The UP 3 sounded really interesting when it was announced. I was on a fitness kick at the time, and my girlfriend ordered one for me for Christmas. At the time, Jawbone was saying it would deliver by December 22. December came and went. We called, and Jawbone gave no reason but said deliveries would be delayed, and that it should be shipping soon January came and went. We called again. Same answer. February, March... the device didn't come until April.
When I had finally received it four months later, I found that the UP 3 had tons of problems. The biggest one was bluetooth syncing. It was supposed to constantly be sending data to the phone through bluetooth. But, the bluetooth connection failed multiple times a day. When it would fail, I would have to repair the band.
Also, the initial marketing for the UP 3 was heavy on the heart rate monitoring feature. It seemed based on the advertising that I could use the band to track my heart rate during the workout. But when the band shipped, it would only track resting heart rate while you slept.
Finally, the band just died. Customer service was terrible. Long waits on the phone, to hear them tell me they weren't authorized to send me a replacement. If that wasn't enough, was that in the midst of all of these UP 3 problems, Jawbone announced the UP 4 shipping soon. No discounts for the UP 3 users dealing with all the crap. On top of that, the UP 4 just seemed silly, with the only new addition being that could be used to make American Express (and only American Express) payments.
So I'm not surprised at all to see them fail. And given the track record with this CEO, I would strongly recommend against investing in any of his future projects.
If you don't believe in God, like Hawkings, what logical reason can you possible give to have any concern about the survival of the species? Your personal survival or happiness is not going to be affected by anything so far term and when you are dead it won't make the slightest difference.
I guess maybe to make you feel like you are doing something useful? How could the survival of the species be useful to you?
Thoughtful questions. I think it's probably driven by two things. One, basic survival instinct. Even if it wouldn't affect us personally, it would make sense from an evolutionary point of view for us to have a drive to not just preserve ourselves, but the species as a whole.
Second, I think behind it there's idea driven by hope. That the human species is capable of great deal. That we can be much more than we are now. That we can become something that can do good for ourselves, other life forms, and the places we inhabit.
Agreed. Additionally, I think the "Like" button has done so much to reduce real social connection and intelligent discussion. No need to have meaningful conversations with someone. Instead, you can give them two seconds of your attention by tapping Like as you scroll through and do the same thing for hundreds of other posts. Disagree with someone's opinion? Why bother with a discussion that could help you understand each other? Just block them from your news feed and stay in your bubble.
I'm not on Facebook anymore but I took a look at Facebook's page about Facebook Groups, which was mentioned in the article. I was hoping to find something different. But nothing new here. Same old Facebook, just restricting to certain people in a group.
We're more likely to kill ourselves as a species than we are to be destroyed by some external force. Wherever we go, we will take our problems with us. As the saying goes, "wherever you go, there you are". If we face violence, poverty, hunger, and overpopulation now, we will eventually face the same problems on the moon, Mars, or wherever. Our challenge as a species is going to be working together to solve these internal problems. If we can do this, we can colonize the galaxy as benevolent stewards instead of as a destructive virus.
In conversations like this, a question we should be asking is whether it does more good or harm to bring our species to another place, with our species as it is right now. Is it really right to bring pollution, global warming, and the potential for nuclear destruction with us anywhere? To me it seems very speciesist to look at the problem from only the human point of view. Is it good for the universe for us to carry our problems with us right now?
I'm surprised they're just now replacing the calculators in high schools. I graduated close to twenty years ago, and had a TI-85 and later a TI-89. It made sense back then, because not everybody even had a computer at home. Nowadays you can get a computer for less than the calculator costs, and all the kids have smartphones anyway. The only worry now is preventing students from using a program that is too smart and which does all the work for them.
