Heck, they could even specifically DISALLOW ranked competetive play for that version... and then the rest of us who aren't pros can play together at 1920x1200 resolution.:)
I still don't quite understand how they can illuminate that strongly, but I've not read a lot of it. I/though/ the laser was for the pointing only, but it could be that it's used for the projection as well.
Surgeons are allowed to cut open citizens, should citizens be allowed to cut open surgeons?
Lawyers are allowed to legal advice to citizens, should citizens be allowed to give legal advice to lawyers?
At least in the united states, I'm pretty sure anyone can cut anyone else open, as long as they have permission. Doctors get to do it because we effectively hire them to do so. If I write up a contract with my next door neighbor (and an accompanying waiver saying I and my family won't sue him if I get harmed as a result), he could do surgery and probably be in the right. There are laws against him trying to set up a business, but... if I don't pay him, he's not, right? While most of us agree this would be extremely stupid to do, I don't see a reason it should be illegal. (:
Same for legal counsel. You can give legal advice to anyone, lawyers included. Whether or not it's GOOD advice is a different matter, since non-lawyers are often wrong about what's legal or not. (Including me -- it might indeed be illegal for non-doctors to cut people open, even with permission.)
Frankly, I'm astounded they're not sitting in a jail cell right now. Chances are that right now the MBTA are going through CCTV footage looking for them trespassing, and once they've found some- they'll be arrested.
Does that invalidate their research? If a citizen commits a criminal act, and finds out information which shows smoeone else to have been incompetent (or even criminally negligent), does that mean that the information is no longer valid, or is tainted? I don't think it does.
If I break into my neighbor's house, and discover his marijuana plants, I will likely get in trouble for burglary, but he'll still get busted for drugs. If I break into his computer and prove that he's been embezzling millions from taxpayers, I am likely to go to prison for all sorts of crap, but I expect he'd still be prosecutable - and that what I found would be admissible (since it wasn't the government doing an "unreasonable search";)).
Whether this is prudent on the part of the person doing the tresspassing is another matter completely. (I'd suggest that it's highly imprudent to break the law.)
the United States has had the technology to kill from halfway around the world for nearly half a century... ever heard of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile?
I argue that there's a significant difference between an ICBM (deaths are a statistic) and a highly targeted remote kill. In the latter case, the target is a known Person, with people surrounding them, etc -- small enough numbers that it's easier to empathize with them as another human, rather than "the population of ____". It's easy to think about "X cattle are killed every day", but few people want to be the one to put the bolt gun to the cow's head, or break the neck of a chicken.
I suspect that the extended personal attention to a targeted person is similar to the attention paid by a sniper to his target.
Boot from a CD or USB drive, dd/dev/hda to a file on a USB drive, and shut-down.
I thought dd couldn't write more than ~2GB? When I tried to do that very thing (salvaging my wife's home directory), it would mysteriously fail. Eventually, I just did a mass scp of * to another machine, but was genuinely surprised that dd wouldn't work. Am I using the wrong version, or not passing it the right options, or what?
In the United States, all* witnesses must answer all questions in an honest manner after being sworn in.... (*except the defendant, who is not required to incriminate herself.)
If they answer a question, it must still be truthful -- they just have the option of Not Answering. (I don't think other witnesses have that option, unless doing so would incriminate themselves.)
Sounds like they're helping students obey the law.. for the duration of the probe.
Heck, they could even send out a reminder that university policy forbade illegal filesharing. Or, make like the librarians ( http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html ) and say something like, "The RIAA has not asked us to monitor your traffic this month." (as a big sign on the campus IT building, or somesuch). Some months, it might be removed....
While it's excellent when police DO apologize for mistakes,and work for restitution to the victims, we must not forget that the opposite also happens:
http://wcco.com/iteam/swat.team.honored.2.783216.html : SWAT team raids the wrong house, engage in a gunfight with a homeowner. They receive medals for "courage under fire" and for how they handled the situation. I wonder how things would have turned out if the homeowner had killed one of them in the process of defending his family.
The idea that the government should be exempt from criminal or civil punishment for wrongdoings is an abomination, IMO.
Solution: Submit the entire Glider source code as an exhibit, to prove that it does not contain copyrighted or protected property. I imagine an expert witness could be found who could analyze it reliably. (Unfortunately, PAYING such a person would be more difficult.)
