BTW, I actually did the full calculations and accounted for the radius of earth/moon in the distance. But according to the equation for calculating barycentric coordinates, the distance of the barycenter from the center of the primary is linearly proportional to the distance of the centers of mass of the two bodies... so a pretty close estimate would have been (1 / 0.75) * 239,000 miles.
Defining it based on barycenter will lead to curious outcomes. What if the barycenter moves into and out from the planet (such as with multiple moons)?
And what if Pluto had a second moon, equal in mass and distance as Charon but always on the exact opposite side (L3)? The barycenter would be at the center of Pluto, but why does this change cause Pluto to become a "real" planet?
But not really cheating, because they were services I wasn't using.
That's still cheating. It wouldn't have been cheating if you removed the cable TV and unlimited long distance you weren't using before making the comparison.
So the more grabby people get with that bandwidth, the less there is to go around. If someone is using as much as they can because they have their phone hooked to their computer doing torrents, that slows everyone else down, even if you are are just using it in small spurts to check your e-mail.
True, but that top 5% torrent user would not have any more of a detrimental effect than the guy who rarely gets online but happens to fire up youtube at that moment.
The bandwidth per user at any given moment is (total bandwidth / # users). It doesn't matter whether all those users download very little or very much during the entire month... bandwidth per user at any given moment would be the same.
Do the top users somehow get 100 Mbps during a time when I can only get 2 Mbps? If so, why is this allowed? If not, why is it a problem?
I don't recall any wireless service claiming that unlimited data would guarantee unlimited bandwidth (which is physically impossible). They usually use terms like "up to X Mbps", based on various factors such as signal strength and usage... so during peak times, everyone's bandwidth goes down equally.
At work my office was in the center of the building and we had an AT&T amplifier. When I moved to Verizon (which we didn't have an amplifier for), my phone would constantly switch between 4G/LTE, 3G, and 1X, all getting about one bar. The Verizon phone would get burning hot and drain very fast even when not in use and no apps running (but just in the office... outside, it had about the same decent experience as the AT&T phone).
I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what it is doing. But my only hope was to put together a Tasker script to turn off the cell radios while at work; that saved the battery and required me to forward calls to my work phone.
The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.
Social conservatives usually talk out their asses when they talk about the details of the poor
Social liberals usually talk out their asses when making generalized statements about social conservatives.
I anecdotally know many social conservatives that provide real relief for the poor on a regular basis, without such complaints. And even those who don't, I don't hear complaining often. Like you said, it's visible and obvious in a few cases. I'd like to find ways to prevent abuse, or at least not encourage it. But at the end of the day I'll take a little abuse if it means providing a lot of actual help.
I'm just tired of both sides thinking that the complainers represent the whole.
In the future, if people hate the version they're on, they'll be much more likely to buy a new version in the hopes that it's better. . ..That's the only think I can think of to fully explain Windows 8
So not because it's a tablet OS?
The only idiots who like using those "apps" are the ones who would probably be better off with a tablet or smartphone instead of an actual desktop computer
It was mostly ignored in the enterprise (which happens for ALL versions of Windows for at least a couple of years) and most consumers tend to keep the OS they got with the computer (unless it's a free upgrade).
In the mainstream, it was seen for what it was: an OS built for tablets and touch screens. Not the long-lasting disaster you are making it out to be.
Specifically regarding getting you to purchase something you wouldn't have, well, I don't see that as bad. You buy stuff because that stuff is worth more to you than the money is sitting in your wallet. That is what every honest transaction is...an exchange that favors both parties.
Shady practices like making it difficult to redeem a coupon are a different story, and frankly should be illegal.
When we (academics) do experiments on people however trivial we usually have to go through ethical clearance, get informed consent etc.
Academic experiments have external results, publishing findings as scientific research. Business experiments have internal results, data mining with the goal of increasing profits (via providing better value to the consumer, at least in capitalist theory).
Well, at least, I can hope the results stay internal to the business. As with data mining in general, that's not always the case. But perhaps this becoming a mainstream topic will end with a framework on which to judge companies that release "experiment" data about their customers.
