As to the iPad, it's a pretty good device, for what it is, and frankly it covers 100% of the computing usage pattern of most people I know (web, email, games) - yes it doesn't cover the needs of everyone, but that's ok
I'm not a hater, per se. Like a lot of people reading these comments, I write code (of one kind or another) for a living. I'm a keyboard jockey, averaging maybe 100wpm or a bit more. And I can see myself wanting to type on almost any computing device. I'm impatient. I've got an Android phone (EVO 4G Shift) that allows me to use the on-screen keyboard (I use Swype) or the slide-out hardware keyboard. But both of those devices are so error-prone and slow (again, I'm impatient) that I frequently end up using the voice transcription tools to compose text messages or emails. Not so good for proper nouns all the time, but for common dictionary words it does quite well (with my upper-midwest accent).
If I'm someplace where I need to compose an email and all I've got is my phone, I'll do that, but I'll definitely try to keep it as short as possible. If my laptop is nearby (keyboard!) I'll always use that first. I realize that a smartphone is not the same as a tablet, but some of the handicaps are the same. Coding geeks may get tablets as a secondary computing device, but probably never as a primary one.
If I ever become a billionaire, I'm going to hire a blimp with "PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: THE SUN IS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER" to float up and down the state. Stupid proposition system.
I'd go so far as to call that an indecent proposition.
There's a Fundamental breakdown with letting the 'Parents Do Their job' and that is that Most Parents won't, they're too busy buying their kids the latest toys to keep them occupied. As a matter of fact now, its becoming more common for kids to call the cops on their parents when they don't get their way (I wish I had a specific reference for this point, anyone), or for parents to become infuriated when their kids get into trouble (recently heard a story on the news regarding parents of children who were arrested drinking, infuriated at the sheriff - one father's comment to his son was "why didn't you run ?").
I'd just like to warn you against using such a broad brush. Certainly there are some parents who seem incapable of teaching boundaries to their children, and those are the kids that will end up in prison, etc. But I do believe they are a minority. I think there's a bit of selection bias going on here -- your observation of kids drinking and a stupid parent is something that will easily get eyeballs on FOX News, but it's pretty boring to write a news story about all the parents who are doing good parenting jobs.
If this is the bug you're talking about, it appears a bug report was filed, discussed, and a temporary workaround was offered (perhaps more than one). Although free software has bugs just like proprietary software, the way they are reported and handled is night and day.
That appears to be the very same bug, yes. And I'm not disputing the handling of the bug, but merely pointing out that even with "many eyes", this bug existed not so very long ago. Open Source is not immune to the same kinds of problems, though I grant you I probably should have been checking for the latest compatible libraries.
Now, I'm not necessarily a Microsoft apologist, but I have to point out that it wasn't so long ago that other things near and dear to us geeks were experiencing similar problems.
I was trying to run some ant scripts yesterday that interact with an FTP server to delete some files. Those damned files wouldn't get deleted. They weren't even returned from a listing command. As it turns out, I was using a particularly old version of Apache Commons-Net library (this jar file was from 2005) which had a leap-year bug. It simply would not show me files with modification dates of 2/29. I was looking at the FTP server configuration, logging in with other clients, moving and renaming files, and all about ready to break out Wireshark... and then it occurred to me that it was leap day. Hoo-fucking-ray. "touch"ed the file, and sure enough, it was suddenly available. Those are a few hours of my life I'll never get back.
The concept of money is a kind of fiction -- a shared, collective illusion in which we all participate. Which is by no means to suggest it's not worth something -- it's worth exactly what our economy says it's worth. But are you advocating a return to the gold standard?? You probably want to think long and hard about that. Does it make sense that a country should tie the size of its economy to the arbitrary physical amount of a precious metal which can be found within its borders?
Why even bother producing coins that are worth more as a material than as a coin?
