"My average over a week was less than 1 hour of LEARNING per day."
Given that, how do you justify institutionalizing kids from 8-5 every day? According to your account (which I have no reason to doubt), we could let them out at noon and still quadruple their learning time if we cut out the BS. I agree that education in this country is a train wreck, but keeping kids cooped up for 9 hours a day doesn't seem like much of a solution.
Look, I don't hate Dvorak, he's sometimes (OK, very rarely) insightful and his rants are often entertaining, but why does Slashdot have to generate hits for him and act as his forum? Cringely has his own board now, let Dvorak make one for his readers.
What's more embarrassing than getting caught reading Slashdot at work? Getting caught reading a Slashdot discussion about one of Dvorak's columns.
Must.....resist......urge....to read.....column..
Jeez, no kidding. The guy spews crazy talk to generate hits and Slashdot keeps generating advertising for him. Talk about feeding the troll!
...sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to that telephone pole of yours that's sitting on my property. You wanna talk free market, let's talk about how much that piece of my real estate you're using is worth.
Unfortunately, your experience seems to be pretty typical among all brands of MP3 players. I just bought an MP3 player, and I did a lot of web surfing of owner reviews. Seemed like iPod owners had far fewer complaints and Apple has one of the best warranties--1 year vs 90 days for most players. I ended up getting a Creative Zen, the price was too good to pass up. I'm hoping they've tightened the quality control on the newer models...
...but talking about raping and beating women is not considered mundane or acceptable where I come from. I'm glad you posted the transcript. I'm no fan of Bush or Condi, but that's some sick shit.
From TFA: "Spirit worked within about 50 yards or meters of the Gertrude Weise area..."
You'd think after the Climate Orbiter fiasco they'd make up their minds!
Yes, some scientists in the 70s claimed that we were entering a cooling stage, but his point is that it was only a handful of scientists and the media took it and ran with it. Once the data was investigated further the scientists backed off. I was just a little shaver then and I remember the hype, but I can't say if the whole scientific community was behind it or if it was just a few mavericks. And judging from your posts, neither can you.
Yes, my faucet mounted water filter has a green LED that blinks every time it filters water. Damn thing actually blinded me when I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water.
And it changes to red when the filter reaches its end-of-life...as pre-determined by PUR, not by the filter actually filling up. What's next, toilet paper rolls with LEDs?
Nobody's talking about dawdling through a green light, it's about taking your time when approaching a red light, or a line of cars backed up at a stop sign.
Oil companies have a tremendous incentive to invest in renewable energy R&D: Create new technologies, patent them, and sit on them so that no one else can use them. If you could sell some one $20,000 worth of solar panels that will last for 30 years or sell them $2000(and rising) worth of oil a year forever, which would you do? Keep in mind you have to answer to shareholders who will toss you into the street if you're not doing what's best for their wallets.
Until they can't sell us oil, oil companies have little incentive to sell better solar technology.
catcw writes "...but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts."
Look, I can understand reshuffling menus in the name of usability, but what's the point of reformatting keyboard shortcuts, which are always pretty arbitrary? Besides driving your users insane, I mean.
Guess that should be expected from company that uses two different keyboard shortcuts for Shutdown for the same OS! Windows-U-U for XP with the graphical log in screen, Windows-U-S or Windows-U-S-S if you use the old style NT log in screen. My bad, that's 3 different shortcuts. You wouldn't think it would be possible to send software development back to the stone age, but you have to give MS credit for trying.
"The bureaucrats probably don't want to mess with her house either, but they are *doing what they are paid to do* and if they didn't take care of the reported problem, someone could accuse them of not doing their job."
Replace "accuse them of " with "sue them for" and you'd be accurate. Can't blame the authorities for covering their a$$es, they'd leave themselves wide open if they didn't do the hazmat routine. That's life in our litigious society, like it or not.
There was an article here a few months ago by an ex-MS developer. He was on one of the teams(yes, plural) working on the shutdown menu. I think there were like 40 people working on it for about two years.
So yes, MS is spending plenty, but that doesn't mean they're accomplishing much.
While I'm no fan of post-Hewlett and Packard HP, this is the only business model I can see that encourages the printer manufacturer to use ink more efficiently. If they make their money on ink/toner, then they have an incentive to make their printers as inefficient as they can without driving customers to their competitors. Given HP's leadership in the (business) market, they can get away with charging a premium and being less efficient.
I'd wait to see what their pricing looks like before throwing around terms like greed and evil. Although given their recent track record, I'm putting away the rose-colored glasses.
Even if we wanted to, there's no way to effectively ban children from getting the news without banning adults also. On the other hand, preventing kids from buying games while allowing adults to do so is trivial. Yes, they could order online, but if you trust your kid enough to let them have a credit card then you should trust their choice of games.
This bill does not ensure perfect control by the state but it does give parents more control.
Besides the fact that, well, it's the complete opposite of what freedom is all about?
I guess you're not very familiar with the US of A, but children aren't free here. Can't vote, can't drive, can't smoke, can't drink, mandatory education.
