Excuse me if this was commented on earlier, I didn't read the whole thread all the way back... How does the Harmony deal with devices that do not have discreet on and off. I bought a learning remote a decade ago that could have macros, but it ended up in the drawer because it is twice as much of a pain to deal with when your TV is on, and pressing "Movie" actually turns it off because the on and off commands are the same.
I have actually considered building an IR translator/repeater that would allow me to set discreet on and off commands, and would then use sensors to see if the TV was already on or not before it repeated the on/off command to the TV.
I'm not convinced that portion size is even close the the whole story. I can gorge myself and lose weight, as long as it is all meat and fat. As soon as you throw a little sugar in (which means any carb including bread) I balloon up almost immediately. I can starve myself with tiny portions, and if there is any significant amount of sugar in my diet, I will be fat.
I know you didn't talk about exercise, but that is the other myth that tends to go with "eat less = skinny". For me, I simply will not lose fat from exercise, no matter how much I get. I build muscle like there is no tomorrow, but don't lose any fat. What this means for me is that if I eat small portions, and exercise a lot, I become MORE obese. The only way that I can get myself out of the "obese" range is by eating all protean and fat, while getting little to no exercise. If I go with a carnivorous diet, I will lose the fat, but if I exercise, my muscle mass puts be right back into the "obese" range.
The biggest problem is that weight has become a religion. It is absurd to think that someone whose ancestors have been eating beef for the last 5000 years would have the same nutritional requirements as someone whose ancestors has been picking fresh fruit from trees for the last 5000 years. Until we can get past the "fat people are evil" mentality, and accept that different people have different nutrition/exercise needs, we won't get anywhere with the problem.
"That used to be the case but it's not anymore. Clearly you haven't seen how many fat children there are running about in western countries (especially the Americans and UK)."
Actually, I haven't (in the US). I have actually looked and neither seen it while passing schools, nor seen it in places like movie theaters, amusement parks, or grocery stores. I have come to believe that the "child obesity" problem may very well be about as real as "girls hitting puberty earlier", and "second hand smoke kills babies two apartments over."
Of course, we also have to question the use of the word "obese". I know that while I can safely make it out of the "obese" range. I cannot safely get out of the "over weight" range. I would simply be malnourished. When I have been out of the "obese" range, I was pretty much all muscle and bone.
"You don't get to make that choice for other people. You want to poison yourself? Go ahead, but STFU if you think you're entitled to pollute other people's lungs."
Says the guy using a computer that is running off of coal generated electricity...
Just make sure that the crazy price can actually make you money if they still say yes. I have seen obscene amounts of money spent on projects that had no hope of succeeding. Of course simply replicating to a system that they can safely destroy makes it pretty easy to make the crazy price profitable.
I don't see why anyone should be surprised. The OLPC was clearly designed as a free R&D project from the beginning. Not free as in speech, but free as in, "hey, lets CALL it a charity. That way we don't have to fork out money for our R&D". When the OLPC was listed out at $100 I said it was way too expensive. I went on line and found all of the components to build a hand powered computer for $89. Single Unit Pricing. No, this wouldn't get you an x86 processor, or an 800x600 screen, but is that REALLY Necessary? The OLPC was billed as being for education. Do you really need a late 90's to early 2000's x86 to accomplish that goal? Definitely not. Do you really need WiFi? Definitely not. Do you need cameras? No. The whole design was clearly built around the idea of trying out new low power devices for later sale in the 1st world.
Honestly the OLPC isn't any better for it's stated goal than a $130 Nintendo DS would be if it came with a dev cart. If they really wanted to make a $200 computer, they would have been better off having Nintendo make a new flavor of DS that was not quite compatible, had an Black and White screen, and had an SD slot instead of a cartridge slot. It wouldn't have broken Nintendos 1st world market, yet it would have been just as useful, and less expensive than the OLPC.
The place where this will likely cause the biggest problem for MS is when Joe Sixpack has problems with their Windows install. Whether it is from a virus, malware, or just the natural degradation of Windows, eventually most people end up with some kind of problem on their Windows System. Right now, most of them take the system to someone to fix the problem, just live with what they know is a problem, or chuck the whole computer and buy a new one. With a Linux desktop installed in the BIOS, many will learn the key combination that lets them boot to Linux. They don't care what OS they are using. They just want to access their MySpace page. Once they have spent a year using Linux because it worked well enough to keep them from spending the money on repairs or replacement, the idea of using Linux will not seem so strange.
So there we have it. The UFO folks are just unrealistically optimistic about our government. Seems like as good an explanation as anything else I have heard.
