The light bulb however was not still a candle, but fundamentally different using a completely different basis in science/engineering, different from anything that had come before it.
No, the Edison light bulb was not completely different. Much like the iPhone, it was just an outgrowth of products that were already there but one that could be made commercially successful. Edison did not create the lightbulb, merely discovered a different filament material that made it possible to use as a commercially practical lightbulb.
That doesn't mean "the electric light bulb" wasn't a fantastic invention in its own right, no matter who first made one, or who finally made a practical one.
All of your examples are minor technologies that get added to a smartphone. That's not the same as a different kind of device.
Well, the first thing somebody who wants to take over is realize that "phone" is now just another feature that is part of the personal computer I carry around in my pocket, then leverage that sort of device.
If FB was a simple website hosting some data, I'd agree. But it is the meeting place of 1 billion people, and we should have a say on what affects us.
You do have a say. You can stop using it and go to a different service. Up from that, you can get your government to pass some privacy laws and make them follow them.
There hasn't been a truely innovative cell phone design in 3 or 4 years, from any company, Apple or otherwise.
And there won't be one ever again. We've past the point that a "phone" is just another feature to a person's pocket computer. The next big jump, if there is one, will be innovating that "personal computer" people carry around in their pocket and embracing that change in viewpoint.
Electron Beam Welding and Smelting, Vapor Deposition, Centrifuges, Subtractive and Additive Techniques, Robotics, and Inflatable Drydocks. As for forging and molding, those don't really rely on gravity or oxygen, and would actually get strength advantages from having perfect crystal structures. And when MNT takes off, all bets are really off then.
True, but we're going to need that space station first in order to develop, test, and tweak those technologies for applied use in space.
...is that Microsoft has tried to cram two operating systems, which are used for very different applications, into a single OS.
No, I think that is pretty neat and a good idea. I'd love to be able to run my iOS apps on my MacPro too. The trouble is that Microsoft is preventing us from deciding which one we want to be primary as a user defined setting. Some people will use one, some people the other, and some both. They picked the one true way and forced it onto everybody, which might work if they pleased 80% of the people like Apple usually does. Instead, it seems they pleased the 20%.
...apps are always full screen, which is usually what you want...
IME, things have been about multiple windows on multiple monitors for years now, especially in the business world. I think almost anything beyond integrated video comes with multiple monitors standard these days.
People haven't stood in line to buy a Windows operating system since Windows 95, where the real motto instead of "start me up" as sung by Mick Jagger was "it sucks less."
Not true, I remember standing in line at midnight at a CompUSA with a friend of mine waiting for Win98.
Why would there me more or less need for a big sized display depending on how many colors it can display?
As long as the contrast is decent I would love a large eInk display
You and a few other maybe, but most want to take advantage of having color. In the systems at my work, rows can be made red, yellow, green, or white, each indicating the status of that item. Furthermore, each item has icons to designate different things and the color adds to the recognition of such icons. Even if they did make such thing, most display programs will already be done in color as the are probably expecting to output to a computer monitor, which these large LCDs are simply acting as. The actual need for monotone displays is slight and can be done with current color LCDs displays.
It will never happen because the hero worship that is going to sell this movie would die if people knew the real Steve Jobs.
Doubtful. All the things you have mentioned were parts of all the previous media on Jobs and are pretty much common knowledge to anybody who cares. Even his fans know and accept he was an asshole. People are interested in him because he succeeded where others had failed.
Real men and women can indeed stand on their own. It's a shame that so many idiot can find creative ways to kill themselves - drug overdoses, for instance - but some of us believe that idiots have every right to remove themselves from the gene pool.
"on your own", you say? And, you say that like it's a bad thing!
As somebody from there, 'bullshit'. Sure, people believe that others have the right to mess up their lives, but when something happens to them, their business fails, they get fired, can't find a job, whatever, it's always also the government's fault. If somebody with brown skin succeeds better than they do, it's because of the government, never because they actually went to school, did better, and worked harder. Texans do have good qualities such as a decent work ethic and ability to stand behind their friends and family, but they also tend not to care about anybody but that and have the bad habit of externalizing the cause of any of their own shortcomings.
