>"Firefox, or any other browser for that matter, could easily recapture the web browser market by blocking auto-play videos."
Firefox already does (Chrome does NOT, because it can only block NON-MUTED VIDEO). In Firefox, you just have to turn it on. Has been in several versions for months. Perhaps they just need to market that feature?
Block autoplay by default: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 1 Some people suggest you also: Double-click the media.autoplay.allow-muted preference to switch the value from true to false
Allow autoplay by default: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 0 (or right-click > Reset)
Ask on a site-by-site basis: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 2 and Double-click the media.autoplay.ask-permission preference to switch the value from false to true and Double-click the media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed preference to switch the value from false to true
>"Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence."
I can tell you that when I hire (which is rare, but still relevant), I don't care about grades AT ALL. I really don't care which University either (as long as it is not mail-order). It does matter which degree, depending on the position, but not as much as most people would expect.
I am far more interested in things like: Where they have worked and for how long, what experience they have, their personality, their interests (in or out of the field), what projects they have worked on (in or out of the field).
Technical competence is nowhere near as difficult to find than a well-rounded, devoted, "good" person, who can work with others and communicate well. Getting all "A's" doesn't necessarily even mean technical competence, it means that person is good at performing in the school "system", which, generally doesn't map to the real-world of employment. Any technical info you learn for the I.T. field will go stale quickly... but the methodologies you learn will not.
My advice to young people- going to college/university is fine. Pick a field that interests you, has hiring potential, AND is something that you have some natural talent for. Focus less on grades and more on variety of applicable experience. Make sure your coursework includes anything that will help with your communications and verbal skills (English, writing/composition, speech). If you can't verbally utter a sentence without the word "like" or if you can't write an Email without confusing "their" "there" and "they're", or you can't write a report without messing up verb/subject agreement, you are in trouble.
Also include anything that will strengthen your critical thinking (debate, logic, reason). If you can- work part-time, take internships, participate in clubs/groups both in and out of your field... even if that means it will take longer to get through school.
One more thing, and it relates to what I already said, above. Landing a good technical job is one thing, but if you want to move into management, people will judge you not just by your past results, but how
+1 exactly. They need to define "toxic" too. Typical nonsense "reporting" by the "mainstream media":
>"Half of tech employees think their work culture is toxic," reports one Texas news site"
So not agreeing with a statement that the workplace is "healthy" means it is "toxic"?? I might not agree that chocolate cake is "healthy" but that doesn't make it "toxic." I fact, in moderation, as part of a balanced diet, it isn't "unhealthy" either.
This is meaningless junk news. As for why someone might not agree with a statement like "healthy workplace", one might say false for a zillion wild reasons, like:
* I am not healthy, having nothing to do with the workplace * My employer doesn't offer the health insurance program *I* want. * My employer offers only sugar for coffee in the break room. * I don't like my loud co-worker. * I have no place to exercise on my break. * My employer supports having a smoking area. * My employer doesn't support the "standing desk" fad. * I lost 30 pounds and my employer doesn't care. * OMG, I heard a rude joke while at work. * I got a sexually explicit spam Email at work. * I can't work from home where I am more comfortable. * My employer does or does not perform drug testing. * My employer doesn't have a health savings account plan. * I don't feel "safe" at work because of [*] * The owner of my employment doesn't agree with my political views. * I didn't get that 25% larger kewlness monitor I wanted. * I don't like wearing ties. * I can't bring my "emotional support" animal with me. * Someone GETS to bring their loud, annoying, flea-ridden, allergy-causing animal with them. * My parking is too far away. * I don't like my keyboard. * My boss doesn't care about my feelings. * I can't adequately control the temperature of my work area. * There isn't hand sanitizer on every desk. * I can't use my sick time the way I want.
Although it is tragic that someone in their 20's drops dead at work.... to me, this is not so rare or interesting. And because it happened at Google, that doesn't really make it "news for nerds." Besides, he has only been at Google for a few months.
Now, if he were some famous tech person, or if his death was linked to tech work, or computer work, or has a technological link or the situation contained some science or part of some study... perhaps that would be interesting. Right now we know almost NOTHING about why he died. Congenital defect, drug abuse, rare disease, accidentally poisoned, stroke, nothing.