Besides the fact that age has absolutely nothing to do with the capacity to enjoy a good bloodbath video game and not re-enact it in real life, or not be traumatized from it?
So you don't believe that children are more impressionable than adults?
Besides the fact that parents reserve the right to raise their kids how they see fit? This law will not stop you from buying any game you want and giving it to your kid.
Besides the fact the government is here to protect us from people who try to aggress against us, not to protect us essentially from ourselves?
Most people would say children warrant a higher degree of protection than adults. The people who say it's all up to the parents either never had kids or are way over protective. Kids have ways of getting their own money and spending it without their parents knowledge. Maybe you can micromanage your only child, but there's no way working parents with more than one kid can keep track of every game the kids have for their Gameboys.
I'm not saying this is a good law, but the arguments I'm seeing against it aren't very convincing.
From TFA:"the streaming performance was sub par at best. The movies were pixilated, and the audio was unsync'ed with the clips. YouTube videos are known for their notorious video quality, and the N800 doesn't have the power to remedy those issues like a PC would to tolerable levels."
What exactly does that mean? Does the author think your PC has some magic CSI-like software that "enhances" You Tube videos? Or does the Nokia use some crappy codec that can't handle video at 320 x 240? Or did he just have a crappy network connection that couldn't handle the stream?
This is the one that really gets me: "The lack of bass and clearly defined bits weren't presentable through the integrated speakers. Interestingly enough, the audio quality improved vastly through third-party earphones."
In other words, music sounds better through a decent set of headphones than over the tiny speakers crammed into an ultraportable device. The fact that this finds this interesting--as opposed to blatantly obvious-- makes his credentials suspect. And I guess I don't have a very good ear, but I can hardly ever hear the "clearly defined bits" in my digital music.
Keep in mind that IC is at best 20 percent efficient (Wikipedia), so most of that gasoline is wasted. I can't nail down efficiency for batteries/electric motors, but these guys claim 93 percent for their battery, even if it's half that it's still much more efficient. So you'd only need half (or maybe even less) of the electricity suggested by your figures.
Still a pretty big hit on the ol' grid.
One of the arguments against solar and wind is "So what do you do when the sun doesn't shine and the wind won't blow?" Easy, you compress air when you can then use it as a power source when it's dark and still!
Slashdot Mirror
"My average over a week was less than 1 hour of LEARNING per day."
Given that, how do you justify institutionalizing kids from 8-5 every day? According to your account (which I have no reason to doubt), we could let them out at noon and still quadruple their learning time if we cut out the BS. I agree that education in this country is a train wreck, but keeping kids cooped up for 9 hours a day doesn't seem like much of a solution.
So you're saying it's a wad of phlegm?
Look, I don't hate Dvorak, he's sometimes (OK, very rarely) insightful and his rants are often entertaining, but why does Slashdot have to generate hits for him and act as his forum? Cringely has his own board now, let Dvorak make one for his readers.
What's more embarrassing than getting caught reading Slashdot at work? Getting caught reading a Slashdot discussion about one of Dvorak's columns.
Must.....resist......urge....to read.....column.. Jeez, no kidding. The guy spews crazy talk to generate hits and Slashdot keeps generating advertising for him. Talk about feeding the troll!
...sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to that telephone pole of yours that's sitting on my property. You wanna talk free market, let's talk about how much that piece of my real estate you're using is worth.
"And, no, it's not AmeriTrade's fault you got spyware on your PC after visiting that black on blond porno site.
:-)
Link please?
Unfortunately, your experience seems to be pretty typical among all brands of MP3 players. I just bought an MP3 player, and I did a lot of web surfing of owner reviews. Seemed like iPod owners had far fewer complaints and Apple has one of the best warranties--1 year vs 90 days for most players. I ended up getting a Creative Zen, the price was too good to pass up. I'm hoping they've tightened the quality control on the newer models...
...but talking about raping and beating women is not considered mundane or acceptable where I come from. I'm glad you posted the transcript. I'm no fan of Bush or Condi, but that's some sick shit.
From TFA: "Spirit worked within about 50 yards or meters of the Gertrude Weise area..."
You'd think after the Climate Orbiter fiasco they'd make up their minds!
Yes, some scientists in the 70s claimed that we were entering a cooling stage, but his point is that it was only a handful of scientists and the media took it and ran with it. Once the data was investigated further the scientists backed off. I was just a little shaver then and I remember the hype, but I can't say if the whole scientific community was behind it or if it was just a few mavericks. And judging from your posts, neither can you.
Yes, my faucet mounted water filter has a green LED that blinks every time it filters water. Damn thing actually blinded me when I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water.
And it changes to red when the filter reaches its end-of-life...as pre-determined by PUR, not by the filter actually filling up. What's next, toilet paper rolls with LEDs?
Nobody's talking about dawdling through a green light, it's about taking your time when approaching a red light, or a line of cars backed up at a stop sign.
Oil companies have a tremendous incentive to invest in renewable energy R&D: Create new technologies, patent them, and sit on them so that no one else can use them. If you could sell some one $20,000 worth of solar panels that will last for 30 years or sell them $2000(and rising) worth of oil a year forever, which would you do? Keep in mind you have to answer to shareholders who will toss you into the street if you're not doing what's best for their wallets.
