That doesn't mean it makes sense to maximize everything when you've got a monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080 or higher.
Assuming you use the resolution to make things tiny, rather than increasing dpi, of course. Not that I maximize everything myself (I'm pretty much of the *nix variety), but I've never really understood the point of having lots of stuff on the screen that I'm not looking at -- it consumes screen space and distracts. I usually try to get rid of everything I'm not actively using, including many toolbars, tool buttons and scroll bars (the mouse wheel or PageUp/Down is sufficient for scrolling).
That said, removing the maximize/minimize buttons seems a little bit drastic, especially considering they don't appear to make use of the available window bar area for anything other than painting a rather large homogeneous surface.
There _are_ things "wrong" with javascript that make it hard to optimize (lack of typing, very dynamic, etc).
To get a notion of where it is possible to get with a similarly dynamic language, take a look at how the LuaJIT benchmarks compare with optimized C++ and other dynamic languages. Notice it is not far behind a state-of-the-art Java VM.
Indeed, this has got to be one of the stupidest things I've heard in a rather long while. Talk about not judging a document by its own merits -- the whole argument of Mr Lacy seems to be that the paper is so well researched that one could conceivably mistake it for being written by an licensed engineer, essentially implying that the only thing that is relevant to the validity of the paper is the title (or lack thereof) of the author, not what is being said.
What's next? Someone being accused of impersonating a medical doctor for giving too skillful CPR? Oh, the horrors, the patient could have been misled!
Indeed, it does. However, the expansion rate of a region is proportional to its size, so in absolute terms, the expansion rate at the scale of particles is extremely small, and easily overcome by the forces that attract particles in matter to each other.
Objects like stars or galaxies, on the other hand, can drift apart, because the distance between them is vast (which means two things: 1 - there is more expanding space to keep up with, and 2 - the only attracting force between them, gravity, has very little influence).
If instead of 100km/h they where moving at 0.99 c, A would see B moving at almost 2c, but that's just the relative velocity.
Not really. Of both trains where going 0.99c, A would see B moving at about 0.99995c. Special relativity is counter-intuitive in this way, because we live in a world where relativistic effects are not normally visible.
You can read more about adding relativistic velocities on Wikipedia.
We probably agree on the physics, but personally I wouldn't use that terminology. If we are talking about "velocities with respect to [an] inertial frame", they are by definition relative (to that inertial frame). But sure, an observer can see two objects moving where the sum of their velocities (as seen by the observer) is greater than c.
Nevertheless, as far as I can understand, this does not determine how fast distances between objects can theoretically increase as a result of the expansion of space. Of course, when the distance to an object increases faster than the speed of light, it would forever pass out of your cosmological horizon, so I suppose you could debate to what extent it actually continues to exist.
Yes, that's correct, in the sense that c is the highest possible speed anything can have relative to any frame of reference you choose. However, depending on which frame of reference you do choose, the speed of a separate object can be perceived differently.
To give an example: Suppose two space ships A and B leave Earth in opposite directions, both traveling near the speed of light relative to Earth. Standing back on Earth you would see precisely that; from your perspective, the speed of the two ships relative to each other would be roughly two times the speed of light.
If, on the other hand, you were on space ship A, you would not see space ship B traveling away from you faster than the speed of light, because the highest possible speed of anything relative to you is still c. Both Earth and space ship B would be traveling away from you at a speed close to c, the other space ship slightly faster than Earth. Geometrically, this is possible because (or a consequence of this is that) you would perceive time and distance differently on one of the space ships as compared to being back on Earth.
Thus, there is no absolute speed at which any of the two space ships travel. The speed varies depending on which frame of reference you choose.
None of this prevents the universe, at an astronomical scale, from expanding several times faster than light could travel across it, though, which leads to the observable universe being smaller than the "entire universe".
Disclaimer: This isn't my area of expertise, so I may not be able to give the best explanation of special relativity, or even a correct one.
Some physicist is very welcome to fill in here, but I'm not sure it's correct to say that the universe "expands faster" than the speed of light. Locally, the expansion is slow, and objects aren't really "moving away" from each other -- rather more space is added in between them.
Think of it like blowing up a balloon with ants walking around on the surface. The distance between ants could increase faster than they can move, but none of the ants are moving relative to the space they occupy.
As a side note: One theory of the ultimate fate of the universe is that the expansion rate will increase past the point where the observable universe becomes smaller than atoms and other particles (a higher expansion rate means objects must be closer to each other for light travelling between them to overcome the expansion of the distance between them), essentially ripping all matter apart.
