Indeed. We somehow managed convince a nation of one billion mostly intelligent people to not only give us valuable goods in exchange for worthless green paper, but also to accept even more worthless representations of pieces of worthless green paper made on the tiny magnetic domains of a cheap piece of rust-covered glass in an undisclosed location in lieu of actual worthless paper...
So, basically, what you're saying is that people who have tiny-key keyboards will be prejudiced against soft-keyboards until they try one, at which point they'll either shut up about it or continue to bitch while secretly pining for a soft keyboard in the future?
Because let me tell you, my use experience with tiny keyboards goes back to the original wizard, and even at that size, they were stupidly small. Palm was a significant improvement that the market clearly favored until they forgot about moore's law and kept trying to sell $500 organizers.
Soft keys are superior in every way, not the least because instead of dividing your device's face, you divide its time. You get more screen space for everything, and a bigger keyboard when you need one. Now, if apple would just make a multitouch version of graffiti (i.e. one that wasn't so awkward), we'd have something to debate...
You joke, but that sounds like it actually would be a pretty good input paradigm. Electric keyboards for musicians can register the strength of a keypress, so I don't see any reason why a typing keyboard shouldn't be able to. Maybe as an expensive option at first, for laptop users (which also would train them to type gingerly most of the time, keeping the noise down for the rest of us.
It is not, "what is the answer to life the universe and everything." which is "bleach. Lots of it."
It is "what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything." which is, apparently, the either the number 42 or a word composed of the arabic numerals 4 and 2, and the question is something we're still trying to figure out, but possibly has something to do with the multiplicative factors of the number and something about an english nightclub. Frankly, I'm also interested in the penultimate and antepenultimate questions as well, and no one have given either even a passing thought...
Maybe, but the civil war started after the industrial revolution began. For goodness' sake, they already had mobile steam power plants roaming much of the north american continent at the time, to the point that they were a strategic element of the fight. (look up "Sherman's Bow Ties" for part of the story)
I can carry, in my pocket, a magic map that knows both where I am and how to get to where I want to go provided I poke it in just the right way to tell it.
I can stick my conveyance on a small, paved patch near my house and leave it there, ignoring it unless I actually need or want to go somewhere, even if I don't need to go anywhere for weeks at a time. And at no point do I ever have to shovel poop for the benefit. There's no magic smoke to it, if it dies, I can almost always restore it to life by replacing the right parts, even if it's left out for a while, unless it is completely disfigured.
It travels on a ribbon of stone. A smooth and nearly unbroken network stretching from coast to coast that would have made even the romans jealous (except the longevity, of course.)
I carry around a machine in my backpack which could, if I wanted to, and enough people put forth the effort, contain a copy of the text of every work of literature, ever. And images contained in many of them, as well. And it can even read it for me.
In my home, there is a box, with numbers on it. By mashing those buttons in the correct order I can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world, that has a similar box. I've got one in my pocket, too. If I call a business, I can request and pay for goods that could arrive in less than 48 hours, no matter how far away.
If I'm sick, I have many, many options, and the lowest-level option is to take an extract of something that will mask the symptoms. And it actually works.
The list really goes on, and on, and on. We already live in the future, and it is awesome. It might not be precisely the future predicted by the buffoons of yesteryear, but neither will the future of now be the same as our buffoons predict. Except that it'll probably be even awesomer than now. And awesomer will be a word, too.
You paid for the rights to those songs, right? Using the relevant authority for licensing in question?
re: the USB dealies:
Trade them up until you get a house (like the craigslist guy a while back), then write a regular letter with cryptic clues (but not too cryptic) to find the place, the first person who reaches it gets the deed.
People return stuff that they feel is "returnable" and don't return stuff they don't. It's a natural thermodynamic sense: if they feel the transaction is reversible then they will reverse transactions they don't like.
A cheeseburger doesn't fit that model: if you return it, you will have one less cheeseburger, but the restaurant will not have one more cheeseburger, they will have one more cheeseburger-sized amount of garbage.
Downloadable stuff does fit the model. If you return it, (by destroying your copy), you will have one less copy that item (the state you had before the transaction.) The store will have exactly as many copies as they had before the transaction as well, because downloading didn't actually reduce their count of copies.
People often have notions of fairness, and most people, I would assume, feel that if you can return to the pre-transaction state, that that is fair to all parties.
So for what reason does the BMW continue to demand such a price premium if not the simple fact that it's asserted as a high-priced car?
