And people there don't see it as an addictive thing that should be banned, but rather as a way to get some entertainment.
So, you are telling me there is no gambling problems in Europe. Nobody comes home and gambles away their paycheck on party poker? I'm not for outlawing online gambling, but I have a hard time swallowing the idea of a Europe that are so temperate and moderate that they have no abusers of ANYTHING.
You know, take a friend, pick a continent, pack a bag, book some tickets and travel for two-three months?
Unfortunately no. Thanks for adding to my feelings of wasting my life though.
I absolutely believe you that books would be vital in those situations. I have spent spent some times in other countries (not at resorts) and it doesn't take long for the foreign culture to start wearing on me.
Back to the topic, I can only think of one person I know that has ever done what you describe. Plenty who have talked about it, but very few have actually done it and most of them wouldn't spend $350 on an electronic book. Not a great target market for Sony.
The State of California would never do something intelligent like that. They would rather blame their problems on oil companies, car companies and power companies than take any responsibility themselves.
If you are backpacking, I would be surprised if the batteries on this (or any) reader will last 3-4 weeks. I don't know anybody that has taken a 7-8 hour bus ride recently or regularly. If you spend time on beaches you probably still aren't going to blaze through 10 books in a day - I don't, we don't have beaches where I live. When I do get to the beach I go for the scenery.
For people who love to read, and do it relatively fast, this is a major issue. If you're in China, it's not always easy to find good books in english.
Again, how many people are spending significant amounts of China. Most of us aren't. This is only a major issue if you read a significant number of hours, read quickly and spend time in places where new reading material isn't easily acquired. I'm not saying a good ereader isn't a fantastic idea, or even that $350 isn't a reasonable price. I'm saying that if Sony is banking on people using it to replace carrying 10 (or more) paperbacks that market segment is going to be pretty small.
Now where you do have a point is textbooks. As soon as somebody figures out how to provide college students with their textbooks on one of these it will be all over. I'm surprised no one has managed to do that yet.
10 paperbacks? How long of a journey are you planning on. I'm sure I don't spend as much time reading as some people, but personally I rarely finish more than 2 or 3 books a month. 10 books would last me 5 months. Even if you read twice that much and 10 books would only last a couple months, how often do most people travel on a two month journey and even if they do how often would it be in a location that didn't have a store selling books in their native language.
While I agree with your points, I don't think they tell the whole story.
I used to buy tons of CDs, but I don't anymore. I have a satellite radio in the car that lets me listen to a large variety of music, mp3s of all my old CDs, myspace and other sites where indie bands often have music available for free, and emusic account that allows me to download individual tracks. Why would I purchase CDs? I wouldn't listen to them.
One thing I do have to disagree with is your evaluation of 'the music of today'. More than ever before there is a HUGE selection of music. Pop music may have suffered, but music today runs the gambit. No longer are we at the mercy of a few pop/rock radio stations to tell us what to like. There are many new outlets and many new bands out there. If you haven't found anything you like, cruise myspace for a while - something will probably show up that meets your taste.
Sometimes it's buggy device drivers, although in a Unix based system that's designed properly (Linux, OSX) the potential for a device driver to cause a problem is much lower and the ability to track down the problem is much higher than in Windows.
That said, your point is well taken. If an OS is specifically tested in a controlled hardware environmnent it is MUCH easier to maintain stability. It doesn't mean the software won't ever crash - I've seen PalmOS crash and you don't get much more controlled hardware than that. Of course with voting machines the software is also controlled, which should help even more.
The chances of being the "next" Jobs, etc. is very, very low
True enough, but building a webite that makes $50 Million a year or sells for $900 Million is very, very, very low as well. Someone is goning to be the next Jobs, Gates, Brin, whatever. This guy's odds probably increased significantly since he already has a wildly successful dot com.
Try reading *real* scientific journals, such as Nature. You'll find there is no debate over global warming within the scientific community.
OK, AC troll, I'll bite.
