>"There have been numerous cars that have the speed and other info in the center rather than behind the steering wheel."
I know, that is true. There are a small number of vehicles like that. Mostly due to nostalgia or novelty. Originally it was done simply because it was cheap and easy so the car could be right or left hand drive with minimal modifications, not because it was the best arrangement. There are good reasons that perhaps 95+% of all car models have such displays in behind the wheel.
What I find just as horrifying about the 3 is the complete lack of a driver's dashboard display. I would never want to look to the right at a center console to see my speed/gear/gas and other basic information. "Simplicity" is not compatible with the ages and ages of perfected driver-centric design. They just threw it out the window and said- "Uh, yeah, let's just have one, huge, ugly, protruding, landscape, rectangular display in the center." Not what I would want or expect.
That is IN ADDITION to the lack of physical controls that drivers learn to interact with WITHOUT taking their eyes from the road- things like lights, cruise control adjustments, seat position, mirror adjustments, full audio controls, etc. I mean, if I want to change driving modes (like sport vs. normal vs. eco), reset my trip meter, or even just adjust the damn climate temperature I would have to wade through menus and changing screens?
>"OK, it is late, but I have read that a dozen times now and I don't quite understand."
And now I see the problem- the freaky font blended the leading apostrophe into the "T." I wish I could post a screenshot of it; it really is quite amazing.
OK, it is late, but I have read that a dozen times now and I don't quite understand. "Recreated" belongs to one or possibly more than one Tetris? What kind of English is that? Are they trying to make a contraction like "Tetris is" by adding a trailing apostrophe?
>" and to be frank, you have total control over which website you go to."
Far less control than intentionally installing a client (which was open-source) and it also had full settings/preferences. In contrast, how do you know which sites NOT to visit until you go there AND notice what they are doing?
>"Else, they will continue to use adblock to stop both ads and miners for now."
Interesting concept, perhaps ad blockers will evolve to also handle mining. But it might be more difficult than blocking ads, and it certainly won't be available for quite some time (until the demand is there).
Like I said in one of the previous articles, I am not totally opposed to the concept, as long as it is done right. But there are things to consider:
1) Laptops: battery life is critical 2) Mobile: battery life is critical 3) Virtual: Does the guest really know the host is "idle" or expecting such a load? 4) Noise: I don't necessarily want my computer that is in my living room ramping up all CPU's and making lots of fan noise 5) Power: You might not think it uses more power, but it absolutely does. I see it on my UPS which tells me exactly how many watts my system is using based on CPU load. 6) Waste heat: And in the summer, I have to pay to remove that heat too through the A/C. 7) Work: Just because it is a computer you are using, doesn't mean it is YOUR computer or YOUR power. Do you have permission from the actual owner(s), not just the user? 8) Multiuser: Yep, there actually are still such systems, and CPU load matters in such environments. 9) Other tasks: I have other things going on sometimes that I want done in a timely manner and don't want anything competing for those CPU resources. 10) UPS: And even with a desktop or server, will it have control to stop the load when it is suddenly on battery because the mains were lost? Runtime/uptime might matter. 11) Wear: Believe it or not there is actually "wear" when a CPU operates, and the more it operates, the more wear. The fans have to spin up faster, the transistors create heat which degrades the chip, the thermal connections, puts stress on the board or socket or other components, pulls more power from the power supply, etc.
It could be a useful tool, but only if it explicitly allows a user to control every aspect of how and when CPU is used. Is the user is made aware of exactly what it is doing and why? Is there is a UI that allows the user to set amount of CPU, priority, perhaps how many cores or threads, and when it could be used? I doubt what I just listed is compatible with all the models that this new "panacea" of questionable "revenue" of side-line mining brings.
Donating "unused" CPU power is nothing new. I did it decades ago for various scientific research. But I also did it completely under my control and with full knowledge about the effects.
I agree with you completely. Those of us who don't use much data really don't want to be forced into "unlimited" plans which end up costing significantly more and starts the path of saturating the networks again. I was not happy when T-Mobile started up "Unlimited" again and offered no lower-cost, limited plans for those who don't want tons and tons of data. Fortunately, T-Mobile was perfectly happy to grandfather my plan, and even upgrade it twice with more data and features at no extra cost. This doesn't help new customers, though.
>"I have had Sprint for almost 13 years now and they have been great."
