And some of us aren't so lazy that we can't get up off the couch and change the channel on the TV.
This is what amuses me most about these kinds of comments--the "I'm not so (Bad character trait) that I can't..."
My roommate is somewhat similar. She sets the thermostat to as low as it will go. When she comes home, she turns on the AC. When the house is a nice temperature, she turns it off. When the house warms up again, she turns it on. When it cools down, she turns it off. She's not so lazy that she can't get up off the couch and turn on/off the AC. What does she need a stupid thermostat for?
I'm an old fart as well. And, no, I'm not so OCD that I can't manage to wait the 30 minutes for the house to cool down. But why should I have to, if the technology exists at a reasonable price to handle this? I have no problem with the idea of being able to remotely tell the AC in my home to turn on and set the temperature in the house to 70 degrees before I start the 30 minute drive home.
There are legitimate concerns with home automation. I don't need to come home to an icebox after being away for a week because some hacker kid in Arkansas thought it would be funny to set the thermostat to 40 degrees and run my AC non-stop all week long. Security is important. I'd rather my house doesn't share that I'm on my way home with Google, which would immediately want to tell me about the 2-for-1 special on peanut butter at the Winn-Dixie along the route. Privacy is important. Is this something I'm willing to devote the time and effort to setting up and maintaining? Can I trust a "service" to have the same concerns that I do? Is it worth the monthly fee to the service?
But the whole, "I have more 'character' than you because I choose not to take advantage of technology," attitude? C'mon. Read up on Transactional analysis.
Passengers' checked-bags are X-rayed and scanned for anything "suspicious." This is why you can no longer lock your bags. The TSA has left an occasional note in my bag saying that they opened it to check out something.
It's an interesting idea to have the helpful robot meet you at curbside to take your bags, scan them, and perhaps deliver them to the appropriate place (e.g., "safe", "suspicious").
The last place I worked didn't have shower facilities. I would bike in and be all sweaty. I'd come into the office, drop off my bike, and grab two sponges, a towel, and a bar of soap that I kept in my desk. I'd wet down both sponges and soap up one of them. I'd go into the stall, strip down, wash myself with the soapy sponge, rinse myself with the wet sponge, dry myself with the towel, and put on work clothes. I might add some body spray, just in case. I'd wash the bike shirt and shorts in the sink and hang them up behind the servers. By the end of the day, they'd be dry.
Now, where I worked didn't have a dress code, so "work clothes" was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt (which I carried in my backpack). I wasn't meeting with customers, usually, so this was mostly to keep my fellow employees happy. I asked around and never got a complaint.
I gotta admit, I'd expect that at some point, some school system would start getting complaints about how the school is teaching their kids about polymorphism and how that "just ain't right." "Inheritance? Sounds like Darwinism to me..."
They also seem to be on the ball, and are probably looking at replacing the mechanical floppy drives with a micro controller and an SD card.
For some reason, this makes me think of that scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Black Widow plugs in a USB drive into the giant mainframe computer...
Seeing a Segway in the wild is akin to spotting a unicorn galloping down the street.
I've seen a few on bike paths--one reason that you don't see them all that much is that most cities banned them from sidewalks and the like.
I got a chance to play with one, once, and I was really impressed. They are very cool. I considered buying one for my Dad, who had emphysema, as a way for him to get around outdoors in the country. Unfortunately, it was a bit out of my price range.
Most times if you turn lights off/on you either enter a room or leave it, and for that you already have to get up.
You need to talk to my roommate.
She's one of those people who falls asleep on the couch while watching TV. She gets home, has dinner, turns on the TV, lies down, and is out like a light 20 minutes later. She'll occasionally wake up, hit the rewind button on the DVR, and fall asleep before the DVR gets back to the beginning.
I usually come downstairs around 11:30PM and find her asleep on the couch with the TV on and the lights on. I'll turn off the lights and go to bed, leaving her in the dark with the TV on.
So hooking the lights to a motion detector or something like that would be worthwhile.
Personally, I'm horrible about turning lights off when I leave a room.
Comments like yours do make me think of the TV Remote, though. I'm old enough to remember the time before them and the general attitude about TV Remotes: "I'm not so lazy that I can't get up off the couch and change the channel!" The only reason to have a TV remote was if you were somehow an invalid. Hospitals had TV Remotes. Old people had TV Remotes. The young and virile had no business using a remote and using a remote was somehow a character flaw.