>"It's not a technological limit. It's a psychological trick. 24 FPS is slow enough that it tricks your brain into ignoring problems with costumes, set dressing, and so on. Even really high-budget films look like high school productions at 48 FPS."
+100 Bingo. My brain switches mode into "reality" at HFR and no amount of practicing can make me adapt to it. I just hate it. All I see is plastic-looking crap that makes it impossible for me to "suspend disbelief" and get into the story.
Ironically, I love 3D (when done right)- I think it adds a lot and as long as it is 24/30FPS, it doesn't cause me any issue at all.
>"Motion interpolation isn't great. But when they say "soap opera effect" that tells me that they aren't against motion interpolation, they are against high frame rates in general."
Bingo. I hate HFR, period. I hated it just as much when I watched the Hobbit in the theater, which was ACTUAL high frame rate, no interpolation at all. The 3D was great. The HFR ruined it.
I don't doubt that some people might like HFR but not like the fake motion interpolation... but I bet most are like me and just don't like HFR at all. I hope the feature is ALWAYS optional.
You are also right that it might have to do with what we are used to- a lifetime of watching 24FPS. Well, I tried to FORCE myself to get used to a very low setting for months and could never adapt. My hate level was just as high at the start of the experience as at the end. Perhaps I am "ruined" for life. Oh well!
>"If you buy a decent TV then motion interpolation works well and looks good. In fact you wouldn't even know it was turned on."
I have a very, very decent TV- Samsung's highest-end-line 75". There is no way I don't know it is on. No matter how weak it is turned on, I can tell, and hate it. I hate the "feature" with a passion.
I absolutely *hate* motion interpolation. HATE HATE HATE it. I can't even watch TV at someone else's house if they have that crap on. Perhaps it my brain has spent too many years looking at 24FPS, but when that "feature" is on, everything looks like hand-held, cheap, plastic video to me. What is funny is how many people can't even tell the difference!! The few times I pointed it out to people and had them turn it off, they couldn't have cared less (but at least it made it tolerable for the people who hate it). Ironically, I know of almost nobody that likes it- most people are either completely indifferent, or hate it.
I *hated* watching the Hobbit in the theater for the same reason- the high frame rate. And it was touted as a feature! The 3D was excellent, and the HFR ruined it.
I just hope I never EVER get stuck with a TV or content in which I can't turn it off. And yes, I know it is adjustable... and yes, I have tried it "on" but at a really weak setting. Still hate it. Perhaps it is good for sports or something, but I don't watch sports.
They need to realize this and QUICKLY. I am fine with manually zooming through ads, sometimes even stopping on one to see what it is. But I will NEVER submit to forced ads, nor "pause ads".
And when I freeze/pause something it might be because:
1) I need silence 2) I need no visual distraction for a moment 3) I want to examine something ON THE SCREEN 4) I am leaving momentarily
An "ad" there is totally unacceptable for the first three.... and those happen A LOT.
>"If there ends up being only one main source for all vendors then HTML will be defined by whatever the code does rather than by any standards process. And then it will be very difficult to move on if Chromium goes bad. Which means that there will be no incentive to make Chromium good."
I agree. It is one of many reasons I use Firefox. And I suggest you do, too. And recommend it your friends and family.. It is a fine browser and deserves support. A mono culture (or near mono culture) in browsers is VERY VERY bad.... we lived through that nightmare once before.
>"The reason they specify room temperature is really just to note that no special temperatures are required to gain the effect required. Sometimes things need to be super-cooled (or heated) to work properly. This does not."
Yeah, I was wondering if that is what they meant, but it is very unclear.
>"Emergency services should have an override on automated vehicles, specifically for situations like this.
Because such a system would NEVER be misused by single criminals who want to easily car jack or harm someone or crackers who want to cause mischief and havoc. If you believe it would be a good idea to allow "the government" to control your car, then YOU have been asleep behind the wheel in the privacy and security field.
Besides, the police DO have an override- they did exactly that. They boxed in the car and forced it to stop. I expect they don't have much experience doing so, which is why it took so long. At MOST it would only take two police cars. Believe me, they will perfect their methods without any help from car manufacturers.
