See, yes, there are some organized crime members who have handguns in my country. Not all that many, but they exist. However, if someone attacks me in an alleyway I can be 99.9 percent sure that he will at most have a hunting knife or a bat.
BECAUSE not everyone has a handgun. As availability isn't that high, the criminals don't generally have access to these weapons, and as the law is quite strict you have to be an extremely hardcore criminal to even contemplate carrying one. See, if you get caught for burglary you can get a few months in prison. If you get caught for burglary while carrying a gun.... a few years.
Yeah.... see, knife killings are NOT like the are shown in the movies. Hollywood LIED to you, son.
knife killings often take up to multiple dozens of stabs. People tend to voice their displeasure at all this stabbing...
Added to that, knife throwing is hard, accuracy is limited, and penetration depth is likewise limited. I HAVE practiced that, and it is not the easiest skill I tried to acquire.
Gun training is peanuts in comparison. I haven't shot from any large caliber handguns, only.22 long rifle guns (one step above a pellet gun, almost no recoil) and accuracy at a range of around 20 meters just isn't a big deal. Although in action you would probably be limited to around 10 meters unless you're pretty good.
That is a piece of metal, flung at speeds of around 350 m/s (1200 feet/second) with the only design specification of penetrating a human, flattening (or tumbling) and ripping through internal organs.
No, guns designed for killing people actually make killing people much, much easier. Bang, bang bang bang bang bang Reading that fast aloud is the time it takes to fire six rounds into a human being, easily at a range of ten meters. There is no other tool that does that, fits in a pocket, and has millimetre accuracy at that range.
Well, the thing is, if people don't generally walk around with specially designed murder weapons in their pockets, then the police has less need of deadly weapons as well. This means that: a) police may not carry a gun (guns kept in a locked chamber in the boot of the patrol car, for emergencies only) or that only special forces carry guns. or b)police carry guns but don't grab their gun at the first sign of a disturbance.
See, the US also has a little problem of accidental shootings by police, which is almost unheard of in the western world. There was an incident where this happened in the UK in a train station and is still being discussed. The accidental shooting of a citizen by police actually makes international headlines in other parts of the world. In the US it barely makes the local news unless it was a well off white person. Not really news, you see.
I remember being in Tulsa, OK, and in the next street to me a dude got shot due to some gang/drug issue. I didn't see anything about it even on the local news... I mean, WTF?
If that comment was meant for me then I would be tempted to agree.
I don't know much about guns at all. I know how to shoot hunting rifles and shotguns, that's it. And my knowledge of the tools themselves are limited to what was required to pass the gun license in my country.
While a few bullets are required from a handgun to stop an assailant the risks of gun ownership are just so much, much greater. Question, are there more successful home defenses performed every year, or more accidental shootings of family members? huh? really?
So, it may be better to just, I dunno, NOT have a gun. That may leave you and your family safer...
USA has 90 guns per 100 residents, Sweden has 30 per 100. Yet USA has almost 6 times the murder rate (the same goes for all the scandinavian countries) Why?
Well, guns in Sweden are mostly hunting weapons. We don't have concealed semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons generally have only one intended use, and that is to kill people (usually at short or medium range). Sprayfire weapons (MAC-10, Uzi and the like) are no good for ANYTHING except trying to injure or kill a crowd. That's what the "spray" in spray-fire stands for. The spray is powered by the recoil of 1000 rounds per minute powering out of the barrel of a snub-nosed weapon with little in the way of stabilization. Semi-automatic handguns are similarly useless for any legitimate use. Well, handguns in general are useless. Hunting weapons don't need to be semi-automatic or fully automatic for any hunting (I think Cthulhu hunting doesn't count, as that is in imaginaryland)
It's not that simple, now is it? The GPL has issues with any sort of limitation or control mechanism and doesn't care whether that control mechanism actually has any effect. The issue at hand is that an app can only be installed on 5 devices belonging to the same account. Meaning that anyone owning more than 5 iOS devices is likely to have more than one account.