If Glider was written undersource control, it would be interesting to see the lifecycle of the tool, also.
This young man had video going of the entire event, even predating it (including a semi-clear shot of his speedometer). How can I rig up my car to do something similar? I'm going to make up a dream-car-surveillance wish list for the ultimate CYA capability:
- Always-on functionality: I'd like footage from the time I unlock the car with my remote to when I lock it as I walk away (and perhaps a few minutes after that). - Audio: so there's an accounting of things people say to me, or that I say. - Redundant microphones: One at each window, at least. Multiple sourced-recordings means that it should be harder to claim that it's been doctored. - Multiple viewpoints: Front (over-driver's shoulder), rear (to see if people rear-end me?), sides. This way, if I am off-camera for one view, I am hopefully in another one. - Redundant cameras: If one is discovered/destroyed/disabled, I'd like another to be already filming a similar shot. (So, I think that makes something like 8 cameras? Yikes.)
Now, this ensures that any time I am involved in an accident, a traffic stop, or any other Event while I'm in my vehicle, in theory I should have (multiple) recordings of it for reference/evidence after the fact. It could mean footage of the license plate of a hit-and-run, or "proof" of my innocence when disputing a ticket (how admissable would that be?). Heck, if I'm a witness to an accident or other Event, it would help make sure I don't mis-remember what happened.
There are, however, weaknesses which need to be addressed:
- It'll catch YOU doing bad stuff. So, don't break the law, or cause any accidents.;)
- Local legality: Is it legal to surveill things in your area? Some states allow conversations to be recorded as long as ONE party knows of it, but only a local lawyer can tell you this. I also don't know if it applies to video footage.
- Vulnerability to destruction: If your car is destroyed, or the cameras discovered, it's possible that your in-car storage will be located (esp. if your car is impounded as evidence? do I watch too much CSI? Probably.), and could be destroyed. It's necessary, IMO, to have off-site backup for all footage your car takes. (Thus, I add another item to my Wish List: Automated upload of footage from any major "event".)
- Your next of kin and your lawyer both need to know about this AHEAD OF TIME. If you're killed in an accident, or shot by overzealous police, or tasered into a coma, they need to know that there is/could-be evidence which needs to be preserved/captured.
- You'll need to take effort to ensure that it's admissable as evidence. I don't know what this might entail; a lawyer and/or professional expert witness can probably answer this well. You'll certainly need to make sure recordings are automatically timestamped and organized, and probably automatically checksummed when archived (to help detect modification). If it can't be used in court, it's unlikely that it can actually help you.
- That's a huge amount of data! This is, I believe, the biggest hurdle: if you can't store the data, or it's too much, then you can't actually use it, even if it's legal and admissable. So, especially if we want off-site storage (automated via wireless network?;)), we need a way to cut this down somewhat.
So, what can we do to reduce the amount of data storage we need? 1) Assume we only need permanent storage in case of an "event". We could have a "start recording" button (which would mark any data from 5 mins before, until "stop" as des
Is EFI planned to replace BIOS in the non-mac world? Can Linux bootloaders and whatnot play nicely with EFI? Heck, can Windows? If so, can one even BUY a motherboard that uses EFI? As I'm planning to build a system on which I can (hopefully) run both windows and linux, I'd like to try to avoid the whole MBR shenanigans.
I'm curious as to why the parent is modded 0, funny. Looking up a Pocket Veto, the parent seems to have summarized the ways in which laws go into effect:
- president signs it 1/in 10 days: Law - resident vetos: not law - president does nothing for 10 days: Law (as if he'd signed it) - president does nothing for 10 days, but Congress adjourns before that: Not Law (pocket veto)
We appear to have an addition: - president signs it, but then adds a statement saying that he feels it doesn't need to be followed. (Which, I confess, I cannot understand having any weight.)
I might be missing something, but I thought the parent was informative. If not, please enlighten me.
He didn't say that it was a GOOD thing -- merely that from the perspective of "motivating people not to break the law" punishing people who may not be guilty (but that the general public believes to be) is just as motivationaly effective as punishing the truly guilty.
Children being raised by these two crooks would not exactly be an asset to society.
