Verging on off-topic now, but your comment about lunches being small in Germany interested me. I went to school there for a month (Saarland), and lunch, served at around 1pm, was by far the biggest meal of the day. Is this an uncommon or regional thing?
Bread is what makes using supermarkets a bad idea: it is good for two days. I've seen bread in the US, you solve this problem by not having edible bread in the first place: that earthy sponge has never been good so it can't get worse:p
I stayed in Germany for a month on an exchange program. The bread my host family had was terrible! Therefore, all bread in Germany must be bad.
Or, maybe they just bought terrible bread.
You can get fantastic bread in the US, even from supermarkets. They make it fresh every day, and it lasts for only a couple days (more than two, if you use such advanced techniques like wrapping it up and, if times are truly desperate, putting it in the fridge). Yeah, there's bad bread too, and a lot of people buy it because it's cheaper and lasts longer, but you aren't SOL if that isn't your thing.
Even supermarkets (including the chains) have razor-thin margins. A friend of mine works in the advertising department for a local supermarket chain. They have, on average, a 1% margin. The only reason they're successful is because of volume.
(No, it's not a discount or value chain; in fact, it's considered the nicer store to go to and often has slightly higher prices than Safeway.)
It would effectively stop that situation...assuming rednecks buy guns with this technology. This assumes it's in the price range of said rednecks (I'd imagine such guns would be quite a bit more expensive than non-computerized guns, and rednecks aren't exactly renowned for having lots of money) and that the rednecks will want the guns.
While the safety argument does have some merit, I'm reminded somewhat of magazine disconnects. For those unfamiliar, magazine disconnects make it so the gun won't fire if there's no magazine inserted. A lot of people dislike them because some implementations cause accuracy problems, it makes the gun effectively useless except as a poor club without a magazine, and it's "One Other Thing to Go Wrong". Proponents, of course, say it makes guns safer.
An interesting anti-disconnect argument I read stated that it encourages people to disregard rule #1 of firearm safety: the gun is always loaded. Treating a gun with no magazine in it as harmless can create some bad, potentially disastrous, habits, especially if a person accustomed to a gun with a disconnect handles a gun without one. I could see a similar argument for guns with fingerprint ID chips.
In the end, the ultimate responsibility of gun safety belongs to the operator of the gun. This is true whether the gun has no external safeties or fifty of them. Children accidentally killing themselves with guns is tragic, but no more so than a toddler that drinks bleach because the cupboard wasn't secured properly. People put baby locks on kitchen cabinets as a matter of course; make sure your guns are out-of-reach, too.
Speaking for myself, if I had to choose between government surveillance and private surveillance (thinking Google, Facebook), I'd choose the private, even if unregulated. The government is going to try to control me, while Google is going to try to sell me stuff.
Unless I'm misunderstanding how lawsuits work, it seems to me that if Google's one purpose for purchasing Motorola Mobility was for defensive reasons, they would have halted the lawsuit against Microsoft after assuming control of MM.
I actually like Windows 8, but it does require a shift in mentality to see the benefits. It's intended to be used as a launcher with the facility for holding many shortcuts, not as a menu to dig around in. Since I always used the former method for the old start menu(in Vista and 7, at least), 8's new start screen took little adaptation, and I had originally installed the customer preview in order to lambast it!
At the same time, I found that some of the people I encouraged to switch to it had a hard time adapting, though they've never been able to tell me what, exactly, was troubling them. Since then, I've cooled a lot on recommending it to people.
Here's my summary of what's frustrating about American politics:
Overall, Republicans represent most of my interests better than the Democrats, but dear lord can they be horrifyingly stupid and clueless on other issues, copyright and technology in general being big ones.
This is pretty much what I was thinking when I wrote the comment. Yes, there is vulgarity in AD, but it's the way that it's portrayed that makes a difference. Tobias is completely unwitting in what he says, while several episodes of HIMYM seem to carry the message of "misogyny is cool" if you don't understand the larger theme of the show (which often gets overshadowed in individual episodes).
I'm not going to pretend that everyone will, or should, like the show, but:
The reason I liked Arrested Development is because it's a serial sitcom with no laugh track that doesn't rely on vulgarity or shock value to deliver its laughs to anywhere near the same degree as other shows (see: How I Met Your Mother). I care about that not because I'm a prude, but because I appreciate that it forces the writers to be more creative, rather than regurgitating the same base jokes over and over again. AD also doesn't string the audience along for so long; again picking on HIMYM, that show will be in its 9th season before we actually meet the titular mother. Finally, I like the more varied cinematography that AD's use of single-camera shots allows.
At the same time, I think some of the above made it hard for AD to find a large audience. I know the lack of laugh track alienated some people, incredible though that seems to me, as I find laugh tracks to be an abomination. The serial nature makes it hard to pick up in the middle of a season, let alone the series, and the (slightly) more subtle humor might not be what Americans are looking for. The single-camera shots also made for higher production costs, which in turn hurt the bottom line.