Until they can't sell us oil, oil companies have little incentive to sell better solar technology.
catcw writes
"...but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts."
Look, I can understand reshuffling menus in the name of usability, but what's the point of reformatting keyboard shortcuts, which are always pretty arbitrary? Besides driving your users insane, I mean.
Guess that should be expected from company that uses two different keyboard shortcuts for Shutdown for the same OS! Windows-U-U for XP with the graphical log in screen, Windows-U-S or Windows-U-S-S if you use the old style NT log in screen. My bad, that's 3 different shortcuts. You wouldn't think it would be possible to send software development back to the stone age, but you have to give MS credit for trying.
"The bureaucrats probably don't want to mess with her house either, but they are *doing what they are paid to do* and if they didn't take care of the reported problem, someone could accuse them of not doing their job." Replace "accuse them of " with "sue them for" and you'd be accurate. Can't blame the authorities for covering their a$$es, they'd leave themselves wide open if they didn't do the hazmat routine. That's life in our litigious society, like it or not.
I don't mind enabling scripting in some cases, but in some sites the links don't even work without scripts enabled. It's ridiculous.
There was an article here a few months ago by an ex-MS developer. He was on one of the teams(yes, plural) working on the shutdown menu. I think there were like 40 people working on it for about two years.
So yes, MS is spending plenty, but that doesn't mean they're accomplishing much.
While I'm no fan of post-Hewlett and Packard HP, this is the only business model I can see that encourages the printer manufacturer to use ink more efficiently. If they make their money on ink/toner, then they have an incentive to make their printers as inefficient as they can without driving customers to their competitors. Given HP's leadership in the (business) market, they can get away with charging a premium and being less efficient.
I'd wait to see what their pricing looks like before throwing around terms like greed and evil. Although given their recent track record, I'm putting away the rose-colored glasses.
In the course of you research, please let us know how much Wild Turkey it takes to hear the "clearly defined bits", I'll have my bottle ready!
Even if we wanted to, there's no way to effectively ban children from getting the news without banning adults also. On the other hand, preventing kids from buying games while allowing adults to do so is trivial. Yes, they could order online, but if you trust your kid enough to let them have a credit card then you should trust their choice of games.
This bill does not ensure perfect control by the state but it does give parents more control.
Besides the fact that, well, it's the complete opposite of what freedom is all about?
I guess you're not very familiar with the US of A, but children aren't free here. Can't vote, can't drive, can't smoke, can't drink, mandatory education.
Besides the fact that age has absolutely nothing to do with the capacity to enjoy a good bloodbath video game and not re-enact it in real life, or not be traumatized from it?
So you don't believe that children are more impressionable than adults?
Besides the fact that parents reserve the right to raise their kids how they see fit?
This law will not stop you from buying any game you want and giving it to your kid.
Besides the fact the government is here to protect us from people who try to aggress against us, not to protect us essentially from ourselves?
Most people would say children warrant a higher degree of protection than adults. The people who say it's all up to the parents either never had kids or are way over protective. Kids have ways of getting their own money and spending it without their parents knowledge. Maybe you can micromanage your only child, but there's no way working parents with more than one kid can keep track of every game the kids have for their Gameboys.
I'm not saying this is a good law, but the arguments I'm seeing against it aren't very convincing.
From TFA:"the streaming performance was sub par at best. The movies were pixilated, and the audio was unsync'ed with the clips. YouTube videos are known for their notorious video quality, and the N800 doesn't have the power to remedy those issues like a PC would to tolerable levels."
What exactly does that mean? Does the author think your PC has some magic CSI-like software that "enhances" You Tube videos? Or does the Nokia use some crappy codec that can't handle video at 320 x 240? Or did he just have a crappy network connection that couldn't handle the stream?
This is the one that really gets me: "The lack of bass and clearly defined bits weren't presentable through the integrated speakers. Interestingly enough, the audio quality improved vastly through third-party earphones."
In other words, music sounds better through a decent set of headphones than over the tiny speakers crammed into an ultraportable device. The fact that this finds this interesting--as opposed to blatantly obvious-- makes his credentials suspect. And I guess I don't have a very good ear, but I can hardly ever hear the "clearly defined bits" in my digital music.
"Add this to the fact that cell towers are not powerful enough to reach the average cruising altitude of ~30,000 ft."
:-)
Just curious, what is the average cruising altitude of a cell tower?
Sorry, couldn't resist!
Keep in mind that IC is at best 20 percent efficient (Wikipedia), so most of that gasoline is wasted. I can't nail down efficiency for batteries/electric motors, but these guys claim 93 percent for their battery, even if it's half that it's still much more efficient. So you'd only need half (or maybe even less) of the electricity suggested by your figures.
Still a pretty big hit on the ol' grid.
One of the arguments against solar and wind is "So what do you do when the sun doesn't shine and the wind won't blow?" Easy, you compress air when you can then use it as a power source when it's dark and still!
Just hope we don't run out of air!