But VLC is a FREE app, which means that installing it through multiple accounts creates no problem for the user.
This is a case of a freetard gone mad (I use freetard in this case, as opposed to an open source developer), and making the free less so. What is the use of an ideologically free if no one can use it? And Remi's (the freetard in question) employment at Nokia doesn't look good.
I used mainly Linux and WinXP. Linux (went through debian, tried red hat, and have used Ubuntu) was used on our main computer (living room machine) and XP on my audio recording and mixing computer (hardware, drivers and recording software on Windows and Mac is just WAYYY nicer). The joy of compiling drivers for the TV tuner card and not being able to update the kernel without a major hassle lost its appeal. So did the 'interesting' audio issues that crop up from time to time in the various audio frameworks being used. Ubuntu is very nice when it works, and seems like it is one or two versions away from being a realistic desktop replacement. Which is the same as Linux was five years ago.
To cut a long story short, I switched to Mac when windows Vista came out, as I was selling Vista machines at the time and providing support (and I would rather have used Ubuntu than Vista, that much is absolutely clear). My reward was NO time spent on system mucking. In the last four years I have spent around 10 hours total on system maintenance, plus I've installed all new versions of the operating system on top of the old one which has alway been troublefree. I DID change hard disks on my macbook pro last summer as I don't trust laptop hard drives past a certain age, and this forced me to do a clean install.
Macs DO freeze (or hang, or crash. Select your term). That said, I generally restart my laptop every two or three weeks (I generally keep an uptime of at least two weeks) and that is partly just out of old fashioned paranoia (3 WEEKS? It MUST be getting slow or something...)
Apple may have some ideological deficiencies, but their devices have given me nothing but joy, as well as additional time with my family (or additional time to post crap on/.)
That is really one of the items that stick out to me a bit. The fact that the VLC developer who complained may have a corporate agenda, seeing as how he works for a competitor to Apple.
What about having someone send in the complaint who won't make the Videolan project (an OSS) look bad, petty and corporate controlled?
So thank you Remi for making me FREE and OPEN to not use VLC (and not have access to the software). GPL for the WIN! Or GPL FAIL...
If you've studied statistics then you know that there are logical inconsistencies in the systems, and that other elements are clear as mud. It's actually an amalgamation of two methods of working with statistics, which weren't fully compatible but were melted together anyway. That is partly the reason for the frequent inversion of values (high=good, high=bad).
The classical statistics model is strongly criticised by many statisticians, and Bayesian statistics may possibly be a bit more sensible, but as the classical version has become entrenched it is hard to switch.
And saying that scientists have a brain so they can't misunderstand statistics is a bit like saying that a doctor is smart so he MUST understand computers, or that a programmer is smart so he MUST understand astrophysics. There's just no relation between the two. Most scientists take a limited amount of methodology courses, often with only one course around quantitative research methods and statistics. Professors have differing opinions as well. The assistant professor in my basic methodology course didn't think post-hoc data trawling was necessarily a big problem while the main professor had serious (and apparently well founded) objections. As we trusted more in the main professor I believe that most people present walked away with his message. But when you're fighting to understand the basics of something complex then it is hard to catch nuances.
What is more, I am most definitely not an expert on statistics or research methods. I did, however, have a very good and sensible professor in my basic statistical research methodology course who pointed very strongly at these pitfalls, and was diligent in pointing out the weaknesses of statistical analysis as well as the strengths. Lucky me...
no, it's not that they do it on purpose at all. At least most of them. It's that most scientists have mostly a very basic understanding of statistics (except statisticians, obviously) and don't understand the implications of those shortcuts. They genuinely believe that their results (after trawling through data to find some statistical link) are strong, and feel confident in presenting them, especially as they have nice and shiny statistics to back the results up.
The capitalistic and performance based system is what pushes scientists into taking these shortcuts to begin with, thinking that it's no big problem ("dude, I can see a link here, and it's at.002!! YAY!").