It seems the easiest way to get to the bottom of this is for Netflix to allow a third party to send packets from Netflix IP addresses on its backbone connections through the last-mile service providers to endpoints owned by the third party. If the packets transmit at the same or expected rates, the problem is with Netflix. If not, it's with the ISP or backbone provider.
Assuming Netflix had nothing to hide, they should be fine with allowing this. Same with Verizon.
Amazon had other days this year with worse drops, towards the end of January and also in April. The current stock price is the same as it was less than a month ago. I don't really see why this is even a story.
It might have been a different story if UI designers didn't think every simple little thing demanded the users exclusive attention and acknowledgment right now.
A single UI experience (fixed and fluid layouts) isn't the right way to think about it. Doing that ends in apps that work well for one device but not others.
Web design has already solved this problem in the form of adaptive and responsive design. Make your app conform to the space it is given. Windows 8 apps have this capability, where many provide a somewhat different (phone-like) UI when in snap view, i.e. when the horizontal space is limited.
Going one step further, I really like ideas like those promised in Ubuntu for tablets (http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet). It goes a step further by having the UI respond to the type of input that is available. Using a touchscreen gets a full-screen UI, add a mouse/keyboard gives you windowed UI, putting it on a TV gives yet a different UI.
(I'm thinking Windows Threshold is going in the direction of Ubuntu for tablets. But legacy apps will remain for many years, and that limitation will unfortunately stall some of the efforts to build an OS based on adaptive design principles.)
The US government has no legal authority to redistribute wealth.
Um... have you not heard of the welfare system? My solution is similar but without many of the overhead costs, without targeting industries that hire unskilled laborers, and without being subject to corruption and abuse.
I understand that you may have a problem with redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately for you, I doubt you'll ever see it removed from our government. It's political suicide. So wouldn't you at least agree with me that making it better and more fair would be a reasonable goal?
When I first heard the story, enough info had come out to assume it was an accident. The "rebels" had fired at a plane they thought was an enemy military plane. A huge inept tragedy, yes, but not a political maneuver.
But then materials were being withheld from public scrutiny. No admission of guilt. Looting the crash site and taking materials over to Russia. Propaganda. What could have been a simple footnote in the history of this conflict may now be a political turning point of war.
Then again, maybe they are hiding something we don't already know. That's the only competent reason for all of this secrecy.
Additionally, I think X should be supplied on a card showing the person's ID. It could be used only for specific basic needs goods and services, such as food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, child care, transportation, sanitation, education, and so on.
The government should never have the role of supplying anyone with luxuries, entertainment, and illicit activity. Those would still be bought using the employer-provided wage (so it's not like minimum-wage workers would never get to go to see a movie).
Punishing industries built on unskilled labor is my problem. It makes more sense to place the burden of welfare on the whole economy, via taxes, since the government is the only entity in the position to redistribute wealth.
In my vision, the government would supply the first $X of everyone's wage, and pays for it by increases in income tax. This gives a huge stimulus to unskilled industries founded on a large number of laborers. Now instead of having to pay everyone a minimum of $7.25/hour, they pay $7.25 - X.
I don't think we have to set X at $7.25. That would be no good as many industries would get free labor, and people would be hired on the government dime to just sit around and do nothing for 40 hours a week. Someone smarter in economics than myself would figure out X, but perhaps it would be something like $5/hour.
"Wouldn't Walmart and McDonald's just set their wage to $0 anyway, and make workers suffer with $5/hour? Isn't that going backwards?"
No, they would soon find themselves in a position of needing to compete for unskilled labor. (Whoa, the thought!) So they would add some wage on top of the government subsidy, and that would settle at a natural competitive level. That might be $4/hour or whatever as it fits their business model.
And X would adjust as needed over time to balance the economy.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, I actually did the full calculations and accounted for the radius of earth/moon in the distance. But according to the equation for calculating barycentric coordinates, the distance of the barycenter from the center of the primary is linearly proportional to the distance of the centers of mass of the two bodies... so a pretty close estimate would have been (1 / 0.75) * 239,000 miles.
