While there are benefits to factory work over farm labor, the ideal end state is that humans only do the type of work that is befitting to humans--art, engineering, decision-making, philosophy, academics. Any society in which a human being is doing something that a machine could do is wasteful of human talent and potential.
But farming is also an interesting an challenging profession. You've got to be able to play the role of engineer, mechanic, accountant, , not to mention farmer just to get by.
Sure, because all the grunt work is done by machines and Mexican immigrants. It's the grunt work that's awful and that people should get away from.
When that number reaches 100%, it'd basically be pay Monsanto or you can't farm.
Do you have any idea how powerful the food industry is in this country? Monsanto might step out of line with small farmers, but if they crossed The Corn Industry, the very same industry that wastes everyone's money trying to turn corn into ethanol to power cars and rigs the market so you have to eat High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of real sugar, Monsanto would get their ass handed to them by all three branches of the federal government. So if Monsanto did have a monopoly, they couldn't abuse it to the extent of causing famines.
You can "grow vitamin A" in window boxes and the like if need be.
You can also tan your own leather, sew your own clothes, and never buy manufactured goods, but if everyone did that, we would all be poor and waste most of our time. Maybe genetically engineered rice is the most cost-effective way to provide nutrition to some countries, especially if those countries are 50% rice paddy already. There's a lot of people in the world, and unless you advocate mass famine or genocide, we have to use technology to figure out how to feed them all.
As more and more artists exposed to more and more global ideas are able to evolve new works more quickly, the legitimacy of holding on to now-outdated work quickly falls away.
I'm glad you think my collection of 70's rock is so obsolete. And we won't even get into my books and movies. The simple truth is, it takes centuries for the best works to become "outdated", if ever. Not that the copyright shouldn't expire, but that's probably the worst argument ever for that conclusion.
On the other hand, the government had to raise taxes to unsustainable levels to give people cheap housing. So instead of choosing between a plethora of different landlords to rent from, you had to either rent subsidized housing from the government and pay extra taxes for it, or not rent subsidized housing from the government and pay extra taxes for it anyway.
If your iPhone is mounted on your dashboard within easy reach of the steering wheel, more power to you. On the other hand, you don't have to fish your gearshift out of the pocket every time you want to change gears.
If he thinks buttons cannot be made attractive, may I point Jobs at practically every new(ish) phone on the market, particularly the Motorola Razr and the Samsung Sync.
Both of which look and feel clunky and primitive compared to the iPhone. As to your main point--I guess I should wait to sue whoever designed my pants, since it takes me long enough to fish my phone out of my pocket that I can't swerve quickly when I need to, and I might die from that. Also, someone should sue Papa John's because eating pizza while driving is too distracting. If you're going to be using your cellphone while driving, you accept the consequences, it's your dumb, unsafe mistake. And if you can work out by feel the buttons on the Razr, you can muscle-memory your iPhone.
Until you have to flash a bios or make a drivers diskette to install windows.
Two problems that Macs don't have--and if they did, they've been able to boot from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM since 1994 or so, so you'd probably burn a drivers CD or--well, I'm sure whatever you need the floppy for to flash the BIOS, you could do that with a burned CD too.
On the one hand, I like to argue that control-clicking enforces good discipline by keeping one hand on the keyboard at all times, which will make you more productive in the long run. On the other hand, I have a two-button mouse, and my trackpad's set up to right-click when I leave two fingers on it while clicking.
You could implement that with the old-fashioned buttons that go ca-chunk into the panel when you press them once and pop out again when you press them again. That's probably the most elegant solution, even.
Exactly, and if someone wants to design a cell phone for blind people to use, I fully approve of their undertakings. If someone wants to design a cell phone for old war veterans with hearing aids and little need for advanced features, I'll buy one for my dad. Maybe Apple should even make an iPhone for the blind that uses an ingenious tactile/audial UI. On the other hand, my Mac isn't able to type by reading my eye movements, so if I contract ALS, I'll have to get a specially-made Hawking chair. Just because technology can remove barriers doesn't mean that all technology should be usable by everyone, if that would make it obnoxious for the rest of us.
I don't think blind people could use my computer, but computers exist for the blind to use, and Apple has every right not to compete in that market segment. Similarly, phones exist which blind people can use. iPhone is not one of them. That's fine.
