If 3D catches on, then glasses and contacts will probably start incorporating the 3D filters so you don't need to muck with any other glasses at all (perhaps even offering an 'advantage' over those who don't need corrective lenses). As for movies, a great movie is one where the visuals, story, sound, context, etc. all work synergistically and inseparably to entertain you. If you just care about the story, books tend to be better. Personally, I rarely watch movies (as I basically agree that the stories are stale), but occasionally I do simply to be awed by the special effects. It's kinda like going to an art gallery, almost pure visual entertainment unless you're an art buff that intellectually dissects each work.
While I want to agree, as one shouldn't be overly dependent on tools, it's becoming increasingly apparent that this won't always be the case. Nowadays, most people carry a device with an inhuman amount of processing power and storage. While I can calculate a square root easily enough, it's far quicker and more accurate to just use a calculator. While I'm expected to know the dozens of drug interactions of warfarin, I'm not about to risk someone's health on my memory of them. Realistically, the exam which tests your ability to function without external memory aids and high speed calculation are becoming increasingly arbitrary. They model no plausible scenario beyond "You've been lost in the woods for a week with no tools except for a pencil...".
IMHO, exams need to move toward more performance based measures. Can you solve a variety of real problems within a reasonable amount of time? Proctor the exams well enough so that people aren't just conversing, and be done with it. If a fact is useful, then it will be naturally learned by repeated use rather than quickly forgotten after rote memorization. If understanding a concept is useful, then success in more advance courses will depend upon it. I suspect that being able to pick the correct solution to a multiple choice question after being stripped of your normal tools is not a good way to determine competence, albeit competent people can often perform adequately enough under those circumstances.
Biology and math are different skill sets. A typical biology major can "easily" memorize the Krebs Cycle, but cannot grasp physics to save their life (or have a realistic chance of getting the grades to get into medical school, hence why a lot of premeds drop the course a time or two). IMHO, it's tremendously important as understanding physiology and biostats is crucial, whereas stuff like the rate limiting step of glycolysis can be google'd in about five seconds. (I.e. used to be important before internet access was ubiquitous.)
The problem is that biology and medicine are fields with the culture that rewards should be linearly related to effort. Everyone's smart, so the person with the best grades must have worked the hardest, or at least that's how the Type A's who dominate the field seem to rationalize it. With conceptual fields, you can study the material for dozens of hours and if you still don't get it, you'll fail the test, whereas someone who gets it in lecture might not need to study at all. Biology majors have enough pre-meds that any conceptual question that a pre-med gets wrong, but still doesn't understand, will be argued. Professors have followed the path of least resistance until, now, virtually every question can be traced to a direct quote from the notes or lecture powerpoint. It's simple regurgitation of information, and that's why it's such a big transition for medical students when they start applying knowledge in the clinical years.
Classic stimulus-response type addictions are far more static than using the internet or cell phones. There's no intellectual stimulation from a drug habit. It's hard to call something an addiction if that "something" happens to be dozens of different things, despite looking the same to an outside observer. The "withdrawl" from its absence isn't from the device itself, it's from withdrawl from social circles, information resources, and entertainment tools. This would happen if you took those things away from anyone, it's just that today's youth have a central point of access (or failure) for all those things.
Now, this isn't meant to justify rude behavior. Personally, I don't answer personal telephone calls or text messages if I'm physically conversing with someone, and generally walk away if someone does that to me. Basic social etiquette doesn't change with new ways of doing things. You prioritize your present company.
Yep, our ancestors died at 40. That's why there was a selective advantage for menopause (which chimps and bonobos don't undergo) to kick in around 50, and why our population exploded despite undergoing puberty in the early twenties.
I'm skeptical of life expectancy estimates of paleolithic peoples. For one, it's paltry, for two, humans have rituals surrounding the deceased. It's entirely possible the only fossils we find are the young who die in accidents or from sudden illnesses whose bodies were never found by their tribe. Perhaps it's better to look at modern hunter-gatherers, which aren't that poorly off despite living in harsh lands unsuitable for agriculture. For the !Kung-san ~10% of the population is older than 60, compared with 15% in the United States.
