very poorly written DRM that may forever screw up your machine. P2P: Spend days sifting through partial, corrupted and poorly named files to get the CD you want, risking viruses, lawsuits and your entire Saturday afternoon. Online music stores (iTMS, allofmp3): Cheaper than a CD, quicker and safer than P2P, DRMed but easily circumvented in under an hour, if that.
Maybe Sony's subconsciously trying to elminate CDs in favor of complete on-line distribution.
You would be amazed at what most users will do for music, porn, wallpapers, or screensavers.
I don't know if I agree with the "most". I'd definitely go with "some", especially new switchers who don't know Mac's standard operating procedure. But if you've put in 50 CDs and never had a prompt, this might give you pause, especially because for some people giving anything but Software Update this sort of power is very scary.
Regardless, even "most" is better than "all, because they were never asked"...
Well if your going to get music online, I see no difference between getting it for free off of bittorrent or paying for it from allofmp3.com.
BitTorrent is illegal for that purpose and trackable.
However, from what I've read, allofmp3.com is legal in the sense a monopoly is legal. Basically, allofmp3.com is legal in Russia. Now, you're not allowed to import copyrighted material, but there is an exception for single copies for personal use. So, like monopolies, as long as you're not doing anything harmful to the market (like selling bootlegs or having concerts or doing anything beyond personal use), you should be good legally.
Ah, yes... Giving credit card numbers to (essentially) unknown foreign agencies that claim to be completely legal. I'm curious if there's a middle ground in there. Perhaps VISA gift cards? Set spending limit, so if they steal your number, they only get your $25 music money? Would that work?
Now that this sort of thing is coming to the Mac, I'll start to think about it more seriously... Given the lax attitude some of us Mac fanatics take to antivirus, one rootkit and one trojan could destroy Apple forever.
Which is easier: convincing a bunch of venture capitalists or a bunch of PhDs? Well, it depends. VCs are looking for risk/reward. That ratio is pretty much set, since the actual proof is over the heads of businessmen (no offense intended, just reflecting PhD level work for the layman). If there's no proof that can stand up to scientific review, then it's easier to get money from VCs.
However, if there is reviewable evidence, then scientists (with the exception of a few with everything to lose) will get downright giddy with the thought of a new fundamental discovery. Convince them first, then reap the benefits of changing one of the fundamentals of science.
Let's see... Which one did Einstein do and which one did Dr. Mills do?
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight.
I'd be careful with this point, because it is not as simple as it first sounds. A change should, but does not have to, confer an advantage. It could be a neutral move, with no selection for or against it. However, these neutral moves could result in the availability of new potential advantages. So, when arguing the point, it is not the thinner openings were greater than the larger openings, but rather they were at least as efficient for the task they were used for and provided the potential for further development (cemented by the actual eye development).
- The amount of oil predicted to be saved over the several weeks involved in the time shift, is less than all of the oil the USA uses in a SINGLE day.
While I agree this is not the most potent measure (following the links from NIST to webexhibits gives a figure of about 1% energy savings), anything that aids in getting the concept of conservation into the mainstream shouldn't be immediately derided as ineffectual. Let's be honest: any critical system will have an upgrade process for patching and this is the simplest patch in history. It's just changing one database of dates. Everything else? Mostly upgradable. The only things that won't be are watches, VCRs, microwaves, etc. that are dependent on time but not networked.
At this juncture, let it be. Explain to your parents how to set the time on their VCRs and then explain whatever new conservation energy bill has just been proposed as x number of daylight savings bills. It'll be the easy to comprehend benchmark, like "times the national debt" or "flaming Libraries of Congress".
Slashdot Mirror
In an emergency, it may be necessary to accelerate quickly, e.g. to get out of the way of another vehicle that's swerving into your lane, etc. If the behavior of the gas pedal suddenly changes in the middle of a crisis, it could CAUSE an accident.
My first instinct in a "oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-crash" situation isn't the accelerator (since if I'm going to get hit, I want to avoid increasing my momentum so I don't go careening off wildly and compound the problem). But, even if there is a situation where the answer is "go faster", it's unlikely to be "go 63% faster" but rather "pedal to the floor". Since we're talking about a difference in pressure and not in response (max speed is still max speed), the probability of this making a difference is low (though, granted, not non-zero). The probability of it being blamed, of course, is nearly 100%.
Or, let's say you've got a 25mph residential street that turns onto a 50mph highway. You're driving along at 50mph, and suddenly the GPS system mistakenly thinks you're close enough to the residential street that you should now be going 25mph. The ensuing weirdness with the gas pedal distracts the driver for a moment. Fantastic.
I don't trust the technology sufficiently either to make this sort of distinction and I don't want to pass judgment without seeing some trials with it...
