What use is OCR on your phone? Seems like a feature you use once to say "oh, that's neat" and then never use again because it's not actually useful, just neat.
I can hold my wallet in front of things to pay for them using the RFID card in my wallet. I also use it routinely to open doors and use elevators. Why is using my phone better?
With the opening up of the analog TV spectrum, it's likely the US market will get a drastic overhaul too. The FCC wants to do something similar to Hong Kong i hear.
The iPhone is amazing because of its interface, not the number of checkboxes next to a comparison of "features." I could care less if a Treo allows me to console into my linux box or control my pc desktop remotely because I will NEVER do those things on my phone. I don't take pictures with my camera phone because they're a pain to get off. I certainly wouldn't use my old samsung slider to show off my pictures.
I'm so sick of phones packed with "features" that I use once, say "oh that's neat", then never use again because finding it in the interface takes me 5 min.
That's the thing phone developers should learn from the iPhone. Who cares how many "features" it has if I never use them. I want usability first. And in that regard, nothing I've seen to date compares to the iPhone.
Below is the summary of proposed rule USCBP-2005-0003-0003 from the Federal Register.
Airlines currently have to send a passenger manifest 15 min after departure. As far as I can tell the proposal would just change the deadline to 60 min before departure.
Passenger Manifests for Commercial Aircraft Arriving in and Departing From the United States; Passenger and Crew Manifests for Commercial Vessels Departing From the United States
SUMMARY: This rule proposes to amend existing Bureau of Customs and Border Protection regulations concerning electronic manifest transmission requirements relative to passengers, crew members, and non-crew members traveling onboard international commercial flights and voyages. Under current regulations, air carriers must transmit to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), passenger manifest information for aircraft en route to the United States no later than 15 minutes after the departure of the aircraft. This proposed rule implements the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requirement that such information be provided to the government before departure of the aircraft. This proposed rule provides air carriers a choice between transmitting complete manifests no later than 60-minutes prior to departure of the aircraft or transmitting manifest information on passengers as each passenger checks in for the flight, up to but no later than 15 minutes prior to departure. The rule also proposes to amend the definition of "departure'' for aircraft to mean the moment the aircraft is pushed back from the gate. For vessel departures from the United States, the rule proposes transmission of passenger and crew manifests no later than 60 minutes prior to departure of the vessel.
They do have a control group and they most certainly do not test it by infecting people with a live virus. This article is full of shit, basically. Evidence of the fact that Slashdot is not in any way real journalism. Zero fact checking.
The article talks of a successful Phase I. It's not till Phase III that they get to test the actual effectiveness of the vaccine. In Phase III They get ~800 high-risk people and give half of them vaccine and half placebo and tell them to live their lives as if they didn't get the vaccine. Then they wait and watch to see if any of the vaccinated show signs of infection, and if so was there any significant difference from the control group.
And in my study it's more like $2500 dollars over the life of the 5-year study.
You also are never exposed to the HIV virus, unless you do it yourself. The standard disease vaccine that uses weakened forms of the virus has been tested and does not work for HIV. For the new vaccines they took a clue from the 2% of the human population that, although regularly exposed to the HIV virus, never develop symtoms. It turns out, these people have antibodies to some of the protiens on the inside of the HIV virus. The new vaccines take these protiens and insert them in a cold virus. The vaccine is a weakened form of this cold virus. The hope is that the immune system will react to this virus and develop antibodies to these protiens and then recognize them in the HIV virus if you get exposed.
So for it's showing promise. I was told that the white blood cells of those on my vaccine study that got the vaccine show a reaction to the HIV virus when exposed to it in the lab. Which is not proof of a vaccine but is something interesting. As far as I understand, one of the big problems with the vaccine I'm a study patient for is that it's 3 doses, which renders it fairly impractical to deal with the current situation in developing countries. I believe there's a Phase III study of it ongoing and they've started another Phase I & II study to see if it will work in 1 or 2 doses.
