Don't you think it moves the whole intelligence curve up a few notches, though? I mean, yeah, once you hit the room-temperature IQ part of the curve you won't really get much bang for the buck, but above that I would like to think that you can teach "magic is not real" and "just because a picture on Facebook said it does not make it true". Yesterday a moron friend of mine had a picture of the West Bank wall on their timeline with a caption declaring it part of the Mexican-"Guadamalan" border. When pointed to snopes, which had a picture of the West Bank wall, they declared that snopes was unreliable because they accepted money from a liberal organization. Facepalm.
I have to live in a world where people with poor critical thinking skills exist, and their poor decisions affect my everyday life. The entire reason I support public education is to reduce my day-to-day interactions with stupid.
I'm hoping the guy just has an academic interest and does not actually believe in it. If that's the case, then hey, cool hobby and I apologize.
It disturbs me that someone is smart enough to devise such software, yet does not possess the critical thinking skills to sniff out obvious superstitious bullshit.
Yeah, I forgot about that. After futzing with ssh tunnels and figuring out how to start it up via the command line, then working around the keyboard issues, it STILL sucked in the performance department. I ended up running "Chicken of the VNC" instead until I settled on LogMeIn, then TeamViewer.
OSX screen sharing works great with other OSX machines. Not as great with Windows, and definitely not when trying to pierce firewalls and use an alternate keyboard layout.
It's pretty easy to use, and it is cross-platform. It pierces the corporate firewall very well. I'm probably a little paranoid, so I don't leave it running - I start it from ssh when I need it. Maybe that paid off today. I used to use VNC over an ssh tunnel, but that was not as seamless and VNC had weird little glitches in dealing with Windows->Mac and with Dvorak.
Until the recent 4k models came out, it was just pixel density as far as I know. That is, for the "rest of us". If you have specialized color needs, then you already know what you are looking for. Gamers are also often unhappy with the lag times on many/most TVs.
Winmo 6.5 had cameras ten years ago,guess what,you could take a photo of a page of text and save and share it..
Almost everything that a smartphone can do was previously done by a different device, so I'm not sure where you are going. But in this case cameras have improved and now even fine text is readable, even after the automatic cropping, rotating, and distorting is done.
Is hardly a good use of enough computing power that in theory should be able to run three full desktop pc systems
By itself, it's a terrible use. But since you are carrying it around anyway... kind of like with music. Smartphones are terrible MP3 players. My iPod from 10 years ago was a better experience. But why carry two devices?
Your solution seems to work for you, and that's great. But they didn't make address books for no reason, people used to use them! Typically you would have two or three. At the least, you'd have a big "family" one at home that was basically a master file. Then you would have a portable one. That would fit in a purse, pocket, glove box, etc. and would only have a subset of your numbers in it. If you were white collar, you probably also had one at work - probably a Rolodex:) By analogy, it sounds like you don't have a need for the little portable one, and that's great. Many of us need access to our contacts while out and about, though. I had an address book, a Casio "organizer", then a Palm Pilot, and now a smart phone.
Same story with dayplanners. Google calendar is also my replacement for a home calendar. For the little spiral-bound notebook replacement, though, it's not very portable. The Casio organizer was not up to the task, the Palm was though. But once I had a phone in my pocket anyway, the Palm went bye-bye.
I have a teeny little photo gallery which has to handle paths to cache in some random location. The filename contains the original name plus the size. Sometimes people use some pretty long filenames to identify pictures. I handle it on Windows by catching the exception and instead using a hash for the filename. If they ever remove the limit, the exception won't be hit anymore and it'll act like other platforms. On Mac, the same code throws an exception when filenames are too big (255 characters), and the solution is the same.
I tend to like the apps better, but there are exceptions. Facebook was using hundreds of megabytes on my phone to display some photos with text... um, what? So that's gone, with the bonus that messenger works fine through the web interface.
I agree that smartphones are for the most part toys, but they definitely are useful replacements for other things that we used to carry around. When is the last time you saw an address book? Or a dayplanner? There is an app called CamScanner which uses the high-res camera on your phone to "scan" documents - I use this regularly when away from my home scanner. My bank has an app that lets me deposit checks by snapping photos. Quicken is pretty much dead, thanks to apps that let me keep track of expenses as they occur rather than sifting through a pile of receipts once in a while.
I'm also not sure how you could lump SMS into "useful" and not also throw email or other instant messaging services in the same pile. Ditto for Skype/Facetime.
While there is a problem with respect for law and order in many poor communities, this whole thing is a two-way street. In addition to the reality of institutionalized racism and the occasional bad cop, we ask cops to perform a lot of duties which are counter to what a community wants their police to be doing. Ferguson is not a good example, because the officer in that case was doing exactly what he should. But in NY, they have local beat cops enforcing state cigarette tax laws. Pretty much everywhere, we have heavily armed troopers enforcing traffic laws that a camera could enforce, then using the "opportunity" to screen the populace for miscreants. Cops, no matter how great they are, are not immune to the effects of juggling too many different roles.
