With all of this functionality to be embedded in the notes, why bother with tangible currency at all? It seems as though we're drifting closer to electronic funds.
Yes, I've unfortunately borne witness to this phenomenon. I find it particularly disheartening because of the fact that the correct application of the word, whether 'depreceate' or 'depreciate,' should align itself with the primary meaning of 'depreciate,' which is to 'lessen the value of.' In the context of technology, this makes far more sense than 'to belitte or mildly disparage.'
I suspect, though I have no concrete proof, that this is a result of a common linguistic shift in English, whereby our inclination towards 'concisness' (read: laziness) tends to contract words or blend meanings of similar ones in favor of the shorter (eg, 'disorient' vs 'disorientate'). I suspect further that this was acclerated by the culture and mindset of technology users and advocates, where the need/desire for brevity and the rapid dissemination of information spread this change in convention.
[taken from the text of the troubleshooting guide]
2) I hear a low buzz coming from my monitor. Is something wrong?
No.
What you hear is the vibration of the vertical deflection coils sweeping the beam during the vertical refresh of the display. Since it operates from 60 to 76 Hertz (cycles per second), depending on the refresh rate your controller is programmed for, it is within the range of human hearing. You cannot detect the resonation of the horizontal coils because the frequency is from 30,000 to 64,000 Hertz which is so high it is inaudible.
3) Sometimes my monitor makes a high pitched noise. Is this a sign of trouble?
Usually the sound is from one of the transformers in the monitor which resonate due to the gap in their core upon which the coils are wound. Minute physical changes occurring due to normal warming may cause the gap to assume a spacing just right so the magnetic field sets it vibrating like a speaker, and the gap is of a wavelength that reproduces a high pitched tone. It is in not harmful to the monitor.
As for the speakers themselves, I suspect magnetic induction and/or modulation of the current to them as a result of the conditions described above.
I myself was guilty of the same heady feelings for the potential of the 'marketplace of ideas.' But, on reflection, it had that same air of late-night discussions in the dorm room while avoiding homework; enough difference of opinion and backgrounds to make it all seems fresh and possessing the ability to make a real difference.
But I submit this, there are always selection rules in effect, both internal and external, conscious and subconscious. People found their way to a particular region. and a particular college. and a particular living space. and so on. Likewise, a sequence of events lead people to a particular online community; whether it be newsgroup, bulletin board or blog.
And the key word here is community. And as such we bring with it all the rules, semi-rules and baggage from our own personal social models. Effective communication and means to reach consensus become increasingly difficult as you add more members. Quickly, you reach a point where it is impossible for everyone to 'assemble' to air their own viewpoints and any meaningful discussion becomes impossible. The signal-to-noise ratio rapidly increases and the only apparently viable method of being heard above the din is to enhance the 'strength' of your output, ie shout. Direct representative political systems work best on a small, local level. As you increase the membership of the system, particular over a geographically-diverse area, the system alligns itself into a hierarchical system (eg, mayors, governors, Representatives, President). Deference in the matter of representation, at least in the US, was to be assigned to one's peers. In theory then, the collective voice of the 'people' would be coalesced into a single voice in Government. Now, whether or not this happens in practice, however, is another matter for discussion.
In the matters of discourse, it is only natural that there emerges a system of trusted 'authorities.' Gurus, teachers, whathaveyou, that again represent the consolidation in a particular area. These are people (or resources) that must be appealed to in order to bring order and structure to discussion. These acquire their credentials through structures created and recognized by the various communities. These 'super nodes' are looked to from many eyes and their voices reach many people simultaneously.
Now, the balkinization of communities is again only natural. A community in general, but an online on in particular, tends to abide by the same effects that others have observed about the internet (web pages, p2p nodes,etc). 'Neighborhoods' asemble around common perceptions, ideas and the overal cohesiveness of the structure. Friendship groups, for instance, ebb and flow in size, generate and dissolve over time. Naturally, if people can't get something from a particular group, they will move elsewhere.
And again, as size grows, systems tend to self-organize, collecting around authority figures (in the sense described before) and around certain core beliefs.
In the end though, one shouldn't be surprised at this turn. However, blog-ing communities and the Internet overall do offer a unique advantage: you can always go buffet style, sampling all that various groups have to offer.
...is our best customer"
as one clothing retail outlet put it, is the word of the day in music as well. The cat's out of the bag when it comes to the value of published music content. Online discussion, trading, browsing... have created a more discriminating and knowledgable music listener.
Like books that one 'must read,' the body of good music is vast. And the array of lesser music perhaps even larger. It's not surprising really that out of sheer defense, if not more educated musical pallettes, that people consult music info sites, trade music (and maybe quite frequently delete them) and make more targeted purchases.
If anything, the recording industry should examine trends in shared music and find out what the consumer really wants. And why this isn't being fulfilled by the current state of affairs.
You bring out a very good point: that scale and situation are crucial to the degree of fault tolerance.
Certainly, I would want strict fault-tolerance in certain aspects of mission-critical operations, eg guidance systems.
What it comes down to is the right too for the right job. For pattern-recognition, yes, sure, apply fuzzy logic and have a wider disrection to administer fault tolerance.
And sure, we can put more of the onus on the interface to handle inter-operability (a la XML), but my fear that if this were to be the norm, we would simply relocate the complexity to another application and hide the sins of poor coding elsewhere.
I submit that we should strive to make code more efficient (and not rely on faster hardware to pick up the slack). And pare down the size
of bloatware.
They might not announce privately-sponsored conferences on their website; doing so might lend tacit support to the organizer's legitimacy.
