This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling. I wonder what size of generator you'd need to continuously charge the batteries? It may sound like a step backwards to be using gas to power an electric car, but if you're only using it for long trips a couple times a year, that's still a huge savings to the environment.
But your local gas station doesn't need chargers, because you can charge it at home. The Tesla has a good enough range that many people could probably drive it back and forth to work all week, do the groceries, and still only charge it once a week (on the weekend, when electricity rates are low). At 300 miles, that gives you 42 miles a day. It won't cover everybody's commute, but a fair number of people should be able to make it through the week on that. In reality, the main place you need charging stations is out on the highway. Add them in at hotels and shopping malls for visitors to the city to use, and you could clear up quite a bit of land currently in use by gas stations.
I'm not sure if things have changed in the past 10 years, but when I was at university, it was possible to go to school for engineering, and walk out with no student loans. Between scholarships and co-op placements, you could basically get your entire degree without going into debt. Of course, to get the scholarships, you had to get some pretty high marks, but I only think that's fair. You don't want to be paying for the education of engineers who are just barely scraping by.
I don't get this kind of complaint. Sure Apple puts out new models every year, but that doesn't mean you have to buy it. Apple is actually one of the better companies for releasing product updates especially as it pertains to mobile devices. If this was an Android device where the not uncommon occurrence is no updates after it leaves the factory, then I could your comment making sense. Also, I'd much rather have them release a new model every year than try to sell the same old model for the same old price year after year.
Personally, my phone lasts just long enough to get me through a day, and I hate it. A watch that only lasts a day is just useless. Not to mention that there's plenty of situations where that watch on my wrist wouldn't be getting direct sunlight, or even light of any kind. Any time I'm wearing a jacket outside, the thing would get no light. So basically from September to April. Solar power is only good for the "Designed by Apple in California" crowd, but it fails for a lot of other people, similar to touch screens that don't work with gloves.
For me, a watch is something I like to just wear all the time. I don't want to take it off at night to recharge it, I want to be able to wear it swimming. Personally, I think it would be nice if it had a little battery that you could pop in and out. Have a couple batteries and just swap the battery every few days. But that would probably go against Apple's design philosphy, as well as make it quite a bit more difficult to waterproof.
As someone who uses Windows 8 on a touch screen daily (I have a Surface 2), I have to say that I find the UI to be quite good. Better than any other tablet I've used in the past. I guess there are a few things that could change, but overall I have to say I see no major problems. It took a little getting used to at first, but after a week of using it daily, I found it quite easy to work with.
This is probably one of the best examples. Bicycle prices have come way down. For $1000 you can get a bike that is better than what the pros were using 15 years ago. For a little more you can get a competitive racing quality bike. You can spend a lot more, but it won't help you that much. However, I find that quality on the low end has tanked. Most department store bikes used to be decent quality, and now they are mostly complete garbage. And they are almost exclusively designed to look impressive (suspension and fat tubes) but are completely terrible for actually riding.
To be fair, the only way for me to get to anywhere from my house by walking is by jaywalking. There's only a sidewalk on one side of the street and I'd be walking on the side of the road if I didn't cross straight in front of my house. In winter snowbanks stop me from walking on the lawns until I get to a safe crossing point. Also the road is curved, so its hard to see when cars are coming. I often use my ears, as well as my eyes to determine when cars are coming. Sound is probably the more important factor since I can't really see that far down the road.
Lawyers can argue all they want amongst themselves in their own offices. But Judges are paid for using tax dollars as are the court rooms, so I'd rather not have the judges using their time on cases with no merit.
Exactly, 6 Peanuts a day isn't enough tolerance to enjoy a peanut butter sandwich, but it would mean that my kids (who aren't allergic to peanuts) could bring one to school, without worrying about harming some kid who is allergic. Most schools in my area have gone completely peanut free, and while there is a decent selection of snacks with peanut free labels, I feel like it would be nice if we could go back to a point where kids could bring whichever snacks they wanted.