Does bring back memories. I remember taking apart my TI-85 and taking out a certain resistor, which sped the calculator up a lot. Pretty stupid thing to do actually - I definitely wouldn't have attempted it if I had bought the calculator myself instead of having it come from my parents. My friend wasn't so lucky with the process and ended up bricking his. I did some of my first ever programming in TI-BASIC. Automating calculations for chemistry and physics classes, I think. Fun times.
Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio called the ousters "a changing of the guard at Canopy. It is quite literally out with the old and in with the new.
"With the departure[s] . . . go the last vestiges of the Ray Noorda era. Yankee Group expects that other, equally significant changes will be in the offing for 2005," she said. "The fate of SCO is one of the big question marks. New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
This is all very premature, but why should anyone agree to settle with SCO? They are just plain wrong on the subject, and the company is falling apart. Their backs are to the wall, and they are in no position to negotiate.
This seems like a good idea that they just couldn't get to work. If they're just going to shelve it and not make a penny anyway, how about releasing the source code and see what the community can do with it? HP makes the same amount of money on it either way ($0), but this way they can get open source brownie points and maybe start something that could be useful down the line.
Where is the ethical question? First of all, the idea that there is life on Titan is just speculation. Second, we are just taking pictures from outside the atmosphere at this point, no need to get excited just yet. Lastly, are you really saying we should base our ethics in regards to this on a science fiction television show? Think about what you are saying for a moment, not within the context of Star Trek, but within the context of real scientific possibilities that could await us.
In 2002, a grand jury indicted InfoCom, and its owners on charges that they exported computer equipment to Libya and Syria and funneled money to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas.
Whether or not the charges are true, I am guessing that InfoCom had some serious ties to the Middle East. Maybe they thought they'd make a buck by dealing closely with Iraq if/when the country started to integrate itself into the WWW, either dealing with resistance groups or the Saddam-era government.
"The designated checkpoint won't open in Minneapolis for a couple of weeks, and only travelers who consider it their home airport will be able to use it. In turn, Minneapolis passengers won't get special access at the other airports."
Now, what is the reasoning behind this? Why can people registered only use the designated checkpoints at their "home" airport? For folks who frequently travel across the country, will saving half an hour at one measly airport be worth giving a governmental organization their fingerprints and iris scans?
I don't get it. If the TSA obtains this data, it seems they should allow a person to use special checkpoints in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington (other cities testing the program) as well as in Minneapolis. For a lot of folks, not having to wait in line when they start their flights in Minnesota (but getting no special priviliges anywhere else) won't pay the cost of the government "knowing who they are".
An interesting barometer to keep your eye on as far as the possibility of a Democrat beating Hatch, is the Van Dam-Bennett Senate race. Van Dam is a good candidate, a former Utah Attorney General who has some degree of popularity for sending the order down to prosecute Ted Bundy. His challenge is defeating an incumbant Republican in Bennett - who unlike Hatch hasn't said or done anything extremely unpopular or controversial during his Senate stay.
Van Dam in May was at 24% in the polls, so he certainly has a mountain to climb, but if undecideds break for him (as they usually do for the challenger) it would put him at around 35%. He has been campaigning hard, going on a bike tour throughout the state (at the age of 67 no less) and my personal completely unscientific opinion (or hope, maybe:)) is that if Van Dam can break 40% in November, a Democrat has got a shot against Hatch.
Another indicator may be the race for governor - Matheson, a Democrat, has a very good chance as his family name has a history in Utah politics (although the Huntsman name - who I'm picking to win the Republican primary - is also well known). A Democratic governor's endorsement of a Senate candidate in 2006 could be a big help in getting rid of Hatch (however, I am unfortunately pessimistic about that happening, should he win - Matheson does not help or work closely with other Democrats in the state and has rubbed many the wrong way.)
From what I have heard, Hatch is a very amiable, likable guy. People who have told me that have also told me he is completely full of BS. The folks in particular I am thinking about who met him came away with an overall good impression, saying "he's a really nice guy" but were also somewhat frustrated because he would pretend to answer their questions but really just gave them a stream of BS (that sounded good, but looking back it was clear he didn't know what he was talking about). Unfortunately, folks like this slip through the cracks and into office a lot in a democratic system; I think that's the bad we take with the good.