But prices have been dropping quite significantly during recent years, so I wouldn't be surprised if higher resolution monitors will be getting more common.
To quantify this a bit: A little more than five years ago, I payed approximately €750 for my current 20" 1680x1050 monitor. I just checked what screens the same supplier holds today, and for roughly the same amount of money (€800) I can now get a 27" 2560x1440 monitor. On the lower end, a 23" 2048x1152 screen costs about €300.
To be fair, during that period there has been a transition from CRT monitors to flat panel displays, and if I recall correctly 1280x1024 was essentially the "default" flat panel screen resolution only five years ago or so. I think price is still the limiting factor for screen resolution, though. More pixels means lower production yield, and hence a more expensive product, and resolution isn't that important (albeit nice). But prices have been dropping quite significantly during recent years, so I wouldn't be surprised if higher resolution monitors will be getting more common.
That would give me >2Gbit/s actual. I could stream what like 40 blurays simultaniously? Don't need it. Can't really imagine anyone who does, really.
Well, not today maybe. But this technology isn't meant for current bandwidth uses.
Think of it like this: If the technology was readily available and cheap, why would I not want watch streamed movies in UHDTV resolution on a 100 inch 3D display at 100 Hz refresh rate? A single such stream would require bandwidth in the range of Gbit/s.
Do I need it? No. But then I don't really need bluray quality either.
I have more respect for guys saying "Shit, we haven't got a clue, it just happened"
For me, that is actually one of the first signs of BS. If they don't have a clue what is going on, but still claim that the reason must be something extraordinary, like cold fusion, it is very hard to take it seriously until it has been verified by several independent researchers. When you encounter unexpected results, a much more probable albeit mundane explanation for what is going on, is that you have made some error or are misinterpreting your results. Any serious scientist would get a clue before publishing such claims (or provide some really strong and independently repeated empirical evidence).
... than ones spouting demonstrably false pseudoscience like so many before have.
Well, fair enough. Those are even less credible.;-)
Copy a few cells in your favorite spreadsheet program, then paste those cells into your favorite word processor, in a tablet. Format it with headers in a different font and color. Then, do that at a desktop computer with keyboard and mouse. Which was easier?
Not to go so far as to say tablets will kill the desktop computer, but don't you think the comparison is a little bit unfair, considering, for instance, that spreadsheet programs have evolved during about three decades specifically for desktop computers. The relevant question isn't whether current programs work well on a table, but whether one can make a program that works well. What makes you certain that this is impossible?
"The 'List Price' for an App is an amount that does not exceed, at any time, the lowest price for an App available on any online distribution service that makes Apps available for download."
Given that a future version of Kindle will probably only come with the Amazon Appstore [...]
If you're right, this seems more like a scheme to boost Kindle sales rather than optimizing app sales. Essentially, Amazon will be able to guarantee Kindle customers that they will be able to buy apps cheaper than on any other platform, and by that get a competitive advantage over other tablet manufacturers.
Of course, all of this hinges on enough developers going along with it.
The only loser is the consumer who are being deceived into thinking they're getting a huge discount.
For a while, I would say. Either Amazon would have to offer some apps with a smaller discount, or users will figure out that everything is always at 70% discount, and that the discount figure is actually BS.
But I agree with your general analysis -- the "recommended price" is a pointless number. What the developer is actually setting is effectively a lower limit of the price.
I suppose it's possible that Amazon will be using more complicated pricing schemes towards customers as well; "Buy two apps and get this third one for free" and the like.
...or anything down to about $285,700,000 where they still make a profit...
To correct myself, at $285,700,000 they would have the same profit margin. Presumably, they would still make a profit with a price close to $200,000,000, as long as transaction costs and financial risks are covered, but it wouldn't be as many percent.
Indeed, but I don't think it is Amazon. Obviously, if you set the MSRP to $1,000,000,000, then Amazon will just offer it for that price (or anything down to about $285,700,000 where they still make a profit), and you'll get zero sales.
Based on Ockham's razor, I'm actually not convinced there is any foul play afoot in this case. Living in Sweden, my impression of Swedish prosecutors is that they love borderline cases like this. I think it's got something to do with clarifying the boundaries of law by forcing a court to pass judgement, and thereby create a precedent. Or at least that's what they use to argue.
Therefore, there is no need to include conspiracy to explain what has transpired so far. My guess (as a layman) is that the two women contacted the police to force an STD test, and that someone hearing their story saw a wonderful opportunity to prosecute an unclear case. With publicity as a bonus.
