I'll bet the bigger market is people driving their cars. I know I'd use it for that. (Or just lying on the beach, when holding up a book - or even my head - is just too much work:)
Sure, a human-read book will be better, but as you say, that's often not available.
And if it doesn't bother you (from a security standpoint), perhaps it shoud: oblig. Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust." (Short and very sweet).
Yes, it seems many commenting here are assuming current trends - the defunding of professional journalism - will continue forever. But sometimes, the pendulum does swing back. I've noticed that salon.com, a website I've alternately liked and disliked over the years, is leaning heavily in the direction of blogging / navel-gazing lately, and you know what? It's unsatisfying. It's mostly just a bunch of people's thoughts. For the first time I subscribed to the New Yorker (in print) for the in-depth, factual articles. I also donate money to NPR because (except when they're nursing their obsession with Jazz), I learn a lot listening to NPR.
So, I think the "free media" movement will bottom out. Things may be permanently more competitive in professional journalism, but it won't go away.
The question is, does a significant portion of the movie watching population care? It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I consider this whole issue almost moot, since we already know how it will play out: streaming video will win.
Selection: It's obvious why selection will be so much greater without having to carry huge inventories of discs.
Image quality: again, it's only a matter of time. Online, software-based formats will have better quality since they can more easily evolve. For me this is already the case; since I haven't bought a blu-ray, the only way to get better-than-dvd quality is by downloading something in high-def and watching on a laptop. Bandwidth seems like a big-issue at the moment, but compared to the text-only Internet of the early 90's, we're already about 90% of the way there.
So what is this whole discussion about? Whether supplanting discs with streaming will take two years vs. five years?
Umm, it's not. But insofar the government hasn't mandated us taxpayers to fund closed-source development, either.
Is this a joke? Why did somebody mod it up? Would anybody care to guess how much the US govt., at all levels and departments, has paid for MS Word alone over the decades? I'd be shocked if the US taxpayer is not Microsoft's single biggest customer.
I have a T40. In many ways it's my favorite laptop and better than the 2 newer laptops I have. It's thin, has a good screen, and good battery life. The T60p is too big, hot and heavy, and the D630 has a short, crappy screen. The 14" 4:3 display is best.
I've never owned a laptop without buying spare batteries for it sooner or later. With a battery in the docking bay, you can swap the main battery without shutting down. (Too bad they don't build in a capacitor to run the laptop for 30 seconds while swapping batteries).
Plus, the batteries go bad after a couple years.
I would understand if there something to gain by not having a removable battery. But really, does it save any space at all? Usually the bottom of the battery is the exterior of the laptop, so it doesn't have to fit "inside."
I guess you can't make any compromises if you're dead set on being the very thinnest or lightest. But count me in for something a little thicker with a lot more functionality.
I think there should be a nobel of engineering or something similar, given to whomever designed that rover. It/never/ happens in real life that you can get away with designing a piece of equipment that outlasts it's fail-by-date by so much.
I think there should be a nobel of expectation management given to whoever said it was only meant to last 3 months.
What are you basing this on? My kids go to public school and every teacher has a system of rewards and punishments, which include being ejected from class. (In this school they send them to a "redirector" rather than the principal, but I think that's just because the principal can't be on hand for this sort of thing all the time).
I think rants about the loss of control in schools are often based on things that make the news, which are rare almost by definition.
Your vision is very security-centric. I believe it will be driven mostly by economics/greed.
People are very limited in what they can accomplish individually, yet the overhead is dividing up "labor" (especially for knowledge-driven work) is extreme. Communicating and coordinating become the main tasks in themselves, and whatever it was you set out to do in the first place becomes secondary. This is why each advance in communication (printing press, telegraph, telephone, cellphone, email) causes a leap in productivity. We are inching towards true coordinated action with progressively lower coordination overhead. Ultimately, refusing to join the borg (somebody had to say it) will bear such a severe economic penalty that people cannot bear the thought of it. Already, there's a pretty strong limit to how far you can go in society without having a bank acount, signing up for social security, getting a driver's license, and using forms of payment other than cash. It's possible, but extremely few choose to do so. We just watch the occasional cowboy movie instead.