BMWs aren't cars. They're billboards to announce how rich you are. There's no point in buying used, or building one to last more than three years, because having an *old* BMW just means that you couldn't afford to buy this year's model. If you're trying to repair an out-of-warranty "beemer", you're doing it wrong. They're a lot like the "i'm rich" app on the iPhone app store.
What I find confusing, though, is that people of average means who will pay $40k for a car will turn around and make fun of YOU for paying $2k for a computer or more than $300 for a bed. It's like they don't even realize that they could get a decent car for half that price, and have enough left over to afford luxury everything else.
Also, what the deuce is with the 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo requirement?
Last I checked, there are lots of still fairly expensive machines (admittedly mostly laptops these days) in the 1.8 -- 2.2 range. I myself just recently purchased a 2.0 machine* that has no trouble with the "high-def" hulu stream (the HD gallery, not the 480 "high def"), and that's with a browser wrapped around everything.
*which may be the real reason I'm upset....
It's just stupid video. What does the CPU need to do other than decrypt crap and move bits onto the video card?
You write that as your requirement, and you get the MS-based system.
Before the next upgrade cycle though, you probably ought to do something about getting your balls out of that vice, even if you're going to decide to go with MS then as well. You don't exactly have a very strong negotiating position now, do you.
The problem is, my accounting software is propriatary and does not run on Linux - Windows Only (and I've tried WINE, no dice on this one).
Your problem is bigger than "open source vs. proprietary" I'm afraid.
It should matter whether the accounting software is proprietary or not, because the data itself ought to be in as flat an plain of a file as possible. Encrypted, perhaps, and even compressed (a la open document), but the actual data should be in a plain format like human-readable ascii, or easily parsed binary, where the file header holds a description of the format in human readable form.
You're talking about ever-important financial data. Its storage ought to be even more robust than mere solar data or ice-core sample data.
Open source might give you that, and it might even be the easiest route to that, but if you're stuck with a proprietary format you don't know how to read yourself, how do you know it's not going to screw up (or worse, screw up silently) on the first errant bit-flip?
There are people in the world who are just boring and unimaginitive. People who aren't stupid, but just don't think of interesting things to do, and aren't interested in doing them anyway, even if someone else thinks of them and invites them along.
You can tell who they are by their reaction to this xkcd comic.
Such a person would never think of passing the time with a game of space-tag (too childish) or rocket-dancing (too touchy, inadvertently suggestive name.). So a movie (and not a particularly exciting one, btw. Probably something like French Kiss ) is the obvious choice.
Apparently, the space program has become so routine that such people have found their way there. I've no idea how that's even possible (if you're that dull, what would possess you to apply for astronaut training?)
In fact, none of the 16,384 possible capitalizations yield that hash. Nor do any of the words in the linux words list (ubuntu ibex), with any arbitrary capitalization on them, either.
I did not feel like trying combinations of two words, as 2.5 billion (i think, I cleared the screen to do other stuff before writing this comment) multiplied by an hour and a half is longer than I'm willing to wait for results for a stupid web forum, as is the time to write a decent algorithm in a better language than nice, dirty, perl.
Yeah, all you have to do is repaint, resurface, and plant a whole lotta trees. It's so simple, I don't know why no one thought of it before. All it costs is lots of money, time, energy and materials...
For personal accounts, the "good idea" is to use a hash of some combination of: the site name, your username, and your "one good password for all of 'em" But not a concatenation. Maybe an xor.
Although I'm not sure how great of an idea that is, but at least you don't have to actually store any passwords anywhere, and they're all safe as long as your primary password isn't compromised.
People who want a computer with all the bells and whistles* but the ability to say "I got the cheapest {Y} that {X} offers?" If they actually offer the machines without all the bells and whistles, they might lose some of those people.
You're still hauling around 1,000 lbs of steel (and wood), without shock absorption, with a low efficiency engine that runs on extremely expensive fuel (compare the price of 1,000 kcal of oats to the price of 1,000 kcal of 87 octane gasoline.)
Just because the exhaust isn't hot doesn't mean that the engine is efficient. Also, in the typical configuration, the exhaust is routed right by the passenger compartment, and although less toxic (very low CO emissions), it's much less pleasant to smell.
And you get all that in a machine that can't simply be stored until you need it, and travels at a fifth the speed.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. We somehow managed convince a nation of one billion mostly intelligent people to not only give us valuable goods in exchange for worthless green paper, but also to accept even more worthless representations of pieces of worthless green paper made on the tiny magnetic domains of a cheap piece of rust-covered glass in an undisclosed location in lieu of actual worthless paper...