A better option would be that if the car believes the driver is asleep, to safely pull over somewhere and wait for the driver to wake up, perhaps even call authorities for help. And there are probably additional ways to detect if someone is asleep/unconscious. I am sure that part of the technology will improve.
>"The nanoscale air gap is less than the mean-free path of electrons in air, hence electrons can travel through air under room temperature without scattering... "
And what about when not at room temperature? Seems like that little disclaimer could be what makes the whole thing impractical. A chip/board isn't going to be made up of ONLY these "metal-air" transistors, so it is going to generate a significant amount of heat or be near something that does. Plus, there is the overall environment in which the device will be used that needs to be considered. The article doesn't elaborate on this at all.
Yep. Mine is a Samsung. So they have a funky name for the setting, but it allows for a strength. I could just tolerate the weakest setting and tried that for a month. Eventually I just turned it off because it was introducing some slight but noticeable other artifacts.
Oh, remember how I was saying that xx% of people can't notice a difference in fine resolution. The same is with the motion interpolation. When my friend's family got a new TV, that damn interpolation is on by default. I was there watching something with them and asked if I could turn that off. I did and not a single person said there was any difference (the difference was shockingly obvious to me and not something I could ignore). I flipped it back and forth for them, describing the difference and what it is doing- nope, they could see nothing.
I *hated* watching Lord of the Rings in the theater, because it was FILMED and played back in high frame rate. I think it is the only movie done that way. I hope it never catches on.
Annoyingly, when I watch 3D bluray on my setup, either the TV or the bluray player (also Samsung) forces on the motion interpolation. It isn't as bad as typical, I suppose because of the need to strobe for the glasses. I find it mostly tolerable compared to 2D. And yes, I love 3D when it is done well.
Oh, I hate watching sports, but I know what you mean by that being a better use for the setting being on.
>"With 8k you also get the benefit of 120 frames per second motion, which many TVs already fake by interpolating 30 frames per second material (and thus introducing more aliasing, typically visible as halos around moving objects)."
Actually, I *despise* motion interpolation or high frame rates. Absolutely hate it. So I turn all that off and watch at 24 frames (or native 30 of TV sources). I don't know why I hate it so much- I have tried over and over again to watch it, and to me it looks "too real" which flips around in my mind to looking plastic and fake. It is probably because I have been watching 24 and 30 FPS my entire life and it is part of what makes something "cinematic". I know that sounds odd, but I am not alone. I know quite a few other people that hate it too, and have similar thoughts about it. I am just glad all my equipment allows me to turn it off.
My estimates based on a nice, large 70" TV at a normal 10 foot viewing distance for a random set of people (with all content being a mix of typical movie material, with high-quality recording/encoding, and high bitrate, identical in every way except resolution):
20% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 480P native and 720P native. This was HUGE.
50% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 720P native and 1080P native. This was good.
94% of people can NOT tell any res difference between native 1080P and native 4K.
98% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 1080P upscaled to 4K and native 4K.
99.9% of people can NOT tell any res difference between native 4K and native 8K.
Now, in special cases, with huge, huge screens and sitting close, 8K might have some tiny value. But as it is, quality 1080P content, upscaled to a modern 4K TV is "good enough" for nearly everyone. 4K native content will please only a very few.. 8K for any normal purpose is just a total waste of bandwidth/storage/money. It is just a meaningless spec war that confuses and robs consumers or gives techno-ego-snobs something to brag about, even though none of them can tell any difference, either.
What *has* been helpful is HDR and increased color info... but even that is minor compared to what came before; and only helpful to a limited point. So what's next on the marketing train? 20 trillion colors more than the human eye can distinguish? Refresh rates 1,000 times higher than the human brain can ever distinguish?
Sorry, but these generalizations are not always true....
> The proposed rule just uses coercive government to force the cost onto someone else.
Oh, you mean like how now, all cash and check payers must subsidize all the credit card users? It might not be government imposed, but please find ANY store of any reasonable size that is cash only...
>Handling cash is slower and more labor intensive
Not always true. I have been in MANY situations where cash transactions were much faster than card transactions. Especially true for small merchants with dial-up machines.
>can be pocketed by dishonest employees
And there is tip fraud with cards. And skimming fraud which might also come back to bite the merchant.