320,000 miles
Defining it based on barycenter will lead to curious outcomes. What if the barycenter moves into and out from the planet (such as with multiple moons)?
And what if Pluto had a second moon, equal in mass and distance as Charon but always on the exact opposite side (L3)? The barycenter would be at the center of Pluto, but why does this change cause Pluto to become a "real" planet?
For years, my Comcast Internet service has been reduced by $20/month by purchasing $12/month basic cable. I've never even plugged the cable to a TV.
But not really cheating, because they were services I wasn't using.
That's still cheating. It wouldn't have been cheating if you removed the cable TV and unlimited long distance you weren't using before making the comparison.
So the more grabby people get with that bandwidth, the less there is to go around. If someone is using as much as they can because they have their phone hooked to their computer doing torrents, that slows everyone else down, even if you are are just using it in small spurts to check your e-mail.
True, but that top 5% torrent user would not have any more of a detrimental effect than the guy who rarely gets online but happens to fire up youtube at that moment.
The bandwidth per user at any given moment is (total bandwidth / # users). It doesn't matter whether all those users download very little or very much during the entire month... bandwidth per user at any given moment would be the same.
So, why is there a need to throttle?
Correct, thank you.
Do the top users somehow get 100 Mbps during a time when I can only get 2 Mbps? If so, why is this allowed? If not, why is it a problem?
I don't recall any wireless service claiming that unlimited data would guarantee unlimited bandwidth (which is physically impossible). They usually use terms like "up to X Mbps", based on various factors such as signal strength and usage... so during peak times, everyone's bandwidth goes down equally.
At work my office was in the center of the building and we had an AT&T amplifier. When I moved to Verizon (which we didn't have an amplifier for), my phone would constantly switch between 4G/LTE, 3G, and 1X, all getting about one bar. The Verizon phone would get burning hot and drain very fast even when not in use and no apps running (but just in the office... outside, it had about the same decent experience as the AT&T phone).
I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what it is doing. But my only hope was to put together a Tasker script to turn off the cell radios while at work; that saved the battery and required me to forward calls to my work phone.
But there is no malicious intent to throw everyone into prison.
I really do believe this. But we shouldn't just let our guard down; the powers we grant our government today may one day be abused by someone who actually does want to throw everyone in prison, or worse.
The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.
I think what you just described is called "math".
("Maths" across the pond.)
Social conservatives usually talk out their asses when they talk about the details of the poor
Social liberals usually talk out their asses when making generalized statements about social conservatives.
I anecdotally know many social conservatives that provide real relief for the poor on a regular basis, without such complaints. And even those who don't, I don't hear complaining often. Like you said, it's visible and obvious in a few cases. I'd like to find ways to prevent abuse, or at least not encourage it. But at the end of the day I'll take a little abuse if it means providing a lot of actual help.
I'm just tired of both sides thinking that the complainers represent the whole.
In the future, if people hate the version they're on, they'll be much more likely to buy a new version in the hopes that it's better. . . .That's the only think I can think of to fully explain Windows 8
So not because it's a tablet OS?
The only idiots who like using those "apps" are the ones who would probably be better off with a tablet or smartphone instead of an actual desktop computer
Like you said, it's a tablet OS...
It was mostly ignored in the enterprise (which happens for ALL versions of Windows for at least a couple of years) and most consumers tend to keep the OS they got with the computer (unless it's a free upgrade).
In the mainstream, it was seen for what it was: an OS built for tablets and touch screens. Not the long-lasting disaster you are making it out to be.
The presence of or lack of functionality has nothing to do with skeuomorphism.
Specifically regarding getting you to purchase something you wouldn't have, well, I don't see that as bad. You buy stuff because that stuff is worth more to you than the money is sitting in your wallet. That is what every honest transaction is...an exchange that favors both parties.
Shady practices like making it difficult to redeem a coupon are a different story, and frankly should be illegal.
When we (academics) do experiments on people however trivial we usually have to go through ethical clearance, get informed consent etc.
Academic experiments have external results, publishing findings as scientific research. Business experiments have internal results, data mining with the goal of increasing profits (via providing better value to the consumer, at least in capitalist theory).