"Print", "Preview", "Submit", "Quote", "Supplies...", "Close". I'm having a hard time coming up with a "Yes/No" or even "OK/Cancel" dialog in Mac OS X (or, I guess, on the Slashdot comment submission form), although I know OK/Cancel dialogs exist. Whereas in Windows Forms, the API itself enforces bad Yes/No behavior.
You and me both, but it works really well, because it processes based on the layout of the keyboard and (for instance) if you type "timr", it suggests "time" because the E and R keys are right next to each other, and "timt", "timr", "timf", and so on aren't real words. (It'll also consider that you maybe made mistakes hitting the other keys, so there are other probabilities it factors in. For instance, if you type "jurrwb", it will probably suggest "kitten" because "jurrwb" is "kitten" shifted one key left on the keyboard.) It actually displays "timr" on the screen, but it pops up "time" underneath as the correction. If you hit space, it'll substitute the correction. If you really meant "timr", tap the correction bubble (I think there's a little x-in-a-circle in the correction bubble you tap) and it'll leave your misspelled word there. This is counterintuitive, but faster because iPhone will get more suggested corrections right than wrong.
That's only true if karma loss is measured by dividing down-moderations by up-moderations, in which case >1 down-moderations divided by 0 up-moderations leads to n/0 (where n>1) karma loss, which is infinite. I highly doubt that's how it works.
But as gas prices increase and telecommuting grows.* Services like Webvan could become profitable.
Remind me never to invest in your business plans. As telecommuting grows, people will be more free to go grocery shopping whenever they want, and delivery costs will skyrocket with gas prices. I think that's the exact opposite of the situation necessary for it to be profitable. Now, if people were always out of the house and working (and thus had no time to grocery shop, and were forced to go to the grocery store the same time everyone else was if they were going to anyway), and if gas prices were cheap enough to keep down costs, delivering groceries would be a great business model.
You're a loon. Actually, the trend is for terminal care to last longer and longer due to technical advances. Any movement to restrict terminal care is, if anything, a response to the fact that we can often keep a brain-dead body breathing indefinitely. Until recently, we just let people die in a comfortable bed without any terminal care at all. The term "deathbed" is quite literal and did not originally refer to a hospital bed.
On the other hand, it would be silly not to take advantage of the vast amounts of disk space available--I like being able to print to and configure almost any USB or network printer ever made by just connecting to it, since the drivers are already installed. There's something to be said for saving disk space, but unless you're really tight on room, it isn't much.
Slashdot Mirror
While there are benefits to factory work over farm labor, the ideal end state is that humans only do the type of work that is befitting to humans--art, engineering, decision-making, philosophy, academics. Any society in which a human being is doing something that a machine could do is wasteful of human talent and potential.
Sure, because all the grunt work is done by machines and Mexican immigrants. It's the grunt work that's awful and that people should get away from.
That may be a factor. Another factor is the use of high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar.
Do you have any idea how powerful the food industry is in this country? Monsanto might step out of line with small farmers, but if they crossed The Corn Industry, the very same industry that wastes everyone's money trying to turn corn into ethanol to power cars and rigs the market so you have to eat High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of real sugar, Monsanto would get their ass handed to them by all three branches of the federal government. So if Monsanto did have a monopoly, they couldn't abuse it to the extent of causing famines.
You can also tan your own leather, sew your own clothes, and never buy manufactured goods, but if everyone did that, we would all be poor and waste most of our time. Maybe genetically engineered rice is the most cost-effective way to provide nutrition to some countries, especially if those countries are 50% rice paddy already. There's a lot of people in the world, and unless you advocate mass famine or genocide, we have to use technology to figure out how to feed them all.
I'm glad you think my collection of 70's rock is so obsolete. And we won't even get into my books and movies. The simple truth is, it takes centuries for the best works to become "outdated", if ever. Not that the copyright shouldn't expire, but that's probably the worst argument ever for that conclusion.
On the other hand, the government had to raise taxes to unsustainable levels to give people cheap housing. So instead of choosing between a plethora of different landlords to rent from, you had to either rent subsidized housing from the government and pay extra taxes for it, or not rent subsidized housing from the government and pay extra taxes for it anyway.
I don't even know if that's possible. All of my zippered pants are secured at the top with a button.
If your iPhone is mounted on your dashboard within easy reach of the steering wheel, more power to you. On the other hand, you don't have to fish your gearshift out of the pocket every time you want to change gears.