>and makes the vendor a target for robbery.
And cards can have valid charges frivolously reversed on a merchant, unlike cash.
> So the owner can either eat the loss, or push the cost onto the customer via higher prices
Which is what they do now by paying 2.3 to 3.5% or more to the credit cards for the privilege of using cards, on every transaction. All THOSE costs are pushed onto all customers, including cash ones who are not costing the merchant 3% more. And those credit card machines are often $600+ each, with even more fees and have to be replaced regularly.
There are risks and costs with cash. There are risks and costs with cards. But at least cash requires no technology, does not discriminate, is final, and is nearly 100% private.
>"The big issue came about in that some domains lapsed, years later someone else registered said domains, put up robots.txt, and as such the entire history from the previous owners were inadvertently deleted."
OK, well I can certainly see where that would be an issue. A big one at that, since it is hard or impossible for any crawler to tell if it is even the same site, since the domain/path might be the same. Of course, one might also argue that if they sold the domain/site/path to someone else, they sold their rights along with it.
I think ignoring a current robots.txt file for current content is certainly, flat-out "wrong." But it is more murky about deleting PAST stuff based on a current directive. You provided a good example of how it can, indeed, get pretty murky.
>"the robots.txt strategy, in practice, does little more than mitigating their risk while going against the spirit of the protocol."
Spirit of the protocol? I kinda disagree with that. If a site admin put up a robots.txt file, then they are clearly signaling they do not want the specified parts of the site crawled/archived/copied. It isn't just a directive to be convenient signaling to the crawler about what is a waste of time/load/bandwidth, but also a choice the admin made saying "these things should not be crawled" and for whatever reason the admin wants.
To me, the only controversial part would be- does having a robots.txt excluding something NOW mean that it should exclude things that had been "OK" in the past (because there was no exclusion back then). Personally, I tend to go with the interpretation that it means "now or in the past" (perhaps they changed their mind or forgot to put up a robots.txt initially). But that is certainly murky.
I think it is very hostile, and very much against the "spirit of the protocol" to ignore a robots.txt file. I could see where it might even have legal ramifications later (similar to a "no photography" sign in a store).
>" Facebook has a youtube competitor? First time I've heard of it. Then again, that might be part of the problem. That, and its facebook."
+1 Never heard of it.
And it is guaranteed to be a failure if, like everything else Facebook, you need to "log in" to watch anything. At least with YouTube, you can watch almost anything you want, without a login, and even anonymously. That is a HUGE advantage that I can't see Facebook matching.... ever.
Some Facebook users already send me links to things on Facebook, which I cannot see because I have never and will never have a Facebook login. I usually just tell them they need to share things that aren't locked up in some anti-privacy vault! Fortunately, thus far, I have yet for there to be anything important enough for me to care in the least that I can't get to whatever it was.
>"We WILL have EMR. If you pull back into your burrow and insist on staying with quill and vellum"
I am not sure who the "you" / "your" you are addressing, but if it is me, I already deal with an EMR every day. But that means nothing, because every EMR is different and there isn't that much communication between them and lots of PHI requests are from people and entities who have no access.
Because we have a business to run and can't afford to deal with the money or time assigning, verifying, maintaining, using every human a separate "login" to every single proprietary "portal" for every business. They often barf on certain browsers, or if you don't use java, too. Sometimes they are incompatible with greylisting. Often they have no help when they break. They can severely delay access to the information, too. I speak with first-hand knowledge as to how much of a pain in the a** this new concept has become in practice.
They can be a great tool for a limited set of entities that often communicate with each other, but replacing fax completely- nope.
Slashdot Mirror
>"Firefox, or any other browser for that matter, could easily recapture the web browser market by blocking auto-play videos."
Firefox already does (Chrome does NOT, because it can only block NON-MUTED VIDEO). In Firefox, you just have to turn it on. Has been in several versions for months. Perhaps they just need to market that feature?
media.autoplay.default;1
media.autoplay.allow-muted;false
Block autoplay by default: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 1
Some people suggest you also: Double-click the media.autoplay.allow-muted preference to switch the value from true to false
Allow autoplay by default: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 0 (or right-click > Reset)
Ask on a site-by-site basis: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 2 and Double-click the media.autoplay.ask-permission preference to switch the value from false to true and Double-click the media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed preference to switch the value from false to true
The UI way is new, too (I haven't seen/used it yet, I just set about:config to what I want): https://support.mozilla.org/en...
