What would a writer need that Oo or any other word processor lacks? Excel I see; it's head and shoulders above other spreadsheets, but a word processor is a word processor.
The rest of us idiots can watch normal people play sports.
Normal? You consider Shaquille O'Niel or Babe Ruth to be "normal"? I guess you'ld consider Einstein normal as well? Hell, I wouldn't even consider myself as "normal".
Why is it OK for a baseball player with 20/20 vision to have LASIK surgery to improve his eyesight to above normal so he can hit more fast balls and make more home runs but not OK for him to take steroids to make his strength above normal to hit more home runs? I just don't see the difference.
You not only miss his point completely, you seem to be actively avoiding it. His point is that there should be no need whatever for the damned movie to phone home. There should be no reason you should have a net connection to watch a movie or play a single player game.
DRM helps nobody except the folks giggling that the DRM they wrote is raking in cash from clueless morons in the entertainment industry even though it can't possibly do what it's designed to do. All DRM can do is annoy paying customers; it doesn't affect piracy at all, except when it pisses off paying customers enough that they go to the Pirate Bay for a superior product than the legal one.
Back when few wore glasses, glasses were the sign of being a nerd and we were indeed attacked, quite often. Worse than wearing glasses was wearing glasses while carrying a stack of books.
That was back when little TV was watched (three channels black and white, cable was in the future... most thigs we take for granted were sci-fi then) and kids played outside. A kid being inside all the time watching TV and playing video games and surfing the net will make him as nersighted as reading did back then... and just like now, few people do read.
Nowadays young folks all wear glasses, or have had LASIK, because of the TVs, computers, tablets, cell phones, and other close up devices that made them all nearsighted.
Last time I looked at one of these Linux laptops, the price was higher than the $350 Windows laptop I saw at staples.
That's because the OEM makes a profit from the folks willing to pay to have their crapware preinstalled (Norton, AOL, Yahoo, whoever). It actually is cheaper for the OEM to pay ten bucks for the Windows license and make another $100 from the crapware firms. Windows users don't know any better, because all their computers come with crapware, but Linux users would scream bloody murder (I would, that's for sure).
And since most distros are dirt simple to install, there's really no reason (short of UEFI/Palladium... remember Palladium?) to buy a computer with Linux preinstalled. Installing Linux takes less time and effort than removing crapware from a new Windows machine.
Just to head off the other common complaint, I'd like to mention another recent invention called DNS
Your thermostat will no more need a dot whatever address than the computer on your desk does. DNS is for web sites, nothing more. As to connecting, it will be as easy as using wifi to connect your two computers, neither of which has a domain name but both of which have IP addresses..
The unions help you whether or not you're in one. You like paid vacations, sick time, and weekends? Thank the unions.
Anyone who actually works for a living and doesn't like unions is ignorant and/or stupid. There is no downside to unions as far as the worker is concerned, and if business didn't treat their workers like shit, there would be no need for them.
Don't worry, kid, you'll be fine. I have a CrystaLens in my left eye that gives me 20/16 vision at distance and 20/12 closeup vision. I used to have 20/400 vision. It's completely transparent to the user, as the best designs always are. I focus it just the same as a young person focuses their natural lense; no figuring anything out at all. Look at a thing, and it's in focus.
Your problem when you get old will be the same problem my 81 year old dad has with cell phones and computers -- a fixed income and an attitude. "I did without a cell phone and computer for 80 years and I don't need one now."
When my uncle wanted to put indoor plumbing in my grandfather's house, he had the same attitude. Uncle Bud put it in anyway at the insistance of my grandmother. Grandpa still used the outhouse, even though there was now a bathroom. You get stuck in your ways when you get old.
If people suddenly started buying EVs en masse then they wouldn't be able to find enough labor (or budget) to upgrade all the neighborhoods
But they're not going to start buying them en masse. It will start with the rich and work its way down to the rest of us like every other technology has. Plus, most electrical useage is in the daytime, people will be charging them at night.
I wonder, can the existing transformers be run at a higher voltage
Voltage doesn't come into play, it's amps being pulled by the neighborhood. Too much amperage and a transformer will explode in a loud, pretty shower of blue and yellow sparks.
If we quadrupled the voltage and required stepdown transformers at the point of consumption
There's already a stepdown transformer are the point of consumption. Your house uses 110 volts (220 is two paralell 110 lines), the voltage on the wires up on the utility poles is 750 volts. The high tension lines on the towers are 30,000 volts.