There are many children who may or may not be an asset to society. That doesn't merit hoping for their death! Give them a chance to grow up and make something good of themselves, or even just be average.
The worship of science fiction authors is nothing new here... just look at the relationship between hordes of Slashdotters and George Lucas
I realize you were being funny, but there's a difference. Most geeks (even star wars geeks!) that I know are grateful that Lucas gave us that world... and also believe that he has completely screwed it up many ways. We don't see him as infallible, and most don't see it as a way of guiding moral choices or of how to live our life.
People who know me don't leave a message and I just call back based on the "missed calls" menu....It takes just a small amount of time to train your friends.
Agreed. I tend to just call people back directly, and ask what's up -- and if they ever ask if I got the voicemail, I say "No, I called you first". It's marginally less convenient for them, but that's balanced by the fact that most of the time the voicemail is a waste of my time.;)
I've seen many Law and Order (stop laughing!;)) and I believe even a CSI episode or two where they've "found" someone, early on. It goes to trial, and then then find out LATER that it wasn't that person, but rather someone else. New evidence, someone confesses, something. In Law and Order, especially, this seems to happen enough that I tend to say, "well, it's only 20 minutes in -- this might not be the guy". They'll then go after that other person.
The original suspect usually isn't mentioned (or sometimes the twist happens at the end), but it's clear that they DO make mistakes (or, as it's played out, operate on the information that they have, which isn't always complete), and work to rectify it.
Clearly, spending $40k or more on a defense attorney for something you didn't commit is something which is hard to rectify. That does suck -- but at least in fictional TV shows the cops / DAs attempt to get the Right Guy.
Why hound the poor salse person at the kiosk in the mall, if it is important to you, and they can't answer your question move on - you seem to be trying to trick them into an answer when they clearly have none to give.
The goal is not to harass salespeople. However, consumers deserve to know what they can actually expect to pay. There are only two reasons that a company would not tell us: they wish to mislead us, or they are too incompetent (as a corporate entity) to be able to tell us. It would be nearly trivial to have an automated process within the company which, each month, calculated the average amount of taxes for each set of plans within an area. Heck, even if it were within a dollar of being correct, that would be enough accuracy for most people.
The tricking-of-salespeople is not to bait them personally, but to try to uncover the degree to which the Company is either incompetent or trying to hoodwink us. It may be that they DO know the numbers, and have a policy not to tell us unless we ask specifically. (Unlikely -- as another poster has said, many sales drones are kept ignorant.:))
As a consumer, when I ask "what should I expect to pay out of pocket for this, taxes included?", the answers are:
"I don't know" : in which case, I am disinclined to purchase.
"The prices changes based on local taxes, but the average last month was $____ for this plan." : Great, I'm now an informed customer.
The only thing better is of they proactively advertise it this way when they tell you. E.g., "New, $79.99 plan for {PHONE}!" on a sign, and then the sales drone says, "Hey, our ___ plan costs $79.99 per month, and with local taxes that will likely work out being $85.73." This way, I don't even have to ASK.
I realize this is almost certinaly preaching tothe choir, but:
> Not only can credit card numbers be 13-16 characters - CC type validation is useless without applying the mod10 check algorithm to the field
The trouble with this is that one must always validate input server-side, as the user client can never be trusted. The web application must always assume that bad data will come in, by intent or accident.
So, the point of client-side validation is to help avoid the most likely accidental mistakes: make sure they put a number in a field expecting a number, make sure the credit card has the right number of digits (or is all digits and no dashes), etc. You're quite right that making sure it IS a valid number (checksum) is a great thing to have -- and the more complicated checks don't appear to be supported by a simple regex based validation. (Insert regex-fu here proving me wrong;)) Still, that's still not failsafe (as swapped digits that are 2 digits apart aren't caught), so whether to use javascript (for client convenience) or not is a UI design decision.
Still, for things that don't need more than a regex (addresses, phone numbers, etc) to validate, the Forms 2.0 way is pretty cool looking. (I'll have to read more; is it even supported by any browsers?)
when it comes to trucks, you're not going to see much speeding today - costs too much in fuel.
I think this is spot on, for the most part. Most newer cars, and I imagine trucks, have an average MPG (and often an instantaneous MPG) readout that one can look at. My current car doesn't (2001), and I tended to speed (~70 mph in 65 zone, 75 in 70 zone) on the freeway to and from work.