People in this country need to wake up and smell the bullshit before they've been fucked beyond the point of no return.
For what it's worth, as someone watching the US from the outside, I have since a few years back been investing my savings on the presumption that you already are pretty close to or past that point. I don't mean to offend, but considering the current political climate in the US, public spending deficits and trade deficits, it's hard to see how status quo could be sustained for more than at most a few decades without some really fundamental changes occurring. The way I see it, the US is currently running on momentum gathered during the 20th century, and the general perception that its economy is unbreakable.
No, it's not a matter of playing semantics. Neither x^2 nor x^4 are exponential functions, they are polynomial functions. Exponential does not mean "there is an exponent involved" -- it means that the variable is in the exponent (such as 2^x).
The behavior of an exponential function is fundamentally different from that of a polynomial function. Keeping them apart is more than just details. Things that change at an exponential rate are usually abrupt or violent: a nuclear detonation for instance.
Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed.
Drag increases quadratically with regard to speed, not exponentially. People really ought to stop using the term "exponentially" to mean "more than linearly".
The media is strangely against Assange. He stands for everything the media is supposed to stand for. So not only has the media forgotten itself, it seems to actually combat its own principles.
I'm guessing this is for the same reason why many people side with a bully or stand quiet instead of speaking up for the bullied: Fear of becoming the target themselves. By distancing themselves from Wikileaks and avoiding to call it a journalistic organisation, media hope to escape restrictions of the freedom of press potentially being applied to them, when politicians and others go after Wikileaks.
Of course, as in the case with bullying, the only reason it can continue is because people who don't agree with it don't stand up against it.
There's no smoking gun, no festering sore of corruption that this was presented to be. Is this really a case of 'holding the US to account for its crimes' or just malice, someone's personal agenda to get back at the big bad Americans? So far, it's looking more like the latter. I'm starting to question my former support for wikileaks.
But if the documents are as unsurprising as you say, wouldn't publishing them rather act against this cause to harm the US? In that case, they will clear the US from suspicion in a way no PR machinery could ever do.
I get it that this can become incredibly embarrassing for american diplomats and the administration, but in the long run I think transparency benefits everyone (that is honest).
Slashdot Mirror
That doesn't mean it makes sense to maximize everything when you've got a monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080 or higher.
Assuming you use the resolution to make things tiny, rather than increasing dpi, of course. Not that I maximize everything myself (I'm pretty much of the *nix variety), but I've never really understood the point of having lots of stuff on the screen that I'm not looking at -- it consumes screen space and distracts. I usually try to get rid of everything I'm not actively using, including many toolbars, tool buttons and scroll bars (the mouse wheel or PageUp/Down is sufficient for scrolling).
That said, removing the maximize/minimize buttons seems a little bit drastic, especially considering they don't appear to make use of the available window bar area for anything other than painting a rather large homogeneous surface.
There _are_ things "wrong" with javascript that make it hard to optimize (lack of typing, very dynamic, etc).
To get a notion of where it is possible to get with a similarly dynamic language, take a look at how the LuaJIT benchmarks compare with optimized C++ and other dynamic languages. Notice it is not far behind a state-of-the-art Java VM.
Another pretty interesting aspect is this code size versus speed comparison.
Indeed, this has got to be one of the stupidest things I've heard in a rather long while. Talk about not judging a document by its own merits -- the whole argument of Mr Lacy seems to be that the paper is so well researched that one could conceivably mistake it for being written by an licensed engineer, essentially implying that the only thing that is relevant to the validity of the paper is the title (or lack thereof) of the author, not what is being said.
What's next? Someone being accused of impersonating a medical doctor for giving too skillful CPR? Oh, the horrors, the patient could have been misled!
Indeed, it does. However, the expansion rate of a region is proportional to its size, so in absolute terms, the expansion rate at the scale of particles is extremely small, and easily overcome by the forces that attract particles in matter to each other.
Objects like stars or galaxies, on the other hand, can drift apart, because the distance between them is vast (which means two things: 1 - there is more expanding space to keep up with, and 2 - the only attracting force between them, gravity, has very little influence).
If instead of 100km/h they where moving at 0.99 c, A would see B moving at almost 2c, but that's just the relative velocity.
Not really. Of both trains where going 0.99c, A would see B moving at about 0.99995c. Special relativity is counter-intuitive in this way, because we live in a world where relativistic effects are not normally visible.
You can read more about adding relativistic velocities on Wikipedia.