"and they are incredibly obscure for new users (although no more obscure than Windows and Macintosh)."
That fallacy keeps getting repeated.
Soon after my son's 1st birthday, I set up an Ubuntu system for him. I loaded gCompris, and spent about 5 minutes showing him how the mouse works. A few days later, I spent maybe 5 minutes showing him how to load gCompris from the menu. Within a few days of that, he had no problem loading his computer and loading his software. I soon found that he was also loading other programs he liked to use. Klotski seemed to be a favorite of his. It took all of 10 minutes of 'training' to teach a 1 year old child how to navigate the Gnome desktop with no problems. He couldn't even read, and he had no problem loading the programs he wanted to use. There is no way that Gnome can be called a difficult to understand UI.
This is also why to the chagrin of many geeks, the desktop metaphor just won't go away. It works, and it works well. It is incredibly easy to understand both for advanced users and novices alike. I can't count the number of articles and comments I've read where someone is saying that the 'desktop' needs to be replaced because it is 25 years old. Really, it doesn't. There have been many refinements to it, and I am sure that more will come, but the premise is rock solid.
What puzzles me is how many people don't grasp that if you can't read and write by the time you are you are 13, you are never going to learn. All of the skills that are necessary to do just fine in society are learned before high school. Then from the other end, if you talk to most of the population that did graduate from high school, you will find that they got no education whatsoever from it. Oh, some people learned some things in high school, but it is a small percentage.
No, it doesn't help if the lady changing the sheets know algebra. Not at all. It doesn't help when the 7-11 clerk has a basic understanding of economics. If the landscaper didn't learn to read by the time he got to high school, he never will. The lawnmower mechanic will not able to fix a lawnmower any better with a knowledge of history. Every one of your examples doesn't show that high school is necessary. It show why it is a waste of time for a large portion of the population.
The particularly annoying part of this often repeated and always wrong argument is the complete lack of comprehension that lack of a high school education is not the same thing as lack of an elementary school education. High school drop out does not mean illiterate.
The push to get everyone a high school diploma has turned our high schools into a joke, and now we are starting to see the trend move into the colleges. I have a cousin that was retarded. She never developed past the mental capacity of a 4 year old. Yet, somehow she not only graduated high school, but also got a college degree. This is not a wonderful story of someone who overcame adversity. This is a shining example that going to, and graduating from both high school and college doesn't mean anything. It is a sad story of a society that has become so obsessed with SAYING that everyone is educated that they just changed the definition of what "educated" means.
"There is a massive difference between a sensible alert driver and someone driving with one hand."
Yes. It's like the difference between apples and night.
I call them a hypocrite because I have yet to meet one single person who complains about cell phones, but does not do things like fiddle with the stereo, carry on conversations with passengers, or day dream about the rest of their day. Heck, even your example of people driving stick shifts shows hypocrisy. Trying to turn corners with one hand while fiddling with the gear shifter is easily as dangerous as a phone. Of course, we don't hear an outcry about manual transmissions, do we?
All this is, is modern Phrenology. We simply don't know enough about the human brain to even come close to being able to decipher what they are thinking about from an MRI.
Second, people do distracting things while driving. This was the case before cell phones, and this will be the case if cell phones where banned in cars. The whole cell phone in cars is simply a place where the neo-luddites feel they have found a chink in the armor of the evil tech using populace. If this where not the case, we would have the same kind of outcry against stereos in cars. Heck, we don't even see an outcry that stereos should be hands free. When was the last time you saw a bumper sticker that said "Turn off the radio and drive". That's right. Never. Why? Because the radio was invented before the arbitrary date that neo-luddites have decided technology should stop.
I realize that this 'study' is not limited to cell phones, but if you read the other comments, you will see the luddites are out in force.
No everybody isn't. It's just that the people who are, are obnoxious asses about it, so they whine, complain and make a big scene about it.. If everybody was against it, there wouldn't be any complaining because nobody would be doing it.
The safest thing is not driving at all.
That is correct, and that is how you can tell that the vast majority of people complaining about cell phones in cars are hypocrates. If they really cared that much about safety, they wouldn't be driving themselves.
"I'm all for improving public transportation, which would help with a lot of problems, including road safety."
Public transportation as we know it is a non-starter. There are a few places where it makes sense, but in the vast majority of places it does not. Than there is the problem that it is being approached completely the wrong way anyway.
I only wish that cats didn't poop and pee in public. In my part of the country, the cats have gotten to be as bad as rats. The biggest difference is that you get arrested for poisoning cats.