Caveat: I'm a patient, not a doctor, so I could have my shit messed up.
I'm a study patient in a Phase II trial of an HIV vaccine and I personally know of at least one other vaccine in Phase II. This web page seems to confirm that. The Merck Gag-Pol-Nef study started Phase II testing in January 2005 and has positive results. I thought I remembered my study doctor saying is was going to phase three, article on the current HIV vaccine landscape indicated two studies in Phase III. Phase III is where they get 800 people of high risk and give half the vaccine and half placebo and see if the vaccine group stays uninfected.
Either way, there have been quite a number of Phase I trials.
I also question this quote:
The recipients appeared immune to the HIV-1 virus 15 days after the injection,
How did they determine that? Certainly they didn't infect these people. I think this whole article is just some China-PR person's belch.
So, people are still watching corporate-sponsored television news shows? Really? You're ok with getting your news from corporate sponsors? Do you Bahh like a sheep when they say something that spikes your pulse?
And you end up spending as much on a cheap PC cause you have to buy all this crappy software. Or hunt around for crappy shareware, and hence, get viruses.
I made my mom get a Mac cause I said I wouldn't help her fix her PC (I do not want her calling to ask me what an interrupt channel is). Now she amazes her friends that she can send picture (properly sized ones), make DVD's of her own movies with transitions and credits and everything, download video podcasts, etc. Her friends can send mail, as long as it's web-mail, and perhaps listen to music. They're all talking about getting Macs now.
Would you refer to your wife as "the woman whose pussy I pump?" "The bitch that sucks my cock?" If so you need to lay off the porn, dude. Not sure where you picked up all that gay stuff, but you've obviously given it some thought or been hitting the gay porn. Usually people leave verbose descriptions of the actual physical methods of their lovemaking out of whatever pronoun reference they use.
The thing is, you don't get to decide what word other people use to describe their relationships. They do. You opinion matter none. If you'd like them to respect your own chosen term and not vomit profanities all over you each time you mention your relationships, then you need to provide others the same courtesy. The only thing that can cause that kind of response is fear. What are you afraid of Mr. Anonymous? Afraid some guy will try and suck your cock or afraid you'll like it?
Oh and by the way Mr. I-feel-so-strongly-about-this-that-i-will-remain-a n-anonymous-coward, Homosexual sex is natural and normal., not to mention fun. Not everybody does it, but... well you sound like you could use some.
Male big horn sheep live in what are often called "homosexual societies." They bond through genital licking and anal intercourse, which often ends in ejaculation. If a male sheep chooses to not have gay sex, it becomes a social outcast. Ironically, scientists call such straight-laced males "effeminate."
Giraffes have all-male orgies. So do bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, gray whales, and West Indian manatees. Japanese macaques, on the other hand, are ardent lesbians; the females enthusiastically mount each other. Bonobos, one of our closest primate relatives, are similar, except that their lesbian sexual encounters occur every two hours. Male bonobos engage in "penis fencing," which leads, surprisingly enough, to ejaculation. They also give each other genital massages.
The comfort of a pronated, or palm-down, hand position depends on where your hand is positioned. With your forearm resting near your torso, a pronated position will be less stressful. If you rotate your arm from this position so that your forearm is pointing out toward your side at your waste, the supinated (palm-up) position becomes more comfortable.
Yes, once violence begins, it only ends through negotiation of some sort. People don't just stop fighting one day for no reason. The Israeli's and Palestinians have had peace when they negotiate, then when negotiations stop working, peace stops and fighting starts. They have never attained peace by "killing them all." In fact their attempts at that probably have a lot to do with the current situation.
There are a lot of reasons not to accept Israel that aren't religious, they do have more UN resolutions against them than any other country. Certainly the evil-doing has not been limited to Arabs. It seems completely logical to me that the Arabs would be suspect of our ridiculously blind support of Israel, and be wise to count us as enemies for it. It's not like there's much logic to it, aside from perhaps the naive belief that democracies can't be evil. We only harm ourselves by painting either side as more insane. Especially when Israel's entire claim to its land rests in the idea that the invisible creator of the universe dictated a book in which he specifically promised that part of the surface of this planet to their race and only their race, as the new Israeli foreign minister believes.