This past week, I was driving a rental car, as one of ours was in the shop, which had an MPG display. I was astounded at the difference than 10 or 15 mph made -- I'd go from ~28 mpg to almost 40 if I slowed from 75 to 65. I was shocked -- to the point where I tried diligently NOT to speed, and to even drive slower when convenient (and not clogging traffic). The only way it could be MORE obvious to a user would be to have a $/mile readout (which, incidentally, would be slick).
I am sure that when my son grows up, I'll get to share that bit of wisdom with him -- and when he is paying for his own gas, the ability to spend $46/week instead of $55/week in gas will be quite noticeable. If I were to increase my average mpg from ~25 to 30, I expect I'd save $500-$600 in a year, maybe more. (I drive a lot.) That's a game console, or a brand new top of the line video card. Hell, that would fund a brand new computer every two years. (Holy cow, I'm already convincing myself, hehe.)
Already, we have car commercials saying "We'll give you $3000 cash back -- that's a year's gas!" to get people to buy trucks, though. And, not everyone can afford to buy new vehicles... but not speeding DOES make for substantial fuel savings.
Even worse than that, however, was the timed events. They may make for dramatic camera angles, but they're frustrating and are an impediment to more fluid and entertaining gameplay.
As frustrating as the times things were (get past these before the ticker runs out and you have to go back and do it again because the door closed), it still felt somewhat realistic -- in that I always felt like it was believable for there to be some clockwork mechanism behind the scenes.
Now, the realism of there BEING such absurd and convoluted traps to get to ${LOCATION} were a bit of a stretch -- surely the cleaning staff, or the collector or whoever the Authorized Entity was would not need to go through all those traps.:D
His determination was that the end user is not an "owner of a copy" but a "licensee of a copy" and therefore it does not apply.
This is, I believe, the crux of the matter. I expect this won't be addressed by the appeal (if there is one), but I do feel it's a very broken aspect of the softawre industry.
Give it another decade of two and hand-writing will become one of those ancient arts only practiced by people who bother to study it.
And in the end, that's a good thing. It's a nice skill to be able to handwrite in a legible way, but that's as far as it goes.
I suspect that good, legible handwriting is due partly to teaching of technique, and partly due to practice. My father's handwriting, though he rarely uses it, is very legible; he and I both believe this is influenced significantly by his various drafting and engineering courses in high school and college. In contrast, my handwriting is a scrawl. Growing up, most of my writing (after junior high school) was on a computer. As a result, I haven't had as much raw practice (or even an emphasis on writing legibly) at the action of creating characters which others can read.
I suspect that as more people grow up typing, rather than writing, the overall legibility of their handwriting will suffer merely due to lack of practice.
Slashdot Mirror
Heck, they could even specifically DISALLOW ranked competetive play for that version ... and then the rest of us who aren't pros can play together at 1920x1200 resolution. :)
LASER Tagging:
Video of it:
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76
Background on how it's set up, and such.
http://muonics.net/blog/index.php?postid=15
I still don't quite understand how they can illuminate that strongly, but I've not read a lot of it. I /though/ the laser was for the pointing only, but it could be that it's used for the projection as well.
At least in the united states, I'm pretty sure anyone can cut anyone else open, as long as they have permission. Doctors get to do it because we effectively hire them to do so. If I write up a contract with my next door neighbor (and an accompanying waiver saying I and my family won't sue him if I get harmed as a result), he could do surgery and probably be in the right. There are laws against him trying to set up a business, but ... if I don't pay him, he's not, right? While most of us agree this would be extremely stupid to do, I don't see a reason it should be illegal. (:
Same for legal counsel. You can give legal advice to anyone, lawyers included. Whether or not it's GOOD advice is a different matter, since non-lawyers are often wrong about what's legal or not. (Including me -- it might indeed be illegal for non-doctors to cut people open, even with permission.)
Does that invalidate their research? If a citizen commits a criminal act, and finds out information which shows smoeone else to have been incompetent (or even criminally negligent), does that mean that the information is no longer valid, or is tainted? I don't think it does.