Of course, California is also more complicated than that. In my experience, I'd rather trust a Texan with my life than somebody from LA with $20. Northern CA tends to split the difference.
The Cyber Pearl Harbor already happened. (Man, I hate that term.)
Not unless we did it to Iraq. A "Cyber Pearl Harbor" will be an initial attack as a prelude to a real war. Most likely it will be a computer attack on the infrastructure of an nation about to be invaded by another nation, probably with the intent on taking down the networking and communications ability of said nation to delay response to actual military forces on the move. Any other use of the term is just using inappropriate terms for the sake of sensationalism.
I have no doubt that it's tiring work, but how many man-hours is that to do? If WotC sells 100,000 copies of the PDF, that's half a million dollars in their pockets (ignoring DTRPG's take, probably 1/3), for paying (just a guess) two guys $30K to work on that PDF for six months.
100k is more than the current new rule books sell. The RPG industry, even for D&D, is a pretty niche product market and hardly sells that much. Then there is that business is rarely that simple as just throwing a couple of FTEs at a problem. Not in the least being that if they were really wanting to make money, they could make more for less work by producing a new 4E book rather than providing things from the old library. for that matter, they could probably make a better ROI by skipping D&D altogether and doing something else, something that their owners, Hasbro points out to them occationally. They let WotC continue to work on D&D which is mostly a hobby so long as they continue to bring in the real money with Magic the Gathering.
Does this mean all the D&D PDFs I bought before, but which were deleted out of my various paizo and drivethruRPG cloud accounts, are going to be replaced?
Yes. (According to various blogs posted on RPG.net.)
I'm hoping that they're doing the OCR work on these. If you're charging $5 for material as old and obsolete as this you had better be putting at least the minimum amount of effort into it.
That is hardly "minimum amount" of effort. That is a great deal of effort. They did that for the 1E books they reprinted, and I know and have talked to the guy that did it. He said it was the hardest thing he has every worked on. OCRs need to be reviewed and practically rewritten again, especially if trying to get the same or similar layout. Stuff from the opposite side bleeds through so all artwork has to be manipulated and have about as much work put into it as the original artist took to draw it (and you still loose detail). Add in the non-standard layouts and margins they used back then and it became a lot more work to make the stuff even look close to what it originally did than it would have been to write and layout a new book from scratch.
You have avery limited definition of Conservative. He's the left-most President in history on gay rights. He's left of Bush on health care, taxes, military spending, Immigration Reform (he supports a path-to-citizenship for all illegals, not just DREAMers), and regulating Wall Street. That encompasses pretty much everything in most Americans top 10 issues facing DC. And we still haven't gotten to the #1 Conservative project: re-making the Supreme Court in their image.
Pretty much the only area he could be considered right of Bush is his use of drones, and that's only because Bush didn't have this many drones to play with.
Or perhaps your definition of conservative is limited. Face it, Bush was a very liberal president in the classical sense. He made lots of sweeping changes that deviated from the status quo. He created an entire new branch of government for heaven's sake. If Obama is actually trying to tune that back, then he is being conservative than Bush as he is trying to return to the former status quo. As far as left and right, that's an entirely different set of definitions that one should really set down before beginning the discussion, because like many terms, what you think they stand for may not, and probably isn't, the same as what other people think they stand for even if they agree with you on the issues at hand.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to admit not ever reading xkcd, having more important things on my Kindle.
If you've never read it, then how do you know? A little bit of faith based knowledge there?
You do not recall correctly. Apple did not say they were redesigning the Mac Pro for 2013.
"Apple said today that it is working on new models and designs for its Mac Pro desktop that will be released in 2013."
The light bulb however was not still a candle, but fundamentally different using a completely different basis in science/engineering, different from anything that had come before it.
No, the Edison light bulb was not completely different. Much like the iPhone, it was just an outgrowth of products that were already there but one that could be made commercially successful. Edison did not create the lightbulb, merely discovered a different filament material that made it possible to use as a commercially practical lightbulb.