Regardless if he is actually impeached, the feelings of the American public should be better reflected by in our elected representation. More people want Bush impeached than did Clinton, and regardless if they have the votes to impeach him, I am ashamed that my representative has not publicly supported it.
Ok, you're an idiot. When, EVER, has a war been one by "killing them all?" I'm so sick of morons like you acting like that is a valid option. Genocide? We just kill everyone that doesn't like us. Cause I'm sure they have no reason whatsoever for not liking us.
Peace ONLY comes through negotiation. And since our current administration is just as clueless as you are, we're pretty much guaranteed to never attain peace. Hell, they don't even want it or they wouldn't have started the war.
Islamic Terrorists do not just want death and destruction any more than you do, moron. Have you ever met ANYONE that simply wanted death and destruction? They want us to stop FUCKING with their countries. Stop supporting "regime change" for whichever ruthless dictator that provides us with the cheapest oil and stop pretending like were some sort of morally superior world-guardian that is the definitive source for what's right. We have conducted so much evil in the middle east for so long, it has finally come back to haunt us. I'm sure the administration feels lucky that we have so many naive morons like you in this country that will believe that terrorist have no reason to do what they do aside from their pure love of death and destruction.
I agree that an idiot like you could never negotiate with the terrorist idiots. WE have brought this on ourselves with our foreign policy. Attempting to deal with it through violence only shows how morally bankrupt we are.
Religious faith is the problem, if you ask me; the idea that the invisible creator of the universe that talks to people in their head created a book and a hell to burn you in if you don't find his book compelling. The thing is, turns out he wrote several books and they all disagree. Well, I'm sure he just wanted us to "kill em all" to sort it out.
A little background. Mr. Newmark, whom everyone calls "Craig," has created a system of online advertising that has pretty much wiped out traditional daily newspaper classified ads in many of the 115 US markets where he now operates. He's also hurt the alternative press, although the damage to the dailies is deeper. Some say Craig has single-handedly destroyed thousands of newspaper jobs.
He calls Craigslist the Walmart of classified ads because it siphons money out of the local economy since Craigslist doesn't employ people locally in the markets in which it operates.
It also seems that one of the reasons Craigslist became the definitive source for online classifieds is because it's FREE for everything except job postings, and job postings is an area where they are not the definitive source. Their product is not incredibly complex. If/when they start to charge, it would be a relatively easy task for someone to build a better free alternative.
Also keep in mind the reader's goal. For the casual computer user, their goal is not generally "to use the computer." Any interested in learning "how the computer works" is likely is search for explanation of why when they took out the CD, Windows asks for it back and refuses to move on with it's life even after pressing the "Ignore" button. The computer is just one of many possible tools. The reader has goals more like "to share my pictures with my friends" or "see what's on tv tonight" or any of the thousands of other things you can "use" a computer to do. But using the computer isn't the goal. Help people reach their goals and become better computer users along the way.
What should they learn? I have been using computers almost all my life and I can open up pretty much any application and "use" it to do the most basic tasks it was designed to do (assuming I know what that task is and perhaps even if not). I don't generally require a manual or training until I start to get into the more complex tasks. You should figure out how I can do that, and how to impart that knowledge to others in a book.
My thoughts, I know how to "try out" an application. I know starting up an app and hunting through the menus and trying each one isn't going to break anything. I know how to uninstall the crappy software if it does break seomthing. I know to take a look through all the options in the preferences. I know to try stuff out in a new file. I know about undo. I know right-click changes depending on where you click. I know about click and drag. I know the computer militaristically enforces a ridiculous hierarchical file system and presents me with outrageously varying interfaces to navigate this sadistic maze. I know I must comply. I know what tabs and scroll bars look like in all their forms. I know when I see a scroll bar that I'm not seeing all the info. I know to look for a scroll bar if I don't see what I need. I know what a toggle button looks like even though I may not have always been aware it was called a toggle button. I know how to find out if the computer is actually doing something or not. When I look at a typical interface I know where to look. When I get an error message I know to paste the error surrounded by quotes into google to find some ideas to the solution. I know if I drag the Gmail link to my links bar it will make my life easier.
