seriously, every list of things that we can expect to see "real soon now" involves speech recognition.
and all i can say is... why?
who wants to work in an office full of cubes of people talking to their computers?
do you really want to read that confidential memo out loud?
besides, i can't imagine how awful it would be if everyone started speaking their memos and blog posts and comments &c. you think e-mail looks sloppy now... just wait until folks start yakking at their computers and pressing (or, i guess, saying?) "send".
sheesh. the last thing i want to do is "talk" to the web.
1) i have so far been able to get all but 2 books i was looking for on it.
2) why, yes, i do read 5 or 6 books per month, at least (not all hardback, to be sure). this past month, i think i plowed through 12 or 13. of course, that may, in part, be due to the kindle being very convenient to lug around.
3) it sure is easier than lugging a couple books on every business trip i have to take.
4) it is a lot more comfortable than reading on a laptop, especially on a plane. and not nearly so battery hungry.
4a) it's easier to read almost anyplace (other than a desk) than a laptop, come to think of it.
5) it sucked when i was telling a guy who just discovered chuck klosterman that he should check out _downtown owl_, because it's a great book and i just finished re-reading it, and i'd loan/give it to him except that it's on my kindle.
6) i don't like there being a record of everything i read on my kindle out there for amazon/_insert random government agency_/etc. to see, but frankly it's not nearly as embarassing/suspicious as the things i look at on my web browser, and i figure someone at my isp is currently being treated to hookers/blow/[hookers & blow] by the nsa in exchange for turning over my browsing records, anyway. i have no illusions of privacy.
the thing has pros and cons like any other media format. but the last time i moved, i had a truckload of books. literally. a one-ton pickup truck full of books. the idea of being able to read what i want (whenever i want) without acquiring another truckload of physical book-objects is worth the downside to me. and thus i got this kindle. and i like it so far.
drm considerations aside (a bit bothered by them, to be sure), i recommend for folks who read a lot or are very sensitive to weight/size considerations when travelling. and, of course, try to check one out first to make sure you can comfortably read on it...
for me, economics didn't play too much of an issue, it was more about the device itself. plus, much like corn ethanol, i see this as a needed step to get between a crappy, inefficient old process to a new, cool one. and i guess if kindle 1.0 is an intermediate step on that journey, as someone who like to read (lots) i am happy to support, etc...
there are some small design issues with the kindle, but overall i find it about as comfortable as reading a paper book. and that's good enough for me.
unless there's a part of the world that you feel sure that you'd like to work in, or you're going to go into a field where there's a very high concentration of non-english speaking folks of a particular linguistic bent that lends itself to an obvious choice... it's hard to guess which foreign language would be best for you to learn.
however, mandarin (even if it's probably impossible to learn properly for an english-speaking adult) is very buzz-worthy on a resume. spanish is quite useful in the western hemisphere (even in the southwestern u.s. in case you've never been...). russia might be the next china in terms of economic development, and while it's difficult for an american to learn, it's easier than chinese.
having done some hiring in my life, though, i was always happy to have someone who was fluent in another language because you never know what you might need (how was i to know that having someone who could speak fluent polish might come in very handy some day??? but it did just the same). so it's always a good selling point. i say go for it.
signed, someone currently visiting montreal who only speaks english, and barely gets that right half of the time.
do they know the appropriate congressman to make a contribution to?
if so, it would have sailed through with no objections from the ftc.
if not? it would have been questioned (but would have passed as soon as congress realized that ebay is a business and their management/shareholders have money available to give to re-election campaigns).
but if the person in question (a kid, i suppose?) isn't naturally nerdy, it might have to be taught.
me, i was nerdy... and my mom (really more of a hippy than a nerd) still taught me to think of myself. my dad (a non-nerdy ultra conservative) taught me it was ok to learn stuff if it helped you get get work done. so i have no complaints.
i think the key is to teach kids to ask lots of questions. the nerdiness and skepticism will usually follow, i think.