First, AFAIK, 'real' scientific journals can be very elitist and very narrow minded. What gets published in most journals must be acceptable to the community at large for the journal to remain a respected institution. On top of that, article submission is expensive, difficult and lengthy, even if you do have a nice safe acceptable paper to submit. Scientific journals may or may not provide evidence of cohesive thought on global warming.
Second, while there may be no debate over the occurance of global warming, there is great debate over the causes, impact, solutions, etc... Is it only greenhouse gasses? Are the other contributing factors? Are we in a feedback loop? Is there anything that can be done? Will the result be warmer temperatures, or another ice age? Will humanity survive? These are all questions highly debated everywhere - if you know of a scientist that can tell us definitevly of the causes, solutions and results I would love to hear it.
Buck Rogers' stories were OK, a bit trite and underdeveloped by today's standards. Interesting how that was a 1/2 hour show at the time, no space opera like that would be attempted in a 1/2 hour time slot these days.
The bad thing was the writing and composition (not sure what the technical term would be). A robot named Twiki? The same shots of the city EVERY TIME. A constant theme for many late 70s early 80s shows seemed to be the cutesy characters and using the same shots over and over (and over and over). In that way it reminds me of the original BSG with the kid and the stupid robot dog. I like the old school effects - that's one thing about the new BSG, effects are minimal, they just aren't as obviously repetitive.
Many of those old action/adventure shows (BSG, Buck Rogers, Dukes of Hazzard, A-Team, etc...) had great stories but they were either written for kids or the viewing audience was that much less sophisticated at the time. That's probably one thing Star Trek TOS had going for it. People were killed, alien romances were common place, there was real conflict and real issues at stake. During the kinder, gentler 80s the gritty issues were replaced by cute robots, kids and guns that never actually injured anyone.
I don't think this particular issue is a conspiracy against Microsoft. IPv6 hasn't been implemented because no one is willing to take the plunge (and responsibility) and commit to it. Concerns like those expressed in this article are EXACTLY why IPv6 has been waiting in the wings.
If you want to chastise readers for something, chastise them for the negative commentary on IPv6.
Yeah, but Buck Rogers is sooo bad. Personally I can't believe I actually watched that as a kid.
Sci-Fi misses the boat so often it's ridiculous. Cheesey movies that have EXACTLY the same story every time. You would think BSG would show them that their demographic is a little more edgy than ECW.
Personally, I just joined Shatner's DVD club, to supplement my SciFi needs.
Exactly! All this blathering about global warming and what can we do? Nothing! So, why discuss it endlessly and get all worked up about it? Even if we could convince the US and EU to stop using all fossil fuels immediately we still couldn't do jack about India, China, etc...
Well, as long as everyone can use the road for free, it will usually be faster, even in a big city, to drive rather than use the bus, so the congestion isn't much of an impetus, except for people who can smuggle a nap in on the way to work.
Bus generally isn't faster to travel since they use the same roads, but in congested areas you also have to take parking into account. Trains (subways, trolleys, etc..) are better yet. Look at places like New York or London. Many people don't even own cars because driving and parking is such a nightmare and a decent public transportation system is available. These places have become so congested that people don't even bother to drive.
In my case driving to work takes about 15 minutes. Riding the bus would take well over an hour. The local city government is considering stopping bus service altogether because no one uses it. I would prefer that they actually create bus routes people want to use, but there is still no guarantee that anyone will use it.
OK, but will the variation on the caps and resistors remain consistent over the life of the WiFi card? Will an allowance be made for ongoing variations in the signal? If so, will it be exploitable?
So when people quickly realize how much faster the commute is, so they build houses farther out, and when everyone does this, the road becomes just as congested as before.
The problem isn't that the houses are farther out - if the population just moved further there wouldn't be any additional traffic. The issue is the larger roads allow more people to get into the same area. MORE houses are built further out, but no industrial/heavy commercial is build nearby so everyone uses the roads.