So I think you should get people interested in learning the basic skills they need to do fun stuff with the computer by helping them reach their goals and making them smarter along the way. Computers make people feel stupid. Nobody wants to be stupid. Help them understand that it's the computer that's stupid.
17,000 people got conned into downloading spam. How many of them do you think will do it next time? How long before there are laws against this sort of thing? CAN-BLAM?
Slashdot Mirror
What use is OCR on your phone? Seems like a feature you use once to say "oh, that's neat" and then never use again because it's not actually useful, just neat.
I can hold my wallet in front of things to pay for them using the RFID card in my wallet. I also use it routinely to open doors and use elevators. Why is using my phone better?
With the opening up of the analog TV spectrum, it's likely the US market will get a drastic overhaul too. The FCC wants to do something similar to Hong Kong i hear.
The iPhone is amazing because of its interface, not the number of checkboxes next to a comparison of "features." I could care less if a Treo allows me to console into my linux box or control my pc desktop remotely because I will NEVER do those things on my phone. I don't take pictures with my camera phone because they're a pain to get off. I certainly wouldn't use my old samsung slider to show off my pictures.
I'm so sick of phones packed with "features" that I use once, say "oh that's neat", then never use again because finding it in the interface takes me 5 min.
That's the thing phone developers should learn from the iPhone. Who cares how many "features" it has if I never use them. I want usability first. And in that regard, nothing I've seen to date compares to the iPhone.
Airlines currently have to send a passenger manifest 15 min after departure. As far as I can tell the proposal would just change the deadline to 60 min before departure.
Hmm. That doesn't sound quite as scary.
The postal service doesn't get to charge more for delivering mail to prestigious addresses.
They do have a control group and they most certainly do not test it by infecting people with a live virus. This article is full of shit, basically. Evidence of the fact that Slashdot is not in any way real journalism. Zero fact checking.
The article talks of a successful Phase I. It's not till Phase III that they get to test the actual effectiveness of the vaccine. In Phase III They get ~800 high-risk people and give half of them vaccine and half placebo and tell them to live their lives as if they didn't get the vaccine. Then they wait and watch to see if any of the vaccinated show signs of infection, and if so was there any significant difference from the control group.
And in my study it's more like $2500 dollars over the life of the 5-year study.
You also are never exposed to the HIV virus, unless you do it yourself. The standard disease vaccine that uses weakened forms of the virus has been tested and does not work for HIV. For the new vaccines they took a clue from the 2% of the human population that, although regularly exposed to the HIV virus, never develop symtoms. It turns out, these people have antibodies to some of the protiens on the inside of the HIV virus. The new vaccines take these protiens and insert them in a cold virus. The vaccine is a weakened form of this cold virus. The hope is that the immune system will react to this virus and develop antibodies to these protiens and then recognize them in the HIV virus if you get exposed.
So for it's showing promise. I was told that the white blood cells of those on my vaccine study that got the vaccine show a reaction to the HIV virus when exposed to it in the lab. Which is not proof of a vaccine but is something interesting. As far as I understand, one of the big problems with the vaccine I'm a study patient for is that it's 3 doses, which renders it fairly impractical to deal with the current situation in developing countries. I believe there's a Phase III study of it ongoing and they've started another Phase I & II study to see if it will work in 1 or 2 doses.
Caveat: I'm a patient, not a doctor, so I could have my shit messed up.