>"Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence."
I can tell you that when I hire (which is rare, but still relevant), I don't care about grades AT ALL. I really don't care which University either (as long as it is not mail-order). It does matter which degree, depending on the position, but not as much as most people would expect.
I am far more interested in things like: Where they have worked and for how long, what experience they have, their personality, their interests (in or out of the field), what projects they have worked on (in or out of the field).
Technical competence is nowhere near as difficult to find than a well-rounded, devoted, "good" person, who can work with others and communicate well. Getting all "A's" doesn't necessarily even mean technical competence, it means that person is good at performing in the school "system", which, generally doesn't map to the real-world of employment. Any technical info you learn for the I.T. field will go stale quickly... but the methodologies you learn will not.
My advice to young people- going to college/university is fine. Pick a field that interests you, has hiring potential, AND is something that you have some natural talent for. Focus less on grades and more on variety of applicable experience. Make sure your coursework includes anything that will help with your communications and verbal skills (English, writing/composition, speech). If you can't verbally utter a sentence without the word "like" or if you can't write an Email without confusing "their" "there" and "they're", or you can't write a report without messing up verb/subject agreement, you are in trouble.
Also include anything that will strengthen your critical thinking (debate, logic, reason). If you can- work part-time, take internships, participate in clubs/groups both in and out of your field... even if that means it will take longer to get through school.
One more thing, and it relates to what I already said, above. Landing a good technical job is one thing, but if you want to move into management, people will judge you not just by your past results, but how
+1 exactly. They need to define "toxic" too. Typical nonsense "reporting" by the "mainstream media":
>"Half of tech employees think their work culture is toxic," reports one Texas news site"
So not agreeing with a statement that the workplace is "healthy" means it is "toxic"?? I might not agree that chocolate cake is "healthy" but that doesn't make it "toxic." I fact, in moderation, as part of a balanced diet, it isn't "unhealthy" either.
This is meaningless junk news. As for why someone might not agree with a statement like "healthy workplace", one might say false for a zillion wild reasons, like:
* I am not healthy, having nothing to do with the workplace
* My employer doesn't offer the health insurance program *I* want.
* My employer offers only sugar for coffee in the break room.
* I don't like my loud co-worker.
* I have no place to exercise on my break.
* My employer supports having a smoking area.
* My employer doesn't support the "standing desk" fad.
* I lost 30 pounds and my employer doesn't care.
* OMG, I heard a rude joke while at work.
* I got a sexually explicit spam Email at work.
* I can't work from home where I am more comfortable.
* My employer does or does not perform drug testing.
* My employer doesn't have a health savings account plan.
* I don't feel "safe" at work because of [*]
* The owner of my employment doesn't agree with my political views.
* I didn't get that 25% larger kewlness monitor I wanted.
* I don't like wearing ties.
* I can't bring my "emotional support" animal with me.
* Someone GETS to bring their loud, annoying, flea-ridden, allergy-causing animal with them.
* My parking is too far away.
* I don't like my keyboard.
* My boss doesn't care about my feelings.
* I can't adequately control the temperature of my work area.
* There isn't hand sanitizer on every desk.
* I can't use my sick time the way I want.
It goes on and on and on...
Although it is tragic that someone in their 20's drops dead at work.... to me, this is not so rare or interesting. And because it happened at Google, that doesn't really make it "news for nerds." Besides, he has only been at Google for a few months.
Now, if he were some famous tech person, or if his death was linked to tech work, or computer work, or has a technological link or the situation contained some science or part of some study... perhaps that would be interesting. Right now we know almost NOTHING about why he died. Congenital defect, drug abuse, rare disease, accidentally poisoned, stroke, nothing.
>"It's not a technological limit. It's a psychological trick. 24 FPS is slow enough that it tricks your brain into ignoring problems with costumes, set dressing, and so on. Even really high-budget films look like high school productions at 48 FPS."