On a side note, I think it's kind of contradictory that all pre-packaged snacks have to have the peanut free labeling, while home-made snacks prepared in my own kitchen (which definitely isn't peanut free) are completely fine. I think if snacks prepared in my kitchen are ok (provided peanuts aren't an actual ingredient), that packaged snacks without peanuts as an actual ingredient should also be OK.
Speak for yourself. As far as games go, Most of the games I enjoy are more cartoon than real life. Not everything has to be about ultra-violence to be fun. I play games to relax, and traditional Nintendo games like Mario and Zelda titles allow me to do that.
Yeah, looking at shows that are specifically about people working in STEM careers, women seem to be well represented. "Criminal Minds" isn't about STEM, but the main computer geek is a woman. "Bones" is about a woman who solves crimes using science. She also has many other women work in the lab. Recently started watching "Numbers" on Netflix, and even though the main STEM protagonist isn't a woman, there are quite a few STEM working women. I would say that shows come pretty close to overcompensating, and putting more women in these roles than one would expect.
Sounds like it would be nice for relaxation. Maybe solitary confinement simulator would be a bit much, but I seriously think that VR could have some really nice uses outside gaming. Just put on a headset, and you're lying on a beach. Great way to relax. My kids never understand why I'm so happy when they send me on a time-out.
Is that at the pub or from the beer/corner store? A decent beer in a pub in Canada will cost $6-$10, but I just picked up 4 cans of high quality beer for $10 last night, so about $2.50 a piece. If you like drinking swill, and purchase by the case, they can be about $1 per bottle. I think part of the high cost of beer in the pubs is that we have a pretty high minimum wage, even on tipped workers.
Being a Canadian, I have to say that I really don't think things are that much different, except that most cities have the equipment needed to clean the snow. In Ottawa we had 7.6 cm of snow on monday, and 3.6 cm the day before, so maybe total snow was around 11 cm, which is just over 4 inches. For some unknown reason the city was really lazy about cleaning it up, and the roads/traffic was terrible. Had they not cleaned it at all, I could seriously see the entire city coming to a standstill. Every time it snows more than 5-6 cm, you pretty much have to plan 25-50% extra time to get to work. It may not take you extra time, but odds are things will not go at their usual pace.
Very much agree with this. Not because of productivity concerns but mostly because the price of office software is just such a small amount of money. They probably pay at maximum $500 per license. And they probably upgrade at maximum once every 2 years. So that's $250 per year, per employee. Switching to OpenOffice would probably cost them more in training then they would save in 20 years of licensing fees. Assuming 1 week off to learn the new software, just the lost time alone would probably be worth a couple thousand dollars, add in the price you pay to the training organization, and you are probably close to $5000. And even after the week long training it will take them months to get up to speed and be as productive as they originally were.
Floppies were terrible in the sense that they could be completely ruined by putting them in a defective drive. I guess CDs and other optical medium could have this problem, but I haven't seen a on optical drive that ruined discs, since nothing is supposed to even come close to touching the disc. But I have seen plenty of floppies, zip disks, tapes, and other removable magnetic media destroyed by using a defective drive.
I like the idea of a common toolchain to produce apps on many different platforms, but personally I think HTML+CSS+JS is going down the wrong path. It will probably allow you to to hammer out simple apps quite quickly, but it will probably fall apart when doing something more complex. It isn't even Object Oriented (yes you can kind of make classes/objects by adding properties and functions to other functions, but it doesn't support things like inheritance). Personally, I wish that projects like this would try to do the same in Java,.Net, Python, C++, or anything other. The only company that seems to be looking into this seriously is Xamarin, which offers a single toolchain that lets you deploy on iOS, OSX, Android, and Windows (phone/RT/Desktop). They are a little pricy, but then again, they are the only game out there it seems.