I see the same sort of attitude with Smart Homes: "I'm not so feeble-minded that I can't remember to turn off a light switch or carry my keys or make a list of things that I need at the grocery store." Not depending on a computer to keep track of these things shows independence and clarity-of-thought. Only the feeble-minded would need tools like these--people with alzheimers or ditzy blondes.
Personally, I have no problem with a Smart Home. I like the idea that something is worrying about my electric bill and turning off lights for me. I like the idea that I don't have to carry around hunks of metal in my pocket, which tend to do a number of my pockets over time or make it uncomfortable to sit. I like the idea that something is keeping track of what I eat and will order more peanut butter when I throw out the last jar.
But I'll agree that what I don't like is having some corporation that is tracking all of this and using that information in ways which I might not approve. I like Jif peanut butter. When I throw out the last jar, I don't need my house suddenly asking me if I wouldn't want to try Skippy for 25 cents cheaper. No? How about adding some Smucker's grape jelly--there's a two-for-one deal going on!
Just order another fucking jar of Jif and leave me the hell alone.
Natural language parsing and speech recognition has been improving for years, and even Apple has finally allowed "offline recognition" options for their base system.
Just to go on the Apple theme, Apple had "Speakable Items" in OS 9 and OS X for many years which worked very well.
Uber has no business learning about the state of your phone battery. It doesn't need it and it's YOUR private, personal confidential information that poor software design let Uber steal.
I tend to agree.
I have no problem with the idea that Uber will use this information in their app. I think it's nice that an app might have a low-power mode that gets rid of some of the bells and whistles when your battery is low. But why does this information need to be sent to Uber's servers?
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get the pessimism.
The first jet engine was designed in the early 1930s. The first airplane to use a jet engine was in the late 30s and the first jet airliner came about in the early 1950s. So figure a bit over 10 years. Now, there was a war going on and lots of research into jets was going on. So we'll double it and say 25 years.
Now, I'll grant you that's borderline for my lifetime, based on average age of death, but it's not entirely unfeasible to believe that I could make a trip on one.
Also, I'm not sure how you'd consider it to be complicated. These things are flying around at 100,000 feet or so. It's not like they have to dodge much for other aircraft up there. The engines themselves are pretty simple. What makes them so complicated?
Okay, so the concept is the person is hit by the car and does not go flying 20 feet when the car hits them. They have an outer-shell that is reasonably strong so you're not picking up bugs, grass, etc. Sounds like a plan.
My question is "How do you get the person unstuck afterwards?"
So I'm standing in the road and the car hits me, I stick to his hood and I'm now traveling the speed of his car, let's say 30 MPH. He jams on his brakes because, let's face it, there's a guy stuck to his hood. The nice thing is that I'm not going to fly off the car at 30 MPH. The car comes to a stop and the driver gets out and asks if I'm okay. I may have some bumps and bruises, but I'm good.
Okay, that's gotta be pretty good stickum to hold my 180-pounds to the car while it's decelerating. So how do I peel myself off the hood of his car? I mean, I would imagine that any stickum that can hold me in place while a car decelerates from 30 to 0 is not going to let me just get up afterwards.
And Lord help the hairy shirtless men who get hit. That's gonna hurt!
Well, the park that I go to is traveling about 124 miles per second 25,000 light years above the center of the galaxy.
It sort of depends on your point of view. To use a car analogy, the vehicles racing at the Indianapolis 500 travel 500 miles, even if they end up back at the same point they started at.
If Youtube was telling musicians that they better have their videos on Youtube or else Guido and the boys will come rearrange their vocal chords, that's racketeering.
I believe her argument is that Google will only "protect" her works if she gives them a license to use her works. That could be considered racketeering or extortion.
That said, Google asks for this because it is up to the copyright holder to defend their copyright. It's not Google's job. And, frankly, I'm sure artists would bitch if Google was using their works without their authorization.
Slashdot Mirror
Or it could feed a lot of hungry children, which would make Buzz happy.
Some of us are old enough to have grown up w/o AC.
But we were happy in those days...
yep, some of us aren't so OCD [...]
And some of us aren't so lazy that we can't get up off the couch and change the channel on the TV.
This is what amuses me most about these kinds of comments--the "I'm not so (Bad character trait) that I can't..."
My roommate is somewhat similar. She sets the thermostat to as low as it will go. When she comes home, she turns on the AC. When the house is a nice temperature, she turns it off. When the house warms up again, she turns it on. When it cools down, she turns it off. She's not so lazy that she can't get up off the couch and turn on/off the AC. What does she need a stupid thermostat for?