Still, seeing the link on the NSC's main page to a resource for educators to debunk claims of the 'we never landed on the moon' naysayers, one has to wonder why they would support such wild speculation. Of course, what might be closer to the truth is there is a legitimate conference around data from the SOHO mission being held at the Centre, but EuroSETI simply saw what they wanted to see in a press release from the ESA and ran off proclaiming that UFOs were invading our solar system.
In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.
Slashdot Mirror
With all of this functionality to be embedded in the notes, why bother with tangible currency at all? It seems as though we're drifting closer to electronic funds.
www.ti.com/tiris/docs/products/transponders/RI-I03 -112A.shtml
I suspect, though I have no concrete proof, that this is a result of a common linguistic shift in English, whereby our inclination towards 'concisness' (read: laziness) tends to contract words or blend meanings of similar ones in favor of the shorter (eg, 'disorient' vs 'disorientate'). I suspect further that this was acclerated by the culture and mindset of technology users and advocates, where the need/desire for brevity and the rapid dissemination of information spread this change in convention.
Impression Monitors
to summarize two relevant points
[taken from the text of the troubleshooting guide]
2) I hear a low buzz coming from my monitor. Is something wrong?
No.
What you hear is the vibration of the vertical deflection coils sweeping the beam during the vertical refresh of the display. Since it operates from 60 to 76 Hertz (cycles per second), depending on the refresh rate your controller is programmed for, it is within the range of human hearing. You cannot detect the resonation of the horizontal coils because the frequency is from 30,000 to 64,000 Hertz which is so high it is inaudible.
3) Sometimes my monitor makes a high pitched noise. Is this a sign of trouble?
Usually the sound is from one of the transformers in the monitor which resonate due to the gap in their core upon which the coils are wound. Minute physical changes occurring due to normal warming may cause the gap to assume a spacing just right so the magnetic field sets it vibrating like a speaker, and the gap is of a wavelength that reproduces a high pitched tone. It is in not harmful to the monitor.
As for the speakers themselves, I suspect magnetic induction and/or modulation of the current to them as a result of the conditions described above.
But I submit this, there are always selection rules in effect, both internal and external, conscious and subconscious. People found their way to a particular region. and a particular college. and a particular living space. and so on. Likewise, a sequence of events lead people to a particular online community; whether it be newsgroup, bulletin board or blog.
And the key word here is community. And as such we bring with it all the rules, semi-rules and baggage from our own personal social models. Effective communication and means to reach consensus become increasingly difficult as you add more members. Quickly, you reach a point where it is impossible for everyone to 'assemble' to air their own viewpoints and any meaningful discussion becomes impossible. The signal-to-noise ratio rapidly increases and the only apparently viable method of being heard above the din is to enhance the 'strength' of your output, ie shout. Direct representative political systems work best on a small, local level. As you increase the membership of the system, particular over a geographically-diverse area, the system alligns itself into a hierarchical system (eg, mayors, governors, Representatives, President). Deference in the matter of representation, at least in the US, was to be assigned to one's peers. In theory then, the collective voice of the 'people' would be coalesced into a single voice in Government. Now, whether or not this happens in practice, however, is another matter for discussion.
In the matters of discourse, it is only natural that there emerges a system of trusted 'authorities.' Gurus, teachers, whathaveyou, that again represent the consolidation in a particular area. These are people (or resources) that must be appealed to in order to bring order and structure to discussion. These acquire their credentials through structures created and recognized by the various communities. These 'super nodes' are looked to from many eyes and their voices reach many people simultaneously.
Now, the balkinization of communities is again only natural. A community in general, but an online on in particular, tends to abide by the same effects that others have observed about the internet (web pages, p2p nodes,etc). 'Neighborhoods' asemble around common perceptions, ideas and the overal cohesiveness of the structure. Friendship groups, for instance, ebb and flow in size, generate and dissolve over time. Naturally, if people can't get something from a particular group, they will move elsewhere. And again, as size grows, systems tend to self-organize, collecting around authority figures (in the sense described before) and around certain core beliefs.
In the end though, one shouldn't be surprised at this turn. However, blog-ing communities and the Internet overall do offer a unique advantage: you can always go buffet style, sampling all that various groups have to offer.
Like books that one 'must read,' the body of good music is vast. And the array of lesser music perhaps even larger. It's not surprising really that out of sheer defense, if not more educated musical pallettes, that people consult music info sites, trade music (and maybe quite frequently delete them) and make more targeted purchases.
If anything, the recording industry should examine trends in shared music and find out what the consumer really wants. And why this isn't being fulfilled by the current state of affairs.
Certainly, I would want strict fault-tolerance in certain aspects of mission-critical operations, eg guidance systems.
What it comes down to is the right too for the right job. For pattern-recognition, yes, sure, apply fuzzy logic and have a wider disrection to administer fault tolerance. And sure, we can put more of the onus on the interface to handle inter-operability (a la XML), but my fear that if this were to be the norm, we would simply relocate the complexity to another application and hide the sins of poor coding elsewhere.
I submit that we should strive to make code more efficient (and not rely on faster hardware to pick up the slack). And pare down the size of bloatware.
Still, seeing the link on the NSC's main page to a resource for educators to debunk claims of the 'we never landed on the moon' naysayers, one has to wonder why they would support such wild speculation. Of course, what might be closer to the truth is there is a legitimate conference around data from the SOHO mission being held at the Centre, but EuroSETI simply saw what they wanted to see in a press release from the ESA and ran off proclaiming that UFOs were invading our solar system.
For a dose of cure for some of this, here are some relevant links:
National Space Centre
SOHO Mission Page
In the end, I'm left with the feeling that the folks at the UFO magazine seized on some out-of-context statement made by the ESA or NASA and interpreted it as they saw fit.