Never used a Windows phone, but I do have Surface, and I have to say I really like the Metro (aka Modern) UI on a touch device. I refuse to buy a phone without an SD card slot, so iPhone is out of the picture (as are many Android phones), so my next phone may very well be a Windows Phone. I'm not very impressed with Android and the only reason I have Android is because it was the only option at the time that had an SD card slot. The lack of ability to update the phone OS without going through the phone manufacturer or jumping through hoops of rooting the phone and unlocking the bootloader is just unacceptable. Windows phones seem to be much easier to update than Android phones, and all the Updates come through Microsoft, regardless of the manufacturer (from what I know, correct me if I'm wrong). And most of the Windows Phones I've seen come with an SD Card slot, or have a significant (32 GB) amount of storage on board.
Same issue with cell phones. Touch screen phones don't work with gloves. This is a serious usability issue for any place that gets significantly cold temperatures. Apparently some Nokia phones have solved this issue. No surprise with a company headquartered in Finland.
Yeah, but why try to push it on people with Gingerbread? To me, it just seemed like an app asking for permissions it had no business of asking for. I haven't used talk once since I got my phone. I think next time I need a new phone, I'm going to consider not going with Android. Not sure what all else is out there for cheap phones though.
As soon as I saw this I uninstalled Facebook as well. My battery life has improved a bit. Also recently uninstalled Google Talk (now called "Hangouts (Replaces Google Talk)") because it started asking for access to my text messages as well. I've noticed a lot of apps asking for increased privileges lately. I usually uninstall them if it's something I don't really need. I wonder if the developers get statistics about number of people who uninstalled the app?
On the flip side, cyclists use speedometers (and more advanced performance tracking) during competition. Marathon runners most certainly use at least a wrist watch to track their progress, if not using something more advanced. It becomes more important in longer events to tack your time.
It wasn't clear to me if they wanted to ban them outright, or just ban them during competitive play. Banning them outright seems ludicrous. It would be similar to outlawing power-meters for cyclists. I mean, you could probably collect similar data using some high speed cameras, and computer tracking software. Although this would probably be a much more complex method of getting at the same data.
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This is an idea I've always thought would be nice. You could even hook up an electric generator on the trailer for easy refueling. I wonder what size of generator you'd need to continuously charge the batteries? It may sound like a step backwards to be using gas to power an electric car, but if you're only using it for long trips a couple times a year, that's still a huge savings to the environment.
But your local gas station doesn't need chargers, because you can charge it at home. The Tesla has a good enough range that many people could probably drive it back and forth to work all week, do the groceries, and still only charge it once a week (on the weekend, when electricity rates are low). At 300 miles, that gives you 42 miles a day. It won't cover everybody's commute, but a fair number of people should be able to make it through the week on that. In reality, the main place you need charging stations is out on the highway. Add them in at hotels and shopping malls for visitors to the city to use, and you could clear up quite a bit of land currently in use by gas stations.
I'm not sure if things have changed in the past 10 years, but when I was at university, it was possible to go to school for engineering, and walk out with no student loans. Between scholarships and co-op placements, you could basically get your entire degree without going into debt. Of course, to get the scholarships, you had to get some pretty high marks, but I only think that's fair. You don't want to be paying for the education of engineers who are just barely scraping by.
I don't get this kind of complaint. Sure Apple puts out new models every year, but that doesn't mean you have to buy it. Apple is actually one of the better companies for releasing product updates especially as it pertains to mobile devices. If this was an Android device where the not uncommon occurrence is no updates after it leaves the factory, then I could your comment making sense. Also, I'd much rather have them release a new model every year than try to sell the same old model for the same old price year after year.
Personally, my phone lasts just long enough to get me through a day, and I hate it. A watch that only lasts a day is just useless. Not to mention that there's plenty of situations where that watch on my wrist wouldn't be getting direct sunlight, or even light of any kind. Any time I'm wearing a jacket outside, the thing would get no light. So basically from September to April. Solar power is only good for the "Designed by Apple in California" crowd, but it fails for a lot of other people, similar to touch screens that don't work with gloves.