I'm an old fart as well. And, no, I'm not so OCD that I can't manage to wait the 30 minutes for the house to cool down. But why should I have to, if the technology exists at a reasonable price to handle this? I have no problem with the idea of being able to remotely tell the AC in my home to turn on and set the temperature in the house to 70 degrees before I start the 30 minute drive home.
There are legitimate concerns with home automation. I don't need to come home to an icebox after being away for a week because some hacker kid in Arkansas thought it would be funny to set the thermostat to 40 degrees and run my AC non-stop all week long. Security is important. I'd rather my house doesn't share that I'm on my way home with Google, which would immediately want to tell me about the 2-for-1 special on peanut butter at the Winn-Dixie along the route. Privacy is important. Is this something I'm willing to devote the time and effort to setting up and maintaining? Can I trust a "service" to have the same concerns that I do? Is it worth the monthly fee to the service?
But the whole, "I have more 'character' than you because I choose not to take advantage of technology," attitude? C'mon. Read up on Transactional analysis.
Well, you could reconfigure the robot...
Passengers' checked-bags are X-rayed and scanned for anything "suspicious." This is why you can no longer lock your bags. The TSA has left an occasional note in my bag saying that they opened it to check out something.
It's an interesting idea to have the helpful robot meet you at curbside to take your bags, scan them, and perhaps deliver them to the appropriate place (e.g., "safe", "suspicious").
Two words: Sponge bath.
The last place I worked didn't have shower facilities. I would bike in and be all sweaty. I'd come into the office, drop off my bike, and grab two sponges, a towel, and a bar of soap that I kept in my desk. I'd wet down both sponges and soap up one of them. I'd go into the stall, strip down, wash myself with the soapy sponge, rinse myself with the wet sponge, dry myself with the towel, and put on work clothes. I might add some body spray, just in case. I'd wash the bike shirt and shorts in the sink and hang them up behind the servers. By the end of the day, they'd be dry.
Now, where I worked didn't have a dress code, so "work clothes" was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt (which I carried in my backpack). I wasn't meeting with customers, usually, so this was mostly to keep my fellow employees happy. I asked around and never got a complaint.
Is that you, Donald?
Read the part about the 260 freight trains again.
That's a lot of freight. You'd probably have to take over the airport to fly in that much stuff.
It's a crappy melody on top of a repetitious beat.
So...Trance?
"I'm not a robot, I'm an academic professional!"
"That's what all the robots say..."
Which I agree is unacceptable, even though an iOS version update is nowhere near as hazardous as a Windows version update.
Uh...
The air is definitely cleaner. At least what there is of it.
Did you go to the Wet Bandit school of bad-assery?
Uh, you have to stay up to date. They're now The Sticky Bandits. ...and Kevin is the new badass...
"Inject? You mean like vaccinations? I don't want my kids getting autism!"
I gotta admit, I'd expect that at some point, some school system would start getting complaints about how the school is teaching their kids about polymorphism and how that "just ain't right." "Inheritance? Sounds like Darwinism to me..."
...dang, I wish I could get rid of an incorrect mod.
They also seem to be on the ball, and are probably looking at replacing the mechanical floppy drives with a micro controller and an SD card.
For some reason, this makes me think of that scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Black Widow plugs in a USB drive into the giant mainframe computer...
Oddly, I can't find a clip of it on-line.
Seeing a Segway in the wild is akin to spotting a unicorn galloping down the street.
I've seen a few on bike paths--one reason that you don't see them all that much is that most cities banned them from sidewalks and the like.
I got a chance to play with one, once, and I was really impressed. They are very cool. I considered buying one for my Dad, who had emphysema, as a way for him to get around outdoors in the country. Unfortunately, it was a bit out of my price range.
Most times if you turn lights off/on you either enter a room or leave it, and for that you already have to get up.
You need to talk to my roommate.
She's one of those people who falls asleep on the couch while watching TV. She gets home, has dinner, turns on the TV, lies down, and is out like a light 20 minutes later. She'll occasionally wake up, hit the rewind button on the DVR, and fall asleep before the DVR gets back to the beginning.
I usually come downstairs around 11:30PM and find her asleep on the couch with the TV on and the lights on. I'll turn off the lights and go to bed, leaving her in the dark with the TV on.
So hooking the lights to a motion detector or something like that would be worthwhile.
Personally, I'm horrible about turning lights off when I leave a room.