...but it will catch the real enemy of this administration and of the tsa - folks willing to think for themselves and unwilling to be scared into submitting to big brother.
i already take off my shoes at the airport. and, because my job requires me to fly quite a bit and get where i'm going, i produce id (passport, usually). and every time i take the baggie with my toothpaste and travel-size deodorant out of my carry-on, i throw up in my mouth a little bit.
but i keep doing it.
because i have to pay the mortgage.
i can't remember who said this, but someone once said the 20th/21st century equivalent to the nazi war criminals' "i was just following orders" line will be "well, i had a mortgage to pay"...
Am I the only person who would buy this just to see what a game that's been in development since the Clinton administration would look like?
I agree with the earlier post - they would be doing a great disservice by releasing this game, if only because they would rob us of a good vaporware joke. What are we going to replace it with... Perl 6?
i guess they have delivered one of them to Singapore Air. But until they actually start PRODUCING these things, who cares what OS they use to show movies on their non-existent planes?
eventually, as consumers become more savvy (remember for the non-techie folks how NEW all of this is) you'll see people begin to gravitate toward companies that sell the idea that they are a "Secure" place to do business.
this started happening a few years ago on the web... soon it will be occuring in the brick and mortar stores. until then, it's the wild west.
and... JOB APPLICATION KIOSKS connected to the network? WHY? i have had this conversation with various employers/managers over my career when security comes up... WHY DOES THIS MACHINE HAVE TO BE CONNECTED TO YOUR NETWORK (or at least, to your "main" network)? it should always be the first question whenever a new machine is installed, ESPECIALLY when any tom, dick and/or harry can walk in and mash buttons on the keyboard.
point taken. i guess i have this naive idea that larger sites at least are somewhat regualarly reviewed for this kind of stuff. i suppose not. and now with google &c. caching everything, every tom, dick and harry who puts up a site that gets hacked/infected/is poorly written in the first place winds up being preserved for posterity in a cache somewheres. i really ought to learn more about the internets. i mean, i'm mostly a hardware geek. but i should still be able to understand it, what with the tubes and all. i did work for a pipe company a long time ago...
i guess i'm going to show my complete ignorance of web development and teh intarweb at large, but here goes:
why on earth would something get cached if it is malware infected/contains exploits without being cleaned at some future time when said malware or exploits are discovered?
i know the caching is an automated process, but the caches themselves aren't scanned for malware/code exploits like the live sites?
of course windows is still relevant (for now)
on
The Relevance of Windows
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· Score: 2, Interesting
that doesn't mean that i want to have to use it for anything. it's ms' right to include whatever they want in their os, in my opinion. it's also my right to prefer os x or linux (or my old vic 20) to using windows.
i think the software companies involved in the whining are just trying to save an obsolete business model, kind of like the music companies complaining about itunes selling music too cheap or the movie studios trying to keep anyone from hacking the encryption on their dvds.
as far as the security thing goes, i don't really have any sympathy for the av companies, but at the same time i'm not sure ms' track record gives me any reason to believe they can handle the security of my computer. of course, my only windows machine is my company issue dell laptop, and it's probably going to die of an exploding battery or me chucking it out the window when i get frustrated trying to use it before it gets a virus anyway.
Re:The answer to a question nobody asked
on
USB Batteries
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· Score: 1
Excellent point about international travel. So maybe there is a market. Most of my travel is domestic, so I'm spoiled by my lack of having to own adapters.
Looking around the house, I have two devices that run on AA... my Xbox controller, a TV remote. Oh, and maybe the carbon monoxide detector. It's a bad sign that I can't remember the last time I changed the batteries.
I used to have an old analog cell phonce (c. 1993 or so) that would run on a rechargeable NiCad battery OR 4 AA batteries. That was nice... since the talk time on that damn thing was so short. I always had some AA batteries in my travel bag and I could get another few hours of standby or an hour of talk time from them. Nice when travelling, and even at the time it seemed amusing to talk on a cellphone that ran on AA batteries. I also rewired an old Atari 2600 to run on 9V batteries (you could play Yars Revenge for like 2 hours before the batteries drained!).
