And I mean that, you should try it. Got mine a couple of weeks back and I absolutely love the thing. Even at it's enormous size it fits in my pocket fine, and the screen is gorgeous. Also enjoying the handwriting recognition.
80% of the iOS devices ever sold? Or 80% of those that are both still in support and deemed 'compatible' by Apple? These are very different figures.
Though I agree, it would be a big win for the consumer if Google took some sort sort of action to encourage device vendors to release with modern OS versions and a streamlined, fast, update program. Even Samsung, the poster-child for Android success, is still releasing devices (Galaxy Advance) with 2.x
"Microsoft are company" makes absolutely no sense linguistically. It's an abomination against the language, and a 19th-century British grammarian would be appalled.
That's a bed, and wrong, example. And you should feel bad. It makes no more sense than me saying the singular usage is wrong because you don't say "Microsoft is company".
British English would say "Microsoft are a company", which is perfectly fine.
For example, if you say, "Microsoft choose to release an ARM tablet," according to British usage, what you're saying is, "The employees of Microsoft have decided they would all get together and release an ARM tablet." So presumably, they took a company-wide vote, and they're going to do this without involving the company itself.
No it doesn't. They are, in that situation, taking a collective action as you describe but the democratic element is neither express or implied in the use of the plural.
In the UK there is no requirement to take other subjects during the course of a degree. You go to university to study one subject, and you study that subject only.
Hell, I dropped all non-science/math subjects at the age of 15, with my full-time education from then until graduation entirely devoted to physics, chemistry, mathematics and CS.
PvNP may have been covered at my university, I don't remember. It certainly wasn't given the import you seem to think it deserves, and this is from a university that taught classes in at least 8 languages over the course, with the expectation that you learned to program them outside of the class as in class they were being used to demonstrate principles.
Maybe a lot of schools do have programmes that lack academic rigour, or maybe you're just focussed weirdly.
It's not the specific techniques I'm questioning, just the verification of identity.
I agree that in the new, connected world it makes less sense than ever to have the traditional closed-book test in an exam room. In the real world you'll always be able to look stuff up.
However I always liked the tests, and I still think they force you to become familiar with the material to the extent that you can show, in a short time, that you can apply a lot of the techniques that you've learned. This is valuable, IMHO.
As opposed to IRL courses? People cheat their way through "valuable" degree programs all the time, and employers do not really care. Those employers who are really concerned with whether their students actually know what their degree asserts they should know give job candidates tests.
Sure but if it's all through the computer, how do you know they didn't just get someone else to do it for them, for another hundred bucks?
(yes, I now realise this is not what is proposed in TFA)
Considering the number of people I have met with a BS in CS who cannot even explain the P vs. NP problem, I think that at least a large number of degrees in CS are poor certifications of knowledge.
I've been a software engineer for 12 years now, and many things I learned for my CD degree at university have benefited my work immensely.
Nah, they were pretty awesome way-back-when. Remember the 7110? The tiny 8210/8310 ? Definitely cutting edge in their time.
They even introduced the first phone/computer hybrids I know of in the form of the 9xxx range of 'communicator' devices, really the first attempts at true smartphones (IMHO, and AFAICT).
The 3310/20/30 range were usually in the free-with-contract band, but they also sold in the hundreds of millions of units, so it's hard to fault that.
Actually, it's not *just* that it's from MS that's my problem, though strangely enough the slashdot angle is in there.
It's the shills.
As sson as win phone was announced, there were shills everywhere. They all provlaimed that it was just the best thing ever, especially for developers. They all claimed, basically from announcement day, that the interfaces and tools were (in their experience, 1 day from launch announcement, availability be damned) just perfect and put everything else to shame.
It was really blatant here on slashdot and it put me off immediately. Any tech story on any major site had a carbon-copy post about how awesome it was within seconds of appearing, no matter that nobody could tell by then.
Surround your product with lies from day 1 and I might just take against it, sorry.