But, of course, I'll defend it anyways just for the fun of it. The gas pedal isn't locked but harder to press. Assuming we're talking about an accurate change of zone and a difference of less than (let's be generous) a quarter of a mile, you shouldn't be accelerating into it anyways. But, since the accelerator isn't locked, you still could (but you'd be more aware of it) and you could always just coast into the lower speed zone. It's not like they're hitting the brakes for you.
Why doesn't this monitoring device simply slow the car down to the legal speed limit by cutting off gas?
You don't want a permanent "you may only go the speed limit" restriction. There are times (driving a ill or injured person to the hospital, for instance) that you need to speed.
All this does is remind people gently what the speed limit is and make them conscious of the fact they're breaking the law.
What? It's not like we've talked about this list before. Technically, though, it was first linked to from this article in June.
Well, duh. Everyone knows we got computers by reverse engineering alien technology.
BTW - does anyone else find it interesting that the "Brain Institute" represents the entertainment industry in the Netherlands?
Don't worry. Any plans to take over the world will be thwarted when he yells at Pinky during a worldwide televised concert.
With iTMS, you only enter your CC# once.
OK, I'll amend to "or proxy thereof". When I use iTMS, typically I need to enter my username/password (even when I select for it to be remembered) about half the time. The reason is, of course, because users of machines need to be authenticated (due to multiple users, on a family machine for instance). Cell phones, on the other hand, belong solely to one account that's billed regularly. Billing for songs is quicker, since the connection is automatically authenticated. It's an easier and more invisible process, leading to more impulse buys.
I explained above why those "barriers" don't exist for me with iTunes.
I corrected that statement for you.
Now, if you read my original comment, I was stating that if you hear a song in the car and wanted to download it, iTMS faces obstacles in being the venue that you download from. Your first objection doesn't apply to my argument, since I was assuming most people wouldn't download music while at their computer at work.
Your second statement assumes that you don't get distracted while on-line. IMs, e-mails and other errands might push music to the back of the list. Granted, less of an obstacle for the "always on" crowd (you've ignored dial-ups, which do still exist), but at the same time, everyone I've ever met has had times where they've gone to a computer with the intent of doing something, got distracted and forgot about it.
I stipulate that obstacles 3 and 5 exist in both environments. I don't have enough experience with cell-phone keyboards to comment on the relative ease of use.
I'm quite familiar with the tiered structure of iTunes. However, assuming that everyone chooses one-click is a bit over-simplistic. Some don't have their own computers (share with siblings, etc). Some don't want to accidentally click and download music they were just browsing. Some are just paranoid.
I don't think your arguments hold up; buying a single song on a cell phone might be a little easier in some cases for the extremely impatient people with lots of disposable income, but if one has any common sense at all, buying music through iTunes is simpler and cheaper.
Congratulations. You just discovered the teenage market.
I really doubt that there is any real connection between what people will pay for a ringtone and what they will pay for a song.
But is it really a purchase if you don't need to give a credit card? That's, realistically, the major hurdle for iTMS: getting people's credit cards out of their wallets. Every time you go for the wallet (or purse), you have an extra barrier for determining whether or not something is worth buying. iTMS is already fighting a few of those. Let's take a simple scenario... You hear a song on the radio in the car. You want to download it.
With iTMS, you have to go to your computer (obstacle 1), remember that you went on-line to buy the song (obstacle 2), find the song (obstacle 3), enter your credit card number (obstacle 4) and then download the song (obstacle 5).
With the phone, that barrier to entry might be lower (ringtones analogy). You've eliminated barriers 1, 2 and 4 since you're immediately connecting to the service and it gets charged to your cell phone tab regardless. Is it worth it? For the companies, of course. For the consumer, of course not. It's the same as all impulse buys.
All I have to ask is this: have the evangelical Christians been much more effective at discounting the theory of evolution in China than they have here? Kind of sounds like it...
No, but it sounds like they're finding traction discounting the theory of gravity.
Linux Hackers: 2
What was the second?
Legos. Plastic bricks. The value in their logo is held up by showing consumers that Lego makes the most consistent blocks, with the easiest instructions and with the most fun creations.
Clearly, you never had grandparents who thought the one who could create the biggest pile of plastic toys on a budget won.
This may be useful for outright abuse, but you will have moderation wars when someone labels Anne Coulter's new book as "right-wing propoganda" or Al Franken's as "liberal whining". There is no best case in this situation; if everyone cancels each other out, then the tag stands. If one ideology dominates, then bias will become quickly evident.
The abstract is interesting, but it's WAAAAAY too early to start predicting this as a cure for anything.
Evolution is a very good learner. If the level of neutrophils is held lower, there's probably a valid reason. It may be unrelated (i.e. always having low levels is better than having occasional high levels in response to soot/allergens), but based on the 1918 flu pandemic (where strong immune systems attacked vigorously in the lungs and contributed to the cause of death), I think that it's plausible that extreme immune responses in the sensitive areas of the lungs may be a generic bad thing.