And I had Sprint for 16 years before they FINALLY pissed me off enough to make me leave. It wasn't just one thing- it was all kinds of technical and billing problems and truly horrible customer and technical support. But the pricing was always good. Trust me, I tried everything to see if they would be reasonable and they would not. After I went months reporting repeating text messages, lost text messages, and messages delayed sometimes 12 HOURS (and it didn't matter if it was another Sprint user or another network), I moved to T-Mobile 3 years ago and have had nothing but STELLAR customer service, not to mention much, much faster data, and have not had a SINGLE lost/delayed/repeated text message.
Of course, not everyone will have the same experiences.
All very good thought process and information. I will just add that when I was talking about features, I was meaning all available features included, on all the models, and the price of those included. You also have some errors, but that's OK. For example, The loaded G37 does have keyless entry. And at least with the laser guided cruise control it does have limited automatic braking. And it does have all-wheel drive (G37X/G37XS). The Q50 packs on even more features (and costs more (not than the 3), performs slightly worse).
The Tesla 3 is no slouch... and MOST buyers of any car don't ever push their car's performance to the maximum, ever. My main point in all this was that for a car that costs significantly more, it would be nice to have significantly more performance and/or features. While that is very true for the S, that is either not true or unclear for the 3.
So, like I said before, the Tesla 3 (from what we know) is slower than the G37 and Q50 while having a much inferior set of features. Even if the 3 does offer a performance package that can push it significantly above, it is likely going to cost a LOT more (based on what they did with the S performance models) but probably have the same minimal instrumentation and features. It is going to be a hard sell to those in the G37 class.
>"... except when the boat is sinking, then suddenly equality vanishes."
So which would have advantage in such a watery disaster? The women, who have more body fat for insulation and buoyancy, better communications skills, and more endurance? Or the men, with stronger and faster bodies, better coordination, and better spacial skills?
There is no evidence that the cause of male genetic errors are caused by temperature of the testes. The reason they are external is that sperm cannot be formed at typical mammal internal body temperatures. Higher temperatures will result in a lower sperm count (and thus less virility). But that doesn't mean that the sperm would have more mutations.
>"In terms of performance, I would expect the Tesla 3 to be better. Certainly it will accelerate faster under real driving conditions. The Q50 interior is probably nicer though."
You can expect what you will, but I already researched it and the Tesla 3 will be significantly slower (which is acceleration) than the G37 or Q50 or its class. And, of course, the handling will be worse by far due to weight. PLUS the interior and room and range and features are all considerably worse, too. The only advantage the 3 would have is that it is electric (and therefore quiet and uses no gas).
The Tesla S, on the other hand, will eat it alive (acceleration)... and pretty much all cars except exotics. And the features are as good or better than most. The Tesla 3 is much, much, much less car than the S.
Nope. The lowest end had only 1 motor and 2-wheel drive. All the higher end were 2 motors and 4-wheel drive. The battery packs did overlap in some models, though.
The point is, they have so much sales demand that "supply and demand" is taking over. They can sell every single higher-end car they make and still can't keep up, so there is no reason to offer the lesser models. Plus, by selling ONLY 2-motor cars, it streamlines production and will reduce that price some.
Finally, if you were in the market for the lowest-end S, you might now be pointed to the new model 3, which is the target for "entry level" electric car, now. I know I have no interest in the model 3, because it can't compete with the performance of cars like the Infiniti G37S/Q50 or its market equivalents. Of course, the higher end model S is twice FOUR TIMES the price of those ICE cars, so it isn't like I am really in that market, either.:( Some day...
>"I'm sensitive to high volume sound [...]. I gave it another shot recently, went to watch "valerian and the city of a thousand planets" and came back with tinnitus and a 2-day headache."
Yep. Theaters think that LOUDER = more impressive or higher quality or more "experience." It is nothing of the sort. I take musician earplugs with me everywhere and I must use them almost always in theaters to protect my hearing and get the volume tolerable. I sprung for expensive silicone ones now which are quite comfortable, but regardless of claims, no matter how good they are, all of them distort the sound in one way or another. None are able to just turn down the volume equally across all frequencies.
When the study doesn't fit the narrative, just bury it! If that isn't bias, what is?
Piracy does and can hurt legal revenue, but nowhere near as much as many seem to think. A more interesting study might be: "What hurts legal revenue more- piracy, or DRM + region locking + overly high prices + time-locking + scarcity + poor legal choices to obtain content?" Care to wager which it is?
>"Don't forget that if you put nicotine in your soda it becomes toxic and can kill you even from the amount in a pack or two of cigs."
I wasn't comparing toxicity, but if you were to consume 20-40 energy drinks at once (the equivalent of your example), you would probably also die from caffeine overdose (of course, you might also have issues with overload of liquid and also sugars, but I was ignoring that for the moment).