We would like to keep down the cost of producing coins, certainly. But it's a bit of a fallacy to say that the coin cannot be composed of materials & processes which cost more than its face value to be manufactured. The coin will quite possibly be in circulation for decades, and it will certainly do more than [face value] cents of "work".
On the other hand, we certainly do want to do our part to remove incentives of criminals to destroy currency in order to recycle & sell the raw materials from which they were made (picture zinc ingots).
I'm talking about crystal methamphetamines. The stuff that rots your teeth, makes you hallucinate bugs under your skin, and so on. It's not a "party drug" like cocaine, nor is it a "mellow" thing like weed. Do you think the "faces of meth" theme seen in law-enforcement slideshows across the country is simply propaganda? My sister is a nurse in OR and sees more than her fair share of meth-head tweakers.
I've heard these arguments before, but ultimately not all drugs can be treated the same. Do you think your "legalize and tax" method would fix the problems that originate with meth? By all accounts, this is a drug which, once you've tried it, you're on a one-way road, downhill, no brakes.
How many of those behaviors are capable of having a potentially deadly outcome of the doctors other patients while this smoking-drinking-fried foods guy sits in the waiting room?
Methane gas is recovered from many land fill sites. Nothing new to see here, please move along.
I suppose you're right. And I don't know much about such things, but at various landfill sites I've seen this methane being burned off -- a big 'ol stack with a big flame, just like a monster-sized candle. What is it about the methane coming from landfill sites which prevents it being used for generating electricity? Politics or science?
I wish that the phrase "material science" had been around (or more discussed?) when I was younger. This kind of thing really is amazing. I'd also seen a NOVA program in which an anti-microbial surface was created with a diamond-shaped pattern of ridges based on other things in nature (someone has seen this and can give more detail).
If I were starting much younger, I'd love to study material science. Truly amazing -- in the case of the anti-microbial surface (vs the control) they were made of the exact same material, but the shapes dramatically hindered colony growth.
Exactly what I was thinking... but then again, BiggerDog is so much better, because its manufacture would employ hundreds, which is good, because when one is destroyed on the battlefield, replacement cost is likely in the six-figure range. How else would we prop up the military industrial complex?
I think what the GP was trying to say was that it wasn't displaying what is sometimes called "emergent behavior". In this kind of tech, when we discuss "swarm" behavior, we're usually talking about individual entities that don't have very many rulesets except for things like "don't hit your neighbor", "don't hit obstacles", and "match your neighbor's approximate direction and velocity". You can see this in swarms of insects or birds (for example), and of course they're not communicating with each other on their planned trajectories, but the emergent behavior is fascinating.
(disclaimer: I'm no expert in this field, I just read lots of slashdot and others. someone will pipe up and correct my mistakes, which I welcome)
Check out the difference between an acronym and an initialism. Do you also say "YOO-suh" (USA) or "SEE-oh" (CEO)? The examples you gave are easily (and obviously) pronounced, and most style guides will say that you can spell them with lower case letters.
I've got an aunt who used to work in sales for Oracle. She also pronounced "SQL", which baffled me, because I thought the "sequel" pronunciation was reserved for the Microsoft product. And yes, I shall now run in abject horror.
I think this story illustrates that the RFID is completely unnecessary.
True story: a local tv news station was busy showing off their latest scare-piece on RFID technology some months ago. The anchor phonetically pronounced it "ar-fid". *head-shake*
Slashdot Mirror
Someone should invent porn that appeals to screen scrapers, then we'd REALLY see web traffic go wild!
Scrapers Gone Wild!
On second thought... maybe not.