Longer term, the deficit increase is far from certain. If successful, the stimulus will lessen the deficit in the next several years by increased employment, economic output, and tax revenue.
Of course, we'll never know for sure, even in retrospect. Some people still think the New Deal was a net loss.
To the grandparent I say, certainty is simply not a realistic request. Would I like certainty before investing in stocks, or taking a job, or starting a business? Sure. Ain't gonna happen.
Certainly, some of the money should be spent studying environmental issues.
And, not all "battery" technolgies are harmful; I read one proposal for storing and shipping hot water as a cheap and quite efficient means of energy storage. Pumping water uphill is another.
I think your tone and your conclusions are way off. Paranoia is no way to deal with nuclear risks, but neither is being glib. Allies should not be crashing nuclear reactors into each other by accident. If extra precautions are necessary to prevent a recurrence, then they should at least be considered, even if there is some impact on e.g. the realism of training exercises. There is a history of nuclear warheads being lost due to crashed subs and bombers, and it's definitely something we want to avoid.
The sad thing is, securing the state's accounting systems and procedures to protect against a recurrence of this scam will likely cost more than the $700K that was lost. Certain people love to blame the victom for not doing everything possible to protect themselves, yet decry the wasteful beaurocracy of government - not realizing those are the two sides of the security coin. Most of the stupid and annoying rules out there can be traced back to a perpetrator, and to a victim who said "never again." Think of that next time you're taking your shoes off at a TSA checkpoint.
Since ISS wouldn't be able to withstand aerocapture, and humans wouldn't be up to slow, multi-month aerobraking maneuvers, you'll need a braking stage.
If you planned the trajectory right, couldn't you just fall into orbit around mars or the moon? Since gravity accelerates (or decelerates) all parts of the station equally, there would be no strain on it.
There is a passage in "All Quiet on the Western Front" where Remarque describes the effects of artillery (the scourge of WWI). To live more than a few days, soliders had to develop reflexes to instantly "hit the deck" when the sound of incoming artillery indicated it would land nearby. Those who did not immediately detect and respond, died. Casualties were high among greenhorns before they developed this reflex.
Unlike mortars, bullets are supersonic so you'd need radar instead of hearing the incoming round. And making somebody drop to the ground is easy. A stun gun can already do it. Directing the current to the muscles instead of the flesh of the torso should reduce the disorientation and pain from a stun gun.
I buy stuff on the credit card for consumer protection (e.g. new kitchen cabinets last week, which cost more than your sister's car - ugh). I pay it off right away and figure if worse comes to worse, that way I can dispute it through Visa.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, a human-read book will be better, but as you say, that's often not available.
Do harriers even use the runways to takeoff and land, or go on and off vertically?
And if it doesn't bother you (from a security standpoint), perhaps it shoud: oblig. Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust." (Short and very sweet).
So, I think the "free media" movement will bottom out. Things may be permanently more competitive in professional journalism, but it won't go away.
Look at it this way, what if the answer were "no"? It might still be a better PocketPC than anything Microsoft or Palm ever put out.
Probably by letting people save a copy for an additional fee, just as iTunes lets you burn to CD. There is no new ground to break here.
I consider this whole issue almost moot, since we already know how it will play out: streaming video will win.
Selection: It's obvious why selection will be so much greater without having to carry huge inventories of discs.
Image quality: again, it's only a matter of time. Online, software-based formats will have better quality since they can more easily evolve. For me this is already the case; since I haven't bought a blu-ray, the only way to get better-than-dvd quality is by downloading something in high-def and watching on a laptop. Bandwidth seems like a big-issue at the moment, but compared to the text-only Internet of the early 90's, we're already about 90% of the way there.
So what is this whole discussion about? Whether supplanting discs with streaming will take two years vs. five years?
Is this a joke? Why did somebody mod it up? Would anybody care to guess how much the US govt., at all levels and departments, has paid for MS Word alone over the decades? I'd be shocked if the US taxpayer is not Microsoft's single biggest customer.
I have a T40. In many ways it's my favorite laptop and better than the 2 newer laptops I have. It's thin, has a good screen, and good battery life. The T60p is too big, hot and heavy, and the D630 has a short, crappy screen. The 14" 4:3 display is best.