Comments like yours do make me think of the TV Remote, though. I'm old enough to remember the time before them and the general attitude about TV Remotes: "I'm not so lazy that I can't get up off the couch and change the channel!" The only reason to have a TV remote was if you were somehow an invalid. Hospitals had TV Remotes. Old people had TV Remotes. The young and virile had no business using a remote and using a remote was somehow a character flaw.
I see the same sort of attitude with Smart Homes: "I'm not so feeble-minded that I can't remember to turn off a light switch or carry my keys or make a list of things that I need at the grocery store." Not depending on a computer to keep track of these things shows independence and clarity-of-thought. Only the feeble-minded would need tools like these--people with alzheimers or ditzy blondes.
Personally, I have no problem with a Smart Home. I like the idea that something is worrying about my electric bill and turning off lights for me. I like the idea that I don't have to carry around hunks of metal in my pocket, which tend to do a number of my pockets over time or make it uncomfortable to sit. I like the idea that something is keeping track of what I eat and will order more peanut butter when I throw out the last jar.
But I'll agree that what I don't like is having some corporation that is tracking all of this and using that information in ways which I might not approve. I like Jif peanut butter. When I throw out the last jar, I don't need my house suddenly asking me if I wouldn't want to try Skippy for 25 cents cheaper. No? How about adding some Smucker's grape jelly--there's a two-for-one deal going on!
Just order another fucking jar of Jif and leave me the hell alone.
Natural language parsing and speech recognition has been improving for years, and even Apple has finally allowed "offline recognition" options for their base system.
Just to go on the Apple theme, Apple had "Speakable Items" in OS 9 and OS X for many years which worked very well.
Uber has no business learning about the state of your phone battery. It doesn't need it and it's YOUR private, personal confidential information that poor software design let Uber steal.
I tend to agree.
I have no problem with the idea that Uber will use this information in their app. I think it's nice that an app might have a low-power mode that gets rid of some of the bells and whistles when your battery is low. But why does this information need to be sent to Uber's servers?
Yet another reason I won't be using Uber.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get the pessimism.
The first jet engine was designed in the early 1930s. The first airplane to use a jet engine was in the late 30s and the first jet airliner came about in the early 1950s. So figure a bit over 10 years. Now, there was a war going on and lots of research into jets was going on. So we'll double it and say 25 years.
Now, I'll grant you that's borderline for my lifetime, based on average age of death, but it's not entirely unfeasible to believe that I could make a trip on one.
Also, I'm not sure how you'd consider it to be complicated. These things are flying around at 100,000 feet or so. It's not like they have to dodge much for other aircraft up there. The engines themselves are pretty simple. What makes them so complicated?
Okay, so the concept is the person is hit by the car and does not go flying 20 feet when the car hits them. They have an outer-shell that is reasonably strong so you're not picking up bugs, grass, etc. Sounds like a plan.
My question is "How do you get the person unstuck afterwards?"
So I'm standing in the road and the car hits me, I stick to his hood and I'm now traveling the speed of his car, let's say 30 MPH. He jams on his brakes because, let's face it, there's a guy stuck to his hood. The nice thing is that I'm not going to fly off the car at 30 MPH. The car comes to a stop and the driver gets out and asks if I'm okay. I may have some bumps and bruises, but I'm good.
Okay, that's gotta be pretty good stickum to hold my 180-pounds to the car while it's decelerating. So how do I peel myself off the hood of his car? I mean, I would imagine that any stickum that can hold me in place while a car decelerates from 30 to 0 is not going to let me just get up afterwards.
And Lord help the hairy shirtless men who get hit. That's gonna hurt!
Well, the park that I go to is traveling about 124 miles per second 25,000 light years above the center of the galaxy.
It sort of depends on your point of view. To use a car analogy, the vehicles racing at the Indianapolis 500 travel 500 miles, even if they end up back at the same point they started at.
If Youtube was telling musicians that they better have their videos on Youtube or else Guido and the boys will come rearrange their vocal chords, that's racketeering.
I believe her argument is that Google will only "protect" her works if she gives them a license to use her works. That could be considered racketeering or extortion.
That said, Google asks for this because it is up to the copyright holder to defend their copyright. It's not Google's job. And, frankly, I'm sure artists would bitch if Google was using their works without their authorization.
I'm in your way from 8:00 to 8:35.
Was that you?!
There's a long skinny pedal on the right. It's called the accelerator. Get to know it. Make it your friend.