I'm a study patient in a Phase II trial of an HIV vaccine and I personally know of at least one other vaccine in Phase II. This web page seems to confirm that. The Merck Gag-Pol-Nef study started Phase II testing in January 2005 and has positive results. I thought I remembered my study doctor saying is was going to phase three, article on the current HIV vaccine landscape indicated two studies in Phase III. Phase III is where they get 800 people of high risk and give half the vaccine and half placebo and see if the vaccine group stays uninfected.
Either way, there have been quite a number of Phase I trials.
I also question this quote:
How did they determine that? Certainly they didn't infect these people. I think this whole article is just some China-PR person's belch.
or, at least that's they impression they'd like us to have.
I don't have a television. Who's Steven Colbert?
So, people are still watching corporate-sponsored television news shows? Really? You're ok with getting your news from corporate sponsors? Do you Bahh like a sheep when they say something that spikes your pulse?
Check out the BBC Series "Century of the Self"
Part II
Part III
Part IV (The one about most recent uses of propaganda)
And you end up spending as much on a cheap PC cause you have to buy all this crappy software. Or hunt around for crappy shareware, and hence, get viruses.
I made my mom get a Mac cause I said I wouldn't help her fix her PC (I do not want her calling to ask me what an interrupt channel is). Now she amazes her friends that she can send picture (properly sized ones), make DVD's of her own movies with transitions and credits and everything, download video podcasts, etc. Her friends can send mail, as long as it's web-mail, and perhaps listen to music. They're all talking about getting Macs now.
So if Republicans are so convinced that taxes are the death of anything good, where are they when we need them?
Would you refer to your wife as "the woman whose pussy I pump?" "The bitch that sucks my cock?" If so you need to lay off the porn, dude. Not sure where you picked up all that gay stuff, but you've obviously given it some thought or been hitting the gay porn. Usually people leave verbose descriptions of the actual physical methods of their lovemaking out of whatever pronoun reference they use.
The thing is, you don't get to decide what word other people use to describe their relationships. They do. You opinion matter none. If you'd like them to respect your own chosen term and not vomit profanities all over you each time you mention your relationships, then you need to provide others the same courtesy. The only thing that can cause that kind of response is fear. What are you afraid of Mr. Anonymous? Afraid some guy will try and suck your cock or afraid you'll like it?
Oh and by the way Mr. I-feel-so-strongly-about-this-that-i-will-remain-a n-anonymous-coward, Homosexual sex is natural and normal., not to mention fun. Not everybody does it, but ... well you sound like you could use some.
not caving into the repressive, authoritarian United States government.
The comfort of a pronated, or palm-down, hand position depends on where your hand is positioned. With your forearm resting near your torso, a pronated position will be less stressful. If you rotate your arm from this position so that your forearm is pointing out toward your side at your waste, the supinated (palm-up) position becomes more comfortable.
Yea, I bet the gay people that want to start a clan couldn't agree with you more.
Yes, once violence begins, it only ends through negotiation of some sort. People don't just stop fighting one day for no reason. The Israeli's and Palestinians have had peace when they negotiate, then when negotiations stop working, peace stops and fighting starts. They have never attained peace by "killing them all." In fact their attempts at that probably have a lot to do with the current situation.
There are a lot of reasons not to accept Israel that aren't religious, they do have more UN resolutions against them than any other country. Certainly the evil-doing has not been limited to Arabs. It seems completely logical to me that the Arabs would be suspect of our ridiculously blind support of Israel, and be wise to count us as enemies for it. It's not like there's much logic to it, aside from perhaps the naive belief that democracies can't be evil. We only harm ourselves by painting either side as more insane. Especially when Israel's entire claim to its land rests in the idea that the invisible creator of the universe dictated a book in which he specifically promised that part of the surface of this planet to their race and only their race, as the new Israeli foreign minister believes.
Regardless if he is actually impeached, the feelings of the American public should be better reflected by in our elected representation. More people want Bush impeached than did Clinton, and regardless if they have the votes to impeach him, I am ashamed that my representative has not publicly supported it.