I think you're on to something there.
I've never owned a laptop without buying spare batteries for it sooner or later. With a battery in the docking bay, you can swap the main battery without shutting down. (Too bad they don't build in a capacitor to run the laptop for 30 seconds while swapping batteries).
Plus, the batteries go bad after a couple years.
I would understand if there something to gain by not having a removable battery. But really, does it save any space at all? Usually the bottom of the battery is the exterior of the laptop, so it doesn't have to fit "inside."
I guess you can't make any compromises if you're dead set on being the very thinnest or lightest. But count me in for something a little thicker with a lot more functionality.
Just 16 screws? How does Jobs do it? That shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so during my flight to Australia.
I think there should be a nobel of expectation management given to whoever said it was only meant to last 3 months.
I think rants about the loss of control in schools are often based on things that make the news, which are rare almost by definition.
Exactly - rooting the system in physical location is the opposite of cyberspace, where physical location and circumstances were to become irrelevant.
People are very limited in what they can accomplish individually, yet the overhead is dividing up "labor" (especially for knowledge-driven work) is extreme. Communicating and coordinating become the main tasks in themselves, and whatever it was you set out to do in the first place becomes secondary. This is why each advance in communication (printing press, telegraph, telephone, cellphone, email) causes a leap in productivity. We are inching towards true coordinated action with progressively lower coordination overhead. Ultimately, refusing to join the borg (somebody had to say it) will bear such a severe economic penalty that people cannot bear the thought of it. Already, there's a pretty strong limit to how far you can go in society without having a bank acount, signing up for social security, getting a driver's license, and using forms of payment other than cash. It's possible, but extremely few choose to do so. We just watch the occasional cowboy movie instead.
It is curious to me why they didn't select a digital encoding that would degrade gracefully.
Of course, we'll never know for sure, even in retrospect. Some people still think the New Deal was a net loss.
To the grandparent I say, certainty is simply not a realistic request. Would I like certainty before investing in stocks, or taking a job, or starting a business? Sure. Ain't gonna happen.
And, not all "battery" technolgies are harmful; I read one proposal for storing and shipping hot water as a cheap and quite efficient means of energy storage. Pumping water uphill is another.
I think your tone and your conclusions are way off. Paranoia is no way to deal with nuclear risks, but neither is being glib. Allies should not be crashing nuclear reactors into each other by accident. If extra precautions are necessary to prevent a recurrence, then they should at least be considered, even if there is some impact on e.g. the realism of training exercises. There is a history of nuclear warheads being lost due to crashed subs and bombers, and it's definitely something we want to avoid.
The sad thing is, securing the state's accounting systems and procedures to protect against a recurrence of this scam will likely cost more than the $700K that was lost. Certain people love to blame the victom for not doing everything possible to protect themselves, yet decry the wasteful beaurocracy of government - not realizing those are the two sides of the security coin. Most of the stupid and annoying rules out there can be traced back to a perpetrator, and to a victim who said "never again." Think of that next time you're taking your shoes off at a TSA checkpoint.
If you planned the trajectory right, couldn't you just fall into orbit around mars or the moon? Since gravity accelerates (or decelerates) all parts of the station equally, there would be no strain on it.
There is a passage in "All Quiet on the Western Front" where Remarque describes the effects of artillery (the scourge of WWI). To live more than a few days, soliders had to develop reflexes to instantly "hit the deck" when the sound of incoming artillery indicated it would land nearby. Those who did not immediately detect and respond, died. Casualties were high among greenhorns before they developed this reflex.
Unlike mortars, bullets are supersonic so you'd need radar instead of hearing the incoming round. And making somebody drop to the ground is easy. A stun gun can already do it. Directing the current to the muscles instead of the flesh of the torso should reduce the disorientation and pain from a stun gun.
No, it's always at your own risk. Don't believe me? Read the EULA.
The other two were probably obsolete junkers sitting in a drawer. Just a guess.
I buy stuff on the credit card for consumer protection (e.g. new kitchen cabinets last week, which cost more than your sister's car - ugh). I pay it off right away and figure if worse comes to worse, that way I can dispute it through Visa.