That doesn't mean "the electric light bulb" wasn't a fantastic invention in its own right, no matter who first made one, or who finally made a practical one.
Same can be said of the iPhone.
All of your examples are minor technologies that get added to a smartphone. That's not the same as a different kind of device.
Well, the first thing somebody who wants to take over is realize that "phone" is now just another feature that is part of the personal computer I carry around in my pocket, then leverage that sort of device.
I have run into some good engineers but they are the exception.
I would have to say that half of all the engineers I have ever met are below average.
If FB was a simple website hosting some data, I'd agree. But it is the meeting place of 1 billion people, and we should have a say on what affects us.
You do have a say. You can stop using it and go to a different service. Up from that, you can get your government to pass some privacy laws and make them follow them.
There hasn't been a truely innovative cell phone design in 3 or 4 years, from any company, Apple or otherwise.
And there won't be one ever again. We've past the point that a "phone" is just another feature to a person's pocket computer. The next big jump, if there is one, will be innovating that "personal computer" people carry around in their pocket and embracing that change in viewpoint.
Anyone who communicates with me via text is not my friend. Friends use IM or email.
Are all your friends old people living in Korea?
Electron Beam Welding and Smelting, Vapor Deposition, Centrifuges, Subtractive and Additive Techniques, Robotics, and Inflatable Drydocks. As for forging and molding, those don't really rely on gravity or oxygen, and would actually get strength advantages from having perfect crystal structures. And when MNT takes off, all bets are really off then.
True, but we're going to need that space station first in order to develop, test, and tweak those technologies for applied use in space.
...is that Microsoft has tried to cram two operating systems, which are used for very different applications, into a single OS.
No, I think that is pretty neat and a good idea. I'd love to be able to run my iOS apps on my MacPro too. The trouble is that Microsoft is preventing us from deciding which one we want to be primary as a user defined setting. Some people will use one, some people the other, and some both. They picked the one true way and forced it onto everybody, which might work if they pleased 80% of the people like Apple usually does. Instead, it seems they pleased the 20%.
...apps are always full screen, which is usually what you want...
IME, things have been about multiple windows on multiple monitors for years now, especially in the business world. I think almost anything beyond integrated video comes with multiple monitors standard these days.
People haven't stood in line to buy a Windows operating system since Windows 95, where the real motto instead of "start me up" as sung by Mick Jagger was "it sucks less."
Not true, I remember standing in line at midnight at a CompUSA with a friend of mine waiting for Win98.
Why would there me more or less need for a big sized display depending on how many colors it can display? As long as the contrast is decent I would love a large eInk display
You and a few other maybe, but most want to take advantage of having color. In the systems at my work, rows can be made red, yellow, green, or white, each indicating the status of that item. Furthermore, each item has icons to designate different things and the color adds to the recognition of such icons. Even if they did make such thing, most display programs will already be done in color as the are probably expecting to output to a computer monitor, which these large LCDs are simply acting as. The actual need for monotone displays is slight and can be done with current color LCDs displays.
It will never happen because the hero worship that is going to sell this movie would die if people knew the real Steve Jobs.
Doubtful. All the things you have mentioned were parts of all the previous media on Jobs and are pretty much common knowledge to anybody who cares. Even his fans know and accept he was an asshole. People are interested in him because he succeeded where others had failed.
Real men and women can indeed stand on their own. It's a shame that so many idiot can find creative ways to kill themselves - drug overdoses, for instance - but some of us believe that idiots have every right to remove themselves from the gene pool.
"on your own", you say? And, you say that like it's a bad thing!
As somebody from there, 'bullshit'. Sure, people believe that others have the right to mess up their lives, but when something happens to them, their business fails, they get fired, can't find a job, whatever, it's always also the government's fault. If somebody with brown skin succeeds better than they do, it's because of the government, never because they actually went to school, did better, and worked harder. Texans do have good qualities such as a decent work ethic and ability to stand behind their friends and family, but they also tend not to care about anybody but that and have the bad habit of externalizing the cause of any of their own shortcomings.