It's funny to think that my Razr is thinner than a AA battery and probably has more memory than the home computer I was using at the time...
The answer to a question nobody asked
on
USB Batteries
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Hmm.. $20 for a way to drain my laptop faster? If I have power to waste, I'm usually close enough to an outlet to use a cheaper rechargeable battery... has there been a clamor for USB powered power devices that I wasn't aware of? Short of recharging my iPod, most of my USB needs are computer peripherals. I think you can file this with the Java enabled toaster.
Time to get my USB powered electric pencil sharpener patented and on the market
At least in my experience, past success of a franchise (as mentoned in the article) is probably a better indicator of whether I will buy a game... I usually only read reviews if I'm for some reason undecided about a game. I do not buy that many games (having a job seems to interfere with my ability to play too many of them), so when I do it's usually based on something other than someone else's opinion.
I think these days you have two groups of people
1) buy games the day they come out because they have for some reason been anticipating it's release
2) wait until they can rent the game or play someone else's copy to see if they like it.
In both cases, I can see reviews playing some role ("I was waiting for Civ IV to come out, and man, the reviews say it's awesome so I HAVE to buy it" or "I wonder what games I've never played are good enough to bother renting"), but I think negative reviews probably carry more weight than positive ones in either case.
I just wish I had read a review of Madden 2007 for the 360. Worst implementation of Madden ever. I'd rather play the old copy I had for my Apple IIc+...
I suppose this is an equally possible flip side.... I feel like any time I see a content provider patent a new tech, I get to thinking about how they are using it to maximize profit. Not that these businesses should have any other motive than profit, I don't guess, but at the same time I think we all need to be wary of any "technological advances" they are kind enough to offer the consumer. Of course, that leaves us with Sony trying to use content to sell us proprietary standards (rather than using a standard to try to sell us content). In any case I just get tired of it. Which makes the iTunes download I'm in the middle of even more ironic.
They can phase out old DVDs even faster now... you're paying extra for the HD content anyway, so why not buy the HD player? Seems like a new approached to planned obsolescence by Warner.
What immediately came to mind for me is what Paypal/Ebay have done, which is basically to say something like "If you get an e-mail from us, it will always have your registered name on it and we will never ask for your password, etc..."
If the bank makes it clear what kinds of requests are likely to be phishers and which are not, I think that would qualify.
Also if the bank somehow compromised security by letting private information out which was then used to phish, I think they could be held accountable.
I think if the bank does not take reasonable care to keep the phishing from happening, they should pay. Otherwise, that's like saying the post office should be responsible for mail fraud... there should still be some personal responsibility. So I guess it all revolves around the phrase "reasonable care". I'm sure it will, like all such gray areas, end up spawning lots and lots of lawsuits. The lawyers will probably collect more than the phishers.
I used to live someplace where the power was very unreliable (by U.S. standards) in that it was not uncommon to have one or two power outages per month that lasted from several hours to a day or two. It was out in the middle of nowhere (which means an electric pump to get wellwater, so no crummy tasting sulfur water during the power outages, either). To this day, even though I live someplace where the power has gone out once in the last three years (the northeast blackout a couple years back), I don't trust electricity to always be on and usually have enough contingency plans to get by for a day or two (candles, water (even though I have city water now, go figure), ups on the computer, etc...) and my wife (who grew up places without power outage problems) thinks I am a bit nuts. My parents (who grew up in even more remote areas than where I did and were both born in houses without indoor plumbing) think that I take elctricity for granted. My grandparents who grew up in an even more remote area did not have electricity as kids and do not understand why people panic when the power goes out.... It's all what you are used to.