So, two problems: 1 not everybody is an expert at statistics
(1a is that numbers look impressive when
you only half understand them...)
and 2. The pressure to put bread on their tables pushes scientists to try to find usable results somewhere in their research, otherwise they don't get funding for further research and may lose their jobs.
nahh, the problem is a misunderstanding of statistics (thinking that post-hoc analysis with this fishing for statistical significance) is as valid as proper hypothesis testing. The proper way is where the hypothesis is fully pre-formed and then tested. The numbers and statistics apply ONLY TO THE HYPOTHESIS being tested, so you cannot hunt for a statistical significance just somewhere in the data and then re-formulate your hypothesis.
The need to publish (a scientist's income relies on what he publishes in most cases) as well as funding issues force scientists to try to find some usable results from their science, and by trawling through their data they can often salvage what would otherwise have been a failed bit of research. Except this salvaging operation may actually be absolutely worthless. This is most often not done on purpose but rather due to only partly understanding what statistics and significance testing tell us.
So, a capitalistic, fully performance based (with results being the performance metric) environment does not seem to work well for science. Surprised? Me neither.
I can explain. Unlike many state, it's not about being 'idiot proof'
Classifying people who don't want to spend their days figuring out how to operate gadgets is, well, stupid. Your doctor may not be a computer guru, but it's fair to assume that he/she isn't an idiot. He does spend his time studying other important items, that's all.
The iPod got successful simply because it was nicer to use, and a non-geek did not need to study a manual to make it work. I had a Creative Zen Micro (I think it was called) and it just wasn't as nice to use. Same goes for a host of others I tried. The first time I tried an iPod (against my anti-apple sentiment) I found it amazingly easy and PLEASANT to use. Using the device felt nice, somehow. The response of the UI was crisp and instantaneous and the device always did the action I asked from it.
It did not have as many features as some/most of the competition, but all the features it did have were accessible, usable, and a pleasure to use. Most of the other players I tried had horrific screens, horrible UI implementation, non-responsive interaction and/or complexity which required either fiddling around for a while to get to just the basic functions or read the manual (yeah, right). Most users just have a simple goal with a music player. Can you guess what it is? Hint: it has nothing to do with playlist management, radio tuning, remote server administration, rooting or other geekery which we like Yup, their goal is to listen to music. The more complex options are lost on around 99% of users (made up statistics, but you get the drift) because they just don't care. So an mp3 player better get the basic options JUST right.. which is what most manufacturers didn't understand (and don't yet understand).
The scroll wheel was also the most comfortable way of scrolling through long lists that I tried. Creative had a touch strip which made the user feel somewhat monkey-like while pawing through the list, not a nice interaction method. Some others had nasty arrow buttons which really lacked in a FEELING of interaction, and lacked the finesse of control that the scroll wheel provided.
So, in short form: The iPod succeeded because you can hand it to your grandmother and she can make it play music without problems. If your grandmother is one of those idiots you guys seem to look down upon.... well, tough luck. My grandmother isn't an idiot but she really doesn't care about all the bells and whistles, OTOH she does love herself some Ludwig Van..
First contact probably went like this: NASA: "hello, you extremophile procariot. Take us to your leader" "" NASA: "hmm, he's being uncooperative. TASE him!" "" NASA: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
this is about AMERICAN men. Not men in general, American men.
As I see it there is a possible (or even probable) confounding here in that a possible alternate cause could be conditioning. Do American men often get laid on thaksgiving? What feelings does the smell of pumpkin pie evoke? For me, none whatsoever. I've never smelled or tasted pumpkin pie. If so, then the smell of thanksgiving may be triggering their conditioned response. Science reporters, learn science so you can report what is needed (like what controls/balancing were used and other such things which might change this from worthless crap to interesting information)
Seriously? Ok. Venting generally does not shut down the burn, but does get thrust to zero, leaving you with a dangerous hunk of smoldering explosives. Not much room for error. Venting has ONLY been used on unmanned systems, and relatively small ones at that, because venting a LARGE solid rocket generally involves blasting the casing apart longitudinally. Venting the casing really is not as simple as you make it out to be, because the burn chamber needs to be vented, and that's inside the cast motor bit. THAT'S where you need to drop the pressure. And you need to drop it fast. This is complex, and in case of failure you are likely to have an explosion due to regional overpressure on your hands, which is not cool for a manned vehicle.