I imagine the number of people riding the bus or taking the train is some kind of function of the road congestion. Where public transportation is available, as the commute takes longer more and more people take the bus. In my circumstance, I live in a city of nearly 100,000 people. It's MUCH faster for me to drive to work than it is to take the bus. Until the routes are improved, or traffic congestion becomes a real problem I'll continue to drive.
in the middle of a no-fly zone several thousand miles in diameter.
So anything or anyone that wants to travel on or is needed to operate the elevator will have to go by boat? That's not going to happen, at least not for long.
Of course, risk of a possible terrorist attack is no reason not to build such a thing. If we took that attitude, we should all just hide in our basements...
One of my frustrations with the US is the lack of efforts by most of our cities to make transportation easy and convenient. How great would it be if you could ride the train into a city, get off and rent a Segway for the afternoon. No, instead they just build more overpassess and bypasses.
It's hardly insignificant if you're the guy with something else expected to be terminal that the new technique can cure, or family or friend of that guy.
True enough, but statistically, nearly everyone has (or will have) friends and family that battle cancer.
Sure they're not going to fire they're really good workers
Actually, that may not be a good assumption. Often in engineering industries the more experienced workers are the first to be laid off. A company can hire two or three bright-eyed bushy tailed college grads for the price of one engineer with 20 years experience.
I agree, but for different reasons. Voyager didn't fail due to it's premis, it failed because of bad casting and writing. Whoever cast that captain chick in Voyager killed that show. I couldn't hardly stand to watch her. Similarly SGA's characters, particularly Sheppard seem to be poorly cast. I've actually enjoyed SG1 again the last two seasons since they brought Ben Browder on as Col. Mitchell. He's great at the part and the writing (barring the lame 200th episode crap) has been good. If they want to cancel something they should cancel SGA.
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And people there don't see it as an addictive thing that should be banned, but rather as a way to get some entertainment.
So, you are telling me there is no gambling problems in Europe. Nobody comes home and gambles away their paycheck on party poker? I'm not for outlawing online gambling, but I have a hard time swallowing the idea of a Europe that are so temperate and moderate that they have no abusers of ANYTHING.
You know, take a friend, pick a continent, pack a bag, book some tickets and travel for two-three months?
Unfortunately no. Thanks for adding to my feelings of wasting my life though.
I absolutely believe you that books would be vital in those situations. I have spent spent some times in other countries (not at resorts) and it doesn't take long for the foreign culture to start wearing on me.
Back to the topic, I can only think of one person I know that has ever done what you describe. Plenty who have talked about it, but very few have actually done it and most of them wouldn't spend $350 on an electronic book. Not a great target market for Sony.
The State of California would never do something intelligent like that. They would rather blame their problems on oil companies, car companies and power companies than take any responsibility themselves.
If you are backpacking, I would be surprised if the batteries on this (or any) reader will last 3-4 weeks. I don't know anybody that has taken a 7-8 hour bus ride recently or regularly. If you spend time on beaches you probably still aren't going to blaze through 10 books in a day - I don't, we don't have beaches where I live. When I do get to the beach I go for the scenery.
For people who love to read, and do it relatively fast, this is a major issue. If you're in China, it's not always easy to find good books in english.
Again, how many people are spending significant amounts of China. Most of us aren't. This is only a major issue if you read a significant number of hours, read quickly and spend time in places where new reading material isn't easily acquired. I'm not saying a good ereader isn't a fantastic idea, or even that $350 isn't a reasonable price. I'm saying that if Sony is banking on people using it to replace carrying 10 (or more) paperbacks that market segment is going to be pretty small.
Now where you do have a point is textbooks. As soon as somebody figures out how to provide college students with their textbooks on one of these it will be all over. I'm surprised no one has managed to do that yet.
10 paperbacks? How long of a journey are you planning on. I'm sure I don't spend as much time reading as some people, but personally I rarely finish more than 2 or 3 books a month. 10 books would last me 5 months. Even if you read twice that much and 10 books would only last a couple months, how often do most people travel on a two month journey and even if they do how often would it be in a location that didn't have a store selling books in their native language.
