Yes, you need to know every one of those things...
...IF you want to be a great navigator and never get lost.
Or you can content yourself with getting lost sometimes and rely completely on GPS. There's a tradeoff. Just like with learning how the CPU runs your code: makes you a better programmer, but gives you less time for tennis. What's your preference?
I've got a Garmin and love it. It's made to sit easily on the dash, has a bigger screen than a phone, doesn't need cell coverage, and doesn't keep me from using my phone.
The only thing not to like is that the maps eventually get out of date, and that it's a separate cost.
The ideal would be to have it built in to my dash and update itself via Wi-Fi when I pull into the driveway.
That actually sounds amazing to me - $0.99 if you listen more than (roughly) 1 1/4 hours every single day in a given month; otherwise, free. Unless you're philosophically opposed to paying anything, it's hard to imagine a better deal. Makes me want to check it out.
Possibilities in music aren't as infinite as you might think. There are only a few notes in the scale, and there are only a few notes in a song's hook.
Yes. And also, out of all possible melodies, most will sound "wrong" (and/or be impossible to sing). Music theory is the study of what makes music sound "right" or "good" - the rules are not absolute, but describe the sounds that people have naturally preferred. And while there have been lots of experimenters who made atonal music, or songs that are in two different keys simultaneously, or music that consists of noise, almost nobody likes that sort of thing.
Consequently, there are many fewer "good-sounding" melodies than the math would suggest.
I don't know if you've noticed, but 99% of commercial music sucks, too. It just has better marketing.
There are many possible ways for music to suck. Commercial music is rarely noisy, off-pitch, or otherwise painful to listen to, as is bad indie music. Bad commercial music is just stupid, but is well-produced. If you want background music, it's just fine. Indie music can be great, but commercial music is more reliably passable.
These days it seems absurd to talk about running Photoshop or AutoCAD through a web browser... But in another dozen years it may make perfect sense
Maybe. But I'd bet that the most computation-expensive apps will always run locally. It just doesn't make sense to add the extra round-trip to a server.
Now, maybe they'll run locally inside the browser, at the rate the Javascript engines are speeding up. We'll see.
Just another example of the "if you have done nothing then you have nothing to fear" mentality.
Right. Unless you read my next sentence.
A real danger, however, is that the info could be misused.
My argument was that, in the case of an honest government, location data would not produce false positives for criminal cases, but rather would confirm or deny other evidence, making for more accurate convictions.
In the case of a corrupt government (and no government can be completely free from corruption), tracking could be used for political or other improper ends. Which is why I said "I don't like the GPS tracking proposal."
Just because I don't buy every argument against Proposal X doesn't mean I agree with Proposal X. Especially when I've explicitly stated my disagreement.
Sure, let's say there's a murder, and they decide to check out every car that was in the vicinity at the estimated time of death. Congrats...just by driving around that area, you are now on a list of potential suspects to be investigated.
I don't like the GPS tracking proposal, but I think your argument is wrong. The more info that is collected, the more accurate the analysis should be. Obviously innocent people are going to be near any crime scene. Now, if you were there, AND you had a motive...
A real danger, however, is that the info could be misused. Maybe someone who works in the Office of Vehicle Tracking is a criminal who now knows where his intended victims are at all times. Or maybe he has political connections and spies on one candidate to provide political ammo for another.
So even if this is their first exposure to the concept, at least it tells them there are other browsers. And if MS auto-updates them from IE6 to IE8 - hooray! It's an improvement.
Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you'd want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 - right out of the box.
"Sure, you may not want the customizations we included, and may want ones we didn't include, or may want to create your own. But we're Microsoft! So we don't care."
No, wait, wait. Let me try again.
"Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, and quality of add-ons, and ability to create custom collections of add-ons to share with your friends, and ability to create your own, and... wait, how is it that we win, again?"
I'm not advocating censorship, but really, can't you make games that represent any political or artistic notion that comes into your head? What viewpoints cannot be expressed because of this repressive censorship we now have?
And it's hard to swallow the idea that video games aren't allowed to be violent enough. You can already kill prostitutes for fun and torture people to death and make people explode in gore - what else do you want? Are there ANY rules right now, other than a rating system that gives people fair warning?
P.S. - no, it's not perfect, and people do freeload, and dumb laws are passed. But personally I prefer it to anarchy. Again, if you disagree, there are other countries to choose from.