Venting does not equal shutdown in any meaning of the word that I am familiar with. Even if you put your car in neutral you don't claim to have shut it off, do you? Especially if that "shutdown" leaves you with the thing in a more dangerous state than it was before.
Price/power/simplicity can be debated, and depends on which part of the cost you look at, what you compare the specific power to and what you compare it to on complexity.
Some of the other claims I will buy. SRB separation can only happen after burnout, my error there.
But the proper inflight shutoff, possible in a reliable and safe manner is the domain of liquid fueled rockets and hybrids. In the case of the hybrids it involves shutting the valve for the oxidizer. No explosive (or otherwise complex and dangerous) venting and the oxidizer flow rate is a reliable indicator of whether it's on or not.
No, you are wrong on this. A true (simple) solid rocket CANNOT be shut down once lit. Shut-off requires removing the oxidizer, which in case of a true solid rocket is embedded within the material.
Mixed designs (hybrid rockets) have been available, but are generally of a lower specific energy, and require a pressurized oxidizer of some sorts (liquid or gas) meaning that the oxidizer has to be kept separate and in a heavy pressurized bottle with all the plumbing required.
A simple solid rocket is, well, simple, powerful and cheap, which is why NASA selected that method for the SRBs for the Space Shuttle. They can release those from the main fuel tank early if required (SRB separation).
When you say "Shutting off solids in flight has been pretty much routinely done since the late 1950's." are you sure you're not mixing it up with liquid fueled rockets such as the X-1 and X-15 used? Or referring to hybrid rockets?
The reason they went with this motor design was simplicity of construction, low chance of explosions and other nasty failure modes, reliability and price. Yet another is that this motor type can be shut off before the burn is complete (unlike the SpaceShuttle side boosters which use a thermite-like mixture (with a rubber-like binder) which provides its own oxidizer. The Rutan design uses nitrous oxide as an oxidizer to be able to better control the burn.
I don't recall environmental factors being discussed when Rutan and co. were publicizing the motor design. The engineering reasons are perfectly good, though, and research into figuring out a blend which spews out less soot would probably be good from all standpoints (possibly even upping the specific energy content of the motor/fuel)
Ok, what about having to read all courses in illegible fonts. will the time allotted suffice?
It's rather obvious that slowing down the reading gives better retention, this fact is well known within psychology and cognitive science. But using this method of slowing students down may impact their overall score, as they don't have time to read everything they are supposed to.
110 out of 100 in history, 5 out of 100 in psychology because you only managed to read the first chapter..
But yes. MS is not doing sexy stuff. They're also not being brave or showing vision (which may be more serious in the long run). Even when Apple is being super conservative they still manage to dress it up as being revolutionary. I mean, I use Apple products (you might even call me a fanboi) but seeing the gall of El Jobso in his keynotes when he shows stuff that is very, very and thoroughly just an incremental upgrade (or even just a fix for something that was broken) and manages to dress it up as awesome, great and revolutionary. The man has skill!
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding?
AHHHHH no, american..... sorry.
See, yes, there are some organized crime members who have handguns in my country. Not all that many, but they exist.
However, if someone attacks me in an alleyway I can be 99.9 percent sure that he will at most have a hunting knife or a bat.
BECAUSE not everyone has a handgun. As availability isn't that high, the criminals don't generally have access to these weapons, and as the law is quite strict you have to be an extremely hardcore criminal to even contemplate carrying one.
See, if you get caught for burglary you can get a few months in prison. If you get caught for burglary while carrying a gun.... a few years.