>"You're saying that you've used Linux since pretty much day one and only had a kernel panic up to five times?"
I have been using Linux a very long time, including since the early days. It was probably an exaggeration of being just a few panics, especially back in the first few years. I used various Unix for many years prior, also, and I might have been lumping some of that in too.
I know I haven't seen one in several years.
One interesting tidbit- I am not talking just one Linux machine, but more like 200- server, desktop, home, work, laptop, you name it:)
>" Middlekauff brought 33 healthy non-smokers and non-vapers into the lab. On three different days, one month apart, the participants [...] and found that the participants had high levels of adrenaline in their hearts after they smoked the e-cig with nicotine"
Seriously? This is supposed to be impressive, useful science or something? So people who don't use nicotine consumed it and had typical, known, short-term heart rate changes after using that stimulant? And since none had any tolerance, the reaction was probably strong, right?
Now repeat that experiment with people who don't use caffeine and have them consume that stimulant instead and measure heart rates and heart adrenaline levels. Wow, what a coincidence!
While that is true, it has happened to me only a few times in dozens of years. From my observations, it was perhaps 1% of what MS-Windows users were experiencing.
In any case, the problem with A-C-D to reboot was not a problem under MS-DOS, or even MS-Windows until MS decided to use it to "log on" in "multiuser" mode, which was really quite stupid. No other multi-user system required such an arcane and ridiculous key sequence for a login. Not only was in inconvenient, it was EXTREMELY counter-intuitive after having been a no-no key combination that would, in essence, reboot (often crash) the machine in all prior versions.
I thought it was humorous when Linux systems mapped A-C-D to the inittab to actually properly shut down and then restart the computer. And then, later, have XWindows intercept (capture) A-C-D and offer a nice menu instead (while in X).
Slashdot Mirror
>"There have been numerous cars that have the speed and other info in the center rather than behind the steering wheel."
I know, that is true. There are a small number of vehicles like that. Mostly due to nostalgia or novelty. Originally it was done simply because it was cheap and easy so the car could be right or left hand drive with minimal modifications, not because it was the best arrangement. There are good reasons that perhaps 95+% of all car models have such displays in behind the wheel.
What I find just as horrifying about the 3 is the complete lack of a driver's dashboard display. I would never want to look to the right at a center console to see my speed/gear/gas and other basic information. "Simplicity" is not compatible with the ages and ages of perfected driver-centric design. They just threw it out the window and said- "Uh, yeah, let's just have one, huge, ugly, protruding, landscape, rectangular display in the center." Not what I would want or expect.
That is IN ADDITION to the lack of physical controls that drivers learn to interact with WITHOUT taking their eyes from the road- things like lights, cruise control adjustments, seat position, mirror adjustments, full audio controls, etc. I mean, if I want to change driving modes (like sport vs. normal vs. eco), reset my trip meter, or even just adjust the damn climate temperature I would have to wade through menus and changing screens?
>"OK, it is late, but I have read that a dozen times now and I don't quite understand."
And now I see the problem- the freaky font blended the leading apostrophe into the "T." I wish I could post a screenshot of it; it really is quite amazing.
I need to go to bed :)
> 'Tetris' Recreated In Conway's 'Game of Life'
OK, it is late, but I have read that a dozen times now and I don't quite understand. "Recreated" belongs to one or possibly more than one Tetris? What kind of English is that? Are they trying to make a contraction like "Tetris is" by adding a trailing apostrophe?
>" and to be frank, you have total control over which website you go to."
Far less control than intentionally installing a client (which was open-source) and it also had full settings/preferences. In contrast, how do you know which sites NOT to visit until you go there AND notice what they are doing?
>"Else, they will continue to use adblock to stop both ads and miners for now."
Interesting concept, perhaps ad blockers will evolve to also handle mining. But it might be more difficult than blocking ads, and it certainly won't be available for quite some time (until the demand is there).
Like I said in one of the previous articles, I am not totally opposed to the concept, as long as it is done right. But there are things to consider:
1) Laptops: battery life is critical
2) Mobile: battery life is critical
3) Virtual: Does the guest really know the host is "idle" or expecting such a load?
4) Noise: I don't necessarily want my computer that is in my living room ramping up all CPU's and making lots of fan noise
5) Power: You might not think it uses more power, but it absolutely does. I see it on my UPS which tells me exactly how many watts my system is using based on CPU load.
6) Waste heat: And in the summer, I have to pay to remove that heat too through the A/C.