For me, a watch is something I like to just wear all the time. I don't want to take it off at night to recharge it, I want to be able to wear it swimming. Personally, I think it would be nice if it had a little battery that you could pop in and out. Have a couple batteries and just swap the battery every few days. But that would probably go against Apple's design philosphy, as well as make it quite a bit more difficult to waterproof.
As someone who uses Windows 8 on a touch screen daily (I have a Surface 2), I have to say that I find the UI to be quite good. Better than any other tablet I've used in the past. I guess there are a few things that could change, but overall I have to say I see no major problems. It took a little getting used to at first, but after a week of using it daily, I found it quite easy to work with.
This is probably one of the best examples. Bicycle prices have come way down. For $1000 you can get a bike that is better than what the pros were using 15 years ago. For a little more you can get a competitive racing quality bike. You can spend a lot more, but it won't help you that much. However, I find that quality on the low end has tanked. Most department store bikes used to be decent quality, and now they are mostly complete garbage. And they are almost exclusively designed to look impressive (suspension and fat tubes) but are completely terrible for actually riding.
To be fair, the only way for me to get to anywhere from my house by walking is by jaywalking. There's only a sidewalk on one side of the street and I'd be walking on the side of the road if I didn't cross straight in front of my house. In winter snowbanks stop me from walking on the lawns until I get to a safe crossing point. Also the road is curved, so its hard to see when cars are coming. I often use my ears, as well as my eyes to determine when cars are coming. Sound is probably the more important factor since I can't really see that far down the road.
Lawyers can argue all they want amongst themselves in their own offices. But Judges are paid for using tax dollars as are the court rooms, so I'd rather not have the judges using their time on cases with no merit.
Exactly, 6 Peanuts a day isn't enough tolerance to enjoy a peanut butter sandwich, but it would mean that my kids (who aren't allergic to peanuts) could bring one to school, without worrying about harming some kid who is allergic. Most schools in my area have gone completely peanut free, and while there is a decent selection of snacks with peanut free labels, I feel like it would be nice if we could go back to a point where kids could bring whichever snacks they wanted.
On a side note, I think it's kind of contradictory that all pre-packaged snacks have to have the peanut free labeling, while home-made snacks prepared in my own kitchen (which definitely isn't peanut free) are completely fine. I think if snacks prepared in my kitchen are ok (provided peanuts aren't an actual ingredient), that packaged snacks without peanuts as an actual ingredient should also be OK.
Speak for yourself. As far as games go, Most of the games I enjoy are more cartoon than real life. Not everything has to be about ultra-violence to be fun. I play games to relax, and traditional Nintendo games like Mario and Zelda titles allow me to do that.
Yeah, looking at shows that are specifically about people working in STEM careers, women seem to be well represented. "Criminal Minds" isn't about STEM, but the main computer geek is a woman. "Bones" is about a woman who solves crimes using science. She also has many other women work in the lab. Recently started watching "Numbers" on Netflix, and even though the main STEM protagonist isn't a woman, there are quite a few STEM working women. I would say that shows come pretty close to overcompensating, and putting more women in these roles than one would expect.
Sounds like it would be nice for relaxation. Maybe solitary confinement simulator would be a bit much, but I seriously think that VR could have some really nice uses outside gaming. Just put on a headset, and you're lying on a beach. Great way to relax. My kids never understand why I'm so happy when they send me on a time-out.
Is that at the pub or from the beer/corner store? A decent beer in a pub in Canada will cost $6-$10, but I just picked up 4 cans of high quality beer for $10 last night, so about $2.50 a piece. If you like drinking swill, and purchase by the case, they can be about $1 per bottle. I think part of the high cost of beer in the pubs is that we have a pretty high minimum wage, even on tipped workers.
Being a Canadian, I have to say that I really don't think things are that much different, except that most cities have the equipment needed to clean the snow. In Ottawa we had 7.6 cm of snow on monday, and 3.6 cm the day before, so maybe total snow was around 11 cm, which is just over 4 inches. For some unknown reason the city was really lazy about cleaning it up, and the roads/traffic was terrible. Had they not cleaned it at all, I could seriously see the entire city coming to a standstill. Every time it snows more than 5-6 cm, you pretty much have to plan 25-50% extra time to get to work. It may not take you extra time, but odds are things will not go at their usual pace.