We probably agree on the physics, but personally I wouldn't use that terminology. If we are talking about "velocities with respect to [an] inertial frame", they are by definition relative (to that inertial frame). But sure, an observer can see two objects moving where the sum of their velocities (as seen by the observer) is greater than c.
Nevertheless, as far as I can understand, this does not determine how fast distances between objects can theoretically increase as a result of the expansion of space. Of course, when the distance to an object increases faster than the speed of light, it would forever pass out of your cosmological horizon, so I suppose you could debate to what extent it actually continues to exist.
Yes, that's correct, in the sense that c is the highest possible speed anything can have relative to any frame of reference you choose. However, depending on which frame of reference you do choose, the speed of a separate object can be perceived differently.
To give an example: Suppose two space ships A and B leave Earth in opposite directions, both traveling near the speed of light relative to Earth. Standing back on Earth you would see precisely that; from your perspective, the speed of the two ships relative to each other would be roughly two times the speed of light.
If, on the other hand, you were on space ship A, you would not see space ship B traveling away from you faster than the speed of light, because the highest possible speed of anything relative to you is still c. Both Earth and space ship B would be traveling away from you at a speed close to c, the other space ship slightly faster than Earth. Geometrically, this is possible because (or a consequence of this is that) you would perceive time and distance differently on one of the space ships as compared to being back on Earth.
Thus, there is no absolute speed at which any of the two space ships travel. The speed varies depending on which frame of reference you choose.
None of this prevents the universe, at an astronomical scale, from expanding several times faster than light could travel across it, though, which leads to the observable universe being smaller than the "entire universe".
Disclaimer: This isn't my area of expertise, so I may not be able to give the best explanation of special relativity, or even a correct one.
Einstein taught us there is no such thing as absolute velocity.
Some physicist is very welcome to fill in here, but I'm not sure it's correct to say that the universe "expands faster" than the speed of light. Locally, the expansion is slow, and objects aren't really "moving away" from each other -- rather more space is added in between them.
Think of it like blowing up a balloon with ants walking around on the surface. The distance between ants could increase faster than they can move, but none of the ants are moving relative to the space they occupy.
As a side note: One theory of the ultimate fate of the universe is that the expansion rate will increase past the point where the observable universe becomes smaller than atoms and other particles (a higher expansion rate means objects must be closer to each other for light travelling between them to overcome the expansion of the distance between them), essentially ripping all matter apart.
But prices have been dropping quite significantly during recent years, so I wouldn't be surprised if higher resolution monitors will be getting more common.
To quantify this a bit: A little more than five years ago, I payed approximately €750 for my current 20" 1680x1050 monitor. I just checked what screens the same supplier holds today, and for roughly the same amount of money (€800) I can now get a 27" 2560x1440 monitor. On the lower end, a 23" 2048x1152 screen costs about €300.
To be fair, during that period there has been a transition from CRT monitors to flat panel displays, and if I recall correctly 1280x1024 was essentially the "default" flat panel screen resolution only five years ago or so. I think price is still the limiting factor for screen resolution, though. More pixels means lower production yield, and hence a more expensive product, and resolution isn't that important (albeit nice). But prices have been dropping quite significantly during recent years, so I wouldn't be surprised if higher resolution monitors will be getting more common.
That would give me >2Gbit/s actual. I could stream what like 40 blurays simultaniously? Don't need it. Can't really imagine anyone who does, really.
Well, not today maybe. But this technology isn't meant for current bandwidth uses.
Think of it like this: If the technology was readily available and cheap, why would I not want watch streamed movies in UHDTV resolution on a 100 inch 3D display at 100 Hz refresh rate? A single such stream would require bandwidth in the range of Gbit/s.
Do I need it? No. But then I don't really need bluray quality either.
I have more respect for guys saying "Shit, we haven't got a clue, it just happened"
For me, that is actually one of the first signs of BS. If they don't have a clue what is going on, but still claim that the reason must be something extraordinary, like cold fusion, it is very hard to take it seriously until it has been verified by several independent researchers. When you encounter unexpected results, a much more probable albeit mundane explanation for what is going on, is that you have made some error or are misinterpreting your results. Any serious scientist would get a clue before publishing such claims (or provide some really strong and independently repeated empirical evidence).
... than ones spouting demonstrably false pseudoscience like so many before have.
Well, fair enough. Those are even less credible. ;-)
Copy a few cells in your favorite spreadsheet program, then paste those cells into your favorite word processor, in a tablet. Format it with headers in a different font and color. Then, do that at a desktop computer with keyboard and mouse. Which was easier?