Well, at least, I can hope the results stay internal to the business. As with data mining in general, that's not always the case. But perhaps this becoming a mainstream topic will end with a framework on which to judge companies that release "experiment" data about their customers.
It seems the easiest way to get to the bottom of this is for Netflix to allow a third party to send packets from Netflix IP addresses on its backbone connections through the last-mile service providers to endpoints owned by the third party. If the packets transmit at the same or expected rates, the problem is with Netflix. If not, it's with the ISP or backbone provider.
Assuming Netflix had nothing to hide, they should be fine with allowing this. Same with Verizon.
Amazon had other days this year with worse drops, towards the end of January and also in April. The current stock price is the same as it was less than a month ago. I don't really see why this is even a story.
It might have been a different story if UI designers didn't think every simple little thing demanded the users exclusive attention and acknowledgment right now.
In my experience: 's/UI designers/the customer/'
A single UI experience (fixed and fluid layouts) isn't the right way to think about it. Doing that ends in apps that work well for one device but not others.
Web design has already solved this problem in the form of adaptive and responsive design. Make your app conform to the space it is given. Windows 8 apps have this capability, where many provide a somewhat different (phone-like) UI when in snap view, i.e. when the horizontal space is limited.
Going one step further, I really like ideas like those promised in Ubuntu for tablets (http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet). It goes a step further by having the UI respond to the type of input that is available. Using a touchscreen gets a full-screen UI, add a mouse/keyboard gives you windowed UI, putting it on a TV gives yet a different UI.
(I'm thinking Windows Threshold is going in the direction of Ubuntu for tablets. But legacy apps will remain for many years, and that limitation will unfortunately stall some of the efforts to build an OS based on adaptive design principles.)
The US government has no legal authority to redistribute wealth.
Um... have you not heard of the welfare system? My solution is similar but without many of the overhead costs, without targeting industries that hire unskilled laborers, and without being subject to corruption and abuse.
I understand that you may have a problem with redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately for you, I doubt you'll ever see it removed from our government. It's political suicide. So wouldn't you at least agree with me that making it better and more fair would be a reasonable goal?
When I first heard the story, enough info had come out to assume it was an accident. The "rebels" had fired at a plane they thought was an enemy military plane. A huge inept tragedy, yes, but not a political maneuver.
But then materials were being withheld from public scrutiny. No admission of guilt. Looting the crash site and taking materials over to Russia. Propaganda. What could have been a simple footnote in the history of this conflict may now be a political turning point of war.
Then again, maybe they are hiding something we don't already know. That's the only competent reason for all of this secrecy.
Additionally, I think X should be supplied on a card showing the person's ID. It could be used only for specific basic needs goods and services, such as food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, child care, transportation, sanitation, education, and so on.
The government should never have the role of supplying anyone with luxuries, entertainment, and illicit activity. Those would still be bought using the employer-provided wage (so it's not like minimum-wage workers would never get to go to see a movie).
Punishing industries built on unskilled labor is my problem. It makes more sense to place the burden of welfare on the whole economy, via taxes, since the government is the only entity in the position to redistribute wealth.
In my vision, the government would supply the first $X of everyone's wage, and pays for it by increases in income tax. This gives a huge stimulus to unskilled industries founded on a large number of laborers. Now instead of having to pay everyone a minimum of $7.25/hour, they pay $7.25 - X.
I don't think we have to set X at $7.25. That would be no good as many industries would get free labor, and people would be hired on the government dime to just sit around and do nothing for 40 hours a week. Someone smarter in economics than myself would figure out X, but perhaps it would be something like $5/hour.
"Wouldn't Walmart and McDonald's just set their wage to $0 anyway, and make workers suffer with $5/hour? Isn't that going backwards?"
No, they would soon find themselves in a position of needing to compete for unskilled labor. (Whoa, the thought!) So they would add some wage on top of the government subsidy, and that would settle at a natural competitive level. That might be $4/hour or whatever as it fits their business model.
And X would adjust as needed over time to balance the economy.