When you expect people to trust the unseen middleware which runs a frighteningly high percentage of their lives (both at home and work), you have to remember most of them have no idea how it works and have enough experience with today's crappy OS of choice that they don't see computers as reliable. In 20 or 30 years, some of us will wonder how on earth our kids trust a computer with a Microsoft core to drive their cars for them while they watch movies over their wireless broadband dashboard videoscreens. They will trust it because they are used to computers that are reliable. Remember, we are only in the first 20-30 years of computer technology that is available for average people to directly interact with on a daily basis. How reliable was an electrical home appliance 100 years ago or a mass produced car 75 years ago? Think of how long it took us to fully trust these technologies (jokes about the quality of current American autos aside) and realize how early we are in the personal computer age (which is again the only way that most people experience "computer technology").
As a current resident of Rochester, I would have to say that (at first blush) ANY improvement in mass transit here would be welcome.
BUT... When I moved here, the city was abuzz with the startup to the "Fast Ferry" which travels Lake Ontario between Rochester and Toronto. No mention of why anyone from Toronto would want to visit Rochester, but it would just "have to be" an economic boon to the community, right?. Well, it's now on it's second operating company, running over budget, currently reducing its schedule and can't turn a profit. Which means the city of Rochester has to support it.
Anyone in Rochester knows we have more serious concerns than getting tourists back and forth from Toronto. For instance: the fact that my wife and I would love to live in the city here, but couldn't dream of sending any potential children to the schools there & we don't much like being mugged/shot at, etc. So we live in an "inner suburb" about 1 mile south of the city. I work in an industrial area about 1 mile west of downtown... about a 5 mile commute. Maybe the ferry money could be used so I could take a bus to work? With the current schedules, my only option would be to work a 7 hour day. I don't think my employer will go for that.
Anyway, a subway is an absolutely hilarious idea for another "mass transit" boondoggle here in Rochester. Luckily, it isn't gaining much traction currently... I think there's been more talk of turning the old tunnels into more absolutely unneeded retail space.
Mass transit is wonderful, when I used to live in Ann Arbor I used it regularly (there's an example of a well-run bus system for you, at least compared to the various other cities I've called home). I think cities should concentrate on educating kids and getting transit for poor inner city neighborhoods to the places where the jobs are, not fancy downtown transit systems for rich white guys (Detroit People Mover, I'm talking to you...). As for me, I guess I'll keep driving my relatively fuel efficient 4-banger to work every day.
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seriously, every list of things that we can expect to see "real soon now" involves speech recognition.
and all i can say is... why?
who wants to work in an office full of cubes of people talking to their computers?
do you really want to read that confidential memo out loud?
besides, i can't imagine how awful it would be if everyone started speaking their memos and blog posts and comments &c. you think e-mail looks sloppy now... just wait until folks start yakking at their computers and pressing (or, i guess, saying?) "send".
sheesh. the last thing i want to do is "talk" to the web.
all i know about my kindle:
1) i have so far been able to get all but 2 books i was looking for on it.
2) why, yes, i do read 5 or 6 books per month, at least (not all hardback, to be sure). this past month, i think i plowed through 12 or 13. of course, that may, in part, be due to the kindle being very convenient to lug around.
3) it sure is easier than lugging a couple books on every business trip i have to take.
4) it is a lot more comfortable than reading on a laptop, especially on a plane. and not nearly so battery hungry.
4a) it's easier to read almost anyplace (other than a desk) than a laptop, come to think of it.
5) it sucked when i was telling a guy who just discovered chuck klosterman that he should check out _downtown owl_, because it's a great book and i just finished re-reading it, and i'd loan/give it to him except that it's on my kindle.