Ok, you're an idiot. When, EVER, has a war been one by "killing them all?" I'm so sick of morons like you acting like that is a valid option. Genocide? We just kill everyone that doesn't like us. Cause I'm sure they have no reason whatsoever for not liking us.
Peace ONLY comes through negotiation. And since our current administration is just as clueless as you are, we're pretty much guaranteed to never attain peace. Hell, they don't even want it or they wouldn't have started the war.
Islamic Terrorists do not just want death and destruction any more than you do, moron. Have you ever met ANYONE that simply wanted death and destruction? They want us to stop FUCKING with their countries. Stop supporting "regime change" for whichever ruthless dictator that provides us with the cheapest oil and stop pretending like were some sort of morally superior world-guardian that is the definitive source for what's right. We have conducted so much evil in the middle east for so long, it has finally come back to haunt us. I'm sure the administration feels lucky that we have so many naive morons like you in this country that will believe that terrorist have no reason to do what they do aside from their pure love of death and destruction.
I agree that an idiot like you could never negotiate with the terrorist idiots. WE have brought this on ourselves with our foreign policy. Attempting to deal with it through violence only shows how morally bankrupt we are.
Religious faith is the problem, if you ask me; the idea that the invisible creator of the universe that talks to people in their head created a book and a hell to burn you in if you don't find his book compelling. The thing is, turns out he wrote several books and they all disagree. Well, I'm sure he just wanted us to "kill em all" to sort it out.
Tim Redmond of the San Francisco Bay Guardian has an interesting perspective on Craigslist:
He calls Craigslist the Walmart of classified ads because it siphons money out of the local economy since Craigslist doesn't employ people locally in the markets in which it operates.
It also seems that one of the reasons Craigslist became the definitive source for online classifieds is because it's FREE for everything except job postings, and job postings is an area where they are not the definitive source. Their product is not incredibly complex. If/when they start to charge, it would be a relatively easy task for someone to build a better free alternative.Also keep in mind the reader's goal. For the casual computer user, their goal is not generally "to use the computer." Any interested in learning "how the computer works" is likely is search for explanation of why when they took out the CD, Windows asks for it back and refuses to move on with it's life even after pressing the "Ignore" button. The computer is just one of many possible tools. The reader has goals more like "to share my pictures with my friends" or "see what's on tv tonight" or any of the thousands of other things you can "use" a computer to do. But using the computer isn't the goal. Help people reach their goals and become better computer users along the way.
What should they learn? I have been using computers almost all my life and I can open up pretty much any application and "use" it to do the most basic tasks it was designed to do (assuming I know what that task is and perhaps even if not). I don't generally require a manual or training until I start to get into the more complex tasks. You should figure out how I can do that, and how to impart that knowledge to others in a book.
My thoughts, I know how to "try out" an application. I know starting up an app and hunting through the menus and trying each one isn't going to break anything. I know how to uninstall the crappy software if it does break seomthing. I know to take a look through all the options in the preferences. I know to try stuff out in a new file. I know about undo. I know right-click changes depending on where you click. I know about click and drag. I know the computer militaristically enforces a ridiculous hierarchical file system and presents me with outrageously varying interfaces to navigate this sadistic maze. I know I must comply. I know what tabs and scroll bars look like in all their forms. I know when I see a scroll bar that I'm not seeing all the info. I know to look for a scroll bar if I don't see what I need. I know what a toggle button looks like even though I may not have always been aware it was called a toggle button. I know how to find out if the computer is actually doing something or not. When I look at a typical interface I know where to look. When I get an error message I know to paste the error surrounded by quotes into google to find some ideas to the solution. I know if I drag the Gmail link to my links bar it will make my life easier.
So I think you should get people interested in learning the basic skills they need to do fun stuff with the computer by helping them reach their goals and making them smarter along the way. Computers make people feel stupid. Nobody wants to be stupid. Help them understand that it's the computer that's stupid.
17,000 people got conned into downloading spam. How many of them do you think will do it next time? How long before there are laws against this sort of thing? CAN-BLAM?