No, there really isn't a difference. You are a supplier for what Google sells. Your hands are only a slightly lighter shade of gray than Google's. The lack of monetary gain for your involvement in human rights violations does not make your hand clean. As you said:
If you're part of a system, then you're in some way supporting it.
By that logic, you personally are just as much supporting Chinas policies as Google. After all, by being a part of Slashdot, you are part of the system that gives Google any reason for existence, and gives them any kind power.
Were the contestants allowed to modify the course itself? The reason that auto-drive would be easy if we took it seriously is because we would NOT be trying to use image processing for things like, where is the edge of the road? or is the light red? It would be trivial to broadcast a red light, or even passively indicate the edge of a road. The DARPA challenges are about dropping a vehicle into enemy battle zones where you do not control the environment. They are not about driving in a town where you can make sure that markers are reliably installed both on the roadways, and on other vehicles.
Not true. The DARPA Grand Challenge is for a fully autonomous vehicle "capable of completing a substantial off-road course". There is a huge difference between designing a vehicle that can autonomously drive on a road system, and one that can do it off-road. Auto driving cars that are on-road is basically a 'follow the line' problem. The DARPA challenge is for creating vehicles that can be dropped into enemy combat zones, and can find their way around hazards that have been placed for them. Big difference.
Your example does not show that a car/plane hybrid is a bad idea. It shows that we have not taken road safety seriously. The tech to have cars drive themselves has been available for decades, but nobody really wants it.
First, there is no excuse for every other OS. Both Mac and Linux should have taken care of the this issue. Second, The fact that Windows was originally built pre popular internet, is no excuse for MS leaving this huge gaping security hole. If they can add UAC to Windows, they certainly could sandbox the screen saver. Most people understand that there is no legitimate reason to distribute a picture as an executable. Those that don't, you can tell them in no uncertain terms that any picture being distributed as an executable is malware. There is no excuse for Microsoft (or any other OS) to leave in place a part of their OS that makes malware and legitimate software look the same.
Heck, there have been a few times where I wanted to install a screen saver, but didn't because the likelihood that it could contain malware. If the OS was designed properly, I could have gone ahead and installed the screen saver knowing that it was going to run inside of a sandbox. Seriously, saying that a security hole should be left in an OS that was released in 2007 because that is the way it was in back in the early 90's is pretty silly.
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Excuse me if this was commented on earlier, I didn't read the whole thread all the way back... How does the Harmony deal with devices that do not have discreet on and off. I bought a learning remote a decade ago that could have macros, but it ended up in the drawer because it is twice as much of a pain to deal with when your TV is on, and pressing "Movie" actually turns it off because the on and off commands are the same.
I have actually considered building an IR translator/repeater that would allow me to set discreet on and off commands, and would then use sensors to see if the TV was already on or not before it repeated the on/off command to the TV.
I'm not convinced that portion size is even close the the whole story. I can gorge myself and lose weight, as long as it is all meat and fat. As soon as you throw a little sugar in (which means any carb including bread) I balloon up almost immediately. I can starve myself with tiny portions, and if there is any significant amount of sugar in my diet, I will be fat.
I know you didn't talk about exercise, but that is the other myth that tends to go with "eat less = skinny". For me, I simply will not lose fat from exercise, no matter how much I get. I build muscle like there is no tomorrow, but don't lose any fat. What this means for me is that if I eat small portions, and exercise a lot, I become MORE obese. The only way that I can get myself out of the "obese" range is by eating all protean and fat, while getting little to no exercise. If I go with a carnivorous diet, I will lose the fat, but if I exercise, my muscle mass puts be right back into the "obese" range.
The biggest problem is that weight has become a religion. It is absurd to think that someone whose ancestors have been eating beef for the last 5000 years would have the same nutritional requirements as someone whose ancestors has been picking fresh fruit from trees for the last 5000 years. Until we can get past the "fat people are evil" mentality, and accept that different people have different nutrition/exercise needs, we won't get anywhere with the problem.
"That used to be the case but it's not anymore. Clearly you haven't seen how many fat children there are running about in western countries (especially the Americans and UK)."
Actually, I haven't (in the US). I have actually looked and neither seen it while passing schools, nor seen it in places like movie theaters, amusement parks, or grocery stores. I have come to believe that the "child obesity" problem may very well be about as real as "girls hitting puberty earlier", and "second hand smoke kills babies two apartments over."
Of course, we also have to question the use of the word "obese". I know that while I can safely make it out of the "obese" range. I cannot safely get out of the "over weight" range. I would simply be malnourished. When I have been out of the "obese" range, I was pretty much all muscle and bone.
"You don't get to make that choice for other people. You want to poison yourself? Go ahead, but STFU if you think you're entitled to pollute other people's lungs."