My dad was an electrical lineman. Worked on half the infrastructure in the US; poles, towers, and underground wiring.
Aspirin is less than a penny per pill. Anybody who buys Alieve is stupid, since generic Naproxin Sodium costs 1/3 as much and is the exact same drug.
The patent on Paxil ran out while I was on them, and my co-pay went from $80 for Paxil to $5 for the generic... but whoever manufactures Paxil came out with a time-release version that my incompetent quack* tried to push on me (and they were les effective; I went back to the generics).
But the markup on generics is tiny, especially in comparison to illegal drugs. Take pot, for example. Up to and sometimes over $200 per ounce, and it's easier to grow than tobacco. A pack of cigarettes is an ounce of tobacco, and here a pack of that dangerous legal drug is less than $7 including the horrific taxes on them. Personally, I think the tobacco companies are more evil than the legal drug pushers, but nowhere near as bad as the ones selling illegal drugs.
What was Pfizer's revenue last year compared to Apple or Microsoft? Tiny in comparison.
* Withdrawal from the Paxil almost killed me; the quack took me off of them as I was moving out of my foreclosed house. It was the only time in my life I ever contemplated suicide, and the only thing that kept me alive was knowing how it would affect the people who love me.
Not that amnesic, I remember all of it. I especially remember kind of freaking out when they stuck the needle in my eye. But there was no pain, and I didn't feel high or disoriented, although they warned me that it was illegal for me to drive for the next 24 hours.
I can vouch for that as an eyewitness. I was severely nearsighted all my life with 20/400 vision. Then I got older and was farsighted as well, then I got an eye infection and the treatment gave me a cataract. My vision is now 20/16 at distance and 20/12 at close up; way better than the normal 20/20. No glasses, no contacts, not even reading glasses... and I'm 60!
You would have been better linking CrystaLens itself rather than your surgeon's site.
Not everyone gets that good of results, however. The literature from CrystaLens itself says 98% of patients wind up with 20/25 or better. 20/25 isn't bad, but nowhere near super vision. I got lucky and had an excellent surgeon. My ex-wife wasn't so lucky, she had the surgery at a different place and now wears bifocals.
But the implant TFS is talking about is far from super vision; at 525 pixels you would still be legally blind, which is better than completely blind.
Your congressman sucks. I've never failed to recieve a reply when contacting any of my elected representatives, and in fact Senator Durbin is taking the time to help a crazy homeless woman I know on Social Security (she used to be a nurse before she went crazy). Now-transportation secretary Hood was my congressman once, and when I emailed asking if a certain thing was legal, he replied with a copy of the law itself. And he was one of the ones I really didn't like too much. Note that one is a Democrat and one a Republican.
And I'm no rich guy representing a corporation, and Amy certainly isn't (she's been sleeping on my couch until she can get into a shelter, her few belongings in my garage).
it's just putting a lot more things on the plain old Internet, such as thermostats and smart cards and refrigerators and washing machines and strain gauges and....
Thermostats and strain guages, sure, but why would one need their washing machine, refrigerator, or toaster on the internet? "Just because" is a dumb reason for doing something, especially something that costs cash. Plus, you could already put your thermostat on the internet, this simply allows you to put tinier things on it, because it uses less memory and power.
I've had that surgery. They don't use scalpels, they use needles. First they shoot ultrasound down the needle to turn the lens into goo, then extract it through the needle, then insert the artificial lens through the needle where it unrolls. Here are photos and an explanation, which pretty much matches what the surgeon told me.
I hope you got the CrystaLens, they can actually focus. I don't even need reading glasses and I'm 60. I used to need both contacts AND reading glasses.
Voters are already tracked; your registration is a matter of record. In many states (Illinois is one) you have to declare a party when voting in a primary election, and that, too, is a matter of public record.
Decriminalizing drugs won't help; users are still going to have to buy them from illegal sellers. Outright legalization and regulation is the only way. It worked with alcohol, the only Chicago gangs there are now are drug gangs. You don't see alcohol gangs anymore. Had they simply decriminalized alcohol, Capone's heirs would still be gunning folks down in the streets.
Actually, this is more impressive than the fictional Dr. Seldon, since the real scientists didn't have the use of any mind-reading robots, or a machine to enhanse the brain function of... er... I forgot what Seldon't partner's name was, been a while since I read the series.