+100 Bingo. My brain switches mode into "reality" at HFR and no amount of practicing can make me adapt to it. I just hate it. All I see is plastic-looking crap that makes it impossible for me to "suspend disbelief" and get into the story.
Ironically, I love 3D (when done right)- I think it adds a lot and as long as it is 24/30FPS, it doesn't cause me any issue at all.
>"Motion interpolation isn't great. But when they say "soap opera effect" that tells me that they aren't against motion interpolation, they are against high frame rates in general."
Bingo. I hate HFR, period. I hated it just as much when I watched the Hobbit in the theater, which was ACTUAL high frame rate, no interpolation at all. The 3D was great. The HFR ruined it.
I don't doubt that some people might like HFR but not like the fake motion interpolation... but I bet most are like me and just don't like HFR at all. I hope the feature is ALWAYS optional.
You are also right that it might have to do with what we are used to- a lifetime of watching 24FPS. Well, I tried to FORCE myself to get used to a very low setting for months and could never adapt. My hate level was just as high at the start of the experience as at the end. Perhaps I am "ruined" for life. Oh well!
>"If you buy a decent TV then motion interpolation works well and looks good. In fact you wouldn't even know it was turned on."
I have a very, very decent TV- Samsung's highest-end-line 75". There is no way I don't know it is on. No matter how weak it is turned on, I can tell, and hate it. I hate the "feature" with a passion.
I absolutely *hate* motion interpolation. HATE HATE HATE it. I can't even watch TV at someone else's house if they have that crap on. Perhaps it my brain has spent too many years looking at 24FPS, but when that "feature" is on, everything looks like hand-held, cheap, plastic video to me. What is funny is how many people can't even tell the difference!! The few times I pointed it out to people and had them turn it off, they couldn't have cared less (but at least it made it tolerable for the people who hate it). Ironically, I know of almost nobody that likes it- most people are either completely indifferent, or hate it.
I *hated* watching the Hobbit in the theater for the same reason- the high frame rate. And it was touted as a feature! The 3D was excellent, and the HFR ruined it.
I just hope I never EVER get stuck with a TV or content in which I can't turn it off. And yes, I know it is adjustable... and yes, I have tried it "on" but at a really weak setting. Still hate it. Perhaps it is good for sports or something, but I don't watch sports.
>"I'm not going back to watching ads ever."
+100
They need to realize this and QUICKLY. I am fine with manually zooming through ads, sometimes even stopping on one to see what it is. But I will NEVER submit to forced ads, nor "pause ads".
And when I freeze/pause something it might be because:
1) I need silence
2) I need no visual distraction for a moment
3) I want to examine something ON THE SCREEN
4) I am leaving momentarily
An "ad" there is totally unacceptable for the first three.... and those happen A LOT.
>"Yes. We get it. Since moving images (movies, tv shows) are not improved, there is absolutely no use for a display that is 8k"
The article is about 8K TV channels (video). Not 8K touchscreens or 100" computer monitors...
>"If there ends up being only one main source for all vendors then HTML will be defined by whatever the code does rather than by any standards process. And then it will be very difficult to move on if Chromium goes bad. Which means that there will be no incentive to make Chromium good."
I agree. It is one of many reasons I use Firefox. And I suggest you do, too. And recommend it your friends and family.. It is a fine browser and deserves support. A mono culture (or near mono culture) in browsers is VERY VERY bad.... we lived through that nightmare once before.
>"Fine, but take the rest of the subsidies with them."
+100
Absolutely should, at least at the Federal level.
>"The U.S. has slowly morphed into a petty kleptocracy where everyone is picking everyone else's pocket."
That is what happens when the government gets too big and powerful.... which is why the original design was supposed to keep the Fed small.
>"The reason they specify room temperature is really just to note that no special temperatures are required to gain the effect required. Sometimes things need to be super-cooled (or heated) to work properly. This does not."
Yeah, I was wondering if that is what they meant, but it is very unclear.
>"Emergency services should have an override on automated vehicles, specifically for situations like this.
Because such a system would NEVER be misused by single criminals who want to easily car jack or harm someone or crackers who want to cause mischief and havoc. If you believe it would be a good idea to allow "the government" to control your car, then YOU have been asleep behind the wheel in the privacy and security field.