While I agree with your points, I don't think they tell the whole story. I used to buy tons of CDs, but I don't anymore. I have a satellite radio in the car that lets me listen to a large variety of music, mp3s of all my old CDs, myspace and other sites where indie bands often have music available for free, and emusic account that allows me to download individual tracks. Why would I purchase CDs? I wouldn't listen to them. One thing I do have to disagree with is your evaluation of 'the music of today'. More than ever before there is a HUGE selection of music. Pop music may have suffered, but music today runs the gambit. No longer are we at the mercy of a few pop/rock radio stations to tell us what to like. There are many new outlets and many new bands out there. If you haven't found anything you like, cruise myspace for a while - something will probably show up that meets your taste.
Sometimes it's buggy device drivers, although in a Unix based system that's designed properly (Linux, OSX) the potential for a device driver to cause a problem is much lower and the ability to track down the problem is much higher than in Windows. That said, your point is well taken. If an OS is specifically tested in a controlled hardware environmnent it is MUCH easier to maintain stability. It doesn't mean the software won't ever crash - I've seen PalmOS crash and you don't get much more controlled hardware than that. Of course with voting machines the software is also controlled, which should help even more.
The chances of being the "next" Jobs, etc. is very, very low
True enough, but building a webite that makes $50 Million a year or sells for $900 Million is very, very, very low as well. Someone is goning to be the next Jobs, Gates, Brin, whatever. This guy's odds probably increased significantly since he already has a wildly successful dot com.
Try reading *real* scientific journals, such as Nature. You'll find there is no debate over global warming within the scientific community.
OK, AC troll, I'll bite.
First, AFAIK, 'real' scientific journals can be very elitist and very narrow minded. What gets published in most journals must be acceptable to the community at large for the journal to remain a respected institution. On top of that, article submission is expensive, difficult and lengthy, even if you do have a nice safe acceptable paper to submit. Scientific journals may or may not provide evidence of cohesive thought on global warming.
Second, while there may be no debate over the occurance of global warming, there is great debate over the causes, impact, solutions, etc... Is it only greenhouse gasses? Are the other contributing factors? Are we in a feedback loop? Is there anything that can be done? Will the result be warmer temperatures, or another ice age? Will humanity survive? These are all questions highly debated everywhere - if you know of a scientist that can tell us definitevly of the causes, solutions and results I would love to hear it.
A gas can not warm the planet.
Sure it can, just light a match.
Sounds to me like he was waaaay down on the list.
Buck Rogers' stories were OK, a bit trite and underdeveloped by today's standards. Interesting how that was a 1/2 hour show at the time, no space opera like that would be attempted in a 1/2 hour time slot these days. The bad thing was the writing and composition (not sure what the technical term would be). A robot named Twiki? The same shots of the city EVERY TIME. A constant theme for many late 70s early 80s shows seemed to be the cutesy characters and using the same shots over and over (and over and over). In that way it reminds me of the original BSG with the kid and the stupid robot dog. I like the old school effects - that's one thing about the new BSG, effects are minimal, they just aren't as obviously repetitive. Many of those old action/adventure shows (BSG, Buck Rogers, Dukes of Hazzard, A-Team, etc...) had great stories but they were either written for kids or the viewing audience was that much less sophisticated at the time. That's probably one thing Star Trek TOS had going for it. People were killed, alien romances were common place, there was real conflict and real issues at stake. During the kinder, gentler 80s the gritty issues were replaced by cute robots, kids and guns that never actually injured anyone.
I don't think this particular issue is a conspiracy against Microsoft. IPv6 hasn't been implemented because no one is willing to take the plunge (and responsibility) and commit to it. Concerns like those expressed in this article are EXACTLY why IPv6 has been waiting in the wings.
If you want to chastise readers for something, chastise them for the negative commentary on IPv6.