Statues are the things in the lobby that look like a chick in a blindfold playing with a balance scale.
So, basically, what you're saying is that people who have tiny-key keyboards will be prejudiced against soft-keyboards until they try one, at which point they'll either shut up about it or continue to bitch while secretly pining for a soft keyboard in the future?
Because let me tell you, my use experience with tiny keyboards goes back to the original wizard, and even at that size, they were stupidly small. Palm was a significant improvement that the market clearly favored until they forgot about moore's law and kept trying to sell $500 organizers.
Soft keys are superior in every way, not the least because instead of dividing your device's face, you divide its time. You get more screen space for everything, and a bigger keyboard when you need one. Now, if apple would just make a multitouch version of graffiti (i.e. one that wasn't so awkward), we'd have something to debate...
You joke, but that sounds like it actually would be a pretty good input paradigm. Electric keyboards for musicians can register the strength of a keypress, so I don't see any reason why a typing keyboard shouldn't be able to. Maybe as an expensive option at first, for laptop users (which also would train them to type gingerly most of the time, keeping the noise down for the rest of us.
Damnit, why do people keep editing the question.
It is not, "what is the answer to life the universe and everything." which is "bleach. Lots of it."
It is "what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything." which is, apparently, the either the number 42 or a word composed of the arabic numerals 4 and 2, and the question is something we're still trying to figure out, but possibly has something to do with the multiplicative factors of the number and something about an english nightclub. Frankly, I'm also interested in the penultimate and antepenultimate questions as well, and no one have given either even a passing thought...
So, google didn't get it right either.
Or as I like to say, "Half Fast."
Maybe, but the civil war started after the industrial revolution began. For goodness' sake, they already had mobile steam power plants roaming much of the north american continent at the time, to the point that they were a strategic element of the fight. (look up "Sherman's Bow Ties" for part of the story)
I can carry, in my pocket, a magic map that knows both where I am and how to get to where I want to go provided I poke it in just the right way to tell it.
I can stick my conveyance on a small, paved patch near my house and leave it there, ignoring it unless I actually need or want to go somewhere, even if I don't need to go anywhere for weeks at a time. And at no point do I ever have to shovel poop for the benefit. There's no magic smoke to it, if it dies, I can almost always restore it to life by replacing the right parts, even if it's left out for a while, unless it is completely disfigured.
It travels on a ribbon of stone. A smooth and nearly unbroken network stretching from coast to coast that would have made even the romans jealous (except the longevity, of course.)
I carry around a machine in my backpack which could, if I wanted to, and enough people put forth the effort, contain a copy of the text of every work of literature, ever. And images contained in many of them, as well. And it can even read it for me.
In my home, there is a box, with numbers on it. By mashing those buttons in the correct order I can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world, that has a similar box. I've got one in my pocket, too. If I call a business, I can request and pay for goods that could arrive in less than 48 hours, no matter how far away.
If I'm sick, I have many, many options, and the lowest-level option is to take an extract of something that will mask the symptoms. And it actually works.
The list really goes on, and on, and on. We already live in the future, and it is awesome. It might not be precisely the future predicted by the buffoons of yesteryear, but neither will the future of now be the same as our buffoons predict. Except that it'll probably be even awesomer than now. And awesomer will be a word, too.
Actually, you know what... forget the cars and ships.
You paid for the rights to those songs, right? Using the relevant authority for licensing in question?
re: the USB dealies:
Trade them up until you get a house (like the craigslist guy a while back), then write a regular letter with cryptic clues (but not too cryptic) to find the place, the first person who reaches it gets the deed.
It doesn't have anything to do with the price.
People return stuff that they feel is "returnable" and don't return stuff they don't. It's a natural thermodynamic sense: if they feel the transaction is reversible then they will reverse transactions they don't like.
A cheeseburger doesn't fit that model: if you return it, you will have one less cheeseburger, but the restaurant will not have one more cheeseburger, they will have one more cheeseburger-sized amount of garbage.
Downloadable stuff does fit the model. If you return it, (by destroying your copy), you will have one less copy that item (the state you had before the transaction.) The store will have exactly as many copies as they had before the transaction as well, because downloading didn't actually reduce their count of copies.
People often have notions of fairness, and most people, I would assume, feel that if you can return to the pre-transaction state, that that is fair to all parties.
So for what reason does the BMW continue to demand such a price premium if not the simple fact that it's asserted as a high-priced car?