I can hate on MS as much as the next guy, but this is sad whatever way you spin it. Nokia used to create great products and be a byword for quality, reliable, cutting edge phones. Then they lost their way, management started all sorts of retarded internal competition games and the company just started chucking out hundreds of near identical handsets.
Even then they had a significant market lead, even in the smartphone sphere, but they were losing it. This is when Elop came along and really killed them, jumping straight into bed with his old bosses and sealing the fate of a once-great european tech powerhouse.
It's a shame to see such an icon driven into the ground.
If you had the option of using gold or USD anywhere with the same degree of acceptance (taxes, etc. included), your choice would evidently be gold, since otherwise the hoarding argument wouldn't work because of chicken-and-egg problems.
I don't follow here, at all, sorry, why would my choice be gold? That directly benefits people who already have gold at my own expense, as I've explained several times.
So you need to be constrained by the State to use its currency, for the economy to flourish. This is what I derive from your previous assertions.
No, you don't need to be constrained by the state, though I consider an issuing body an advantage, such that the supply of currency can be (altruistically) manipulated. The altruism is of course broken in most current systems, the goals questionable and the methods used to achieve them dodgy, but I still consider that better than the fixed supply model.
According to you, in a mixed economy, gold should automatically win.
No, in a mixed economy gold, just like BTC is a commodity. In a situation where gold is used as currency, those already holding the gold, or the ~50% of BTC already mined, are the ones that experience the primary benefit, while everyone else gets to divide the rest into ever smaller chunks, constantly adding to the wealth of those who simply sit on it. Which is one of the reasons I think they make a poor choice of currency for anyone else to switch to, and a poor choice for the economy because wealth is just stored rather than invested.
Clearly, if I keep gold even for the littlest amount, by your argument, I win. Regardless of whether it leads to the tragedy of the commons.
Oh, I see what you're driving at now. Sure, if it is adopted as a currency, you win, which is precisely why I think it's a terrible idea to base a currency on a quantity-limited commodity, as I've explained about a thousand times now.
You seem to recognise that this could cause a tragedy of the commons, so are we even arguing?
Hehe... I hope none of those users were on American IPs, what with that being an online gambling site....
Interesting. Bitcoin (or a cryptocurrency like bitcoin) is probably a pretty good fit for that sort of business.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not against the idea of cryptocurrencies in general, it's simply the specifics of the way the bitcoin economy is designed and constrained that I don't care for.
You claim you don't wish you participate in a currency where this can occur, but you clearly do.
You have misunderstood
The lottery winnings are paid out of money put in by other players, minus a large chunk of profit, tax, operating costs etc etc. The interest is paid on the winnings because their money is in a bank and being used to invest elsewhere, therefore actually helping the economy, unlike in a bitcoin wallet where it is effectively stuffed into the mattress.
The key being that people can and will decide what currency to use rationally with the problems you outline taken into consideration.
Yes, I have chosen, I won't take part and I've been stating my reasons why I think it's a pretty poor implementation of a currency. What, did you think I was calling for it to be banned or something?
(Also you have a lot more faith in people than I do!)
OK, let me try and address this in a satisfactory way, let's go back to your first post -
"Let's say, gold encourages hoarding and USD doesn't. What is the difference in the growth of economic activity between switching to gold from USD for hoarding and using gold directly?"
The difference is that I don't need gold to transact in the mixed situation, and therefore my economic activity only has a tangential effect on the price of gold. In fact it may well even have an inverse effect as gold seems to go up in times of financial strife and recession out here in the real world.
In a gold (or bitcoin) only economy, economic growth must be represented in currency by subdivision of what is already there, making those holding the currency wealthier *directly from the economic activities of other folks* simply by holding.
In a mixed economy, we simply issue more dollars to represent the economic growth, and gold prices remain independent. People can hoard gold all they like and it doesn't have to affect anyone else.
Have I explained this clearly enough now?
I probably ought also to point out the difference I see between hoarding and saving. When you save money with a bank, or invest it directly yourself, the money is actively re-used in the economy. When you have gold in a vault or BTC in your wallet.dat, you're effectively stuffing it under the mattress.