If I break into my neighbor's house, and discover his marijuana plants, I will likely get in trouble for burglary, but he'll still get busted for drugs. If I break into his computer and prove that he's been embezzling millions from taxpayers, I am likely to go to prison for all sorts of crap, but I expect he'd still be prosecutable - and that what I found would be admissible (since it wasn't the government doing an "unreasonable search" ;)).
Whether this is prudent on the part of the person doing the tresspassing is another matter completely. (I'd suggest that it's highly imprudent to break the law.)
I argue that there's a significant difference between an ICBM (deaths are a statistic) and a highly targeted remote kill. In the latter case, the target is a known Person, with people surrounding them, etc -- small enough numbers that it's easier to empathize with them as another human, rather than "the population of ____". It's easy to think about "X cattle are killed every day", but few people want to be the one to put the bolt gun to the cow's head, or break the neck of a chicken.
I suspect that the extended personal attention to a targeted person is similar to the attention paid by a sniper to his target.
I thought dd couldn't write more than ~2GB? When I tried to do that very thing (salvaging my wife's home directory), it would mysteriously fail. Eventually, I just did a mass scp of * to another machine, but was genuinely surprised that dd wouldn't work. Am I using the wrong version, or not passing it the right options, or what?
If they answer a question, it must still be truthful -- they just have the option of Not Answering. (I don't think other witnesses have that option, unless doing so would incriminate themselves.)
Sounds like they're helping students obey the law.. for the duration of the probe.
Heck, they could even send out a reminder that university policy forbade illegal filesharing. Or, make like the librarians ( http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html ) and say something like, "The RIAA has not asked us to monitor your traffic this month." (as a big sign on the campus IT building, or somesuch). Some months, it might be removed ....
While it's excellent when police DO apologize for mistakes,and work for restitution to the victims, we must not forget that the opposite also happens:
http://wcco.com/iteam/swat.team.honored.2.783216.html : SWAT team raids the wrong house, engage in a gunfight with a homeowner. They receive medals for "courage under fire" and for how they handled the situation. I wonder how things would have turned out if the homeowner had killed one of them in the process of defending his family.
The idea that the government should be exempt from criminal or civil punishment for wrongdoings is an abomination, IMO.
Solution:
Submit the entire Glider source code as an exhibit, to prove that it does not contain copyrighted or protected property. I imagine an expert witness could be found who could analyze it reliably. (Unfortunately, PAYING such a person would be more difficult.)
If Glider was written undersource control, it would be interesting to see the lifecycle of the tool, also.
This young man had video going of the entire event, even predating it (including a semi-clear shot of his speedometer). How can I rig up my car to do something similar? I'm going to make up a dream-car-surveillance wish list for the ultimate CYA capability:
- Always-on functionality: I'd like footage from the time I unlock the car with my remote to when I lock it as I walk away (and perhaps a few minutes after that).
- Audio: so there's an accounting of things people say to me, or that I say.
- Redundant microphones: One at each window, at least. Multiple sourced-recordings means that it should be harder to claim that it's been doctored.
- Multiple viewpoints: Front (over-driver's shoulder), rear (to see if people rear-end me?), sides. This way, if I am off-camera for one view, I am hopefully in another one.
- Redundant cameras: If one is discovered/destroyed/disabled, I'd like another to be already filming a similar shot. (So, I think that makes something like 8 cameras? Yikes.)
Now, this ensures that any time I am involved in an accident, a traffic stop, or any other Event while I'm in my vehicle, in theory I should have (multiple) recordings of it for reference/evidence after the fact. It could mean footage of the license plate of a hit-and-run, or "proof" of my innocence when disputing a ticket (how admissable would that be?). Heck, if I'm a witness to an accident or other Event, it would help make sure I don't mis-remember what happened.
There are, however, weaknesses which need to be addressed:
- It'll catch YOU doing bad stuff. So, don't break the law, or cause any accidents. ;)
- Local legality: Is it legal to surveill things in your area? Some states allow conversations to be recorded as long as ONE party knows of it, but only a local lawyer can tell you this. I also don't know if it applies to video footage.
- Vulnerability to destruction: If your car is destroyed, or the cameras discovered, it's possible that your in-car storage will be located (esp. if your car is impounded as evidence? do I watch too much CSI? Probably.), and could be destroyed. It's necessary, IMO, to have off-site backup for all footage your car takes. (Thus, I add another item to my Wish List: Automated upload of footage from any major "event".)