It's ok for 10 crooks in office to take your money by force, or tell you what you can do with your land or your body or your tools (by force), but if CmdrTaco and I decide to lift your wallet, it's illegal?
It's different.
We, as citizens, using our votes, decided we want roads, schools, police, zoning, etc.
We agreed to share the cost.
Nobody gets to opt out, or everyone would try to freeload.
Hence, you have to pay.
This is quite different than being mugged and getting nothing in return. If you don't like the bargian, you have options.
Get into politics and try to change taxation and/or spending.
[Carriers] do request features and stuff like that so they aren't necessarily reacting to what is being produced, in some cases, they are driving it's production.
More often, I think, carriers block features that would otherwise be on phones. "No, you can't include a USB port; then they won't need our service for sending pictures," or "No, you can't build in VOIP; then we can't charge them the way we want."
I'd rather have a cellular ISP - I pay for my bandwidth, and I do what I want with it. Including anything a handset maker can come up with.
Verizon puts a lot of money into marketing the BBerry Storm, AT&T helps market the iPhone etc. The argument is that without exclusive handsets there's less motivation to do this.
Yes, without exclusivity, the carriers wouldn't be motivated to market themselves based on their exclusive handsets. That's not really an argument, though, just an observation.
Instead, they'd have to compete based on the things THEY actually create - their network, their customer service, and their plans. Which would be great for everyone - except them.
I know you're not serious, but "let's not intentionally cripple people" and "let's genetically screen/alter them to our liking" are very different propositions.
What we are likely to see with people choosing the physical traits of their children is an awful lot of boys with Shaquille O'Neal's body and Stephen Hawkins' mind.
Or, scarier, super-soldier clones who are bred to hit puberty early and are conditioned not to question orders.
As in, why don't people just adopt the already-existing baby that meets whatever "criteria" they have instead of doing all of this?
I agree. I think an obsession with perfection is at the root. Loving a child who needs you isn't enough; you have to have one who's brilliant and beautiful and athletic.
Personally, I would rather see a reduction of laws and policies that hurt privacy - like the law that prevents you from purchasing pseudofed over the counter without giving up your personal information to the pharmacist who is pretty much free to do whatever they want with it after they send it in to the feds.
Meth production and use was an epidemic in northern Georgia a few years ago. I was a reporter at the time, and saw bulk ephedra for sale in gas stations. Since that law was passed, usage has dropped drastically. Part of the decline may be that the drug is so destructive that it got a bad reputation, but if the law helped, I think it's worth it.
You really don't want the phone companies to be able to refuse service to anybody...
I seem to recall reading in my Terms of Service that if I were to use my infinite mobile-to-mobile minutes to set up a long-distance baby monitor, they would terminate my service. Only "normal conversation" (or some such term) is allowed.
If they can terminate service in their own interests, they should be able to do it in the interest of their customers.
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Sorry, I was unclear - what I meant was that the device itself is a separate cost, not the maps.
...IF you want to be a great navigator and never get lost.
Or you can content yourself with getting lost sometimes and rely completely on GPS. There's a tradeoff. Just like with learning how the CPU runs your code: makes you a better programmer, but gives you less time for tennis. What's your preference?
Oh yeah, another BIG benefit: no cellular data plan needed. That alone makes it cheaper.
I've got a Garmin and love it. It's made to sit easily on the dash, has a bigger screen than a phone, doesn't need cell coverage, and doesn't keep me from using my phone.
The only thing not to like is that the maps eventually get out of date, and that it's a separate cost.
The ideal would be to have it built in to my dash and update itself via Wi-Fi when I pull into the driveway.
That actually sounds amazing to me - $0.99 if you listen more than (roughly) 1 1/4 hours every single day in a given month; otherwise, free. Unless you're philosophically opposed to paying anything, it's hard to imagine a better deal. Makes me want to check it out.
Yes. And also, out of all possible melodies, most will sound "wrong" (and/or be impossible to sing). Music theory is the study of what makes music sound "right" or "good" - the rules are not absolute, but describe the sounds that people have naturally preferred. And while there have been lots of experimenters who made atonal music, or songs that are in two different keys simultaneously, or music that consists of noise, almost nobody likes that sort of thing.
Consequently, there are many fewer "good-sounding" melodies than the math would suggest.