I think if Hatch were up for re-election in November, he might get the boot (even in the ultra-conservative state of Utah). But his term isn't up until 2006. There is a good Democrat running against him then, I wish I could remember his name, that might have a shot. But I am just worried that with 2 years left to go, Hatch has plenty of time to do some positive PR work to help his image.
From comments Doug Bagley made about the "Shootout" (where the benchmarks came from), no, I don't think it is an accurate comparison, or at least a conclusive comparison between C++ and Java. His comments from his conclusion:
I put it on the web because I thought it would interest others. Even though I put disclaimers on the page, and I try not to make any claims, I see some people say the shootout shows that "language X is faster than language Y".
That claim is probably premature and hence, bogus. I suppose you could make the claim that, in "Doug's word frequency test, on a PII-450 running Linux 2.4, given a certain input, language X is faster than language Y" Assuming, of course, that I haven't made any mistakes. Some of my tests are also arguably poorly designed and meaningless. (Hey, if you have some better ideas, please write to me).
Benchmarks are notoriously misleading, and perhaps mine aren't any better, although I do try. Benchmarks tell you about results in a very specific case. Drawing a general conclusion is problematic.
One thing this project and Wikibooks could benefit from is to develop open-source learning programs to go along with the text. "Learning by doing" is an important part of the education process, and fun little games, quizzes, and tests to go along with chapters in the open textbook would help students learn better.
The reason I am thinking of this is the book for the Logic class I took a couple semesters ago came with an absolutely fantastic CD-ROM. It taught the material, reinforced it, and tested you on it. It did such a good job I really feel I learned as much (or more) from that computer program than I did from going to class.
Well done learning aides like this for OpenTextBook could help give them the leg up they are hoping for on a lot of commercially done projects.
Slashdot Mirror
The UP 3 sounded really interesting when it was announced. I was on a fitness kick at the time, and my girlfriend ordered one for me for Christmas. At the time, Jawbone was saying it would deliver by December 22. December came and went. We called, and Jawbone gave no reason but said deliveries would be delayed, and that it should be shipping soon January came and went. We called again. Same answer. February, March... the device didn't come until April.
When I had finally received it four months later, I found that the UP 3 had tons of problems. The biggest one was bluetooth syncing. It was supposed to constantly be sending data to the phone through bluetooth. But, the bluetooth connection failed multiple times a day. When it would fail, I would have to repair the band.
Also, the initial marketing for the UP 3 was heavy on the heart rate monitoring feature. It seemed based on the advertising that I could use the band to track my heart rate during the workout. But when the band shipped, it would only track resting heart rate while you slept.
Finally, the band just died. Customer service was terrible. Long waits on the phone, to hear them tell me they weren't authorized to send me a replacement. If that wasn't enough, was that in the midst of all of these UP 3 problems, Jawbone announced the UP 4 shipping soon. No discounts for the UP 3 users dealing with all the crap. On top of that, the UP 4 just seemed silly, with the only new addition being that could be used to make American Express (and only American Express) payments.
So I'm not surprised at all to see them fail. And given the track record with this CEO, I would strongly recommend against investing in any of his future projects.
If you don't believe in God, like Hawkings, what logical reason can you possible give to have any concern about the survival of the species? Your personal survival or happiness is not going to be affected by anything so far term and when you are dead it won't make the slightest difference.
I guess maybe to make you feel like you are doing something useful? How could the survival of the species be useful to you?
Thoughtful questions. I think it's probably driven by two things. One, basic survival instinct. Even if it wouldn't affect us personally, it would make sense from an evolutionary point of view for us to have a drive to not just preserve ourselves, but the species as a whole.