It's just not worth it for most criminals here.
yeah... the crossbow always makes my pockets BULGE slightly when I conceal it on assassination missions... /sarcasm
Yeah.... see, knife killings are NOT like the are shown in the movies. Hollywood LIED to you, son.
knife killings often take up to multiple dozens of stabs. People tend to voice their displeasure at all this stabbing...
Added to that, knife throwing is hard, accuracy is limited, and penetration depth is likewise limited. I HAVE practiced that, and it is not the easiest skill I tried to acquire.
Gun training is peanuts in comparison. I haven't shot from any large caliber handguns, only .22 long rifle guns (one step above a pellet gun, almost no recoil) and accuracy at a range of around 20 meters just isn't a big deal. Although in action you would probably be limited to around 10 meters unless you're pretty good.
That is a piece of metal, flung at speeds of around 350 m/s (1200 feet/second) with the only design specification of penetrating a human, flattening (or tumbling) and ripping through internal organs.
No, guns designed for killing people actually make killing people much, much easier.
Bang, bang bang bang bang bang
Reading that fast aloud is the time it takes to fire six rounds into a human being, easily at a range of ten meters. There is no other tool that does that, fits in a pocket, and has millimetre accuracy at that range.
Well, the thing is, if people don't generally walk around with specially designed murder weapons in their pockets, then the police has less need of deadly weapons as well.
This means that:
a) police may not carry a gun (guns kept in a locked chamber in the boot of the patrol car, for emergencies only) or that only special forces carry guns.
or b)police carry guns but don't grab their gun at the first sign of a disturbance.
See, the US also has a little problem of accidental shootings by police, which is almost unheard of in the western world. There was an incident where this happened in the UK in a train station and is still being discussed. The accidental shooting of a citizen by police actually makes international headlines in other parts of the world. In the US it barely makes the local news unless it was a well off white person. Not really news, you see.
I remember being in Tulsa, OK, and in the next street to me a dude got shot due to some gang/drug issue. I didn't see anything about it even on the local news... I mean, WTF?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon
look for the term "spray firing" (you can actually use your browser's built in "find" function....)
Some assault weapons are optimized for this type of use.
And english is my third language, which is usually a valid defense in the case of strange use of terminology.
If that comment was meant for me then I would be tempted to agree.
I don't know much about guns at all.
I know how to shoot hunting rifles and shotguns, that's it. And my knowledge of the tools themselves are limited to what was required to pass the gun license in my country.
While a few bullets are required from a handgun to stop an assailant the risks of gun ownership are just so much, much greater.
Question, are there more successful home defenses performed every year, or more accidental shootings of family members?
huh? really?
So, it may be better to just, I dunno, NOT have a gun. That may leave you and your family safer...
handguns that are only useful for killing people are taken from nightstand drawers and used to *gasp*... kill people?
Surely not!
He did, in his own inimitable style.
I will do so in a different style.
USA has 90 guns per 100 residents, Sweden has 30 per 100.
Yet USA has almost 6 times the murder rate (the same goes for all the scandinavian countries)
Why?
Well, guns in Sweden are mostly hunting weapons. We don't have concealed semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons generally have only one intended use, and that is to kill people (usually at short or medium range). Sprayfire weapons (MAC-10, Uzi and the like) are no good for ANYTHING except trying to injure or kill a crowd. That's what the "spray" in spray-fire stands for. The spray is powered by the recoil of 1000 rounds per minute powering out of the barrel of a snub-nosed weapon with little in the way of stabilization.
Semi-automatic handguns are similarly useless for any legitimate use. Well, handguns in general are useless.
Hunting weapons don't need to be semi-automatic or fully automatic for any hunting (I think Cthulhu hunting doesn't count, as that is in imaginaryland)
So, does that fill in the lines enough?
It's not that simple, now is it?
The GPL has issues with any sort of limitation or control mechanism and doesn't care whether that control mechanism actually has any effect.
The issue at hand is that an app can only be installed on 5 devices belonging to the same account. Meaning that anyone owning more than 5 iOS devices is likely to have more than one account.
