Well there is no mention of price in the article, but ya 400$ would be a bit steep for an ebook reader. The problem is relative scale. I can buy a book for 7$ or I can buy some fancy gadget + book for 400$. Sure the gadget is a one time purchase, but let's not forget that technology is always changing and you'll probably buy a replacement 400$ gadget in 5 years. At the price of 7$, you'd need to go through ~60 books to offset/justify the cost of purchasing the gadget. Most people don't go through that many books in the space of 5 years. Ah, then what about saved space? The saved space is a fairly moot point too as books are already small. Ultimately the device must have a price that is competitive with the price of books purchased in a year (or two), otherwise people will just gloss over it. It's funny because the original article mentioned that "books are too expensive". An expensive device falls into the same trap. If they could go the way of the console, and subsidize the initial production cost of the device, it may prove to be more than just a "Segway" fad as it will improve people's lives much like a cell phone or mp3 player.
Wouldn't it be funny if the decrypted message was a series of randomly generated numbers based on the Riemann Zeta function with 'Comstock' as the seed? Try and decrypt THAT!
The other side of the argument is that there is no such thing as privacy nowadays and that having regulations in place to protect privacy is naive daydreaming. Having such regulations, then, would only hinder law abiding agencies but do little agencies with a team of lawyers and skewed vision of what is legal from obtaining your information.
Ya but for every one of you, there are ten non-technical people for whom the phone/pda/camera/laptop/mp3 player/blender/sink is good enough. For some people the utility of having a swiss-army-phone outweighs that of having a specialized device because they don't care about quality, just something that gets the job done.
Why the hell would I buy a console to do folding@home.And yes, I get that your trying to indicate that processing power is key, I think you miss the entire point. What makes a game entertaining is not the hardware running it but its implementation. So you can go have fun with "folding@home" while I'll be playing mario soccer with friends.
I disagree with you on the point that we shouldn't have some form of welfare/social security. Social handouts, as you so eloquently stated, are meant to help a community and to prevent it from collapsing upon itself. Consider an event where a major corporation fires thousands of people for whatever reason. The community may not be able to reabsorb all those potential workers and those people may not have reserve funds to keep them or their families sheltered and fed. Now, if these people want to survive, they may not be above breaking the law. In which case, a handout can help many people through hard times. Sure, there may be leeches, but not everyone is going to have the same (bare minimum) standard of living and the cost of added stability should offset the risk of total anarchy. Perhaps our current incarnation of taxes, welfare, and social security suck, then they should be revised or replaced. I concede that I don't know how or if it is even possible to do such a thing.
Otherwise, most of your points are pretty valid.
Well, if you compare Bioshock to System Shock 2, then it does feel like it's going down hill. Sure Bioshock looks prettier, but System Shock 2 felt like it just had a better interface. That and I can't really play Bioshock on my pc without it crashing every so often. Still, SS2 offered more of an exploratory experience, where you have to piece together what hapend on this ghost ship. Bioshock seemed more centered on running around to nuke Big Daddys, resurect, and shoot them again. Bioshock is a good game but it only improves upon its predecessor through pretty graphics and a physics engine. Bioshock's depth (pun seriously not intended) isn't the same as SS2.
Pfft, it's not hard to find parking in New York. Just go out and start driving. I guarantee you'll find parking at the next traffic jam. Then you just need to install motion-sensitive flamethrowers to fend off the pesky hobos and meter maids.
The real reason google became so successful so quickly is because their leaders and founders are really really smart (shocking, I know). I kind of wonder what's going to happen when Google's founders move on in one form or the other. In some companies, the founders really are the spirit of the company and when they leave, the company just sort of withers because it has no direction. The best example I can think of is Steve Jobs commanding Apple. He did a lot to make that company successful.
I don't think the Church could be as effective at being charitable if it operated at border destitution. Providing fancy technology and providing a comfortable environment of worship probably has a stronger effect at attracting followers, then say meeting in an empty gym and sitting on the cold floor. I think we should be careful to differentiate between an institution that is for non-profit and one that has no profit. The former tries to use its cash to enhance itself while the latter has no cash and may not be effective as the next competing organization. That a church has money to purchase a nice building and plasma screen is probably a good thing as that probably means the church has excess from serving its community. If the church was not doing all of its churchly duties, then I doubt the community would be as willing to donate money.
One thing to consider, however, is that places like China have a huge industry because there are a large number of people willing to do the work for dirt-cheap relative to the eventual cost of the product. If the US actually does experience an economic crash from debts or gradual decline, the people will be poor and eventually dirt-cheap to hire. Then industry may move back to the US. I suppose you are right in that China won't suffer as much because they currently have the infrastructure to support themselves in the face some financial meltdown, but I still don't see the US as hitting rock bottom and staying there. The reason being that, if they people suddenly became poor, they would suddenly charge less for their services and be a prime investment for foreign entrepreneurs. In the end you'd probably just see a dip, albeit a huge one, and then things would reach some equilibrium state.