How would it affect growth itself? Well, imagine if everyone kept all their savings in cash, there wouldn't be so much for the bank to loan out, businesses and individuals find it harder to get credit etc etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Enormous? You should try the Note!
And I mean that, you should try it. Got mine a couple of weeks back and I absolutely love the thing. Even at it's enormous size it fits in my pocket fine, and the screen is gorgeous. Also enjoying the handwriting recognition.
I smell a rat in those figures.
80% of the iOS devices ever sold? Or 80% of those that are both still in support and deemed 'compatible' by Apple?
These are very different figures.
Though I agree, it would be a big win for the consumer if Google took some sort sort of action to encourage device vendors to release with modern OS versions and a streamlined, fast, update program. Even Samsung, the poster-child for Android success, is still releasing devices (Galaxy Advance) with 2.x
Oh FFS, my fingers/brain fail me as I try to criticise use of language.
"That's a bad, and wrong, example."
That's a bed, and wrong, example. And you should feel bad. It makes no more sense than me saying the singular usage is wrong because you don't say "Microsoft is company".
British English would say "Microsoft are a company", which is perfectly fine.
No it doesn't. They are, in that situation, taking a collective action as you describe but the democratic element is neither express or implied in the use of the plural.
If you count "playing games online" as an extra, then sure.
Oh wait, you think you can play online with silver. Nah, you can't. Not that it's something I care for, but you can't.
Tell him to go fuck himself.
Seriously, that's not acceptable.
Do you? I think as an absolute that's an Americanism, or at least more common in the US than in the UK. I think it's more varied over here.
Is this just a US attitude though?
In the UK there is no requirement to take other subjects during the course of a degree. You go to university to study one subject, and you study that subject only.
Hell, I dropped all non-science/math subjects at the age of 15, with my full-time education from then until graduation entirely devoted to physics, chemistry, mathematics and CS.
PvNP may have been covered at my university, I don't remember. It certainly wasn't given the import you seem to think it deserves, and this is from a university that taught classes in at least 8 languages over the course, with the expectation that you learned to program them outside of the class as in class they were being used to demonstrate principles.
Maybe a lot of schools do have programmes that lack academic rigour, or maybe you're just focussed weirdly.
It's not the specific techniques I'm questioning, just the verification of identity.
I agree that in the new, connected world it makes less sense than ever to have the traditional closed-book test in an exam room. In the real world you'll always be able to look stuff up.
However I always liked the tests, and I still think they force you to become familiar with the material to the extent that you can show, in a short time, that you can apply a lot of the techniques that you've learned. This is valuable, IMHO.
stupid fingers.... CS degree.
Sure but if it's all through the computer, how do you know they didn't just get someone else to do it for them, for another hundred bucks?
(yes, I now realise this is not what is proposed in TFA)
I've been a software engineer for 12 years now, and many things I learned for my CD degree at university have benefited my work immensely.
Not that though.
OK, I scanned the summary *&and* the article and didn't pick up on that.
FAIL.
Good
- anyone can take the course
- it's very affordable
Bad
- how ya gonna stop cheating? With an entirely remote degree course you can't. Therefore, to an employer, it's not worth much.
(Yeah, sure, whatever, start the snark about how degrees aren't worth anything anyway, I disagree)
Nah, they were pretty awesome way-back-when. Remember the 7110? The tiny 8210/8310 ? Definitely cutting edge in their time.
They even introduced the first phone/computer hybrids I know of in the form of the 9xxx range of 'communicator' devices, really the first attempts at true smartphones (IMHO, and AFAICT).
The 3310/20/30 range were usually in the free-with-contract band, but they also sold in the hundreds of millions of units, so it's hard to fault that.
This is the first time anyone has replied to a comment of mine with a Megadeth lyric.
Sir, I salute you :)
Actually, it's not *just* that it's from MS that's my problem, though strangely enough the slashdot angle is in there.
It's the shills.
As sson as win phone was announced, there were shills everywhere. They all provlaimed that it was just the best thing ever, especially for developers. They all claimed, basically from announcement day, that the interfaces and tools were (in their experience, 1 day from launch announcement, availability be damned) just perfect and put everything else to shame.