BMWs aren't cars. They're billboards to announce how rich you are. There's no point in buying used, or building one to last more than three years, because having an *old* BMW just means that you couldn't afford to buy this year's model. If you're trying to repair an out-of-warranty "beemer", you're doing it wrong. They're a lot like the "i'm rich" app on the iPhone app store.
What I find confusing, though, is that people of average means who will pay $40k for a car will turn around and make fun of YOU for paying $2k for a computer or more than $300 for a bed. It's like they don't even realize that they could get a decent car for half that price, and have enough left over to afford luxury everything else.
err.. I should've probably read the rest of GP's comment before posting. It's clear the CPU issue was already addressed.
Also, what the deuce is with the 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo requirement?
Last I checked, there are lots of still fairly expensive machines (admittedly mostly laptops these days) in the 1.8 -- 2.2 range. I myself just recently purchased a 2.0 machine* that has no trouble with the "high-def" hulu stream (the HD gallery, not the 480 "high def"), and that's with a browser wrapped around everything.
*which may be the real reason I'm upset....
It's just stupid video. What does the CPU need to do other than decrypt crap and move bits onto the video card?
You write that as your requirement, and you get the MS-based system.
Before the next upgrade cycle though, you probably ought to do something about getting your balls out of that vice, even if you're going to decide to go with MS then as well. You don't exactly have a very strong negotiating position now, do you.
The problem is, my accounting software is propriatary and does not run on Linux - Windows Only (and I've tried WINE, no dice on this one).
Your problem is bigger than "open source vs. proprietary" I'm afraid.
It should matter whether the accounting software is proprietary or not, because the data itself ought to be in as flat an plain of a file as possible. Encrypted, perhaps, and even compressed (a la open document), but the actual data should be in a plain format like human-readable ascii, or easily parsed binary, where the file header holds a description of the format in human readable form.
You're talking about ever-important financial data. Its storage ought to be even more robust than mere solar data or ice-core sample data.
Open source might give you that, and it might even be the easiest route to that, but if you're stuck with a proprietary format you don't know how to read yourself, how do you know it's not going to screw up (or worse, screw up silently) on the first errant bit-flip?
It would go a lot faster if they didn't have to refresh the display between each compare...
There are people in the world who are just boring and unimaginitive. People who aren't stupid, but just don't think of interesting things to do, and aren't interested in doing them anyway, even if someone else thinks of them and invites them along.
You can tell who they are by their reaction to this xkcd comic.
Such a person would never think of passing the time with a game of space-tag (too childish) or rocket-dancing (too touchy, inadvertently suggestive name.). So a movie (and not a particularly exciting one, btw. Probably something like French Kiss ) is the obvious choice.
Apparently, the space program has become so routine that such people have found their way there. I've no idea how that's even possible (if you're that dull, what would possess you to apply for astronaut training?)
Me, too.
In fact, none of the 16,384 possible capitalizations yield that hash. Nor do any of the words in the linux words list (ubuntu ibex), with any arbitrary capitalization on them, either.
I did not feel like trying combinations of two words, as 2.5 billion (i think, I cleared the screen to do other stuff before writing this comment) multiplied by an hour and a half is longer than I'm willing to wait for results for a stupid web forum, as is the time to write a decent algorithm in a better language than nice, dirty, perl.
Yeah, all you have to do is repaint, resurface, and plant a whole lotta trees. It's so simple, I don't know why no one thought of it before. All it costs is lots of money, time, energy and materials...
For personal accounts, the "good idea" is to use a hash of some combination of: the site name, your username, and your "one good password for all of 'em" But not a concatenation. Maybe an xor.
Although I'm not sure how great of an idea that is, but at least you don't have to actually store any passwords anywhere, and they're all safe as long as your primary password isn't compromised.
Must be "Verizon math." I'd guess p==pounds, not pence as you would expect.
Ahh, but what about the market segment of:
People who want a computer with all the bells and whistles* but the ability to say "I got the cheapest {Y} that {X} offers?" If they actually offer the machines without all the bells and whistles, they might lose some of those people.
Wait.. what happened to microfilm?
You're still hauling around 1,000 lbs of steel (and wood), without shock absorption, with a low efficiency engine that runs on extremely expensive fuel (compare the price of 1,000 kcal of oats to the price of 1,000 kcal of 87 octane gasoline.)
Just because the exhaust isn't hot doesn't mean that the engine is efficient. Also, in the typical configuration, the exhaust is routed right by the passenger compartment, and although less toxic (very low CO emissions), it's much less pleasant to smell.
And you get all that in a machine that can't simply be stored until you need it, and travels at a fifth the speed.