As to the iPad, it's a pretty good device, for what it is, and frankly it covers 100% of the computing usage pattern of most people I know (web, email, games) - yes it doesn't cover the needs of everyone, but that's ok
I'm not a hater, per se. Like a lot of people reading these comments, I write code (of one kind or another) for a living. I'm a keyboard jockey, averaging maybe 100wpm or a bit more. And I can see myself wanting to type on almost any computing device. I'm impatient. I've got an Android phone (EVO 4G Shift) that allows me to use the on-screen keyboard (I use Swype) or the slide-out hardware keyboard. But both of those devices are so error-prone and slow (again, I'm impatient) that I frequently end up using the voice transcription tools to compose text messages or emails. Not so good for proper nouns all the time, but for common dictionary words it does quite well (with my upper-midwest accent).
If I'm someplace where I need to compose an email and all I've got is my phone, I'll do that, but I'll definitely try to keep it as short as possible. If my laptop is nearby (keyboard!) I'll always use that first. I realize that a smartphone is not the same as a tablet, but some of the handicaps are the same. Coding geeks may get tablets as a secondary computing device, but probably never as a primary one.
If I ever become a billionaire, I'm going to hire a blimp with "PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: THE SUN IS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER" to float up and down the state. Stupid proposition system.
I'd go so far as to call that an indecent proposition.
There's a Fundamental breakdown with letting the 'Parents Do Their job' and that is that Most Parents won't, they're too busy buying their kids the latest toys to keep them occupied. As a matter of fact now, its becoming more common for kids to call the cops on their parents when they don't get their way (I wish I had a specific reference for this point, anyone), or for parents to become infuriated when their kids get into trouble (recently heard a story on the news regarding parents of children who were arrested drinking, infuriated at the sheriff - one father's comment to his son was "why didn't you run ?").
I'd just like to warn you against using such a broad brush. Certainly there are some parents who seem incapable of teaching boundaries to their children, and those are the kids that will end up in prison, etc. But I do believe they are a minority. I think there's a bit of selection bias going on here -- your observation of kids drinking and a stupid parent is something that will easily get eyeballs on FOX News, but it's pretty boring to write a news story about all the parents who are doing good parenting jobs.
If this is the bug you're talking about, it appears a bug report was filed, discussed, and a temporary workaround was offered (perhaps more than one). Although free software has bugs just like proprietary software, the way they are reported and handled is night and day.
That appears to be the very same bug, yes. And I'm not disputing the handling of the bug, but merely pointing out that even with "many eyes", this bug existed not so very long ago. Open Source is not immune to the same kinds of problems, though I grant you I probably should have been checking for the latest compatible libraries.
Now, I'm not necessarily a Microsoft apologist, but I have to point out that it wasn't so long ago that other things near and dear to us geeks were experiencing similar problems.
I was trying to run some ant scripts yesterday that interact with an FTP server to delete some files. Those damned files wouldn't get deleted. They weren't even returned from a listing command. As it turns out, I was using a particularly old version of Apache Commons-Net library (this jar file was from 2005) which had a leap-year bug. It simply would not show me files with modification dates of 2/29. I was looking at the FTP server configuration, logging in with other clients, moving and renaming files, and all about ready to break out Wireshark... and then it occurred to me that it was leap day. Hoo-fucking-ray. "touch"ed the file, and sure enough, it was suddenly available. Those are a few hours of my life I'll never get back.
Actually it was only 8K for the Senate seat. The Dems returned $20,000.
Must have been running a special that week.
8K should be enough for anybody.
By FAR the biggest need for drugs we have is for new antibiotics.
Nope. That's just a treadmill-like arms race. What you want are bacteriophages.
... whereas the fourth movie completely obliterated it.
Wait... there was a fourth movie?!
We're all adults here..
You must be new here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing
The concept of money is a kind of fiction -- a shared, collective illusion in which we all participate. Which is by no means to suggest it's not worth something -- it's worth exactly what our economy says it's worth. But are you advocating a return to the gold standard?? You probably want to think long and hard about that. Does it make sense that a country should tie the size of its economy to the arbitrary physical amount of a precious metal which can be found within its borders?
Have a read/listen, be enlightened. Why we left the gold standard.
Why even bother producing coins that are worth more as a material than as a coin?
