How does evolution shape a species when almost everyone makes it past the age of raising children? No matter what life style you choose, apart from some very destructive ones, you are most likely going to live to at least 50. By that time your kids are pretty much grown. Any bad genes you had have already been transferred to your offspring.
And it's beginning to wrap back around on itself, to the point where many people no longer own personal computers. Personal computers were really just a means to an end. Most people who owned a computer had no interest in owning a computer. They wanted to be able to do word processing, send email, access the web, chat with their friends, Almost none of them (percentage wise) wanted a machine they could write programs for. The internet was probably the "killer app" that made most people want to own a computer, as there was no other way of going online without owning a computer. I know quite a few people who now no longer own a PC, but rather do all their computing on a tablet, which is locked down to the point where you can only buy apps from a single store. And they are completely happy with this. More-so than they have ever been with any personal computer. Even as a techie, I can probably count on 1 hand the number of times I've used my computer for something that wasn't programming since I got my tablet. Like you said, "who doesn't have a smartphone".
What's wrong with tape? More seriously though, I haven't had this problem for quite a while. All my remotes have the original back cover and are fully functional. Some of them are over 10 years old. I do remember this being a problem with the remotes we had in my house as a kid. Maybe it's because plastics have improved, or because we don't have to replace the batteries as often, but I really don't see this as a big problem. I can't think of anything I personally would want a 3D printer for, that would make me want to have one at my house. I could see uses for the local Walmart having one, but I can't see using it more than a couple times a year, and they all seem to take up quite a bit of space.
Same thoughts about why I don't own a color printer at home. I got a cheap ($55) black and white laser a couple years back, and I couldn't be happier. The toner is cheap (relatively), and I don't have to worry about the ink drying up, or print heads clogging before I've even had a chance to use up all the ink. I very seldom if ever need color printing, and when I do it's cheaper and easier to head over to the photo printer (Walmart) or print shop (UPS Store) when I actually need color prints.
3D printers have the opportunity to really change things, but only if I can obtain plastic for really cheap, preferably by recycling plastic from products I've already bought.
I would state that a little differently. The people who end up excelling, are the people who are passionate about their work. The people who will spend their spare time (sometimes by spending more than the required time in the office) practicing/doing whatever it is they've chosen to for a living. You often see this in "geek" related fields, but you also see it in sports, medicine, law, and many other fields. The people who end up on the lower end of their respective fields, are the people who don't care about how good of a job they do, and won't spend the necessary time to excel at whatever it is they do.
I don't think I've ever seen that kind of question in any mat class, at least not where you were supposed to solve it the old fashioned way. But I can see one advantage to it. It ensures that students are actually doing the questions using the "algorithm". And it ensures that they really understand the algorithm, and haven't just learned to memorize a few steps that allow them to solve the necessary problems.
The leap from being able to do 23x65, and being able to do 34251 x 67453 isn't a trivial one. To do the first, you have to memorize a few steps, but you don't really have to understand how the algorithm works. You can also do it without applying a general algorithm at all, such as multiplying 20x65, (which is easy enough to do if you memorize your multiplication tables), and then adding 3 x 65 (again, simple multiplication), This way may even work faster for small numbers, but falls apart when you have to multiply 5 digit numbers.
Anyway, I think part of the problem is that in many schools in America (and Canada where I live), they're actually dropping the requirements for learning multiplication tables, as well as dropping the requirements for learning how to do multiplication using the standard algorithm. The students who are doing well are probably the ones who's parents are teaching them this important stuff at home, or who are being sent to extra classes after school which do teach this important material.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing though. Should a student who got 60% all the way through high school really be able to go to "university"? Doesn't that bring down the value of that education for everyone, especially those who excelled?
Exactly. It's really hard to define bloatware. My phone came with Facebook. Many people wouldn't consider that bloatware, but actually an essential piece of the phone. What about things like the SMS software. Technically it's just an app, and I could replace it with something else, but most users would probably be quite annoyed if they were browsing the "bloatware" they could delete, and accidentally removed the SMS capabilities of their phone.