The last time I picked out a laptop was a couple years ago, but I think the strategy is still valid. I start with the less easily changed hardware and work my way down.
Screen - Size generally determines if it's an ultraportable or a desktop replacement. Resolution is as high as reasonably possible, and aspect ratio is geared toward use (16:9 for media, 4:3 for office-type work).
Keyboard/touchpad - This is probably the least changeable but most used part of the laptop. As it's highly subjective (e.g. touchpads that your palms constantly brush against), I used it to veto specific models. Also, look for media keys, numpads, and the position of delete, the win key, and menu button.
Video card - Gamers obviously would be picky about this, personally I picked the single integrated card that could do h264 acceleration and had open source drivers from the manufacturer.
Inputs/Outputs - Make sure you have the ports/card readers/cameras you need and check on USB port location
CPU/RAM/Other hardware - These are generally adequate for most uses, but you might find some more power efficient variants.
Battery - It's a tradeoff between portability and capacity. Consider the price/benefit of buying spares.
HDD - This is easily changed, so it's a low priority for me. Personally I just got the SSD I wanted and installed it myself since there's scarcely any chance of finding a pre-configured model that had a cheap but good one. Media enthusiasts might want to find a very high capacity drive.
One flaw of my method is that external appearance doesn't come into play. I very nearly wound up selecting a laptop that came only in pink. This is probably quite important for non-geeks.
Real interest right now is positive, but meager. It's oscillated between that and negative my whole life. Personally, I'm terrified to think of what that has taught my generation, since you either lose wealth by saving it or borrow at "low" interest rates. If you're saving up to buy a car, the prices are outpacing any interest you earn. OTOH, if you buy it on credit, the wealth you lose to interest is approaching the same as if you'd kept the money in a bank, plus you get to use the car. This teaches that borrowing is superior to saving, which might be true until it comes time for retirement... I doubt the next generation will be able to survive by government support in retirement, as that system will likely crumble under the baby-boomers.
Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, please provide comic relief by including an Intel video chipset. Pretty please?
(please insert evil grin here)
Only if you do the benchmark on battery power... Or perhaps use a cluster of them that would be equivalent in price.
That's more true, and cliche'd, with television advertising. With Google there's a subtle difference that's lost with the conflation. The demarcation between content generators and content consumers on the internet is very fuzzy. Google connects both, somewhat like a phone company or an employer, which makes its users both the product and the customer. IOW, if nobody used Google's Search, it'd be terrible, as it's improved by user efforts, which is a form of payment. OTOH, who cares? They're just arbitrary words which only contrivedly define the relationship between Google, Internet Users, and Adsense Customers. There's no apparent underlying truth that's revealed by sawing off the edges of shapes to make them fit into predefined pegs.
I'd imagine there is a lot of overlap between the member bases (especially given typical 4chan detective work). People participate in multiple social circles. Facebook is used when people want things attributed to their real world identity, 4chan is for when they don't.
Personally, I use Facebook as a phonebook and resume service, so I'd be fine with divulging that information (it's likely public record anyway). OTOH, "highly personal information" stays off of Facebook as I trust Mark Zuckerberg less than my least trusted "friend". It's somewhat interesting that 59% of Facebook users accept random friend requests, but I see no real privacy issue here.
And to dispel another myth: tube amps actually distort the sound more than transistor amps, however the distortions are "pleasing" to most humans so many people prefer the tube sound even though from cold-facts POV it's inferior quality.
That's only true for people who grew up with tube amps. Younger people have been found to prefer MP3 artifacts, even over lossless files.
If a piece of software is commercial, then it's most likely written by someone who wants to make a profit. In other words, they want maximal returns for minimal effort. Personally, this makes me think the quality is generally lower. Regardless, why would you trust such an entity to *not* sell the information they can covertly collect? At least Google is fairly open about being noisy. (Obviously open source software is the best solution, but Microsoft and Google products have advantages that some users benefit from.)
Just for fun, try running a packet sniffer to see if/when Microsoft products phone home. That's a decent way to test your theory that their software doesn't contain hidden extras that invade privacy. Another interesting test is to use something like Privacy Inspector for Android to see if commercial software is more or less likely to invade privacy than non-commercial or adware type software.