But VLC is a FREE app, which means that installing it through multiple accounts creates no problem for the user.
This is a case of a freetard gone mad (I use freetard in this case, as opposed to an open source developer), and making the free less so. What is the use of an ideologically free if no one can use it?
And Remi's (the freetard in question) employment at Nokia doesn't look good.
Yes, yes and YES
I used mainly Linux and WinXP. Linux (went through debian, tried red hat, and have used Ubuntu) was used on our main computer (living room machine) and XP on my audio recording and mixing computer (hardware, drivers and recording software on Windows and Mac is just WAYYY nicer).
The joy of compiling drivers for the TV tuner card and not being able to update the kernel without a major hassle lost its appeal. So did the 'interesting' audio issues that crop up from time to time in the various audio frameworks being used.
Ubuntu is very nice when it works, and seems like it is one or two versions away from being a realistic desktop replacement. Which is the same as Linux was five years ago.
To cut a long story short, I switched to Mac when windows Vista came out, as I was selling Vista machines at the time and providing support (and I would rather have used Ubuntu than Vista, that much is absolutely clear).
My reward was NO time spent on system mucking.
In the last four years I have spent around 10 hours total on system maintenance, plus I've installed all new versions of the operating system on top of the old one which has alway been troublefree. I DID change hard disks on my macbook pro last summer as I don't trust laptop hard drives past a certain age, and this forced me to do a clean install.
Macs DO freeze (or hang, or crash. Select your term). That said, I generally restart my laptop every two or three weeks (I generally keep an uptime of at least two weeks) and that is partly just out of old fashioned paranoia (3 WEEKS? It MUST be getting slow or something...)
Apple may have some ideological deficiencies, but their devices have given me nothing but joy, as well as additional time with my family (or additional time to post crap on /.)
That is really one of the items that stick out to me a bit. The fact that the VLC developer who complained may have a corporate agenda, seeing as how he works for a competitor to Apple.
What about having someone send in the complaint who won't make the Videolan project (an OSS) look bad, petty and corporate controlled?
So thank you Remi for making me FREE and OPEN to not use VLC (and not have access to the software). GPL for the WIN! Or GPL FAIL...
If you've studied statistics then you know that there are logical inconsistencies in the systems, and that other elements are clear as mud. It's actually an amalgamation of two methods of working with statistics, which weren't fully compatible but were melted together anyway. That is partly the reason for the frequent inversion of values (high=good, high=bad).
The classical statistics model is strongly criticised by many statisticians, and Bayesian statistics may possibly be a bit more sensible, but as the classical version has become entrenched it is hard to switch.
And saying that scientists have a brain so they can't misunderstand statistics is a bit like saying that a doctor is smart so he MUST understand computers, or that a programmer is smart so he MUST understand astrophysics. There's just no relation between the two.
Most scientists take a limited amount of methodology courses, often with only one course around quantitative research methods and statistics. Professors have differing opinions as well. The assistant professor in my basic methodology course didn't think post-hoc data trawling was necessarily a big problem while the main professor had serious (and apparently well founded) objections. As we trusted more in the main professor I believe that most people present walked away with his message. But when you're fighting to understand the basics of something complex then it is hard to catch nuances.
sheez... :(
lies, damn lies, and statistics, eh?
and of course, as you point out, should not.
Or "cannot" and then a clause about maintaining validity and stuff like that.
What is more, I am most definitely not an expert on statistics or research methods.
I did, however, have a very good and sensible professor in my basic statistical research methodology course who pointed very strongly at these pitfalls, and was diligent in pointing out the weaknesses of statistical analysis as well as the strengths.
Lucky me...
no, it's not that they do it on purpose at all. At least most of them.
It's that most scientists have mostly a very basic understanding of statistics (except statisticians, obviously) and don't understand the implications of those shortcuts. They genuinely believe that their results (after trawling through data to find some statistical link) are strong, and feel confident in presenting them, especially as they have nice and shiny statistics to back the results up.