Even the Surface 2 (not Pro) is a better work device then an Android tablet or iPad. It comes with a free copy of MS Office. It can join the domain, access shared folders, use Outlook to communicate with Exchange, and it basically costs the less or the same as an iPad or top end Android Tablet. You can actually get a decent amount of work done on it, depending on the applications you need.
iPads and Android tablets are actually quite terrible from a productivity standpoint. Sure, they're great for Angry Birds, Facebook and Twitter, but terrible if you actually want to do something.
I bought a Surface 2 for home, and I'm very happy with my decision. I was very close to going with an Android tablet, because there's so many apps, but decided that I could do so much more with the Surface, even with the lack of apps. No Youtube app is no problem, because the site just works fine.
I have a surface 2 (not pro), and I've heard that part of the reason there's so much space taken up is because there's also a recovery partition on there (hidden from the user), along with the actual install of the OS. So you basically end up with 2 copies of the initial install, which is why you're left with so little space. Apparently you can use a usb stick to create a recovery drive, and clear out the recovery partition and reclaim the space. Definitely something I want to try out.
Yeah, but I doubt most people would pay $1 an episode. You have to get them on a subscription package, because at the end of the day, once you start asking them for money every time they want to watch a show, they'll opt to not watch it at all. They're only watching it because their cable bill is a sunk cost, and your show happens to be the best thing on. If they now have to choose paying you $1 to watch the show, and spending $0, and watching some other show, or just watching stuff on Youtube, the vast majority of people will just choose to not spend the $1.
That assumes there's no money to be made elsewhere. A good movie doesn't just bring in money from ticket sales, there's tons of other advantages, like T-shirts, toys, and other merchandise. You could still sell premium disc versions with directors comments and extra footage, while offering the basic movie on the subscription service. People would still pay to see the movie on the big screen, even with the movie available at home on their TV. They could basically have a bit of both, and probably come close to doubling their profits.
Exactly, and 99 cents (or 129 cents) a song, or $13 an album wasn't really what I was ever looking for. Digital distribution should not be the same price as buying a physical CD. I'm actually much more partial to the subscription services simply because you can get so much more for less money. For $10 or less a month I can get access to thousands of albums. Spending the same amount at iTunes, getting 10 songs a month, even if I bought music for 100 years, I'd still only end up with 12000 songs, which is less than what's available on subscription services, and only 600 songs from the last 5 years at any one point, so getting all the "new" music would never happen.
Seemed to work this way for the cable companies. Since there's only 1 cable provider in most places, it doesn't matter what quality of programming the offer as long as people see it as better than over the air service. But now there's new options available like NetFlix and Hulu, and the cable companies are actually starting to see quite a few customers leave.
The Surface 2 is basically sold out everywhere. Whether that's because sales are amazing, or they underestimated demand, or a little of both, I can't say. I got one for myself this Christmas. It's a really great tablet. Only downside I see is lack of apps, but it has enough apps to get everything done.
With all the electronics on a human-in-cockpit fighter plane, I wonder if it's not possible to jam those as well. You may not be able to completely disable the aircraft, but with the right technologies, you could certain hinder their effectiveness.
I think this is probably the major problem with the US college/university system. They say students end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, but I imagine that's only students who insist on going to elite out-of-state/private schools.From the numbers I've seen, going to an in-state college/university in the US isn't any more expensive then going to university in Canada, yet somehow it's completely unaffordable in the US, while in Canada, it's only more expensive than most would like it to be. Most people would probably be better off going to a reasonably affordable state school, and having minimal debts, then they would going to an expensive private school and creating a debt they couldn't possibly hope to pay off.
People make these wild claims and spend tons of extra money for the 2 or 3 times a year they actually leave the city. My mobile provider charges me $30 a month for unlimited everything. The caveat being that anything outside the city is "roaming". But I almost never leave the city, so even if I end up using my phone when traveling, I still end up way ahead because all the other mobile phone providers that offer the same rates across the country charge double what my monthly fees are.
Same goes for cars. People will justify the need for gas by specifying the longest trip they go on, which they may only do 2 or 3 times a year. When in reality it would be cheaper for them to just rent a car for the times they need to make that trip.
They can still tax you on miles driven, for using the roads. You could fill out an online form every month and pay the necessary taxes. Where I live, your license plate has a sticker on it you have to renew every year. They could check your odometer against your monthly self reporting numbers to ensure you aren't lying. pretty simple really. They could also build it into the car. Have the car self report it's mileage over the cellular networks (or your home wifi network) every so often whenever it can find a signal. Then they can just send you a bill every month.