6) i don't like there being a record of everything i read on my kindle out there for amazon/_insert random government agency_/etc. to see, but frankly it's not nearly as embarassing/suspicious as the things i look at on my web browser, and i figure someone at my isp is currently being treated to hookers/blow/[hookers & blow] by the nsa in exchange for turning over my browsing records, anyway. i have no illusions of privacy.
the thing has pros and cons like any other media format. but the last time i moved, i had a truckload of books. literally. a one-ton pickup truck full of books. the idea of being able to read what i want (whenever i want) without acquiring another truckload of physical book-objects is worth the downside to me. and thus i got this kindle. and i like it so far.
drm considerations aside (a bit bothered by them, to be sure), i recommend for folks who read a lot or are very sensitive to weight/size considerations when travelling. and, of course, try to check one out first to make sure you can comfortably read on it...
for me, economics didn't play too much of an issue, it was more about the device itself. plus, much like corn ethanol, i see this as a needed step to get between a crappy, inefficient old process to a new, cool one. and i guess if kindle 1.0 is an intermediate step on that journey, as someone who like to read (lots) i am happy to support, etc...
there are some small design issues with the kindle, but overall i find it about as comfortable as reading a paper book. and that's good enough for me.
unless there's a part of the world that you feel sure that you'd like to work in, or you're going to go into a field where there's a very high concentration of non-english speaking folks of a particular linguistic bent that lends itself to an obvious choice... it's hard to guess which foreign language would be best for you to learn.
however, mandarin (even if it's probably impossible to learn properly for an english-speaking adult) is very buzz-worthy on a resume. spanish is quite useful in the western hemisphere (even in the southwestern u.s. in case you've never been...). russia might be the next china in terms of economic development, and while it's difficult for an american to learn, it's easier than chinese.
having done some hiring in my life, though, i was always happy to have someone who was fluent in another language because you never know what you might need (how was i to know that having someone who could speak fluent polish might come in very handy some day??? but it did just the same). so it's always a good selling point. i say go for it.
signed,
someone currently visiting montreal who only speaks english, and barely gets that right half of the time.
do they know the appropriate congressman to make a contribution to?
if so, it would have sailed through with no objections from the ftc.
if not? it would have been questioned (but would have passed as soon as congress realized that ebay is a business and their management/shareholders have money available to give to re-election campaigns).
but if the person in question (a kid, i suppose?) isn't naturally nerdy, it might have to be taught.
me, i was nerdy... and my mom (really more of a hippy than a nerd) still taught me to think of myself. my dad (a non-nerdy ultra conservative) taught me it was ok to learn stuff if it helped you get get work done. so i have no complaints.
i think the key is to teach kids to ask lots of questions. the nerdiness and skepticism will usually follow, i think.
you don't know how "too much" they charge until you fly out of cvg...
...but it will catch the real enemy of this administration and of the tsa - folks willing to think for themselves and unwilling to be scared into submitting to big brother.
i already take off my shoes at the airport. and, because my job requires me to fly quite a bit and get where i'm going, i produce id (passport, usually). and every time i take the baggie with my toothpaste and travel-size deodorant out of my carry-on, i throw up in my mouth a little bit.
but i keep doing it.
because i have to pay the mortgage.
i can't remember who said this, but someone once said the 20th/21st century equivalent to the nazi war criminals' "i was just following orders" line will be "well, i had a mortgage to pay"...
Am I the only person who would buy this just to see what a game that's been in development since the Clinton administration would look like?
I agree with the earlier post - they would be doing a great disservice by releasing this game, if only because they would rob us of a good vaporware joke. What are we going to replace it with... Perl 6?
i'm sure if apple changed their name to "pomme" or put mayonnaise on the parking meters, they could get away with this.
i guess they have delivered one of them to Singapore Air. But until they actually start PRODUCING these things, who cares what OS they use to show movies on their non-existent planes?
the joys of not working for a "value added" dept.
eventually, as consumers become more savvy (remember for the non-techie folks how NEW all of this is) you'll see people begin to gravitate toward companies that sell the idea that they are a "Secure" place to do business.
this started happening a few years ago on the web... soon it will be occuring in the brick and mortar stores. until then, it's the wild west.
and...