Besides, the police DO have an override- they did exactly that. They boxed in the car and forced it to stop. I expect they don't have much experience doing so, which is why it took so long. At MOST it would only take two police cars. Believe me, they will perfect their methods without any help from car manufacturers.
A better option would be that if the car believes the driver is asleep, to safely pull over somewhere and wait for the driver to wake up, perhaps even call authorities for help. And there are probably additional ways to detect if someone is asleep/unconscious. I am sure that part of the technology will improve.
>"The nanoscale air gap is less than the mean-free path of electrons in air, hence electrons can travel through air under room temperature without scattering... "
And what about when not at room temperature? Seems like that little disclaimer could be what makes the whole thing impractical. A chip/board isn't going to be made up of ONLY these "metal-air" transistors, so it is going to generate a significant amount of heat or be near something that does. Plus, there is the overall environment in which the device will be used that needs to be considered. The article doesn't elaborate on this at all.
Yep. Mine is a Samsung. So they have a funky name for the setting, but it allows for a strength. I could just tolerate the weakest setting and tried that for a month. Eventually I just turned it off because it was introducing some slight but noticeable other artifacts.
Oh, remember how I was saying that xx% of people can't notice a difference in fine resolution. The same is with the motion interpolation. When my friend's family got a new TV, that damn interpolation is on by default. I was there watching something with them and asked if I could turn that off. I did and not a single person said there was any difference (the difference was shockingly obvious to me and not something I could ignore). I flipped it back and forth for them, describing the difference and what it is doing- nope, they could see nothing.
I *hated* watching Lord of the Rings in the theater, because it was FILMED and played back in high frame rate. I think it is the only movie done that way. I hope it never catches on.
Annoyingly, when I watch 3D bluray on my setup, either the TV or the bluray player (also Samsung) forces on the motion interpolation. It isn't as bad as typical, I suppose because of the need to strobe for the glasses. I find it mostly tolerable compared to 2D. And yes, I love 3D when it is done well.
Oh, I hate watching sports, but I know what you mean by that being a better use for the setting being on.
>"With 8k you also get the benefit of 120 frames per second motion, which many TVs already fake by interpolating 30 frames per second material (and thus introducing more aliasing, typically visible as halos around moving objects)."
Actually, I *despise* motion interpolation or high frame rates. Absolutely hate it. So I turn all that off and watch at 24 frames (or native 30 of TV sources). I don't know why I hate it so much- I have tried over and over again to watch it, and to me it looks "too real" which flips around in my mind to looking plastic and fake. It is probably because I have been watching 24 and 30 FPS my entire life and it is part of what makes something "cinematic". I know that sounds odd, but I am not alone. I know quite a few other people that hate it too, and have similar thoughts about it. I am just glad all my equipment allows me to turn it off.
My estimates based on a nice, large 70" TV at a normal 10 foot viewing distance for a random set of people (with all content being a mix of typical movie material, with high-quality recording/encoding, and high bitrate, identical in every way except resolution):
20% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 480P native and 720P native. This was HUGE.
50% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 720P native and 1080P native. This was good.
94% of people can NOT tell any res difference between native 1080P and native 4K.
98% of people can NOT tell any res difference between 1080P upscaled to 4K and native 4K.
99.9% of people can NOT tell any res difference between native 4K and native 8K.
Now, in special cases, with huge, huge screens and sitting close, 8K might have some tiny value. But as it is, quality 1080P content, upscaled to a modern 4K TV is "good enough" for nearly everyone. 4K native content will please only a very few.. 8K for any normal purpose is just a total waste of bandwidth/storage/money. It is just a meaningless spec war that confuses and robs consumers or gives techno-ego-snobs something to brag about, even though none of them can tell any difference, either.
What *has* been helpful is HDR and increased color info... but even that is minor compared to what came before; and only helpful to a limited point. So what's next on the marketing train? 20 trillion colors more than the human eye can distinguish? Refresh rates 1,000 times higher than the human brain can ever distinguish?
> That doesn't eliminate the costs.
Sorry, but these generalizations are not always true....
> The proposed rule just uses coercive government to force the cost onto someone else.