If so, that's not to say that this research is not useful. If we know that we can't up the response or rely on the host's higher immune response, then we need to focus our energy elsewhere. We can either mimic the response (provide protein via inhalation) or work on cooperative response (bacteriostatics, give the slow and steady approach more time). I'd tend towards the latter, with combinations of various classes of bacteriostatics to prevent selection of resistant strains.
You mean you've forgotten about this already???
So, in effect, your computer is at less risk if you download Sony published music from peer to peer networks than if you try to play your Sony CD on your computer.
OK, here are the options you have.
Sony CD: Contains very poorly written DRM that may forever screw up your machine.
P2P: Spend days sifting through partial, corrupted and poorly named files to get the CD you want, risking viruses, lawsuits and your entire Saturday afternoon.
Online music stores (iTMS, allofmp3): Cheaper than a CD, quicker and safer than P2P, DRMed but easily circumvented in under an hour, if that.
Maybe Sony's subconsciously trying to elminate CDs in favor of complete on-line distribution.
You would be amazed at what most users will do for music, porn, wallpapers, or screensavers.
I don't know if I agree with the "most". I'd definitely go with "some", especially new switchers who don't know Mac's standard operating procedure. But if you've put in 50 CDs and never had a prompt, this might give you pause, especially because for some people giving anything but Software Update this sort of power is very scary.
Regardless, even "most" is better than "all, because they were never asked"...
Well if your going to get music online, I see no difference between getting it for free off of bittorrent or paying for it from allofmp3.com.
BitTorrent is illegal for that purpose and trackable.
However, from what I've read, allofmp3.com is legal in the sense a monopoly is legal. Basically, allofmp3.com is legal in Russia. Now, you're not allowed to import copyrighted material, but there is an exception for single copies for personal use. So, like monopolies, as long as you're not doing anything harmful to the market (like selling bootlegs or having concerts or doing anything beyond personal use), you should be good legally.
Goodbye Sony. Hello allofmp3.com.
Ah, yes... Giving credit card numbers to (essentially) unknown foreign agencies that claim to be completely legal. I'm curious if there's a middle ground in there. Perhaps VISA gift cards? Set spending limit, so if they steal your number, they only get your $25 music money? Would that work?
Now that this sort of thing is coming to the Mac, I'll start to think about it more seriously... Given the lax attitude some of us Mac fanatics take to antivirus, one rootkit and one trojan could destroy Apple forever.
Listening to Spongebob for 6 hours is better than listening to "are we there yet" for 6 hours.
Those aren't your only options.
People always take the path of least resistance.
Which is easier: convincing a bunch of venture capitalists or a bunch of PhDs? Well, it depends. VCs are looking for risk/reward. That ratio is pretty much set, since the actual proof is over the heads of businessmen (no offense intended, just reflecting PhD level work for the layman). If there's no proof that can stand up to scientific review, then it's easier to get money from VCs.
However, if there is reviewable evidence, then scientists (with the exception of a few with everything to lose) will get downright giddy with the thought of a new fundamental discovery. Convince them first, then reap the benefits of changing one of the fundamentals of science.
Let's see... Which one did Einstein do and which one did Dr. Mills do?
That's because they announced cracking the Enigma code in the Enigma code and no one else was able to read it.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight.
I'd be careful with this point, because it is not as simple as it first sounds. A change should, but does not have to, confer an advantage. It could be a neutral move, with no selection for or against it. However, these neutral moves could result in the availability of new potential advantages. So, when arguing the point, it is not the thinner openings were greater than the larger openings, but rather they were at least as efficient for the task they were used for and provided the potential for further development (cemented by the actual eye development).
...causing the Typepad service to slow to a crawl amid very public complaints by its blogger customers.
Or so we assume. Of course, we can't actually access the blogs to double check, but it's a safe bet.
reassembles after a while...
Exactly what kind of jelly do you buy?
- The amount of oil predicted to be saved over the several weeks involved in the time shift, is less than all of the oil the USA uses in a SINGLE day.
While I agree this is not the most potent measure (following the links from NIST to webexhibits gives a figure of about 1% energy savings), anything that aids in getting the concept of conservation into the mainstream shouldn't be immediately derided as ineffectual. Let's be honest: any critical system will have an upgrade process for patching and this is the simplest patch in history. It's just changing one database of dates. Everything else? Mostly upgradable. The only things that won't be are watches, VCRs, microwaves, etc. that are dependent on time but not networked.
At this juncture, let it be. Explain to your parents how to set the time on their VCRs and then explain whatever new conservation energy bill has just been proposed as x number of daylight savings bills. It'll be the easy to comprehend benchmark, like "times the national debt" or "flaming Libraries of Congress".