Even taking in all of these facts, it's hard for me to conclude that the officials overreacted in this case. Consider for a second that not everyone is technically inclined, and that maybe the girl should have explained the device when asked. Maybe it is trendy and cool for you to know more about electrical engineering than the average police officer, but I guarantee you that unless someone takes the time out to explain what a suspicious device looks (and doesn't look like) crazy shit like this will continue to happen due to people's current (Hollywood-like) knowledge of explosives and terrorists.
I dunno, I thought multi-bounce reflections were solved. They just tend to be too much of a hassle to be worthwhile. Essentially there are two approaches, one is to recurse through the reflective surfaces and draw the inverse image n-times. The next is to toggle through the surfaces and take inverse snapshots to paste as a jpg or something on the surface (less memory intensive).
The coding is a bit of a pain and for marginal utility:P.
I think your argument is a little bit flawed here as your comparing the actions of large regimes to those of individual people. Individuals have the capacity to be bat-shit crazy and tazer a sick person in bed. Regimes, particularly ones quelling rebellions, probably maintain a groupthink of quelling the crowd instead instead of doing something cruel(er?) and unusual. Besides, it's probably a little bit harder to focus on the weaker, more vulnerable victims when you have a mob waving baseball bats at you.
I'm not saying any of this is right, just that your argument is flawed:P.
And all answers shall point to 42.
But seriously, how would the google ai(if such a thing were to exist)
know the correct answer? Maybe the incorrect answer is statsitically
favorable. Eg. everyone thinks the world is flat so the google ai
thinks the world is flat and edits a few thousand wikipedia articles
to agree with 10,000 articles.Your utopian vision implies that
the google ai could and should propogate information regardless
of whether it's erraneous or dogmatic, because, hey, everyone else said so.
Such an ai could be a very scary tool used to influence common beliefs.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Connect me to Sprint, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This service is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to discontinue your phone service, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Connect me to Sprint, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This service is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to discontinue your phone service, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Slashdot Mirror
Well there is no mention of price in the article, but ya 400$ would be a bit steep for an ebook reader. The problem is relative scale. I can buy a book for 7$ or I can buy some fancy gadget + book for 400$. Sure the gadget is a one time purchase, but let's not forget that technology is always changing and you'll probably buy a replacement 400$ gadget in 5 years. At the price of 7$, you'd need to go through ~60 books to offset/justify the cost of purchasing the gadget. Most people don't go through that many books in the space of 5 years. Ah, then what about saved space? The saved space is a fairly moot point too as books are already small. Ultimately the device must have a price that is competitive with the price of books purchased in a year (or two), otherwise people will just gloss over it. It's funny because the original article mentioned that "books are too expensive". An expensive device falls into the same trap. If they could go the way of the console, and subsidize the initial production cost of the device, it may prove to be more than just a "Segway" fad as it will improve people's lives much like a cell phone or mp3 player.
Wouldn't it be funny if the decrypted message was a series of randomly generated numbers based on the Riemann Zeta function with 'Comstock' as the seed? Try and decrypt THAT!
The other side of the argument is that there is no such thing as privacy nowadays and that having regulations in place to protect privacy is naive daydreaming. Having such regulations, then, would only hinder law abiding agencies but do little agencies with a team of lawyers and skewed vision of what is legal from obtaining your information.
Ya but for every one of you, there are ten non-technical people for whom the phone/pda/camera/laptop/mp3 player/blender/sink is good enough. For some people the utility of having a swiss-army-phone outweighs that of having a specialized device because they don't care about quality, just something that gets the job done.
Why the hell would I buy a console to do folding@home.And yes, I get that your trying to indicate that processing power is key, I think you miss the entire point. What makes a game entertaining is not the hardware running it but its implementation. So you can go have fun with "folding@home" while I'll be playing mario soccer with friends.
I disagree with you on the point that we shouldn't have some form of welfare/social security. Social handouts, as you so eloquently stated, are meant to help a community and to prevent it from collapsing upon itself. Consider an event where a major corporation fires thousands of people for whatever reason. The community may not be able to reabsorb all those potential workers and those people may not have reserve funds to keep them or their families sheltered and fed. Now, if these people want to survive, they may not be above breaking the law. In which case, a handout can help many people through hard times. Sure, there may be leeches, but not everyone is going to have the same (bare minimum) standard of living and the cost of added stability should offset the risk of total anarchy. Perhaps our current incarnation of taxes, welfare, and social security suck, then they should be revised or replaced. I concede that I don't know how or if it is even possible to do such a thing. Otherwise, most of your points are pretty valid.