7) Work: Just because it is a computer you are using, doesn't mean it is YOUR computer or YOUR power. Do you have permission from the actual owner(s), not just the user?
8) Multiuser: Yep, there actually are still such systems, and CPU load matters in such environments.
9) Other tasks: I have other things going on sometimes that I want done in a timely manner and don't want anything competing for those CPU resources.
10) UPS: And even with a desktop or server, will it have control to stop the load when it is suddenly on battery because the mains were lost? Runtime/uptime might matter.
11) Wear: Believe it or not there is actually "wear" when a CPU operates, and the more it operates, the more wear. The fans have to spin up faster, the transistors create heat which degrades the chip, the thermal connections, puts stress on the board or socket or other components, pulls more power from the power supply, etc.
It could be a useful tool, but only if it explicitly allows a user to control every aspect of how and when CPU is used. Is the user is made aware of exactly what it is doing and why? Is there is a UI that allows the user to set amount of CPU, priority, perhaps how many cores or threads, and when it could be used? I doubt what I just listed is compatible with all the models that this new "panacea" of questionable "revenue" of side-line mining brings.
Donating "unused" CPU power is nothing new. I did it decades ago for various scientific research. But I also did it completely under my control and with full knowledge about the effects.
I agree with you completely. Those of us who don't use much data really don't want to be forced into "unlimited" plans which end up costing significantly more and starts the path of saturating the networks again. I was not happy when T-Mobile started up "Unlimited" again and offered no lower-cost, limited plans for those who don't want tons and tons of data. Fortunately, T-Mobile was perfectly happy to grandfather my plan, and even upgrade it twice with more data and features at no extra cost. This doesn't help new customers, though.
>"I hope you don't work at google, because the last time someone said something like that he was publicly fired."
Thankfully, no, so I am free to speak about actual reality instead of worrying about "offending" the PC police with facts and such nonsense.
>"I have had Sprint for almost 13 years now and they have been great."
And I had Sprint for 16 years before they FINALLY pissed me off enough to make me leave. It wasn't just one thing- it was all kinds of technical and billing problems and truly horrible customer and technical support. But the pricing was always good. Trust me, I tried everything to see if they would be reasonable and they would not. After I went months reporting repeating text messages, lost text messages, and messages delayed sometimes 12 HOURS (and it didn't matter if it was another Sprint user or another network), I moved to T-Mobile 3 years ago and have had nothing but STELLAR customer service, not to mention much, much faster data, and have not had a SINGLE lost/delayed/repeated text message.
Of course, not everyone will have the same experiences.
Eeek, I am not so sure I want my provider, T-Mobile, dragged down by Sprint.
>"Thanks to obesity, everyone floats now."
LOL! Well, I was referring to ideal/average :)
All very good thought process and information. I will just add that when I was talking about features, I was meaning all available features included, on all the models, and the price of those included. You also have some errors, but that's OK. For example, The loaded G37 does have keyless entry. And at least with the laser guided cruise control it does have limited automatic braking. And it does have all-wheel drive (G37X/G37XS). The Q50 packs on even more features (and costs more (not than the 3), performs slightly worse).
The Tesla 3 is no slouch... and MOST buyers of any car don't ever push their car's performance to the maximum, ever. My main point in all this was that for a car that costs significantly more, it would be nice to have significantly more performance and/or features. While that is very true for the S, that is either not true or unclear for the 3.
So, like I said before, the Tesla 3 (from what we know) is slower than the G37 and Q50 while having a much inferior set of features. Even if the 3 does offer a performance package that can push it significantly above, it is likely going to cost a LOT more (based on what they did with the S performance models) but probably have the same minimal instrumentation and features. It is going to be a hard sell to those in the G37 class.
>"... except when the boat is sinking, then suddenly equality vanishes."
So which would have advantage in such a watery disaster? The women, who have more body fat for insulation and buoyancy, better communications skills, and more endurance? Or the men, with stronger and faster bodies, better coordination, and better spacial skills?
There is no evidence that the cause of male genetic errors are caused by temperature of the testes. The reason they are external is that sperm cannot be formed at typical mammal internal body temperatures. Higher temperatures will result in a lower sperm count (and thus less virility). But that doesn't mean that the sperm would have more mutations.
Would be an interesting topic of study, however.
>"Isn't refusing to sell in one country but not another a form of racial discrimination?"
No it is not. It might not be nice, it is irritating, and often seems unfair, but it is not racial discrimination.