Says the guy using a computer that is running off of coal generated electricity...
Because the OLPC group promised a $100 laptop, and delivered at twice the price.
Just make sure that the crazy price can actually make you money if they still say yes. I have seen obscene amounts of money spent on projects that had no hope of succeeding. Of course simply replicating to a system that they can safely destroy makes it pretty easy to make the crazy price profitable.
I don't see why anyone should be surprised. The OLPC was clearly designed as a free R&D project from the beginning. Not free as in speech, but free as in, "hey, lets CALL it a charity. That way we don't have to fork out money for our R&D". When the OLPC was listed out at $100 I said it was way too expensive. I went on line and found all of the components to build a hand powered computer for $89. Single Unit Pricing. No, this wouldn't get you an x86 processor, or an 800x600 screen, but is that REALLY Necessary? The OLPC was billed as being for education. Do you really need a late 90's to early 2000's x86 to accomplish that goal? Definitely not. Do you really need WiFi? Definitely not. Do you need cameras? No. The whole design was clearly built around the idea of trying out new low power devices for later sale in the 1st world.
Honestly the OLPC isn't any better for it's stated goal than a $130 Nintendo DS would be if it came with a dev cart. If they really wanted to make a $200 computer, they would have been better off having Nintendo make a new flavor of DS that was not quite compatible, had an Black and White screen, and had an SD slot instead of a cartridge slot. It wouldn't have broken Nintendos 1st world market, yet it would have been just as useful, and less expensive than the OLPC.
The place where this will likely cause the biggest problem for MS is when Joe Sixpack has problems with their Windows install. Whether it is from a virus, malware, or just the natural degradation of Windows, eventually most people end up with some kind of problem on their Windows System. Right now, most of them take the system to someone to fix the problem, just live with what they know is a problem, or chuck the whole computer and buy a new one. With a Linux desktop installed in the BIOS, many will learn the key combination that lets them boot to Linux. They don't care what OS they are using. They just want to access their MySpace page. Once they have spent a year using Linux because it worked well enough to keep them from spending the money on repairs or replacement, the idea of using Linux will not seem so strange.
So there we have it. The UFO folks are just unrealistically optimistic about our government. Seems like as good an explanation as anything else I have heard.
"and they are incredibly obscure for new users (although no more obscure than Windows and Macintosh)."
That fallacy keeps getting repeated.
Soon after my son's 1st birthday, I set up an Ubuntu system for him. I loaded gCompris, and spent about 5 minutes showing him how the mouse works. A few days later, I spent maybe 5 minutes showing him how to load gCompris from the menu. Within a few days of that, he had no problem loading his computer and loading his software. I soon found that he was also loading other programs he liked to use. Klotski seemed to be a favorite of his. It took all of 10 minutes of 'training' to teach a 1 year old child how to navigate the Gnome desktop with no problems. He couldn't even read, and he had no problem loading the programs he wanted to use. There is no way that Gnome can be called a difficult to understand UI.
This is also why to the chagrin of many geeks, the desktop metaphor just won't go away. It works, and it works well. It is incredibly easy to understand both for advanced users and novices alike. I can't count the number of articles and comments I've read where someone is saying that the 'desktop' needs to be replaced because it is 25 years old. Really, it doesn't. There have been many refinements to it, and I am sure that more will come, but the premise is rock solid.
What puzzles me is how many people don't grasp that if you can't read and write by the time you are you are 13, you are never going to learn. All of the skills that are necessary to do just fine in society are learned before high school. Then from the other end, if you talk to most of the population that did graduate from high school, you will find that they got no education whatsoever from it. Oh, some people learned some things in high school, but it is a small percentage.
No, it doesn't help if the lady changing the sheets know algebra. Not at all. It doesn't help when the 7-11 clerk has a basic understanding of economics. If the landscaper didn't learn to read by the time he got to high school, he never will. The lawnmower mechanic will not able to fix a lawnmower any better with a knowledge of history. Every one of your examples doesn't show that high school is necessary. It show why it is a waste of time for a large portion of the population.
The particularly annoying part of this often repeated and always wrong argument is the complete lack of comprehension that lack of a high school education is not the same thing as lack of an elementary school education. High school drop out does not mean illiterate.
The push to get everyone a high school diploma has turned our high schools into a joke, and now we are starting to see the trend move into the colleges. I have a cousin that was retarded. She never developed past the mental capacity of a 4 year old. Yet, somehow she not only graduated high school, but also got a college degree. This is not a wonderful story of someone who overcame adversity. This is a shining example that going to, and graduating from both high school and college doesn't mean anything. It is a sad story of a society that has become so obsessed with SAYING that everyone is educated that they just changed the definition of what "educated" means.