Of course, California is also more complicated than that. In my experience, I'd rather trust a Texan with my life than somebody from LA with $20. Northern CA tends to split the difference.
From what I hear, Californians smoke a joint before doing anything.
No, that's up here in Washington.
The Cyber Pearl Harbor already happened. (Man, I hate that term.)
Not unless we did it to Iraq. A "Cyber Pearl Harbor" will be an initial attack as a prelude to a real war. Most likely it will be a computer attack on the infrastructure of an nation about to be invaded by another nation, probably with the intent on taking down the networking and communications ability of said nation to delay response to actual military forces on the move. Any other use of the term is just using inappropriate terms for the sake of sensationalism.
But by gaming the system a person can do pretty well. A single mother with two kids making $29,000/year receives net income and benefits of over $57,000. Earning more income actually results in a net decrease in total income+benefits -- this is the "welfare cliff".
Ah, I see, the welfare queen myth linked from some no name political website with lots of flags all over. Seems legit.
I have no doubt that it's tiring work, but how many man-hours is that to do? If WotC sells 100,000 copies of the PDF, that's half a million dollars in their pockets (ignoring DTRPG's take, probably 1/3), for paying (just a guess) two guys $30K to work on that PDF for six months.
100k is more than the current new rule books sell. The RPG industry, even for D&D, is a pretty niche product market and hardly sells that much. Then there is that business is rarely that simple as just throwing a couple of FTEs at a problem. Not in the least being that if they were really wanting to make money, they could make more for less work by producing a new 4E book rather than providing things from the old library. for that matter, they could probably make a better ROI by skipping D&D altogether and doing something else, something that their owners, Hasbro points out to them occationally. They let WotC continue to work on D&D which is mostly a hobby so long as they continue to bring in the real money with Magic the Gathering.
Does this mean all the D&D PDFs I bought before, but which were deleted out of my various paizo and drivethruRPG cloud accounts, are going to be replaced?
Yes. (According to various blogs posted on RPG.net.)
Now, download them and make backups this time.
reference materials need search, scanned-to-pdf does not allow that without a serious round of ocr first.
I have not seen them, but although they are scans, reports on rpg.net is that they are "indexed and searchable".
I'm hoping that they're doing the OCR work on these. If you're charging $5 for material as old and obsolete as this you had better be putting at least the minimum amount of effort into it.
That is hardly "minimum amount" of effort. That is a great deal of effort. They did that for the 1E books they reprinted, and I know and have talked to the guy that did it. He said it was the hardest thing he has every worked on. OCRs need to be reviewed and practically rewritten again, especially if trying to get the same or similar layout. Stuff from the opposite side bleeds through so all artwork has to be manipulated and have about as much work put into it as the original artist took to draw it (and you still loose detail). Add in the non-standard layouts and margins they used back then and it became a lot more work to make the stuff even look close to what it originally did than it would have been to write and layout a new book from scratch.
"fresh scans" tells me that they're well, scans.. where's the original quark or pagemaker files or whatever was used in pre-press?
For most of this, there was no pre-press files. They were tape and wax board affairs.
"Most conservative?"
You have avery limited definition of Conservative. He's the left-most President in history on gay rights. He's left of Bush on health care, taxes, military spending, Immigration Reform (he supports a path-to-citizenship for all illegals, not just DREAMers), and regulating Wall Street. That encompasses pretty much everything in most Americans top 10 issues facing DC. And we still haven't gotten to the #1 Conservative project: re-making the Supreme Court in their image.
Pretty much the only area he could be considered right of Bush is his use of drones, and that's only because Bush didn't have this many drones to play with.
Or perhaps your definition of conservative is limited. Face it, Bush was a very liberal president in the classical sense. He made lots of sweeping changes that deviated from the status quo. He created an entire new branch of government for heaven's sake. If Obama is actually trying to tune that back, then he is being conservative than Bush as he is trying to return to the former status quo. As far as left and right, that's an entirely different set of definitions that one should really set down before beginning the discussion, because like many terms, what you think they stand for may not, and probably isn't, the same as what other people think they stand for even if they agree with you on the issues at hand.