>"In terms of performance, I would expect the Tesla 3 to be better. Certainly it will accelerate faster under real driving conditions. The Q50 interior is probably nicer though."
You can expect what you will, but I already researched it and the Tesla 3 will be significantly slower (which is acceleration) than the G37 or Q50 or its class. And, of course, the handling will be worse by far due to weight. PLUS the interior and room and range and features are all considerably worse, too. The only advantage the 3 would have is that it is electric (and therefore quiet and uses no gas).
The Tesla S, on the other hand, will eat it alive (acceleration)... and pretty much all cars except exotics. And the features are as good or better than most. The Tesla 3 is much, much, much less car than the S.
> I thought they were all physically the same?
Nope. The lowest end had only 1 motor and 2-wheel drive. All the higher end were 2 motors and 4-wheel drive. The battery packs did overlap in some models, though.
The point is, they have so much sales demand that "supply and demand" is taking over. They can sell every single higher-end car they make and still can't keep up, so there is no reason to offer the lesser models. Plus, by selling ONLY 2-motor cars, it streamlines production and will reduce that price some.
Finally, if you were in the market for the lowest-end S, you might now be pointed to the new model 3, which is the target for "entry level" electric car, now. I know I have no interest in the model 3, because it can't compete with the performance of cars like the Infiniti G37S/Q50 or its market equivalents. Of course, the higher end model S is twice FOUR TIMES the price of those ICE cars, so it isn't like I am really in that market, either. :( Some day...
>"I'm sensitive to high volume sound [...]. I gave it another shot recently, went to watch "valerian and the city of a thousand planets" and came back with tinnitus and a 2-day headache."
Yep. Theaters think that LOUDER = more impressive or higher quality or more "experience." It is nothing of the sort. I take musician earplugs with me everywhere and I must use them almost always in theaters to protect my hearing and get the volume tolerable. I sprung for expensive silicone ones now which are quite comfortable, but regardless of claims, no matter how good they are, all of them distort the sound in one way or another. None are able to just turn down the volume equally across all frequencies.
When the study doesn't fit the narrative, just bury it! If that isn't bias, what is?
Piracy does and can hurt legal revenue, but nowhere near as much as many seem to think. A more interesting study might be: "What hurts legal revenue more- piracy, or DRM + region locking + overly high prices + time-locking + scarcity + poor legal choices to obtain content?" Care to wager which it is?
>"Don't forget that if you put nicotine in your soda it becomes toxic and can kill you even from the amount in a pack or two of cigs."
I wasn't comparing toxicity, but if you were to consume 20-40 energy drinks at once (the equivalent of your example), you would probably also die from caffeine overdose (of course, you might also have issues with overload of liquid and also sugars, but I was ignoring that for the moment).
>"You're saying that you've used Linux since pretty much day one and only had a kernel panic up to five times?"
I have been using Linux a very long time, including since the early days. It was probably an exaggeration of being just a few panics, especially back in the first few years. I used various Unix for many years prior, also, and I might have been lumping some of that in too.
I know I haven't seen one in several years.
One interesting tidbit- I am not talking just one Linux machine, but more like 200- server, desktop, home, work, laptop, you name it :)
>" Middlekauff brought 33 healthy non-smokers and non-vapers into the lab. On three different days, one month apart, the participants [...] and found that the participants had high levels of adrenaline in their hearts after they smoked the e-cig with nicotine"
Seriously? This is supposed to be impressive, useful science or something? So people who don't use nicotine consumed it and had typical, known, short-term heart rate changes after using that stimulant? And since none had any tolerance, the reaction was probably strong, right?
Now repeat that experiment with people who don't use caffeine and have them consume that stimulant instead and measure heart rates and heart adrenaline levels. Wow, what a coincidence!
"Glasshole" knows no brand :)
>"Linux has kernel panics too."
While that is true, it has happened to me only a few times in dozens of years. From my observations, it was perhaps 1% of what MS-Windows users were experiencing.
In any case, the problem with A-C-D to reboot was not a problem under MS-DOS, or even MS-Windows until MS decided to use it to "log on" in "multiuser" mode, which was really quite stupid. No other multi-user system required such an arcane and ridiculous key sequence for a login. Not only was in inconvenient, it was EXTREMELY counter-intuitive after having been a no-no key combination that would, in essence, reboot (often crash) the machine in all prior versions.
I thought it was humorous when Linux systems mapped A-C-D to the inittab to actually properly shut down and then restart the computer. And then, later, have XWindows intercept (capture) A-C-D and offer a nice menu instead (while in X).