E.g. I won't employ anyone, regardless of wage. The paper work to employ one is already killing me. I contract out to my tax accountant etc. what I can, but an employee? No way, ever!
I would argue that the sort of bureaucracy that you are bemoaning is a direct result of government attempts to protect workers. I'm not making a judgement as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, just pointing it out. (Though if you want to turn this into a debate about the wisdom of such policies, I'm happy to indulge.) Even in the US where most employment is "at will", there is a fair amount of bureaucracy to cut through to "employ" someone. That is why it is becoming more common to "contract" with someone instead:) I myself am a contractor.
Germany is the only one below the US average so I think you are perhaps cherry picking a little. The worst state in the US is only as bad as the EU average.
I do agree that the issue is more complicated. But that doesn't really change my point, which is that artificially propping up salaries will have consequences. That much is not disputed by any serious economic theory that I am aware of. The decision to balance these consequences against the benefits is a political decision, and one which some countries in Europe are currently struggling with.
which robot card will contribute a net gain towards.
They might, or they might help. You can't possibly work out the complexities of this in your head and neither can I. Congestion is a problem now, and I doubt it will cease to be a problem. Policy will need to keep up with technology.
As a counter point, though, I will point to a recent deal between SEPTA (our regional mass transit agency) and Uber where they offer 40% off rides to and from regional rail centers with insufficient parking. If this is successful, it will alleviate congestion. Robot cars could do this even more cheaply, making mass transit into the city viable for those who currently live too far from a station. It doesn't help me - I live very close to a station. It should increase traffic through my neighborhood, but each of those cars is one that is not clogging the roads of Philly.
it is a net loss.
A more efficient tool is never a net loss. If we have better tools and use them in a stupid way, that's on us. It's still better to have the improved tool.
Simply saying it's technology therefore it will be great is inaccurate.
I completely agree. It might turn out to be too complex of a problem for machines to take on. It certainly is right now. I thought we were having a conversation as if robot cars were inevitable, but it is certainly possible that the marketers are pulling the wool over our eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you think it moves the whole intelligence curve up a few notches, though? I mean, yeah, once you hit the room-temperature IQ part of the curve you won't really get much bang for the buck, but above that I would like to think that you can teach "magic is not real" and "just because a picture on Facebook said it does not make it true". Yesterday a moron friend of mine had a picture of the West Bank wall on their timeline with a caption declaring it part of the Mexican-"Guadamalan" border. When pointed to snopes, which had a picture of the West Bank wall, they declared that snopes was unreliable because they accepted money from a liberal organization. Facepalm.
That's okay, I'll have your sloppy seconds.
Yes, if it's a fun hobby than I apologize. Though not to the asshole spamming it.
It's all fun and games until they stop immunizing their kids.
I have to live in a world where people with poor critical thinking skills exist, and their poor decisions affect my everyday life. The entire reason I support public education is to reduce my day-to-day interactions with stupid.
I'm hoping the guy just has an academic interest and does not actually believe in it. If that's the case, then hey, cool hobby and I apologize.
It disturbs me that someone is smart enough to devise such software, yet does not possess the critical thinking skills to sniff out obvious superstitious bullshit.
Even if you chose vigilantism, at no point would the penalty for IP infringement be "death". At least, not to a balanced individual.
You have two choices, take it in the ass like a bitch whore, or go on a rampage to bring attention to the cause.
Really? Those are your two choices? You can't think of anything less extreme than a shooting rampage?
And the penalty for copyright infringement is clearly death. I mean, duh.
Yeah, I forgot about that. After futzing with ssh tunnels and figuring out how to start it up via the command line, then working around the keyboard issues, it STILL sucked in the performance department. I ended up running "Chicken of the VNC" instead until I settled on LogMeIn, then TeamViewer.
That's super, but just an implementation detail. I thought you were debating my point, sorry for the confusion.
OSX screen sharing works great with other OSX machines. Not as great with Windows, and definitely not when trying to pierce firewalls and use an alternate keyboard layout.
It's pretty easy to use, and it is cross-platform. It pierces the corporate firewall very well. I'm probably a little paranoid, so I don't leave it running - I start it from ssh when I need it. Maybe that paid off today. I used to use VNC over an ssh tunnel, but that was not as seamless and VNC had weird little glitches in dealing with Windows->Mac and with Dvorak.
Well then I'm very confused. You ARE using your phone to play the part of an address book and day planner.
Until the recent 4k models came out, it was just pixel density as far as I know. That is, for the "rest of us". If you have specialized color needs, then you already know what you are looking for. Gamers are also often unhappy with the lag times on many/most TVs.
Winmo 6.5 had cameras ten years ago,guess what,you could take a photo of a page of text and save and share it..
Almost everything that a smartphone can do was previously done by a different device, so I'm not sure where you are going. But in this case cameras have improved and now even fine text is readable, even after the automatic cropping, rotating, and distorting is done.