The capitalistic and performance based system is what pushes scientists into taking these shortcuts to begin with, thinking that it's no big problem ("dude, I can see a link here, and it's at .002!! YAY!").
So, two problems:
1 not everybody is an expert at statistics
(1a is that numbers look impressive when
you only half understand them...)
and 2. The pressure to put bread on their tables pushes scientists to try to find usable results somewhere in their research, otherwise they don't get funding for further research and may lose their jobs.
nahh, the problem is a misunderstanding of statistics (thinking that post-hoc analysis with this fishing for statistical significance) is as valid as proper hypothesis testing. The proper way is where the hypothesis is fully pre-formed and then tested. The numbers and statistics apply ONLY TO THE HYPOTHESIS being tested, so you cannot hunt for a statistical significance just somewhere in the data and then re-formulate your hypothesis.
The need to publish (a scientist's income relies on what he publishes in most cases) as well as funding issues force scientists to try to find some usable results from their science, and by trawling through their data they can often salvage what would otherwise have been a failed bit of research. Except this salvaging operation may actually be absolutely worthless. This is most often not done on purpose but rather due to only partly understanding what statistics and significance testing tell us.
So, a capitalistic, fully performance based (with results being the performance metric) environment does not seem to work well for science.
Surprised?
Me neither.
I can explain.
Unlike many state, it's not about being 'idiot proof'
Classifying people who don't want to spend their days figuring out how to operate gadgets is, well, stupid. Your doctor may not be a computer guru, but it's fair to assume that he/she isn't an idiot. He does spend his time studying other important items, that's all.
The iPod got successful simply because it was nicer to use, and a non-geek did not need to study a manual to make it work.
I had a Creative Zen Micro (I think it was called) and it just wasn't as nice to use. Same goes for a host of others I tried.
The first time I tried an iPod (against my anti-apple sentiment) I found it amazingly easy and PLEASANT to use. Using the device felt nice, somehow.
The response of the UI was crisp and instantaneous and the device always did the action I asked from it.
It did not have as many features as some/most of the competition, but all the features it did have were accessible, usable, and a pleasure to use. Most of the other players I tried had horrific screens, horrible UI implementation, non-responsive interaction and/or complexity which required either fiddling around for a while to get to just the basic functions or read the manual (yeah, right).
Most users just have a simple goal with a music player. Can you guess what it is? Hint: it has nothing to do with playlist management, radio tuning, remote server administration, rooting or other geekery which we like
Yup, their goal is to listen to music.
The more complex options are lost on around 99% of users (made up statistics, but you get the drift) because they just don't care. So an mp3 player better get the basic options JUST right.. which is what most manufacturers didn't understand (and don't yet understand).
The scroll wheel was also the most comfortable way of scrolling through long lists that I tried. Creative had a touch strip which made the user feel somewhat monkey-like while pawing through the list, not a nice interaction method. Some others had nasty arrow buttons which really lacked in a FEELING of interaction, and lacked the finesse of control that the scroll wheel provided.
So, in short form: The iPod succeeded because you can hand it to your grandmother and she can make it play music without problems. If your grandmother is one of those idiots you guys seem to look down upon.... well, tough luck. My grandmother isn't an idiot but she really doesn't care about all the bells and whistles, OTOH she does love herself some Ludwig Van..
First contact probably went like this:
NASA: "hello, you extremophile procariot. Take us to your leader"
""
NASA: "hmm, he's being uncooperative. TASE him!"
""
NASA: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
this is about AMERICAN men.
Not men in general, American men.
As I see it there is a possible (or even probable) confounding here in that a possible alternate cause could be conditioning. Do American men often get laid on thaksgiving? What feelings does the smell of pumpkin pie evoke? For me, none whatsoever. I've never smelled or tasted pumpkin pie.
If so, then the smell of thanksgiving may be triggering their conditioned response.