Very much agree with this. Not because of productivity concerns but mostly because the price of office software is just such a small amount of money. They probably pay at maximum $500 per license. And they probably upgrade at maximum once every 2 years. So that's $250 per year, per employee. Switching to OpenOffice would probably cost them more in training then they would save in 20 years of licensing fees. Assuming 1 week off to learn the new software, just the lost time alone would probably be worth a couple thousand dollars, add in the price you pay to the training organization, and you are probably close to $5000. And even after the week long training it will take them months to get up to speed and be as productive as they originally were.
Floppies were terrible in the sense that they could be completely ruined by putting them in a defective drive. I guess CDs and other optical medium could have this problem, but I haven't seen a on optical drive that ruined discs, since nothing is supposed to even come close to touching the disc. But I have seen plenty of floppies, zip disks, tapes, and other removable magnetic media destroyed by using a defective drive.
I like the idea of a common toolchain to produce apps on many different platforms, but personally I think HTML+CSS+JS is going down the wrong path. It will probably allow you to to hammer out simple apps quite quickly, but it will probably fall apart when doing something more complex. It isn't even Object Oriented (yes you can kind of make classes/objects by adding properties and functions to other functions, but it doesn't support things like inheritance). Personally, I wish that projects like this would try to do the same in Java, .Net, Python, C++, or anything other. The only company that seems to be looking into this seriously is Xamarin, which offers a single toolchain that lets you deploy on iOS, OSX, Android, and Windows (phone/RT/Desktop). They are a little pricy, but then again, they are the only game out there it seems.
Never used a Windows phone, but I do have Surface, and I have to say I really like the Metro (aka Modern) UI on a touch device. I refuse to buy a phone without an SD card slot, so iPhone is out of the picture (as are many Android phones), so my next phone may very well be a Windows Phone. I'm not very impressed with Android and the only reason I have Android is because it was the only option at the time that had an SD card slot. The lack of ability to update the phone OS without going through the phone manufacturer or jumping through hoops of rooting the phone and unlocking the bootloader is just unacceptable. Windows phones seem to be much easier to update than Android phones, and all the Updates come through Microsoft, regardless of the manufacturer (from what I know, correct me if I'm wrong). And most of the Windows Phones I've seen come with an SD Card slot, or have a significant (32 GB) amount of storage on board.
Same issue with cell phones. Touch screen phones don't work with gloves. This is a serious usability issue for any place that gets significantly cold temperatures. Apparently some Nokia phones have solved this issue. No surprise with a company headquartered in Finland.
Yeah, but why try to push it on people with Gingerbread? To me, it just seemed like an app asking for permissions it had no business of asking for. I haven't used talk once since I got my phone. I think next time I need a new phone, I'm going to consider not going with Android. Not sure what all else is out there for cheap phones though.
As soon as I saw this I uninstalled Facebook as well. My battery life has improved a bit. Also recently uninstalled Google Talk (now called "Hangouts (Replaces Google Talk)") because it started asking for access to my text messages as well. I've noticed a lot of apps asking for increased privileges lately. I usually uninstall them if it's something I don't really need. I wonder if the developers get statistics about number of people who uninstalled the app?
To be fair, it also supports SSH File Copy (SFTP) and FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS). Also, FTP can be secure if tunneled over a VPN.
On the flip side, cyclists use speedometers (and more advanced performance tracking) during competition. Marathon runners most certainly use at least a wrist watch to track their progress, if not using something more advanced. It becomes more important in longer events to tack your time.
It wasn't clear to me if they wanted to ban them outright, or just ban them during competitive play. Banning them outright seems ludicrous. It would be similar to outlawing power-meters for cyclists. I mean, you could probably collect similar data using some high speed cameras, and computer tracking software. Although this would probably be a much more complex method of getting at the same data.