JOB APPLICATION KIOSKS connected to the network? WHY? i have had this conversation with various employers/managers over my career when security comes up... WHY DOES THIS MACHINE HAVE TO BE CONNECTED TO YOUR NETWORK (or at least, to your "main" network)? it should always be the first question whenever a new machine is installed, ESPECIALLY when any tom, dick and/or harry can walk in and mash buttons on the keyboard.
this is why i love /.. i can comment on things i don't know much about and get funny sarcastic replies that are still more-or-less good-natured.
that's three hyphens out of the last 26 characters i typed. not bad.
point taken. i guess i have this naive idea that larger sites at least are somewhat regualarly reviewed for this kind of stuff. i suppose not. and now with google &c. caching everything, every tom, dick and harry who puts up a site that gets hacked/infected/is poorly written in the first place winds up being preserved for posterity in a cache somewheres. i really ought to learn more about the internets. i mean, i'm mostly a hardware geek. but i should still be able to understand it, what with the tubes and all. i did work for a pipe company a long time ago...
i guess i'm going to show my complete ignorance of web development and teh intarweb at large, but here goes:
why on earth would something get cached if it is malware infected/contains exploits without being cleaned at some future time when said malware or exploits are discovered?
i know the caching is an automated process, but the caches themselves aren't scanned for malware/code exploits like the live sites?
that doesn't mean that i want to have to use it for anything. it's ms' right to include whatever they want in their os, in my opinion. it's also my right to prefer os x or linux (or my old vic 20) to using windows.
i think the software companies involved in the whining are just trying to save an obsolete business model, kind of like the music companies complaining about itunes selling music too cheap or the movie studios trying to keep anyone from hacking the encryption on their dvds.
as far as the security thing goes, i don't really have any sympathy for the av companies, but at the same time i'm not sure ms' track record gives me any reason to believe they can handle the security of my computer. of course, my only windows machine is my company issue dell laptop, and it's probably going to die of an exploding battery or me chucking it out the window when i get frustrated trying to use it before it gets a virus anyway.
Excellent point about international travel. So maybe there is a market. Most of my travel is domestic, so I'm spoiled by my lack of having to own adapters.
Looking around the house, I have two devices that run on AA... my Xbox controller, a TV remote. Oh, and maybe the carbon monoxide detector. It's a bad sign that I can't remember the last time I changed the batteries.
I used to have an old analog cell phonce (c. 1993 or so) that would run on a rechargeable NiCad battery OR 4 AA batteries. That was nice... since the talk time on that damn thing was so short. I always had some AA batteries in my travel bag and I could get another few hours of standby or an hour of talk time from them. Nice when travelling, and even at the time it seemed amusing to talk on a cellphone that ran on AA batteries. I also rewired an old Atari 2600 to run on 9V batteries (you could play Yars Revenge for like 2 hours before the batteries drained!).
It's funny to think that my Razr is thinner than a AA battery and probably has more memory than the home computer I was using at the time...
Hmm.. $20 for a way to drain my laptop faster? If I have power to waste, I'm usually close enough to an outlet to use a cheaper rechargeable battery... has there been a clamor for USB powered power devices that I wasn't aware of? Short of recharging my iPod, most of my USB needs are computer peripherals. I think you can file this with the Java enabled toaster.
Time to get my USB powered electric pencil sharpener patented and on the market
At least in my experience, past success of a franchise (as mentoned in the article) is probably a better indicator of whether I will buy a game... I usually only read reviews if I'm for some reason undecided about a game. I do not buy that many games (having a job seems to interfere with my ability to play too many of them), so when I do it's usually based on something other than someone else's opinion.
I think these days you have two groups of people
1) buy games the day they come out because they have for some reason been anticipating it's release
2) wait until they can rent the game or play someone else's copy to see if they like it.
In both cases, I can see reviews playing some role ("I was waiting for Civ IV to come out, and man, the reviews say it's awesome so I HAVE to buy it" or "I wonder what games I've never played are good enough to bother renting"), but I think negative reviews probably carry more weight than positive ones in either case.