These are for-profit businesses, and you have to look at opportunity costs. If a show only breaks even, then you may (and probably will) make more money with a different show. This is even true when showing a profit; what would you rather have, a show with $1M in profit, or a show with $20M in profit?
One of my good friends refuses to even consider watching big bang theory, he calls it "black-face for nerds."
You know, that's a pretty good description. The show is full of the most ridiculous over-acting with one-dimensional (if that) characters with obnoxious voices and idiotic plotlines. I actually was looking forward to a sciency-type sitcom, but was disappointed to see it was the same traditional dross, only with "nerdy" characters. I put "nerdy" in quotes because they seemed more like socially maladjusted outcasts than nerds.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Arrested Development. I'm both pleased and displeased all the episodes will be released at once. I like being able to watch them without waiting a week between each airing, but the suspension is nice to savor it, and I know I won't have the self-control to make it last more than at most a week.
That said, I'm also a little worried about it. I was one of those who didn't like the new Futurama episodes (not even The Late Philip J. Fry, as it was quite depressing, even if touching), and I worry that with the actors being so much older now, some of the flair of the original show will be lost.
The Nook and Kobo readers are all more comfortable to hold than the Kindle. I like my Kindle a lot, but it's just not as nice as the Simple Touch I had.
I'm surprised. I will admit I only did a cursory glance of titles that are on my wish list, but the Kindle price was frequently cheaper than Kobo's by a dollar or two. The difference isn't huge, but it does add up. Some are even more pronounced--Catching Fire, for instance, is $4 cheaper on Amazon than Kobo.
Granted, I can use Calibre and strip the DRM, but my point is that it's obnoxious to have to take that step.
The mere fact you have to root an eReader tells me B&N did something wrong. Don't get me wrong--it's cool that you can do it, and good that there's at least one way to get better functionality--but the fact that you have to go through that effort to get the same functionality that the Kindle has out of the box means B&N still has some work to do.
I like tinkering with my PC, but I don't want to have to tinker with every device I buy.
I've never had any problems with it, and I've been using a Kindle for more than a year. I did have problems with the Nook taking a while to sync, though.
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Forgot about that one; thanks.
Most people get % increases wrong; this is why I usually ask people to give it in "x's". Another that's irritating is "twice as cold."
To be fair, TNG did explain why (most) aliens were humanoid in the episode The Chase.
Ghostery itself is a tracker: http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/ghostery-a-web-tracking-blocker-that-actually-helps-the-ad-industry/
I use a combination of ABP, DNTMe, and Firefox's built-in DNT flag.
Whereas with your car example a car completely and thoroughly replaced all functions of a horse drawn carriage in its entirety.
Companionship? Well, the horse part at least--not so much the carriage.
On the plus side, you don't have to mow dirt.
Verging on off-topic now, but your comment about lunches being small in Germany interested me. I went to school there for a month (Saarland), and lunch, served at around 1pm, was by far the biggest meal of the day. Is this an uncommon or regional thing?
Bread is what makes using supermarkets a bad idea: it is good for two days. I've seen bread in the US, you solve this problem by not having edible bread in the first place: that earthy sponge has never been good so it can't get worse :p
I stayed in Germany for a month on an exchange program. The bread my host family had was terrible! Therefore, all bread in Germany must be bad.
Or, maybe they just bought terrible bread.
You can get fantastic bread in the US, even from supermarkets. They make it fresh every day, and it lasts for only a couple days (more than two, if you use such advanced techniques like wrapping it up and, if times are truly desperate, putting it in the fridge). Yeah, there's bad bread too, and a lot of people buy it because it's cheaper and lasts longer, but you aren't SOL if that isn't your thing.
Even supermarkets (including the chains) have razor-thin margins. A friend of mine works in the advertising department for a local supermarket chain. They have, on average, a 1% margin. The only reason they're successful is because of volume.
(No, it's not a discount or value chain; in fact, it's considered the nicer store to go to and often has slightly higher prices than Safeway.)
It would effectively stop that situation...assuming rednecks buy guns with this technology. This assumes it's in the price range of said rednecks (I'd imagine such guns would be quite a bit more expensive than non-computerized guns, and rednecks aren't exactly renowned for having lots of money) and that the rednecks will want the guns.
While the safety argument does have some merit, I'm reminded somewhat of magazine disconnects. For those unfamiliar, magazine disconnects make it so the gun won't fire if there's no magazine inserted. A lot of people dislike them because some implementations cause accuracy problems, it makes the gun effectively useless except as a poor club without a magazine, and it's "One Other Thing to Go Wrong". Proponents, of course, say it makes guns safer.
An interesting anti-disconnect argument I read stated that it encourages people to disregard rule #1 of firearm safety: the gun is always loaded. Treating a gun with no magazine in it as harmless can create some bad, potentially disastrous, habits, especially if a person accustomed to a gun with a disconnect handles a gun without one. I could see a similar argument for guns with fingerprint ID chips.