Why should someone bother reading your e-mail if you're unwilling to spend five seconds typing their e-mail address?
OTOH, I'm please to hear that someone takes time to not send e-mails to people that are unrelated. At my institution an e-mail gets sent to under ~5 people or to everybody. Nobody has quite made the connection that few people read their e-mail often since we get so much junk, and wasting 30 seconds of 600 people's time is worse than ten minutes of their own. Even worse, we get tons of research surveys that follow that stupid, "send it three times for optimal response rates" doctrine.
It's sloppy thinking to conflate mass, weight, and density. Laypeople might get away with it, but nerds tend to mind the units. That's why they're nerds, and also why their math works.
Worst (practical) case scenario for lithium ion batteries is 40% loss in three months. There's a 35% yearly loss at 40 C and 100% charge level, which I'd imagine many iPads live at. After the three years the GP postulated, there'd be 27% of the original battery life remaining. Throw in a few cell reversals following prolonged deep discharges and you'd have a battery life of little more than an hour or two.
If you think this is unrealistic, ask laypeople about the battery life they get from old electronics. Manufacturers have little incentive to limit charge levels to 60-80% to prolong the battery's useful life past ~3 years. Apple would certainly prefer if the current iPad users upgrade to the iPad 2 when their batteries no longer hold a reasonable charge. And in 3-4 years they'll probably be an iPad 3 for them to upgrade to. Moore's law has enabled manufacturers to ignore the longevity of their products.
The emotional part of the brain overrides the logical parts, ergo too much empathy is bad. This guy was empathic when he should have been logical. As this wasn't an unavoidable tragedy, one should learn from it rather than just feel sad for the victim, and it's doubtful anyone even has the emotional capacity to sincerely feel sad at every little public tragedy that happens. Plus, this guy isn't even that bad off; he's got his life, all four limbs, an expensive education, and lives in a country where debt isn't life-ending.
IMHO, the solution is simple. Let the client serve the user in the fullest capacity possible (a very important distinction from single player games). The server shouldn't send information unless the player is supposed to know it. Don't give the positions of every player on the map and tell the client to withhold that information, someone will exploit that, even if it requires a packet sniffer and external RAM monitor. Cheaters suck, but that's a game design flaw exploited by a social problem. My hardware serves me, not its manufacturer.
I'd imagine a helicopter could get there pretty quick, as the drones have a limited operating range and are flying in a search pattern rather than a bee-line to the victim. OTOH, I wonder how well the small drones will operate in stormy weather, when most ships run into trouble...
Right now, there are a lot of videos that are poorly labeled ("Hey, this is funny, watch it"), so I'd imagine Google is investigating searching the content of video. DRM would make this far more difficult, if even possible (legally). However, DRM would ensure sites like Youtube have more content from the major studios. It's a tricky position, as DRM would hurt Google's primary product, but perhaps increase ad-revenue in some of their others. I'm not sure which is the better move, since the latter is more profitable in the short-term, but the former promotes long-term relevance. Google is financially well off enough to be thinking long-term, but their investors might not be...
I disagree. People always think that it could never happen here because we are the exception to the rule. But time and time it was proven false. The real reason why the internet won't be shut down because of protests is because of a lack of real protesters. When it comes down to it, the vast, vast majority of Americans have no real principles that the odds of a successful protest starting and continuing are slim until things really start getting out of hand (hyperinflation, etc.).
So... we're an exception to the rule since our populace has so few principles? IMHO, the reason we don't protest is because we're content, and content people in any country don't seek to destabilize it. Our government doesn't need to shutdown the internet, and doing so would only generate malcontents. Heck, even on a bad day our political situation is still quite good, but our life is pretty good in general, so that's what idle people focus on.
Put an easy one on the benign/data partition, and a hard one on the encrypted one. That way, if you're about to be captured, turn off your phone. If you're already captured, tell them it's been buggy lately and to do a battery pull. The point is to force a reboot of the phone, which conceals everything.