Second, I think behind it there's idea driven by hope. That the human species is capable of great deal. That we can be much more than we are now. That we can become something that can do good for ourselves, other life forms, and the places we inhabit.
Agreed. Additionally, I think the "Like" button has done so much to reduce real social connection and intelligent discussion. No need to have meaningful conversations with someone. Instead, you can give them two seconds of your attention by tapping Like as you scroll through and do the same thing for hundreds of other posts. Disagree with someone's opinion? Why bother with a discussion that could help you understand each other? Just block them from your news feed and stay in your bubble.
I'm not on Facebook anymore but I took a look at Facebook's page about Facebook Groups, which was mentioned in the article. I was hoping to find something different. But nothing new here. Same old Facebook, just restricting to certain people in a group.
We're more likely to kill ourselves as a species than we are to be destroyed by some external force. Wherever we go, we will take our problems with us. As the saying goes, "wherever you go, there you are". If we face violence, poverty, hunger, and overpopulation now, we will eventually face the same problems on the moon, Mars, or wherever. Our challenge as a species is going to be working together to solve these internal problems. If we can do this, we can colonize the galaxy as benevolent stewards instead of as a destructive virus.
In conversations like this, a question we should be asking is whether it does more good or harm to bring our species to another place, with our species as it is right now. Is it really right to bring pollution, global warming, and the potential for nuclear destruction with us anywhere? To me it seems very speciesist to look at the problem from only the human point of view. Is it good for the universe for us to carry our problems with us right now?
I'm surprised they're just now replacing the calculators in high schools. I graduated close to twenty years ago, and had a TI-85 and later a TI-89. It made sense back then, because not everybody even had a computer at home. Nowadays you can get a computer for less than the calculator costs, and all the kids have smartphones anyway. The only worry now is preventing students from using a program that is too smart and which does all the work for them.
Does bring back memories. I remember taking apart my TI-85 and taking out a certain resistor, which sped the calculator up a lot. Pretty stupid thing to do actually - I definitely wouldn't have attempted it if I had bought the calculator myself instead of having it come from my parents. My friend wasn't so lucky with the process and ended up bricking his. I did some of my first ever programming in TI-BASIC. Automating calculations for chemistry and physics classes, I think. Fun times.
Facebook did not buy Snapchat. They tried to in 2013 but Snapchat said no. Facebook did buy Instagram, which is what you're probably thinking of.
Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio called the ousters "a changing of the guard at Canopy. It is quite literally out with the old and in with the new.
"With the departure[s] . . . go the last vestiges of the Ray Noorda era. Yankee Group expects that other, equally significant changes will be in the offing for 2005," she said. "The fate of SCO is one of the big question marks. New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
This is all very premature, but why should anyone agree to settle with SCO? They are just plain wrong on the subject, and the company is falling apart. Their backs are to the wall, and they are in no position to negotiate.
This seems like a good idea that they just couldn't get to work. If they're just going to shelve it and not make a penny anyway, how about releasing the source code and see what the community can do with it? HP makes the same amount of money on it either way ($0), but this way they can get open source brownie points and maybe start something that could be useful down the line.
Where is the ethical question? First of all, the idea that there is life on Titan is just speculation. Second, we are just taking pictures from outside the atmosphere at this point, no need to get excited just yet. Lastly, are you really saying we should base our ethics in regards to this on a science fiction television show? Think about what you are saying for a moment, not within the context of Star Trek, but within the context of real scientific possibilities that could await us.
- In 2002, a grand jury indicted InfoCom, and its owners on charges that they exported computer equipment to Libya and Syria and funneled money to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas.
Whether or not the charges are true, I am guessing that InfoCom had some serious ties to the Middle East. Maybe they thought they'd make a buck by dealing closely with Iraq if/when the country started to integrate itself into the WWW, either dealing with resistance groups or the Saddam-era government.Now, what is the reasoning behind this? Why can people registered only use the designated checkpoints at their "home" airport? For folks who frequently travel across the country, will saving half an hour at one measly airport be worth giving a governmental organization their fingerprints and iris scans?