I just wish I had read a review of Madden 2007 for the 360. Worst implementation of Madden ever. I'd rather play the old copy I had for my Apple IIc+...
I suppose this is an equally possible flip side.... I feel like any time I see a content provider patent a new tech, I get to thinking about how they are using it to maximize profit. Not that these businesses should have any other motive than profit, I don't guess, but at the same time I think we all need to be wary of any "technological advances" they are kind enough to offer the consumer. Of course, that leaves us with Sony trying to use content to sell us proprietary standards (rather than using a standard to try to sell us content). In any case I just get tired of it. Which makes the iTunes download I'm in the middle of even more ironic.
They can phase out old DVDs even faster now... you're paying extra for the HD content anyway, so why not buy the HD player? Seems like a new approached to planned obsolescence by Warner.
What immediately came to mind for me is what Paypal/Ebay have done, which is basically to say something like "If you get an e-mail from us, it will always have your registered name on it and we will never ask for your password, etc..." If the bank makes it clear what kinds of requests are likely to be phishers and which are not, I think that would qualify. Also if the bank somehow compromised security by letting private information out which was then used to phish, I think they could be held accountable.
I think if the bank does not take reasonable care to keep the phishing from happening, they should pay. Otherwise, that's like saying the post office should be responsible for mail fraud... there should still be some personal responsibility. So I guess it all revolves around the phrase "reasonable care". I'm sure it will, like all such gray areas, end up spawning lots and lots of lawsuits. The lawyers will probably collect more than the phishers.
When you expect people to trust the unseen middleware which runs a frighteningly high percentage of their lives (both at home and work), you have to remember most of them have no idea how it works and have enough experience with today's crappy OS of choice that they don't see computers as reliable. In 20 or 30 years, some of us will wonder how on earth our kids trust a computer with a Microsoft core to drive their cars for them while they watch movies over their wireless broadband dashboard videoscreens. They will trust it because they are used to computers that are reliable. Remember, we are only in the first 20-30 years of computer technology that is available for average people to directly interact with on a daily basis. How reliable was an electrical home appliance 100 years ago or a mass produced car 75 years ago? Think of how long it took us to fully trust these technologies (jokes about the quality of current American autos aside) and realize how early we are in the personal computer age (which is again the only way that most people experience "computer technology").
As a current resident of Rochester, I would have to say that (at first blush) ANY improvement in mass transit here would be welcome.
BUT... When I moved here, the city was abuzz with the startup to the "Fast Ferry" which travels Lake Ontario between Rochester and Toronto. No mention of why anyone from Toronto would want to visit Rochester, but it would just "have to be" an economic boon to the community, right?. Well, it's now on it's second operating company, running over budget, currently reducing its schedule and can't turn a profit. Which means the city of Rochester has to support it.
Anyone in Rochester knows we have more serious concerns than getting tourists back and forth from Toronto. For instance: the fact that my wife and I would love to live in the city here, but couldn't dream of sending any potential children to the schools there & we don't much like being mugged/shot at, etc. So we live in an "inner suburb" about 1 mile south of the city. I work in an industrial area about 1 mile west of downtown... about a 5 mile commute. Maybe the ferry money could be used so I could take a bus to work? With the current schedules, my only option would be to work a 7 hour day. I don't think my employer will go for that.
Anyway, a subway is an absolutely hilarious idea for another "mass transit" boondoggle here in Rochester. Luckily, it isn't gaining much traction currently... I think there's been more talk of turning the old tunnels into more absolutely unneeded retail space.
Mass transit is wonderful, when I used to live in Ann Arbor I used it regularly (there's an example of a well-run bus system for you, at least compared to the various other cities I've called home). I think cities should concentrate on educating kids and getting transit for poor inner city neighborhoods to the places where the jobs are, not fancy downtown transit systems for rich white guys (Detroit People Mover, I'm talking to you...). As for me, I guess I'll keep driving my relatively fuel efficient 4-banger to work every day.