- Your next of kin and your lawyer both need to know about this AHEAD OF TIME. If you're killed in an accident, or shot by overzealous police, or tasered into a coma, they need to know that there is/could-be evidence which needs to be preserved/captured.
- You'll need to take effort to ensure that it's admissable as evidence. I don't know what this might entail; a lawyer and/or professional expert witness can probably answer this well. You'll certainly need to make sure recordings are automatically timestamped and organized, and probably automatically checksummed when archived (to help detect modification). If it can't be used in court, it's unlikely that it can actually help you.
- That's a huge amount of data! This is, I believe, the biggest hurdle: if you can't store the data, or it's too much, then you can't actually use it, even if it's legal and admissable. So, especially if we want off-site storage (automated via wireless network? ;)), we need a way to cut this down somewhat.
So, what can we do to reduce the amount of data storage we need?
1) Assume we only need permanent storage in case of an "event". We could have a "start recording" button (which would mark any data from 5 mins before, until "stop" as des
Is EFI planned to replace BIOS in the non-mac world? Can Linux bootloaders and whatnot play nicely with EFI? Heck, can Windows? If so, can one even BUY a motherboard that uses EFI? As I'm planning to build a system on which I can (hopefully) run both windows and linux, I'd like to try to avoid the whole MBR shenanigans.
I'm curious as to why the parent is modded 0, funny. Looking up a Pocket Veto, the parent seems to have summarized the ways in which laws go into effect:
- president signs it 1/in 10 days: Law
- resident vetos: not law
- president does nothing for 10 days: Law (as if he'd signed it)
- president does nothing for 10 days, but Congress adjourns before that: Not Law (pocket veto)
We appear to have an addition:
- president signs it, but then adds a statement saying that he feels it doesn't need to be followed. (Which, I confess, I cannot understand having any weight.)
I might be missing something, but I thought the parent was informative. If not, please enlighten me.
He didn't say that it was a GOOD thing -- merely that from the perspective of "motivating people not to break the law" punishing people who may not be guilty (but that the general public believes to be) is just as motivationaly effective as punishing the truly guilty.
Children being raised by these two crooks would not exactly be an asset to society.
There are many children who may or may not be an asset to society. That doesn't merit hoping for their death! Give them a chance to grow up and make something good of themselves, or even just be average.
I realize you were being funny, but there's a difference. ... and also believe that he has completely screwed it up many ways. We don't see him as infallible, and most don't see it as a way of guiding moral choices or of how to live our life.
Most geeks (even star wars geeks!) that I know are grateful that Lucas gave us that world
(Jedi religion as an exception. ;))
Agreed. I tend to just call people back directly, and ask what's up -- and if they ever ask if I got the voicemail, I say "No, I called you first". It's marginally less convenient for them, but that's balanced by the fact that most of the time the voicemail is a waste of my time. ;)
I've seen many Law and Order (stop laughing! ;)) and I believe even a CSI episode or two where they've "found" someone, early on. It goes to trial, and then then find out LATER that it wasn't that person, but rather someone else. New evidence, someone confesses, something. In Law and Order, especially, this seems to happen enough that I tend to say, "well, it's only 20 minutes in -- this might not be the guy". They'll then go after that other person.
The original suspect usually isn't mentioned (or sometimes the twist happens at the end), but it's clear that they DO make mistakes (or, as it's played out, operate on the information that they have, which isn't always complete), and work to rectify it.
Clearly, spending $40k or more on a defense attorney for something you didn't commit is something which is hard to rectify. That does suck -- but at least in fictional TV shows the cops / DAs attempt to get the Right Guy.
The goal is not to harass salespeople. However, consumers deserve to know what they can actually expect to pay. There are only two reasons that a company would not tell us: they wish to mislead us, or they are too incompetent (as a corporate entity) to be able to tell us. It would be nearly trivial to have an automated process within the company which, each month, calculated the average amount of taxes for each set of plans within an area. Heck, even if it were within a dollar of being correct, that would be enough accuracy for most people.