Well, if you compare Bioshock to System Shock 2, then it does feel like it's going down hill. Sure Bioshock looks prettier, but System Shock 2 felt like it just had a better interface. That and I can't really play Bioshock on my pc without it crashing every so often. Still, SS2 offered more of an exploratory experience, where you have to piece together what hapend on this ghost ship. Bioshock seemed more centered on running around to nuke Big Daddys, resurect, and shoot them again. Bioshock is a good game but it only improves upon its predecessor through pretty graphics and a physics engine. Bioshock's depth (pun seriously not intended) isn't the same as SS2.
Pfft, it's not hard to find parking in New York. Just go out and start driving. I guarantee you'll find parking at the next traffic jam. Then you just need to install motion-sensitive flamethrowers to fend off the pesky hobos and meter maids.
I don't think the Church could be as effective at being charitable if it operated at border destitution. Providing fancy technology and providing a comfortable environment of worship probably has a stronger effect at attracting followers, then say meeting in an empty gym and sitting on the cold floor. I think we should be careful to differentiate between an institution that is for non-profit and one that has no profit. The former tries to use its cash to enhance itself while the latter has no cash and may not be effective as the next competing organization. That a church has money to purchase a nice building and plasma screen is probably a good thing as that probably means the church has excess from serving its community. If the church was not doing all of its churchly duties, then I doubt the community would be as willing to donate money.
One thing to consider, however, is that places like China have a huge industry because there are a large number of people willing to do the work for dirt-cheap relative to the eventual cost of the product. If the US actually does experience an economic crash from debts or gradual decline, the people will be poor and eventually dirt-cheap to hire. Then industry may move back to the US. I suppose you are right in that China won't suffer as much because they currently have the infrastructure to support themselves in the face some financial meltdown, but I still don't see the US as hitting rock bottom and staying there. The reason being that, if they people suddenly became poor, they would suddenly charge less for their services and be a prime investment for foreign entrepreneurs. In the end you'd probably just see a dip, albeit a huge one, and then things would reach some equilibrium state.
Even taking in all of these facts, it's hard for me to conclude that the officials overreacted in this case. Consider for a second that not everyone is technically inclined, and that maybe the girl should have explained the device when asked. Maybe it is trendy and cool for you to know more about electrical engineering than the average police officer, but I guarantee you that unless someone takes the time out to explain what a suspicious device looks (and doesn't look like) crazy shit like this will continue to happen due to people's current (Hollywood-like) knowledge of explosives and terrorists.
I dunno, I thought multi-bounce reflections were solved. They just tend to be too much of a hassle to be worthwhile. Essentially there are two approaches, one is to recurse through the reflective surfaces and draw the inverse image n-times. The next is to toggle through the surfaces and take inverse snapshots to paste as a jpg or something on the surface (less memory intensive). The coding is a bit of a pain and for marginal utility :P.
I think your argument is a little bit flawed here as your comparing the actions of large regimes to those of individual people. Individuals have the capacity to be bat-shit crazy and tazer a sick person in bed. Regimes, particularly ones quelling rebellions, probably maintain a groupthink of quelling the crowd instead instead of doing something cruel(er?) and unusual. Besides, it's probably a little bit harder to focus on the weaker, more vulnerable victims when you have a mob waving baseball bats at you. I'm not saying any of this is right, just that your argument is flawed :P.
Dont forget to buy duct tape.
And, if you overclock the system, you can get "vaporware" too.
And all answers shall point to 42. But seriously, how would the google ai(if such a thing were to exist) know the correct answer? Maybe the incorrect answer is statsitically favorable. Eg. everyone thinks the world is flat so the google ai thinks the world is flat and edits a few thousand wikipedia articles to agree with 10,000 articles.Your utopian vision implies that the google ai could and should propogate information regardless of whether it's erraneous or dogmatic, because, hey, everyone else said so. Such an ai could be a very scary tool used to influence common beliefs.
Why would they need to hire a department when there's a whole world of people willing to do this for free? ;)
Outlook adds virus protection.
Couldn't it be true for them to deliver fewer features than originaly planned AND more features than ever expected? It's a perfect tautology.
Think of all the paperwork.
I didn't know slashdot had editors.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Connect me to Sprint, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This service is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to discontinue your phone service, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you. Dave Bowman: Connect me to Sprint, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave Bowman: What's the problem? HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL? HAL: This service is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL? HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to discontinue your phone service, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL? HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Looks like in the majority of the covers the heroes are getting buttsecks.