Not to go so far as to say tablets will kill the desktop computer, but don't you think the comparison is a little bit unfair, considering, for instance, that spreadsheet programs have evolved during about three decades specifically for desktop computers. The relevant question isn't whether current programs work well on a table, but whether one can make a program that works well. What makes you certain that this is impossible?
"The 'List Price' for an App is an amount that does not exceed, at any time, the lowest price for an App available on any online distribution service that makes Apps available for download."
Given that a future version of Kindle will probably only come with the Amazon Appstore [...]
If you're right, this seems more like a scheme to boost Kindle sales rather than optimizing app sales. Essentially, Amazon will be able to guarantee Kindle customers that they will be able to buy apps cheaper than on any other platform, and by that get a competitive advantage over other tablet manufacturers.
Of course, all of this hinges on enough developers going along with it.
The only loser is the consumer who are being deceived into thinking they're getting a huge discount.
For a while, I would say. Either Amazon would have to offer some apps with a smaller discount, or users will figure out that everything is always at 70% discount, and that the discount figure is actually BS.
But I agree with your general analysis -- the "recommended price" is a pointless number. What the developer is actually setting is effectively a lower limit of the price.
I suppose it's possible that Amazon will be using more complicated pricing schemes towards customers as well; "Buy two apps and get this third one for free" and the like.
...or anything down to about $285,700,000 where they still make a profit...
To correct myself, at $285,700,000 they would have the same profit margin. Presumably, they would still make a profit with a price close to $200,000,000, as long as transaction costs and financial risks are covered, but it wouldn't be as many percent.
Seems like somebody didn't think this through.
Indeed, but I don't think it is Amazon. Obviously, if you set the MSRP to $1,000,000,000, then Amazon will just offer it for that price (or anything down to about $285,700,000 where they still make a profit), and you'll get zero sales.
Not particularly sweet.
Perchance are you a believer in pink flying squirrels on the moon Europa?
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Based on Ockham's razor, I'm actually not convinced there is any foul play afoot in this case. Living in Sweden, my impression of Swedish prosecutors is that they love borderline cases like this. I think it's got something to do with clarifying the boundaries of law by forcing a court to pass judgement, and thereby create a precedent. Or at least that's what they use to argue.
Therefore, there is no need to include conspiracy to explain what has transpired so far. My guess (as a layman) is that the two women contacted the police to force an STD test, and that someone hearing their story saw a wonderful opportunity to prosecute an unclear case. With publicity as a bonus.
People in this country need to wake up and smell the bullshit before they've been fucked beyond the point of no return.
For what it's worth, as someone watching the US from the outside, I have since a few years back been investing my savings on the presumption that you already are pretty close to or past that point. I don't mean to offend, but considering the current political climate in the US, public spending deficits and trade deficits, it's hard to see how status quo could be sustained for more than at most a few decades without some really fundamental changes occurring. The way I see it, the US is currently running on momentum gathered during the 20th century, and the general perception that its economy is unbreakable.
No, it's not a matter of playing semantics. Neither x^2 nor x^4 are exponential functions, they are polynomial functions. Exponential does not mean "there is an exponent involved" -- it means that the variable is in the exponent (such as 2^x).
The behavior of an exponential function is fundamentally different from that of a polynomial function. Keeping them apart is more than just details. Things that change at an exponential rate are usually abrupt or violent: a nuclear detonation for instance.
Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed.
Drag increases quadratically with regard to speed, not exponentially. People really ought to stop using the term "exponentially" to mean "more than linearly".
The media is strangely against Assange. He stands for everything the media is supposed to stand for. So not only has the media forgotten itself, it seems to actually combat its own principles.
I'm guessing this is for the same reason why many people side with a bully or stand quiet instead of speaking up for the bullied: Fear of becoming the target themselves. By distancing themselves from Wikileaks and avoiding to call it a journalistic organisation, media hope to escape restrictions of the freedom of press potentially being applied to them, when politicians and others go after Wikileaks.
Of course, as in the case with bullying, the only reason it can continue is because people who don't agree with it don't stand up against it.
There's no smoking gun, no festering sore of corruption that this was presented to be. Is this really a case of 'holding the US to account for its crimes' or just malice, someone's personal agenda to get back at the big bad Americans? So far, it's looking more like the latter. I'm starting to question my former support for wikileaks.
But if the documents are as unsurprising as you say, wouldn't publishing them rather act against this cause to harm the US? In that case, they will clear the US from suspicion in a way no PR machinery could ever do.
I get it that this can become incredibly embarrassing for american diplomats and the administration, but in the long run I think transparency benefits everyone (that is honest).