Liver transplants generally aren't considered if the long-term outcome isn't going to be good. For those who would benefit, it's mostly based on MELD score. MELD essentially predicts what chance they have of living for three months. So, the person who won't live to see the next liver is prioritized over the otherwise healthy person who can wait a bit longer. Plus, people go to the organ since they're still able to move around, the transplant needs to take place in a large medical center, and because the first person called might be unavailable for some unfortunate reason. Generally, if you're on the transplant list, you're already in the hospital you'll get the transplant in. The super wealthy usually get nursing care and such in their own home once they're stable enough, so they're a bit different.
Slashdot Mirror
If 3D catches on, then glasses and contacts will probably start incorporating the 3D filters so you don't need to muck with any other glasses at all (perhaps even offering an 'advantage' over those who don't need corrective lenses). As for movies, a great movie is one where the visuals, story, sound, context, etc. all work synergistically and inseparably to entertain you. If you just care about the story, books tend to be better. Personally, I rarely watch movies (as I basically agree that the stories are stale), but occasionally I do simply to be awed by the special effects. It's kinda like going to an art gallery, almost pure visual entertainment unless you're an art buff that intellectually dissects each work.
While I want to agree, as one shouldn't be overly dependent on tools, it's becoming increasingly apparent that this won't always be the case. Nowadays, most people carry a device with an inhuman amount of processing power and storage. While I can calculate a square root easily enough, it's far quicker and more accurate to just use a calculator. While I'm expected to know the dozens of drug interactions of warfarin, I'm not about to risk someone's health on my memory of them. Realistically, the exam which tests your ability to function without external memory aids and high speed calculation are becoming increasingly arbitrary. They model no plausible scenario beyond "You've been lost in the woods for a week with no tools except for a pencil...".
IMHO, exams need to move toward more performance based measures. Can you solve a variety of real problems within a reasonable amount of time? Proctor the exams well enough so that people aren't just conversing, and be done with it. If a fact is useful, then it will be naturally learned by repeated use rather than quickly forgotten after rote memorization. If understanding a concept is useful, then success in more advance courses will depend upon it. I suspect that being able to pick the correct solution to a multiple choice question after being stripped of your normal tools is not a good way to determine competence, albeit competent people can often perform adequately enough under those circumstances.
Biology and math are different skill sets. A typical biology major can "easily" memorize the Krebs Cycle, but cannot grasp physics to save their life (or have a realistic chance of getting the grades to get into medical school, hence why a lot of premeds drop the course a time or two). IMHO, it's tremendously important as understanding physiology and biostats is crucial, whereas stuff like the rate limiting step of glycolysis can be google'd in about five seconds. (I.e. used to be important before internet access was ubiquitous.)
The problem is that biology and medicine are fields with the culture that rewards should be linearly related to effort. Everyone's smart, so the person with the best grades must have worked the hardest, or at least that's how the Type A's who dominate the field seem to rationalize it. With conceptual fields, you can study the material for dozens of hours and if you still don't get it, you'll fail the test, whereas someone who gets it in lecture might not need to study at all. Biology majors have enough pre-meds that any conceptual question that a pre-med gets wrong, but still doesn't understand, will be argued. Professors have followed the path of least resistance until, now, virtually every question can be traced to a direct quote from the notes or lecture powerpoint. It's simple regurgitation of information, and that's why it's such a big transition for medical students when they start applying knowledge in the clinical years.
Classic stimulus-response type addictions are far more static than using the internet or cell phones. There's no intellectual stimulation from a drug habit. It's hard to call something an addiction if that "something" happens to be dozens of different things, despite looking the same to an outside observer. The "withdrawl" from its absence isn't from the device itself, it's from withdrawl from social circles, information resources, and entertainment tools. This would happen if you took those things away from anyone, it's just that today's youth have a central point of access (or failure) for all those things.
Now, this isn't meant to justify rude behavior. Personally, I don't answer personal telephone calls or text messages if I'm physically conversing with someone, and generally walk away if someone does that to me. Basic social etiquette doesn't change with new ways of doing things. You prioritize your present company.
Yep, our ancestors died at 40. That's why there was a selective advantage for menopause (which chimps and bonobos don't undergo) to kick in around 50, and why our population exploded despite undergoing puberty in the early twenties.