I read somewhere that some humans can actually play perfect checkers. When you think about it, there aren't really that many possible moves. not anywhere close to chess anyway. I'm not sure if it's factually correct that the best players can play perfectly, but this reference says that the reigning champion hasn't lost a game in 40 years. That's pretty impressive.
I don't know if anybody has been taken to court, but it's not guaranteed that the company with the bug bounty program will pay out. If you want something specific, here's an example involving Facebook.
It's not quite that bad, but unless something significant changes, I'm at the point where I buy a new PC or Laptop only when the previous one dies. And I'll only buy a new PC if the old one is unrepairable, or repairs cost more than a new one. The current computer I have is 8 years old, and still works fine for my uses. I have a newer laptop (3 years), but it was a $400 laptop, bottom of the line. Still does everything I need it to. The PC market is definitely different than 10-15 years ago when you need to buy a new machine every 2-3 years just to run the latest OS and Office software. There is nothing interesting about going out and buying a new computer, and there's very little reason to spend more than the minimum amount.
When you put it that way, you start to realize how big the bubble is getting in social and other web platforms. A business that's actually taking in revenue (quit a bit, I would guess) is worth significantly less than a web service that has no way of generating revenue, and who's users can switch to a new, almost identical web service tomorrow, if they start charging money or showing ads to generate revenue. Companies like to keep their servers the same, because things (like remote hardware management ex.HP ILO) don't interoperate between different vendors. So they're going to be able to retain quite a few customers as long as they don't change anything, and just keep on producing boxes that work.
You are correct, but yogurt and fruit in a blender doesn't provide all the necessary nutrients. It's also hard to get fresh fruit for a reasonable price during certain seasons in many parts of the world. What's the real difference between soylent and a yogurt and fruit shake anyway? I've never tried soylent, but there's probably not a lot stopping them from making a product that's both nutritious and tasty.
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How does evolution shape a species when almost everyone makes it past the age of raising children? No matter what life style you choose, apart from some very destructive ones, you are most likely going to live to at least 50. By that time your kids are pretty much grown. Any bad genes you had have already been transferred to your offspring.
And it's beginning to wrap back around on itself, to the point where many people no longer own personal computers. Personal computers were really just a means to an end. Most people who owned a computer had no interest in owning a computer. They wanted to be able to do word processing, send email, access the web, chat with their friends, Almost none of them (percentage wise) wanted a machine they could write programs for. The internet was probably the "killer app" that made most people want to own a computer, as there was no other way of going online without owning a computer. I know quite a few people who now no longer own a PC, but rather do all their computing on a tablet, which is locked down to the point where you can only buy apps from a single store. And they are completely happy with this. More-so than they have ever been with any personal computer. Even as a techie, I can probably count on 1 hand the number of times I've used my computer for something that wasn't programming since I got my tablet. Like you said, "who doesn't have a smartphone".
What's wrong with tape? More seriously though, I haven't had this problem for quite a while. All my remotes have the original back cover and are fully functional. Some of them are over 10 years old. I do remember this being a problem with the remotes we had in my house as a kid. Maybe it's because plastics have improved, or because we don't have to replace the batteries as often, but I really don't see this as a big problem. I can't think of anything I personally would want a 3D printer for, that would make me want to have one at my house. I could see uses for the local Walmart having one, but I can't see using it more than a couple times a year, and they all seem to take up quite a bit of space.
Same thoughts about why I don't own a color printer at home. I got a cheap ($55) black and white laser a couple years back, and I couldn't be happier. The toner is cheap (relatively), and I don't have to worry about the ink drying up, or print heads clogging before I've even had a chance to use up all the ink. I very seldom if ever need color printing, and when I do it's cheaper and easier to head over to the photo printer (Walmart) or print shop (UPS Store) when I actually need color prints. 3D printers have the opportunity to really change things, but only if I can obtain plastic for really cheap, preferably by recycling plastic from products I've already bought.