Science reporters, learn science so you can report what is needed (like what controls/balancing were used and other such things which might change this from worthless crap to interesting information)
Science reporting fail.
Seriously?
Ok.
Venting generally does not shut down the burn, but does get thrust to zero, leaving you with a dangerous hunk of smoldering explosives. Not much room for error.
Venting has ONLY been used on unmanned systems, and relatively small ones at that, because venting a LARGE solid rocket generally involves blasting the casing apart longitudinally. Venting the casing really is not as simple as you make it out to be, because the burn chamber needs to be vented, and that's inside the cast motor bit. THAT'S where you need to drop the pressure. And you need to drop it fast. This is complex, and in case of failure you are likely to have an explosion due to regional overpressure on your hands, which is not cool for a manned vehicle.
Venting does not equal shutdown in any meaning of the word that I am familiar with. Even if you put your car in neutral you don't claim to have shut it off, do you? Especially if that "shutdown" leaves you with the thing in a more dangerous state than it was before.
Price/power/simplicity can be debated, and depends on which part of the cost you look at, what you compare the specific power to and what you compare it to on complexity.
Some of the other claims I will buy. SRB separation can only happen after burnout, my error there.
But the proper inflight shutoff, possible in a reliable and safe manner is the domain of liquid fueled rockets and hybrids. In the case of the hybrids it involves shutting the valve for the oxidizer. No explosive (or otherwise complex and dangerous) venting and the oxidizer flow rate is a reliable indicator of whether it's on or not.
No, you are wrong on this. A true (simple) solid rocket CANNOT be shut down once lit. Shut-off requires removing the oxidizer, which in case of a true solid rocket is embedded within the material.
Mixed designs (hybrid rockets) have been available, but are generally of a lower specific energy, and require a pressurized oxidizer of some sorts (liquid or gas) meaning that the oxidizer has to be kept separate and in a heavy pressurized bottle with all the plumbing required.
A simple solid rocket is, well, simple, powerful and cheap, which is why NASA selected that method for the SRBs for the Space Shuttle. They can release those from the main fuel tank early if required (SRB separation).
When you say "Shutting off solids in flight has been pretty much routinely done since the late 1950's." are you sure you're not mixing it up with liquid fueled rockets such as the X-1 and X-15 used? Or referring to hybrid rockets?
The reason they went with this motor design was simplicity of construction, low chance of explosions and other nasty failure modes, reliability and price. Yet another is that this motor type can be shut off before the burn is complete (unlike the SpaceShuttle side boosters which use a thermite-like mixture (with a rubber-like binder) which provides its own oxidizer.
The Rutan design uses nitrous oxide as an oxidizer to be able to better control the burn.
I don't recall environmental factors being discussed when Rutan and co. were publicizing the motor design.
The engineering reasons are perfectly good, though, and research into figuring out a blend which spews out less soot would probably be good from all standpoints (possibly even upping the specific energy content of the motor/fuel)
Ok, what about having to read all courses in illegible fonts. will the time allotted suffice?
It's rather obvious that slowing down the reading gives better retention, this fact is well known within psychology and cognitive science. But using this method of slowing students down may impact their overall score, as they don't have time to read everything they are supposed to.
110 out of 100 in history, 5 out of 100 in psychology because you only managed to read the first chapter..
..yet the pope pissed on Purgatory, stating that was not in line with the church's modern views.
Sorry, but RyanFenton is right. Faith and belief have little in common with organized religion. Organized religion is about manipulation, not faith.
So church does not equal faith.
But then, I'm against both.
I wish I had mod points to mod you up..
But yes. MS is not doing sexy stuff. They're also not being brave or showing vision (which may be more serious in the long run).
Even when Apple is being super conservative they still manage to dress it up as being revolutionary. I mean, I use Apple products (you might even call me a fanboi) but seeing the gall of El Jobso in his keynotes when he shows stuff that is very, very and thoroughly just an incremental upgrade (or even just a fix for something that was broken) and manages to dress it up as awesome, great and revolutionary.
The man has skill!