Both of which look and feel clunky and primitive compared to the iPhone. As to your main point--I guess I should wait to sue whoever designed my pants, since it takes me long enough to fish my phone out of my pocket that I can't swerve quickly when I need to, and I might die from that. Also, someone should sue Papa John's because eating pizza while driving is too distracting. If you're going to be using your cellphone while driving, you accept the consequences, it's your dumb, unsafe mistake. And if you can work out by feel the buttons on the Razr, you can muscle-memory your iPhone.
Two problems that Macs don't have--and if they did, they've been able to boot from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM since 1994 or so, so you'd probably burn a drivers CD or--well, I'm sure whatever you need the floppy for to flash the BIOS, you could do that with a burned CD too.
On the one hand, I like to argue that control-clicking enforces good discipline by keeping one hand on the keyboard at all times, which will make you more productive in the long run. On the other hand, I have a two-button mouse, and my trackpad's set up to right-click when I leave two fingers on it while clicking.
You could implement that with the old-fashioned buttons that go ca-chunk into the panel when you press them once and pop out again when you press them again. That's probably the most elegant solution, even.
Exactly, and if someone wants to design a cell phone for blind people to use, I fully approve of their undertakings. If someone wants to design a cell phone for old war veterans with hearing aids and little need for advanced features, I'll buy one for my dad. Maybe Apple should even make an iPhone for the blind that uses an ingenious tactile/audial UI. On the other hand, my Mac isn't able to type by reading my eye movements, so if I contract ALS, I'll have to get a specially-made Hawking chair. Just because technology can remove barriers doesn't mean that all technology should be usable by everyone, if that would make it obnoxious for the rest of us.
I don't think blind people could use my computer, but computers exist for the blind to use, and Apple has every right not to compete in that market segment. Similarly, phones exist which blind people can use. iPhone is not one of them. That's fine.
I defend the lack of this as social responsibility. The next person who's phone erupts into some crappy rap song in the middle of class gets punched.
You can hold down your finger on the "alternate keypad" toggle, hit the keys you need, and then let go to switch back.
"Print", "Preview", "Submit", "Quote", "Supplies...", "Close". I'm having a hard time coming up with a "Yes/No" or even "OK/Cancel" dialog in Mac OS X (or, I guess, on the Slashdot comment submission form), although I know OK/Cancel dialogs exist. Whereas in Windows Forms, the API itself enforces bad Yes/No behavior.
You and me both, but it works really well, because it processes based on the layout of the keyboard and (for instance) if you type "timr", it suggests "time" because the E and R keys are right next to each other, and "timt", "timr", "timf", and so on aren't real words. (It'll also consider that you maybe made mistakes hitting the other keys, so there are other probabilities it factors in. For instance, if you type "jurrwb", it will probably suggest "kitten" because "jurrwb" is "kitten" shifted one key left on the keyboard.) It actually displays "timr" on the screen, but it pops up "time" underneath as the correction. If you hit space, it'll substitute the correction. If you really meant "timr", tap the correction bubble (I think there's a little x-in-a-circle in the correction bubble you tap) and it'll leave your misspelled word there. This is counterintuitive, but faster because iPhone will get more suggested corrections right than wrong.
I can usually manage getting the phone down my pants, but I can't get the "vibrate" function to go indefinitely!
That's only true if karma loss is measured by dividing down-moderations by up-moderations, in which case >1 down-moderations divided by 0 up-moderations leads to n/0 (where n>1) karma loss, which is infinite. I highly doubt that's how it works.
First, it's "ratio". Second, signal to noise ratio, like all ratios of like units, is a unitless measurement.
Remind me never to invest in your business plans. As telecommuting grows, people will be more free to go grocery shopping whenever they want, and delivery costs will skyrocket with gas prices. I think that's the exact opposite of the situation necessary for it to be profitable. Now, if people were always out of the house and working (and thus had no time to grocery shop, and were forced to go to the grocery store the same time everyone else was if they were going to anyway), and if gas prices were cheap enough to keep down costs, delivering groceries would be a great business model.
You're a loon. Actually, the trend is for terminal care to last longer and longer due to technical advances. Any movement to restrict terminal care is, if anything, a response to the fact that we can often keep a brain-dead body breathing indefinitely. Until recently, we just let people die in a comfortable bed without any terminal care at all. The term "deathbed" is quite literal and did not originally refer to a hospital bed.
On the other hand, it would be silly not to take advantage of the vast amounts of disk space available--I like being able to print to and configure almost any USB or network printer ever made by just connecting to it, since the drivers are already installed. There's something to be said for saving disk space, but unless you're really tight on room, it isn't much.