I don't get it. If the TSA obtains this data, it seems they should allow a person to use special checkpoints in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington (other cities testing the program) as well as in Minneapolis. For a lot of folks, not having to wait in line when they start their flights in Minnesota (but getting no special priviliges anywhere else) won't pay the cost of the government "knowing who they are".
An interesting barometer to keep your eye on as far as the possibility of a Democrat beating Hatch, is the Van Dam-Bennett Senate race. Van Dam is a good candidate, a former Utah Attorney General who has some degree of popularity for sending the order down to prosecute Ted Bundy. His challenge is defeating an incumbant Republican in Bennett - who unlike Hatch hasn't said or done anything extremely unpopular or controversial during his Senate stay.
:)) is that if Van Dam can break 40% in November, a Democrat has got a shot against Hatch.
Van Dam in May was at 24% in the polls, so he certainly has a mountain to climb, but if undecideds break for him (as they usually do for the challenger) it would put him at around 35%. He has been campaigning hard, going on a bike tour throughout the state (at the age of 67 no less) and my personal completely unscientific opinion (or hope, maybe
Another indicator may be the race for governor - Matheson, a Democrat, has a very good chance as his family name has a history in Utah politics (although the Huntsman name - who I'm picking to win the Republican primary - is also well known). A Democratic governor's endorsement of a Senate candidate in 2006 could be a big help in getting rid of Hatch (however, I am unfortunately pessimistic about that happening, should he win - Matheson does not help or work closely with other Democrats in the state and has rubbed many the wrong way.)
From what I have heard, Hatch is a very amiable, likable guy. People who have told me that have also told me he is completely full of BS. The folks in particular I am thinking about who met him came away with an overall good impression, saying "he's a really nice guy" but were also somewhat frustrated because he would pretend to answer their questions but really just gave them a stream of BS (that sounded good, but looking back it was clear he didn't know what he was talking about). Unfortunately, folks like this slip through the cracks and into office a lot in a democratic system; I think that's the bad we take with the good.
I think if Hatch were up for re-election in November, he might get the boot (even in the ultra-conservative state of Utah). But his term isn't up until 2006. There is a good Democrat running against him then, I wish I could remember his name, that might have a shot. But I am just worried that with 2 years left to go, Hatch has plenty of time to do some positive PR work to help his image.
From comments Doug Bagley made about the "Shootout" (where the benchmarks came from), no, I don't think it is an accurate comparison, or at least a conclusive comparison between C++ and Java. His comments from his conclusion:
I put it on the web because I thought it would interest others. Even though I put disclaimers on the page, and I try not to make any claims, I see some people say the shootout shows that "language X is faster than language Y".
That claim is probably premature and hence, bogus. I suppose you could make the claim that, in "Doug's word frequency test, on a PII-450 running Linux 2.4, given a certain input, language X is faster than language Y" Assuming, of course, that I haven't made any mistakes. Some of my tests are also arguably poorly designed and meaningless. (Hey, if you have some better ideas, please write to me).
Benchmarks are notoriously misleading, and perhaps mine aren't any better, although I do try. Benchmarks tell you about results in a very specific case. Drawing a general conclusion is problematic.
One thing this project and Wikibooks could benefit from is to develop open-source learning programs to go along with the text. "Learning by doing" is an important part of the education process, and fun little games, quizzes, and tests to go along with chapters in the open textbook would help students learn better.
The reason I am thinking of this is the book for the Logic class I took a couple semesters ago came with an absolutely fantastic CD-ROM. It taught the material, reinforced it, and tested you on it. It did such a good job I really feel I learned as much (or more) from that computer program than I did from going to class.
Well done learning aides like this for OpenTextBook could help give them the leg up they are hoping for on a lot of commercially done projects.