In the end, the ultimate responsibility of gun safety belongs to the operator of the gun. This is true whether the gun has no external safeties or fifty of them. Children accidentally killing themselves with guns is tragic, but no more so than a toddler that drinks bleach because the cupboard wasn't secured properly. People put baby locks on kitchen cabinets as a matter of course; make sure your guns are out-of-reach, too.
Speaking for myself, if I had to choose between government surveillance and private surveillance (thinking Google, Facebook), I'd choose the private, even if unregulated. The government is going to try to control me, while Google is going to try to sell me stuff.
Granted, I don't want either situation.
Unless I'm misunderstanding how lawsuits work, it seems to me that if Google's one purpose for purchasing Motorola Mobility was for defensive reasons, they would have halted the lawsuit against Microsoft after assuming control of MM.
I actually like Windows 8, but it does require a shift in mentality to see the benefits. It's intended to be used as a launcher with the facility for holding many shortcuts, not as a menu to dig around in. Since I always used the former method for the old start menu(in Vista and 7, at least), 8's new start screen took little adaptation, and I had originally installed the customer preview in order to lambast it!
At the same time, I found that some of the people I encouraged to switch to it had a hard time adapting, though they've never been able to tell me what, exactly, was troubling them. Since then, I've cooled a lot on recommending it to people.
Here's my summary of what's frustrating about American politics:
Overall, Republicans represent most of my interests better than the Democrats, but dear lord can they be horrifyingly stupid and clueless on other issues, copyright and technology in general being big ones.
This is pretty much what I was thinking when I wrote the comment. Yes, there is vulgarity in AD, but it's the way that it's portrayed that makes a difference. Tobias is completely unwitting in what he says, while several episodes of HIMYM seem to carry the message of "misogyny is cool" if you don't understand the larger theme of the show (which often gets overshadowed in individual episodes).
I'm not going to pretend that everyone will, or should, like the show, but:
The reason I liked Arrested Development is because it's a serial sitcom with no laugh track that doesn't rely on vulgarity or shock value to deliver its laughs to anywhere near the same degree as other shows (see: How I Met Your Mother). I care about that not because I'm a prude, but because I appreciate that it forces the writers to be more creative, rather than regurgitating the same base jokes over and over again. AD also doesn't string the audience along for so long; again picking on HIMYM, that show will be in its 9th season before we actually meet the titular mother. Finally, I like the more varied cinematography that AD's use of single-camera shots allows.
At the same time, I think some of the above made it hard for AD to find a large audience. I know the lack of laugh track alienated some people, incredible though that seems to me, as I find laugh tracks to be an abomination. The serial nature makes it hard to pick up in the middle of a season, let alone the series, and the (slightly) more subtle humor might not be what Americans are looking for. The single-camera shots also made for higher production costs, which in turn hurt the bottom line.
I was always under the impression that it's the under-30s who like the show the most. At least, that's been my general observation.
Wrong show.
These are for-profit businesses, and you have to look at opportunity costs. If a show only breaks even, then you may (and probably will) make more money with a different show. This is even true when showing a profit; what would you rather have, a show with $1M in profit, or a show with $20M in profit?
It sucks for the fans, but it's not illogical.
One of my good friends refuses to even consider watching big bang theory, he calls it "black-face for nerds."
You know, that's a pretty good description. The show is full of the most ridiculous over-acting with one-dimensional (if that) characters with obnoxious voices and idiotic plotlines. I actually was looking forward to a sciency-type sitcom, but was disappointed to see it was the same traditional dross, only with "nerdy" characters. I put "nerdy" in quotes because they seemed more like socially maladjusted outcasts than nerds.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Arrested Development. I'm both pleased and displeased all the episodes will be released at once. I like being able to watch them without waiting a week between each airing, but the suspension is nice to savor it, and I know I won't have the self-control to make it last more than at most a week.
That said, I'm also a little worried about it. I was one of those who didn't like the new Futurama episodes (not even The Late Philip J. Fry, as it was quite depressing, even if touching), and I worry that with the actors being so much older now, some of the flair of the original show will be lost.
Apple's stock has always been weird. Their P/E ratio is lower than Dell's. Doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not a finance guy.
The Nook and Kobo readers are all more comfortable to hold than the Kindle. I like my Kindle a lot, but it's just not as nice as the Simple Touch I had.
I'm surprised. I will admit I only did a cursory glance of titles that are on my wish list, but the Kindle price was frequently cheaper than Kobo's by a dollar or two. The difference isn't huge, but it does add up. Some are even more pronounced--Catching Fire, for instance, is $4 cheaper on Amazon than Kobo.
Granted, I can use Calibre and strip the DRM, but my point is that it's obnoxious to have to take that step.
The mere fact you have to root an eReader tells me B&N did something wrong. Don't get me wrong--it's cool that you can do it, and good that there's at least one way to get better functionality--but the fact that you have to go through that effort to get the same functionality that the Kindle has out of the box means B&N still has some work to do.
I like tinkering with my PC, but I don't want to have to tinker with every device I buy.
I've never had any problems with it, and I've been using a Kindle for more than a year. I did have problems with the Nook taking a while to sync, though.