"You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe"
The irony in this statement is truly a sad thing to see. Clearly staying in school didn't do much for the author's education
"There is a massive difference between a sensible alert driver and someone driving with one hand."
Yes. It's like the difference between apples and night.
I call them a hypocrite because I have yet to meet one single person who complains about cell phones, but does not do things like fiddle with the stereo, carry on conversations with passengers, or day dream about the rest of their day. Heck, even your example of people driving stick shifts shows hypocrisy. Trying to turn corners with one hand while fiddling with the gear shifter is easily as dangerous as a phone. Of course, we don't hear an outcry about manual transmissions, do we?
All this is, is modern Phrenology. We simply don't know enough about the human brain to even come close to being able to decipher what they are thinking about from an MRI.
Second, people do distracting things while driving. This was the case before cell phones, and this will be the case if cell phones where banned in cars. The whole cell phone in cars is simply a place where the neo-luddites feel they have found a chink in the armor of the evil tech using populace. If this where not the case, we would have the same kind of outcry against stereos in cars. Heck, we don't even see an outcry that stereos should be hands free. When was the last time you saw a bumper sticker that said "Turn off the radio and drive". That's right. Never. Why? Because the radio was invented before the arbitrary date that neo-luddites have decided technology should stop.
I realize that this 'study' is not limited to cell phones, but if you read the other comments, you will see the luddites are out in force.
"Everybody is against that."
No everybody isn't. It's just that the people who are, are obnoxious asses about it, so they whine, complain and make a big scene about it.. If everybody was against it, there wouldn't be any complaining because nobody would be doing it.
The safest thing is not driving at all.
That is correct, and that is how you can tell that the vast majority of people complaining about cell phones in cars are hypocrates. If they really cared that much about safety, they wouldn't be driving themselves.
"I'm all for improving public transportation, which would help with a lot of problems, including road safety."
Public transportation as we know it is a non-starter. There are a few places where it makes sense, but in the vast majority of places it does not. Than there is the problem that it is being approached completely the wrong way anyway.
I wouldn't mind the MS office. As long as that was my PERSONAL office.
I only wish that cats didn't poop and pee in public. In my part of the country, the cats have gotten to be as bad as rats. The biggest difference is that you get arrested for poisoning cats.
Yes. You and I are part of the system that give the Chinese government power.
By that logic, you personally are just as much supporting Chinas policies as Google. After all, by being a part of Slashdot, you are part of the system that gives Google any reason for existence, and gives them any kind power.
Were the contestants allowed to modify the course itself? The reason that auto-drive would be easy if we took it seriously is because we would NOT be trying to use image processing for things like, where is the edge of the road? or is the light red? It would be trivial to broadcast a red light, or even passively indicate the edge of a road. The DARPA challenges are about dropping a vehicle into enemy battle zones where you do not control the environment. They are not about driving in a town where you can make sure that markers are reliably installed both on the roadways, and on other vehicles.
Of course decent auto-driving being implemented would make our inadequate licensing a moot point. Not that I don't agree with you.
Not true. The DARPA Grand Challenge is for a fully autonomous vehicle "capable of completing a substantial off-road course". There is a huge difference between designing a vehicle that can autonomously drive on a road system, and one that can do it off-road. Auto driving cars that are on-road is basically a 'follow the line' problem. The DARPA challenge is for creating vehicles that can be dropped into enemy combat zones, and can find their way around hazards that have been placed for them. Big difference.
Your example does not show that a car/plane hybrid is a bad idea. It shows that we have not taken road safety seriously. The tech to have cars drive themselves has been available for decades, but nobody really wants it.
First, there is no excuse for every other OS. Both Mac and Linux should have taken care of the this issue. Second, The fact that Windows was originally built pre popular internet, is no excuse for MS leaving this huge gaping security hole. If they can add UAC to Windows, they certainly could sandbox the screen saver. Most people understand that there is no legitimate reason to distribute a picture as an executable. Those that don't, you can tell them in no uncertain terms that any picture being distributed as an executable is malware. There is no excuse for Microsoft (or any other OS) to leave in place a part of their OS that makes malware and legitimate software look the same.
Heck, there have been a few times where I wanted to install a screen saver, but didn't because the likelihood that it could contain malware. If the OS was designed properly, I could have gone ahead and installed the screen saver knowing that it was going to run inside of a sandbox. Seriously, saying that a security hole should be left in an OS that was released in 2007 because that is the way it was in back in the early 90's is pretty silly.