Yeah, but Buck Rogers is sooo bad. Personally I can't believe I actually watched that as a kid.
Sci-Fi misses the boat so often it's ridiculous. Cheesey movies that have EXACTLY the same story every time. You would think BSG would show them that their demographic is a little more edgy than ECW.
Personally, I just joined Shatner's DVD club, to supplement my SciFi needs.
Personally, I wish that SciFi would show more classic stuff as well as repeat their good stuff more often
Get a DVD player and a Tivo. Some of us want new content - not repeats.
Exactly! All this blathering about global warming and what can we do? Nothing! So, why discuss it endlessly and get all worked up about it? Even if we could convince the US and EU to stop using all fossil fuels immediately we still couldn't do jack about India, China, etc...
Well, as long as everyone can use the road for free, it will usually be faster, even in a big city, to drive rather than use the bus, so the congestion isn't much of an impetus, except for people who can smuggle a nap in on the way to work.
Bus generally isn't faster to travel since they use the same roads, but in congested areas you also have to take parking into account. Trains (subways, trolleys, etc..) are better yet. Look at places like New York or London. Many people don't even own cars because driving and parking is such a nightmare and a decent public transportation system is available. These places have become so congested that people don't even bother to drive.
In my case driving to work takes about 15 minutes. Riding the bus would take well over an hour. The local city government is considering stopping bus service altogether because no one uses it. I would prefer that they actually create bus routes people want to use, but there is still no guarantee that anyone will use it.
OK, but will the variation on the caps and resistors remain consistent over the life of the WiFi card? Will an allowance be made for ongoing variations in the signal? If so, will it be exploitable?
So when people quickly realize how much faster the commute is, so they build houses farther out, and when everyone does this, the road becomes just as congested as before.
The problem isn't that the houses are farther out - if the population just moved further there wouldn't be any additional traffic. The issue is the larger roads allow more people to get into the same area. MORE houses are built further out, but no industrial/heavy commercial is build nearby so everyone uses the roads.
I imagine the number of people riding the bus or taking the train is some kind of function of the road congestion. Where public transportation is available, as the commute takes longer more and more people take the bus. In my circumstance, I live in a city of nearly 100,000 people. It's MUCH faster for me to drive to work than it is to take the bus. Until the routes are improved, or traffic congestion becomes a real problem I'll continue to drive.
in the middle of a no-fly zone several thousand miles in diameter.
So anything or anyone that wants to travel on or is needed to operate the elevator will have to go by boat? That's not going to happen, at least not for long.
Of course, risk of a possible terrorist attack is no reason not to build such a thing. If we took that attitude, we should all just hide in our basements...
Funny comment, but a good point.
One of my frustrations with the US is the lack of efforts by most of our cities to make transportation easy and convenient. How great would it be if you could ride the train into a city, get off and rent a Segway for the afternoon. No, instead they just build more overpassess and bypasses.
It's hardly insignificant if you're the guy with something else expected to be terminal that the new technique can cure, or family or friend of that guy.
True enough, but statistically, nearly everyone has (or will have) friends and family that battle cancer.
bigger than just cancer
Bigger than cancer? After you have cured cancer, anything else is just an insignificant bonus.
Sure they're not going to fire they're really good workers
Actually, that may not be a good assumption. Often in engineering industries the more experienced workers are the first to be laid off. A company can hire two or three bright-eyed bushy tailed college grads for the price of one engineer with 20 years experience.
I agree, but for different reasons. Voyager didn't fail due to it's premis, it failed because of bad casting and writing. Whoever cast that captain chick in Voyager killed that show. I couldn't hardly stand to watch her. Similarly SGA's characters, particularly Sheppard seem to be poorly cast. I've actually enjoyed SG1 again the last two seasons since they brought Ben Browder on as Col. Mitchell. He's great at the part and the writing (barring the lame 200th episode crap) has been good. If they want to cancel something they should cancel SGA.