I'm skeptical of life expectancy estimates of paleolithic peoples. For one, it's paltry, for two, humans have rituals surrounding the deceased. It's entirely possible the only fossils we find are the young who die in accidents or from sudden illnesses whose bodies were never found by their tribe. Perhaps it's better to look at modern hunter-gatherers, which aren't that poorly off despite living in harsh lands unsuitable for agriculture. For the !Kung-san ~10% of the population is older than 60, compared with 15% in the United States.
One flaw of my method is that external appearance doesn't come into play. I very nearly wound up selecting a laptop that came only in pink. This is probably quite important for non-geeks.
Real interest right now is positive, but meager. It's oscillated between that and negative my whole life. Personally, I'm terrified to think of what that has taught my generation, since you either lose wealth by saving it or borrow at "low" interest rates. If you're saving up to buy a car, the prices are outpacing any interest you earn. OTOH, if you buy it on credit, the wealth you lose to interest is approaching the same as if you'd kept the money in a bank, plus you get to use the car. This teaches that borrowing is superior to saving, which might be true until it comes time for retirement... I doubt the next generation will be able to survive by government support in retirement, as that system will likely crumble under the baby-boomers.
Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, please provide comic relief by including an Intel video chipset. Pretty please? (please insert evil grin here)
Only if you do the benchmark on battery power... Or perhaps use a cluster of them that would be equivalent in price.
That's more true, and cliche'd, with television advertising. With Google there's a subtle difference that's lost with the conflation. The demarcation between content generators and content consumers on the internet is very fuzzy. Google connects both, somewhat like a phone company or an employer, which makes its users both the product and the customer. IOW, if nobody used Google's Search, it'd be terrible, as it's improved by user efforts, which is a form of payment. OTOH, who cares? They're just arbitrary words which only contrivedly define the relationship between Google, Internet Users, and Adsense Customers. There's no apparent underlying truth that's revealed by sawing off the edges of shapes to make them fit into predefined pegs.
I'd imagine there is a lot of overlap between the member bases (especially given typical 4chan detective work). People participate in multiple social circles. Facebook is used when people want things attributed to their real world identity, 4chan is for when they don't.
Personally, I use Facebook as a phonebook and resume service, so I'd be fine with divulging that information (it's likely public record anyway). OTOH, "highly personal information" stays off of Facebook as I trust Mark Zuckerberg less than my least trusted "friend". It's somewhat interesting that 59% of Facebook users accept random friend requests, but I see no real privacy issue here.
And to dispel another myth: tube amps actually distort the sound more than transistor amps, however the distortions are "pleasing" to most humans so many people prefer the tube sound even though from cold-facts POV it's inferior quality.
That's only true for people who grew up with tube amps. Younger people have been found to prefer MP3 artifacts, even over lossless files.
If a piece of software is commercial, then it's most likely written by someone who wants to make a profit. In other words, they want maximal returns for minimal effort. Personally, this makes me think the quality is generally lower. Regardless, why would you trust such an entity to *not* sell the information they can covertly collect? At least Google is fairly open about being noisy. (Obviously open source software is the best solution, but Microsoft and Google products have advantages that some users benefit from.)
Just for fun, try running a packet sniffer to see if/when Microsoft products phone home. That's a decent way to test your theory that their software doesn't contain hidden extras that invade privacy. Another interesting test is to use something like Privacy Inspector for Android to see if commercial software is more or less likely to invade privacy than non-commercial or adware type software.
Don't care because it saves me typing ~50 emails.
Why should someone bother reading your e-mail if you're unwilling to spend five seconds typing their e-mail address?
OTOH, I'm please to hear that someone takes time to not send e-mails to people that are unrelated. At my institution an e-mail gets sent to under ~5 people or to everybody. Nobody has quite made the connection that few people read their e-mail often since we get so much junk, and wasting 30 seconds of 600 people's time is worse than ten minutes of their own. Even worse, we get tons of research surveys that follow that stupid, "send it three times for optimal response rates" doctrine.
It's sloppy thinking to conflate mass, weight, and density. Laypeople might get away with it, but nerds tend to mind the units. That's why they're nerds, and also why their math works.