We would like to keep down the cost of producing coins, certainly. But it's a bit of a fallacy to say that the coin cannot be composed of materials & processes which cost more than its face value to be manufactured. The coin will quite possibly be in circulation for decades, and it will certainly do more than [face value] cents of "work".
On the other hand, we certainly do want to do our part to remove incentives of criminals to destroy currency in order to recycle & sell the raw materials from which they were made (picture zinc ingots).
I'm talking about crystal methamphetamines. The stuff that rots your teeth, makes you hallucinate bugs under your skin, and so on. It's not a "party drug" like cocaine, nor is it a "mellow" thing like weed. Do you think the "faces of meth" theme seen in law-enforcement slideshows across the country is simply propaganda? My sister is a nurse in OR and sees more than her fair share of meth-head tweakers.
I've heard these arguments before, but ultimately not all drugs can be treated the same. Do you think your "legalize and tax" method would fix the problems that originate with meth? By all accounts, this is a drug which, once you've tried it, you're on a one-way road, downhill, no brakes.
How many of those behaviors are capable of having a potentially deadly outcome of the doctors other patients while this smoking-drinking-fried foods guy sits in the waiting room?
Methane gas is recovered from many land fill sites. Nothing new to see here, please move along.
I suppose you're right. And I don't know much about such things, but at various landfill sites I've seen this methane being burned off -- a big 'ol stack with a big flame, just like a monster-sized candle. What is it about the methane coming from landfill sites which prevents it being used for generating electricity? Politics or science?
The sole reason to go to a BestBuy is "I need this item today." That's about it.
Actually, my other reason is, "I should get around to spending the Best Buy gift card my (boss|mother|sister-in-law|whoever) gave me."
I wish that the phrase "material science" had been around (or more discussed?) when I was younger. This kind of thing really is amazing. I'd also seen a NOVA program in which an anti-microbial surface was created with a diamond-shaped pattern of ridges based on other things in nature (someone has seen this and can give more detail).
If I were starting much younger, I'd love to study material science. Truly amazing -- in the case of the anti-microbial surface (vs the control) they were made of the exact same material, but the shapes dramatically hindered colony growth.
Exactly what I was thinking... but then again, BiggerDog is so much better, because its manufacture would employ hundreds, which is good, because when one is destroyed on the battlefield, replacement cost is likely in the six-figure range. How else would we prop up the military industrial complex?
I think what the GP was trying to say was that it wasn't displaying what is sometimes called "emergent behavior". In this kind of tech, when we discuss "swarm" behavior, we're usually talking about individual entities that don't have very many rulesets except for things like "don't hit your neighbor", "don't hit obstacles", and "match your neighbor's approximate direction and velocity". You can see this in swarms of insects or birds (for example), and of course they're not communicating with each other on their planned trajectories, but the emergent behavior is fascinating.
(disclaimer: I'm no expert in this field, I just read lots of slashdot and others. someone will pipe up and correct my mistakes, which I welcome)
Check out the difference between an acronym and an initialism. Do you also say "YOO-suh" (USA) or "SEE-oh" (CEO)? The examples you gave are easily (and obviously) pronounced, and most style guides will say that you can spell them with lower case letters.
I've got an aunt who used to work in sales for Oracle. She also pronounced "SQL", which baffled me, because I thought the "sequel" pronunciation was reserved for the Microsoft product. And yes, I shall now run in abject horror.
The "she" in "that's what she said" is really annoying in bed.
I think this story illustrates that the RFID is completely unnecessary.
True story: a local tv news station was busy showing off their latest scare-piece on RFID technology some months ago. The anchor phonetically pronounced it "ar-fid". *head-shake*
Well for starters, I don't think any Foxconn workers have to worry about being shanked in the lunch line or raped in the showers.
And that would seem to be a risk of certain prisons regardless of whether you've elected to enroll in some kind of work program.