No. You also have to dance, dance.
There are many possible ways for music to suck. Commercial music is rarely noisy, off-pitch, or otherwise painful to listen to, as is bad indie music. Bad commercial music is just stupid, but is well-produced. If you want background music, it's just fine. Indie music can be great, but commercial music is more reliably passable.
Maybe. But I'd bet that the most computation-expensive apps will always run locally. It just doesn't make sense to add the extra round-trip to a server.
Now, maybe they'll run locally inside the browser, at the rate the Javascript engines are speeding up. We'll see.
Right. Unless you read my next sentence.
My argument was that, in the case of an honest government, location data would not produce false positives for criminal cases, but rather would confirm or deny other evidence, making for more accurate convictions.
In the case of a corrupt government (and no government can be completely free from corruption), tracking could be used for political or other improper ends. Which is why I said "I don't like the GPS tracking proposal."
Just because I don't buy every argument against Proposal X doesn't mean I agree with Proposal X. Especially when I've explicitly stated my disagreement.
I don't like the GPS tracking proposal, but I think your argument is wrong. The more info that is collected, the more accurate the analysis should be. Obviously innocent people are going to be near any crime scene. Now, if you were there, AND you had a motive...
A real danger, however, is that the info could be misused. Maybe someone who works in the Office of Vehicle Tracking is a criminal who now knows where his intended victims are at all times. Or maybe he has political connections and spies on one candidate to provide political ammo for another.
Yes, this site is full of lies. But a lot of people out there don't know the difference between a browser and a search engine.
So even if this is their first exposure to the concept, at least it tells them there are other browsers. And if MS auto-updates them from IE6 to IE8 - hooray! It's an improvement.
"Sure, you may not want the customizations we included, and may want ones we didn't include, or may want to create your own. But we're Microsoft! So we don't care."
No, wait, wait. Let me try again.
"Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, and quality of add-ons, and ability to create custom collections of add-ons to share with your friends, and ability to create your own, and... wait, how is it that we win, again?"
I'm not advocating censorship, but really, can't you make games that represent any political or artistic notion that comes into your head? What viewpoints cannot be expressed because of this repressive censorship we now have?
And it's hard to swallow the idea that video games aren't allowed to be violent enough. You can already kill prostitutes for fun and torture people to death and make people explode in gore - what else do you want? Are there ANY rules right now, other than a rating system that gives people fair warning?
P.S. - no, it's not perfect, and people do freeload, and dumb laws are passed. But personally I prefer it to anarchy. Again, if you disagree, there are other countries to choose from.
It's different.
This is quite different than being mugged and getting nothing in return. If you don't like the bargian, you have options.
More often, I think, carriers block features that would otherwise be on phones. "No, you can't include a USB port; then they won't need our service for sending pictures," or "No, you can't build in VOIP; then we can't charge them the way we want."
I'd rather have a cellular ISP - I pay for my bandwidth, and I do what I want with it. Including anything a handset maker can come up with.
Yes, without exclusivity, the carriers wouldn't be motivated to market themselves based on their exclusive handsets. That's not really an argument, though, just an observation.
Instead, they'd have to compete based on the things THEY actually create - their network, their customer service, and their plans. Which would be great for everyone - except them.
And yet, somehow I fear that even this will not usher in The Year of Linux on the Desktop.
I know you're not serious, but "let's not intentionally cripple people" and "let's genetically screen/alter them to our liking" are very different propositions.
Or maybe their lack of physical abilities forced them to focus on thinking and writing.
Or, scarier, super-soldier clones who are bred to hit puberty early and are conditioned not to question orders.
I agree. I think an obsession with perfection is at the root. Loving a child who needs you isn't enough; you have to have one who's brilliant and beautiful and athletic.
Meth production and use was an epidemic in northern Georgia a few years ago. I was a reporter at the time, and saw bulk ephedra for sale in gas stations. Since that law was passed, usage has dropped drastically. Part of the decline may be that the drug is so destructive that it got a bad reputation, but if the law helped, I think it's worth it.
I seem to recall reading in my Terms of Service that if I were to use my infinite mobile-to-mobile minutes to set up a long-distance baby monitor, they would terminate my service. Only "normal conversation" (or some such term) is allowed.
If they can terminate service in their own interests, they should be able to do it in the interest of their customers.