Oh, you mean like how now, all cash and check payers must subsidize all the credit card users? It might not be government imposed, but please find ANY store of any reasonable size that is cash only...
>Handling cash is slower and more labor intensive
Not always true. I have been in MANY situations where cash transactions were much faster than card transactions. Especially true for small merchants with dial-up machines.
>can be pocketed by dishonest employees
And there is tip fraud with cards. And skimming fraud which might also come back to bite the merchant.
>and makes the vendor a target for robbery.
And cards can have valid charges frivolously reversed on a merchant, unlike cash.
> So the owner can either eat the loss, or push the cost onto the customer via higher prices
Which is what they do now by paying 2.3 to 3.5% or more to the credit cards for the privilege of using cards, on every transaction. All THOSE costs are pushed onto all customers, including cash ones who are not costing the merchant 3% more. And those credit card machines are often $600+ each, with even more fees and have to be replaced regularly.
There are risks and costs with cash. There are risks and costs with cards. But at least cash requires no technology, does not discriminate, is final, and is nearly 100% private.
>"The big issue came about in that some domains lapsed, years later someone else registered said domains, put up robots.txt, and as such the entire history from the previous owners were inadvertently deleted."
OK, well I can certainly see where that would be an issue. A big one at that, since it is hard or impossible for any crawler to tell if it is even the same site, since the domain/path might be the same. Of course, one might also argue that if they sold the domain/site/path to someone else, they sold their rights along with it.
I think ignoring a current robots.txt file for current content is certainly, flat-out "wrong." But it is more murky about deleting PAST stuff based on a current directive. You provided a good example of how it can, indeed, get pretty murky.
>"the robots.txt strategy, in practice, does little more than mitigating their risk while going against the spirit of the protocol."
Spirit of the protocol? I kinda disagree with that. If a site admin put up a robots.txt file, then they are clearly signaling they do not want the specified parts of the site crawled/archived/copied. It isn't just a directive to be convenient signaling to the crawler about what is a waste of time/load/bandwidth, but also a choice the admin made saying "these things should not be crawled" and for whatever reason the admin wants.
To me, the only controversial part would be- does having a robots.txt excluding something NOW mean that it should exclude things that had been "OK" in the past (because there was no exclusion back then). Personally, I tend to go with the interpretation that it means "now or in the past" (perhaps they changed their mind or forgot to put up a robots.txt initially). But that is certainly murky.
I think it is very hostile, and very much against the "spirit of the protocol" to ignore a robots.txt file. I could see where it might even have legal ramifications later (similar to a "no photography" sign in a store).
>"An E-mail getting sent to the wrong place is useless to the recipient if it's encrypted, you simpleton."
Wow, I could never have figured that out without your obvious and hostile/rude comment.
>" Facebook has a youtube competitor? First time I've heard of it. Then again, that might be part of the problem. That, and its facebook."
+1 Never heard of it.
And it is guaranteed to be a failure if, like everything else Facebook, you need to "log in" to watch anything. At least with YouTube, you can watch almost anything you want, without a login, and even anonymously. That is a HUGE advantage that I can't see Facebook matching.... ever.
Some Facebook users already send me links to things on Facebook, which I cannot see because I have never and will never have a Facebook login. I usually just tell them they need to share things that aren't locked up in some anti-privacy vault! Fortunately, thus far, I have yet for there to be anything important enough for me to care in the least that I can't get to whatever it was.
>"We WILL have EMR. If you pull back into your burrow and insist on staying with quill and vellum"
I am not sure who the "you" / "your" you are addressing, but if it is me, I already deal with an EMR every day. But that means nothing, because every EMR is different and there isn't that much communication between them and lots of PHI requests are from people and entities who have no access.
>"why cant medical providers do the same thing? "
Because we have a business to run and can't afford to deal with the money or time assigning, verifying, maintaining, using every human a separate "login" to every single proprietary "portal" for every business. They often barf on certain browsers, or if you don't use java, too. Sometimes they are incompatible with greylisting. Often they have no help when they break. They can severely delay access to the information, too. I speak with first-hand knowledge as to how much of a pain in the a** this new concept has become in practice.
They can be a great tool for a limited set of entities that often communicate with each other, but replacing fax completely- nope.