I would state that a little differently. The people who end up excelling, are the people who are passionate about their work. The people who will spend their spare time (sometimes by spending more than the required time in the office) practicing/doing whatever it is they've chosen to for a living. You often see this in "geek" related fields, but you also see it in sports, medicine, law, and many other fields. The people who end up on the lower end of their respective fields, are the people who don't care about how good of a job they do, and won't spend the necessary time to excel at whatever it is they do.
I don't think I've ever seen that kind of question in any mat class, at least not where you were supposed to solve it the old fashioned way. But I can see one advantage to it. It ensures that students are actually doing the questions using the "algorithm". And it ensures that they really understand the algorithm, and haven't just learned to memorize a few steps that allow them to solve the necessary problems.
The leap from being able to do 23x65, and being able to do 34251 x 67453 isn't a trivial one. To do the first, you have to memorize a few steps, but you don't really have to understand how the algorithm works. You can also do it without applying a general algorithm at all, such as multiplying 20x65, (which is easy enough to do if you memorize your multiplication tables), and then adding 3 x 65 (again, simple multiplication), This way may even work faster for small numbers, but falls apart when you have to multiply 5 digit numbers.
Anyway, I think part of the problem is that in many schools in America (and Canada where I live), they're actually dropping the requirements for learning multiplication tables, as well as dropping the requirements for learning how to do multiplication using the standard algorithm. The students who are doing well are probably the ones who's parents are teaching them this important stuff at home, or who are being sent to extra classes after school which do teach this important material.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing though. Should a student who got 60% all the way through high school really be able to go to "university"? Doesn't that bring down the value of that education for everyone, especially those who excelled?
Exactly. It's really hard to define bloatware. My phone came with Facebook. Many people wouldn't consider that bloatware, but actually an essential piece of the phone. What about things like the SMS software. Technically it's just an app, and I could replace it with something else, but most users would probably be quite annoyed if they were browsing the "bloatware" they could delete, and accidentally removed the SMS capabilities of their phone.
Even the Surface 2 (not Pro) is a better work device then an Android tablet or iPad. It comes with a free copy of MS Office. It can join the domain, access shared folders, use Outlook to communicate with Exchange, and it basically costs the less or the same as an iPad or top end Android Tablet. You can actually get a decent amount of work done on it, depending on the applications you need.
iPads and Android tablets are actually quite terrible from a productivity standpoint. Sure, they're great for Angry Birds, Facebook and Twitter, but terrible if you actually want to do something.
I bought a Surface 2 for home, and I'm very happy with my decision. I was very close to going with an Android tablet, because there's so many apps, but decided that I could do so much more with the Surface, even with the lack of apps. No Youtube app is no problem, because the site just works fine.
I have a surface 2 (not pro), and I've heard that part of the reason there's so much space taken up is because there's also a recovery partition on there (hidden from the user), along with the actual install of the OS. So you basically end up with 2 copies of the initial install, which is why you're left with so little space. Apparently you can use a usb stick to create a recovery drive, and clear out the recovery partition and reclaim the space. Definitely something I want to try out.
Yeah, but I doubt most people would pay $1 an episode. You have to get them on a subscription package, because at the end of the day, once you start asking them for money every time they want to watch a show, they'll opt to not watch it at all. They're only watching it because their cable bill is a sunk cost, and your show happens to be the best thing on. If they now have to choose paying you $1 to watch the show, and spending $0, and watching some other show, or just watching stuff on Youtube, the vast majority of people will just choose to not spend the $1.
That assumes there's no money to be made elsewhere. A good movie doesn't just bring in money from ticket sales, there's tons of other advantages, like T-shirts, toys, and other merchandise. You could still sell premium disc versions with directors comments and extra footage, while offering the basic movie on the subscription service. People would still pay to see the movie on the big screen, even with the movie available at home on their TV. They could basically have a bit of both, and probably come close to doubling their profits.
Exactly, and 99 cents (or 129 cents) a song, or $13 an album wasn't really what I was ever looking for. Digital distribution should not be the same price as buying a physical CD. I'm actually much more partial to the subscription services simply because you can get so much more for less money. For $10 or less a month I can get access to thousands of albums. Spending the same amount at iTunes, getting 10 songs a month, even if I bought music for 100 years, I'd still only end up with 12000 songs, which is less than what's available on subscription services, and only 600 songs from the last 5 years at any one point, so getting all the "new" music would never happen.