The tricking-of-salespeople is not to bait them personally, but to try to uncover the degree to which the Company is either incompetent or trying to hoodwink us. It may be that they DO know the numbers, and have a policy not to tell us unless we ask specifically. (Unlikely -- as another poster has said, many sales drones are kept ignorant. :))
As a consumer, when I ask "what should I expect to pay out of pocket for this, taxes included?", the answers are:
"I don't know" : in which case, I am disinclined to purchase.
"The prices changes based on local taxes, but the average last month was $____ for this plan." : Great, I'm now an informed customer.
The only thing better is of they proactively advertise it this way when they tell you. E.g., "New, $79.99 plan for {PHONE}!" on a sign, and then the sales drone says, "Hey, our ___ plan costs $79.99 per month, and with local taxes that will likely work out being $85.73." This way, I don't even have to ASK.
I realize this is almost certinaly preaching tothe choir, but:
> Not only can credit card numbers be 13-16 characters - CC type validation is useless without applying the mod10 check algorithm to the field
The trouble with this is that one must always validate input server-side, as the user client can never be trusted. The web application must always assume that bad data will come in, by intent or accident.
So, the point of client-side validation is to help avoid the most likely accidental mistakes: make sure they put a number in a field expecting a number, make sure the credit card has the right number of digits (or is all digits and no dashes), etc. You're quite right that making sure it IS a valid number (checksum) is a great thing to have -- and the more complicated checks don't appear to be supported by a simple regex based validation. (Insert regex-fu here proving me wrong ;)) Still, that's still not failsafe (as swapped digits that are 2 digits apart aren't caught), so whether to use javascript (for client convenience) or not is a UI design decision.
Still, for things that don't need more than a regex (addresses, phone numbers, etc) to validate, the Forms 2.0 way is pretty cool looking. (I'll have to read more; is it even supported by any browsers?)
I think this is spot on, for the most part. Most newer cars, and I imagine trucks, have an average MPG (and often an instantaneous MPG) readout that one can look at. My current car doesn't (2001), and I tended to speed (~70 mph in 65 zone, 75 in 70 zone) on the freeway to and from work.
This past week, I was driving a rental car, as one of ours was in the shop, which had an MPG display. I was astounded at the difference than 10 or 15 mph made -- I'd go from ~28 mpg to almost 40 if I slowed from 75 to 65. I was shocked -- to the point where I tried diligently NOT to speed, and to even drive slower when convenient (and not clogging traffic). The only way it could be MORE obvious to a user would be to have a $/mile readout (which, incidentally, would be slick).
I am sure that when my son grows up, I'll get to share that bit of wisdom with him -- and when he is paying for his own gas, the ability to spend $46/week instead of $55/week in gas will be quite noticeable. If I were to increase my average mpg from ~25 to 30, I expect I'd save $500-$600 in a year, maybe more. (I drive a lot.) That's a game console, or a brand new top of the line video card. Hell, that would fund a brand new computer every two years. (Holy cow, I'm already convincing myself, hehe.)
Already, we have car commercials saying "We'll give you $3000 cash back -- that's a year's gas!" to get people to buy trucks, though. And, not everyone can afford to buy new vehicles ... but not speeding DOES make for substantial fuel savings.
An online Voight-Kampf test? That'd be interesting, at the least. :-)
As frustrating as the times things were (get past these before the ticker runs out and you have to go back and do it again because the door closed), it still felt somewhat realistic -- in that I always felt like it was believable for there to be some clockwork mechanism behind the scenes.
Now, the realism of there BEING such absurd and convoluted traps to get to ${LOCATION} were a bit of a stretch -- surely the cleaning staff, or the collector or whoever the Authorized Entity was would not need to go through all those traps. :D
This is, I believe, the crux of the matter. I expect this won't be addressed by the appeal (if there is one), but I do feel it's a very broken aspect of the softawre industry.
I suspect that good, legible handwriting is due partly to teaching of technique, and partly due to practice. My father's handwriting, though he rarely uses it, is very legible; he and I both believe this is influenced significantly by his various drafting and engineering courses in high school and college. In contrast, my handwriting is a scrawl. Growing up, most of my writing (after junior high school) was on a computer. As a result, I haven't had as much raw practice (or even an emphasis on writing legibly) at the action of creating characters which others can read.
I suspect that as more people grow up typing, rather than writing, the overall legibility of their handwriting will suffer merely due to lack of practice.