It was really blatant here on slashdot and it put me off immediately. Any tech story on any major site had a carbon-copy post about how awesome it was within seconds of appearing, no matter that nobody could tell by then.
Surround your product with lies from day 1 and I might just take against it, sorry.
I should add that it's also entirely obvious that this would happen since the MS deal.
Cheer?
I can hate on MS as much as the next guy, but this is sad whatever way you spin it. Nokia used to create great products and be a byword for quality, reliable, cutting edge phones.
Then they lost their way, management started all sorts of retarded internal competition games and the company just started chucking out hundreds of near identical handsets.
Even then they had a significant market lead, even in the smartphone sphere, but they were losing it. This is when Elop came along and really killed them, jumping straight into bed with his old bosses and sealing the fate of a once-great european tech powerhouse.
It's a shame to see such an icon driven into the ground.
I don't follow here, at all, sorry, why would my choice be gold? That directly benefits people who already have gold at my own expense, as I've explained several times.
No, you don't need to be constrained by the state, though I consider an issuing body an advantage, such that the supply of currency can be (altruistically) manipulated. The altruism is of course broken in most current systems, the goals questionable and the methods used to achieve them dodgy, but I still consider that better than the fixed supply model.
No, in a mixed economy gold, just like BTC is a commodity. In a situation where gold is used as currency, those already holding the gold, or the ~50% of BTC already mined, are the ones that experience the primary benefit, while everyone else gets to divide the rest into ever smaller chunks, constantly adding to the wealth of those who simply sit on it. Which is one of the reasons I think they make a poor choice of currency for anyone else to switch to, and a poor choice for the economy because wealth is just stored rather than invested.
Oh, I see what you're driving at now. Sure, if it is adopted as a currency, you win, which is precisely why I think it's a terrible idea to base a currency on a quantity-limited commodity, as I've explained about a thousand times now.
You seem to recognise that this could cause a tragedy of the commons, so are we even arguing?
Here's an idea - why not get back in touch when you have an actual point to make?
Hehe... I hope none of those users were on American IPs, what with that being an online gambling site....
Interesting. Bitcoin (or a cryptocurrency like bitcoin) is probably a pretty good fit for that sort of business.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not against the idea of cryptocurrencies in general, it's simply the specifics of the way the bitcoin economy is designed and constrained that I don't care for.
You have misunderstood
The lottery winnings are paid out of money put in by other players, minus a large chunk of profit, tax, operating costs etc etc.
The interest is paid on the winnings because their money is in a bank and being used to invest elsewhere, therefore actually helping the economy, unlike in a bitcoin wallet where it is effectively stuffed into the mattress.
Yes, I have chosen, I won't take part and I've been stating my reasons why I think it's a pretty poor implementation of a currency. What, did you think I was calling for it to be banned or something?
(Also you have a lot more faith in people than I do!)
Why would you lend money at a negative nominal rate, when you're better off just sitting on it?
OK, let me try and address this in a satisfactory way, let's go back to your first post -
The difference is that I don't need gold to transact in the mixed situation, and therefore my economic activity only has a tangential effect on the price of gold. In fact it may well even have an inverse effect as gold seems to go up in times of financial strife and recession out here in the real world.
In a gold (or bitcoin) only economy, economic growth must be represented in currency by subdivision of what is already there, making those holding the currency wealthier *directly from the economic activities of other folks* simply by holding.
In a mixed economy, we simply issue more dollars to represent the economic growth, and gold prices remain independent. People can hoard gold all they like and it doesn't have to affect anyone else.
Have I explained this clearly enough now?
I probably ought also to point out the difference I see between hoarding and saving. When you save money with a bank, or invest it directly yourself, the money is actively re-used in the economy. When you have gold in a vault or BTC in your wallet.dat, you're effectively stuffing it under the mattress.
How would it affect growth itself? Well, imagine if everyone kept all their savings in cash, there wouldn't be so much for the bank to loan out, businesses and individuals find it harder to get credit etc etc.