Is hardly a good use of enough computing power that in theory should be able to run three full desktop pc systems
By itself, it's a terrible use. But since you are carrying it around anyway... kind of like with music. Smartphones are terrible MP3 players. My iPod from 10 years ago was a better experience. But why carry two devices?
Your solution seems to work for you, and that's great. But they didn't make address books for no reason, people used to use them! Typically you would have two or three. At the least, you'd have a big "family" one at home that was basically a master file. Then you would have a portable one. That would fit in a purse, pocket, glove box, etc. and would only have a subset of your numbers in it. If you were white collar, you probably also had one at work - probably a Rolodex :) By analogy, it sounds like you don't have a need for the little portable one, and that's great. Many of us need access to our contacts while out and about, though. I had an address book, a Casio "organizer", then a Palm Pilot, and now a smart phone.
Same story with dayplanners. Google calendar is also my replacement for a home calendar. For the little spiral-bound notebook replacement, though, it's not very portable. The Casio organizer was not up to the task, the Palm was though. But once I had a phone in my pocket anyway, the Palm went bye-bye.
I have a teeny little photo gallery which has to handle paths to cache in some random location. The filename contains the original name plus the size. Sometimes people use some pretty long filenames to identify pictures. I handle it on Windows by catching the exception and instead using a hash for the filename. If they ever remove the limit, the exception won't be hit anymore and it'll act like other platforms. On Mac, the same code throws an exception when filenames are too big (255 characters), and the solution is the same.
I tend to like the apps better, but there are exceptions. Facebook was using hundreds of megabytes on my phone to display some photos with text... um, what? So that's gone, with the bonus that messenger works fine through the web interface.
I agree that smartphones are for the most part toys, but they definitely are useful replacements for other things that we used to carry around. When is the last time you saw an address book? Or a dayplanner? There is an app called CamScanner which uses the high-res camera on your phone to "scan" documents - I use this regularly when away from my home scanner. My bank has an app that lets me deposit checks by snapping photos. Quicken is pretty much dead, thanks to apps that let me keep track of expenses as they occur rather than sifting through a pile of receipts once in a while.
I'm also not sure how you could lump SMS into "useful" and not also throw email or other instant messaging services in the same pile. Ditto for Skype/Facetime.
While there is a problem with respect for law and order in many poor communities, this whole thing is a two-way street. In addition to the reality of institutionalized racism and the occasional bad cop, we ask cops to perform a lot of duties which are counter to what a community wants their police to be doing. Ferguson is not a good example, because the officer in that case was doing exactly what he should. But in NY, they have local beat cops enforcing state cigarette tax laws. Pretty much everywhere, we have heavily armed troopers enforcing traffic laws that a camera could enforce, then using the "opportunity" to screen the populace for miscreants. Cops, no matter how great they are, are not immune to the effects of juggling too many different roles.
E.g. I won't employ anyone, regardless of wage. The paper work to employ one is already killing me. I contract out to my tax accountant etc. what I can, but an employee? No way, ever!
I would argue that the sort of bureaucracy that you are bemoaning is a direct result of government attempts to protect workers. I'm not making a judgement as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, just pointing it out. (Though if you want to turn this into a debate about the wisdom of such policies, I'm happy to indulge.) Even in the US where most employment is "at will", there is a fair amount of bureaucracy to cut through to "employ" someone. That is why it is becoming more common to "contract" with someone instead :) I myself am a contractor.
Germany is the only one below the US average so I think you are perhaps cherry picking a little. The worst state in the US is only as bad as the EU average.
I do agree that the issue is more complicated. But that doesn't really change my point, which is that artificially propping up salaries will have consequences. That much is not disputed by any serious economic theory that I am aware of. The decision to balance these consequences against the benefits is a political decision, and one which some countries in Europe are currently struggling with.
I think there may be a wee more to Ferguson than youth unemployment.
which robot card will contribute a net gain towards.
They might, or they might help. You can't possibly work out the complexities of this in your head and neither can I. Congestion is a problem now, and I doubt it will cease to be a problem. Policy will need to keep up with technology.
As a counter point, though, I will point to a recent deal between SEPTA (our regional mass transit agency) and Uber where they offer 40% off rides to and from regional rail centers with insufficient parking. If this is successful, it will alleviate congestion. Robot cars could do this even more cheaply, making mass transit into the city viable for those who currently live too far from a station. It doesn't help me - I live very close to a station. It should increase traffic through my neighborhood, but each of those cars is one that is not clogging the roads of Philly.
it is a net loss.
A more efficient tool is never a net loss. If we have better tools and use them in a stupid way, that's on us. It's still better to have the improved tool.
Simply saying it's technology therefore it will be great is inaccurate.
I completely agree. It might turn out to be too complex of a problem for machines to take on. It certainly is right now. I thought we were having a conversation as if robot cars were inevitable, but it is certainly possible that the marketers are pulling the wool over our eyes.