Ya know, an interest shared by Microsoft, Google, and the vast majority of people is generally known as the common good...
Worst (practical) case scenario for lithium ion batteries is 40% loss in three months. There's a 35% yearly loss at 40 C and 100% charge level, which I'd imagine many iPads live at. After the three years the GP postulated, there'd be 27% of the original battery life remaining. Throw in a few cell reversals following prolonged deep discharges and you'd have a battery life of little more than an hour or two.
If you think this is unrealistic, ask laypeople about the battery life they get from old electronics. Manufacturers have little incentive to limit charge levels to 60-80% to prolong the battery's useful life past ~3 years. Apple would certainly prefer if the current iPad users upgrade to the iPad 2 when their batteries no longer hold a reasonable charge. And in 3-4 years they'll probably be an iPad 3 for them to upgrade to. Moore's law has enabled manufacturers to ignore the longevity of their products.
The emotional part of the brain overrides the logical parts, ergo too much empathy is bad. This guy was empathic when he should have been logical. As this wasn't an unavoidable tragedy, one should learn from it rather than just feel sad for the victim, and it's doubtful anyone even has the emotional capacity to sincerely feel sad at every little public tragedy that happens. Plus, this guy isn't even that bad off; he's got his life, all four limbs, an expensive education, and lives in a country where debt isn't life-ending.
IMHO, the solution is simple. Let the client serve the user in the fullest capacity possible (a very important distinction from single player games). The server shouldn't send information unless the player is supposed to know it. Don't give the positions of every player on the map and tell the client to withhold that information, someone will exploit that, even if it requires a packet sniffer and external RAM monitor. Cheaters suck, but that's a game design flaw exploited by a social problem. My hardware serves me, not its manufacturer.
Or spend the time paying HIPPA fines or losing DOD contracts. Some businesses need to keep confidential data on their own network/machines.
I'd imagine a helicopter could get there pretty quick, as the drones have a limited operating range and are flying in a search pattern rather than a bee-line to the victim. OTOH, I wonder how well the small drones will operate in stormy weather, when most ships run into trouble...
Right now, there are a lot of videos that are poorly labeled ("Hey, this is funny, watch it"), so I'd imagine Google is investigating searching the content of video. DRM would make this far more difficult, if even possible (legally). However, DRM would ensure sites like Youtube have more content from the major studios. It's a tricky position, as DRM would hurt Google's primary product, but perhaps increase ad-revenue in some of their others. I'm not sure which is the better move, since the latter is more profitable in the short-term, but the former promotes long-term relevance. Google is financially well off enough to be thinking long-term, but their investors might not be...
I disagree. People always think that it could never happen here because we are the exception to the rule. But time and time it was proven false. The real reason why the internet won't be shut down because of protests is because of a lack of real protesters. When it comes down to it, the vast, vast majority of Americans have no real principles that the odds of a successful protest starting and continuing are slim until things really start getting out of hand (hyperinflation, etc.).
So... we're an exception to the rule since our populace has so few principles? IMHO, the reason we don't protest is because we're content, and content people in any country don't seek to destabilize it. Our government doesn't need to shutdown the internet, and doing so would only generate malcontents. Heck, even on a bad day our political situation is still quite good, but our life is pretty good in general, so that's what idle people focus on.
Put an easy one on the benign /data partition, and a hard one on the encrypted one. That way, if you're about to be captured, turn off your phone. If you're already captured, tell them it's been buggy lately and to do a battery pull. The point is to force a reboot of the phone, which conceals everything.
Liver transplants generally aren't considered if the long-term outcome isn't going to be good. For those who would benefit, it's mostly based on MELD score. MELD essentially predicts what chance they have of living for three months. So, the person who won't live to see the next liver is prioritized over the otherwise healthy person who can wait a bit longer. Plus, people go to the organ since they're still able to move around, the transplant needs to take place in a large medical center, and because the first person called might be unavailable for some unfortunate reason. Generally, if you're on the transplant list, you're already in the hospital you'll get the transplant in. The super wealthy usually get nursing care and such in their own home once they're stable enough, so they're a bit different.