Seemed to work this way for the cable companies. Since there's only 1 cable provider in most places, it doesn't matter what quality of programming the offer as long as people see it as better than over the air service. But now there's new options available like NetFlix and Hulu, and the cable companies are actually starting to see quite a few customers leave.
The Surface 2 is basically sold out everywhere. Whether that's because sales are amazing, or they underestimated demand, or a little of both, I can't say. I got one for myself this Christmas. It's a really great tablet. Only downside I see is lack of apps, but it has enough apps to get everything done.
With all the electronics on a human-in-cockpit fighter plane, I wonder if it's not possible to jam those as well. You may not be able to completely disable the aircraft, but with the right technologies, you could certain hinder their effectiveness.
I think this is probably the major problem with the US college/university system. They say students end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, but I imagine that's only students who insist on going to elite out-of-state/private schools.From the numbers I've seen, going to an in-state college/university in the US isn't any more expensive then going to university in Canada, yet somehow it's completely unaffordable in the US, while in Canada, it's only more expensive than most would like it to be. Most people would probably be better off going to a reasonably affordable state school, and having minimal debts, then they would going to an expensive private school and creating a debt they couldn't possibly hope to pay off.
People make these wild claims and spend tons of extra money for the 2 or 3 times a year they actually leave the city. My mobile provider charges me $30 a month for unlimited everything. The caveat being that anything outside the city is "roaming". But I almost never leave the city, so even if I end up using my phone when traveling, I still end up way ahead because all the other mobile phone providers that offer the same rates across the country charge double what my monthly fees are.
Same goes for cars. People will justify the need for gas by specifying the longest trip they go on, which they may only do 2 or 3 times a year. When in reality it would be cheaper for them to just rent a car for the times they need to make that trip.
Doesn't mean that 16 year old car obsolete. My TV is 14 years old, still works for me, but I would still call it obsolete.
They can still tax you on miles driven, for using the roads. You could fill out an online form every month and pay the necessary taxes. Where I live, your license plate has a sticker on it you have to renew every year. They could check your odometer against your monthly self reporting numbers to ensure you aren't lying. pretty simple really. They could also build it into the car. Have the car self report it's mileage over the cellular networks (or your home wifi network) every so often whenever it can find a signal. Then they can just send you a bill every month.
I read somewhere that some humans can actually play perfect checkers. When you think about it, there aren't really that many possible moves. not anywhere close to chess anyway. I'm not sure if it's factually correct that the best players can play perfectly, but this reference says that the reigning champion hasn't lost a game in 40 years. That's pretty impressive.
I don't know if anybody has been taken to court, but it's not guaranteed that the company with the bug bounty program will pay out. If you want something specific, here's an example involving Facebook.
It's not quite that bad, but unless something significant changes, I'm at the point where I buy a new PC or Laptop only when the previous one dies. And I'll only buy a new PC if the old one is unrepairable, or repairs cost more than a new one. The current computer I have is 8 years old, and still works fine for my uses. I have a newer laptop (3 years), but it was a $400 laptop, bottom of the line. Still does everything I need it to. The PC market is definitely different than 10-15 years ago when you need to buy a new machine every 2-3 years just to run the latest OS and Office software. There is nothing interesting about going out and buying a new computer, and there's very little reason to spend more than the minimum amount.
When you put it that way, you start to realize how big the bubble is getting in social and other web platforms. A business that's actually taking in revenue (quit a bit, I would guess) is worth significantly less than a web service that has no way of generating revenue, and who's users can switch to a new, almost identical web service tomorrow, if they start charging money or showing ads to generate revenue. Companies like to keep their servers the same, because things (like remote hardware management ex.HP ILO) don't interoperate between different vendors. So they're going to be able to retain quite a few customers as long as they don't change anything, and just keep on producing boxes that work.
You are correct, but yogurt and fruit in a blender doesn't provide all the necessary nutrients. It's also hard to get fresh fruit for a reasonable price during certain seasons in many parts of the world. What's the real difference between soylent and a yogurt and fruit shake anyway? I've never tried soylent, but there's probably not a lot stopping them from making a product that's both nutritious and tasty.