My memory on this is fuzzy.... but wasn't there a bit that said the farther in the future you go, the more accurate the prediction?
You have to remember that Foundation was fiction, and like almost all SF, the realities aren't going to match the fiction. Don't take a lot of stock in Foundation, it was an excellent series but don't quote it in a college paper unless the subject is literature.
Indeed. I had a CrystaLens implanted in my left eye, and two years later a vitrectomy. Someone should tell the AC they don't use knives in eye surgery, they use needles.
TFS says "The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic" but this is at least misleading. The first surgery I had (lens replacement) took over an hour and would be far simpler than this procedure, and the vitrectomy, which repairs a detatched retina and replaces the eye's vitreous with nitrogen gas took two and a half hours.
It was more than a local, as well. They put you into what they call "twilight sleep". You're awake, but not really. I was offered the choice between a local (including the twilight drug) and a general for the vitrectomy, I told Dr. Odin (yes, that's his real name!) "knock me out" but the anestesiologist talked me out of it.
I should have taken the general for the vitrectomy. Having your head bolted to an operating table is sheer hellish pain when you have spinal arthritis.
I've had two eye surgeries in my left eye; an artificial lens implant and a vitrectomy. There was no pain in the eye whatever with either surgery, not even post-op.
Not being able to put eyedrops in is only a matter of your fear. Artificial tears don't hurt, neither do new contact lenses (back in 1975 when they were primitive, I couldn't use them, I tried).
Sometimes you can't opt for a general, for the lens replacement you can't be asleep, but I would imagine with this artificial retina you would have a choice; I had a choice with the vitrectomy (without which I would have gone completely blind in that eye).
I'm not saying I can't work a Windows machine, I've been using Windows since W95 (and DOS before that). It's just that doing anything on a Windows machine takes ten times as many clicks, Windows is not laid out rationally, and changes its interface way too much with each release. It's not difficult, it's just annoying.
As to "market share" most non-nerds I know never even heard of Linux before I clued them in. Linux has no advertising, MS and Apple spend millions on it.
As someone who drinks in a ghetto bar, I have to tell you from personal experience that you're wrong. They're selling dope to the 'hos, most of whom are addicted to some drug or another. They usually have nice hot rods, apartments, and girlfiends (ofen even have children).
Slashdot Mirror
From TFS: Forty-three years ago this week a Saturn V propelled the Apollo 11 astronauts to the first manned landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
For the non-geezers out there, this is what the night Armstrong and Aldrin first stepped on the moon was like.
What would a writer need that Oo or any other word processor lacks? Excel I see; it's head and shoulders above other spreadsheets, but a word processor is a word processor.
The rest of us idiots can watch normal people play sports.
Normal? You consider Shaquille O'Niel or Babe Ruth to be "normal"? I guess you'ld consider Einstein normal as well? Hell, I wouldn't even consider myself as "normal".
Why is it OK for a baseball player with 20/20 vision to have LASIK surgery to improve his eyesight to above normal so he can hit more fast balls and make more home runs but not OK for him to take steroids to make his strength above normal to hit more home runs? I just don't see the difference.
TFS: "Businesses are increasingly more curious about open source"
Citation needed; if only that were true. Yeah, Apache and Linux-based servers, but little to nothing else.
How is this +5 Insightful?
You not only miss his point completely, you seem to be actively avoiding it. His point is that there should be no need whatever for the damned movie to phone home. There should be no reason you should have a net connection to watch a movie or play a single player game.
DRM helps nobody except the folks giggling that the DRM they wrote is raking in cash from clueless morons in the entertainment industry even though it can't possibly do what it's designed to do. All DRM can do is annoy paying customers; it doesn't affect piracy at all, except when it pisses off paying customers enough that they go to the Pirate Bay for a superior product than the legal one.
Back when few wore glasses, glasses were the sign of being a nerd and we were indeed attacked, quite often. Worse than wearing glasses was wearing glasses while carrying a stack of books.
That was back when little TV was watched (three channels black and white, cable was in the future... most thigs we take for granted were sci-fi then) and kids played outside. A kid being inside all the time watching TV and playing video games and surfing the net will make him as nersighted as reading did back then... and just like now, few people do read.
Nowadays young folks all wear glasses, or have had LASIK, because of the TVs, computers, tablets, cell phones, and other close up devices that made them all nearsighted.
Last time I looked at one of these Linux laptops, the price was higher than the $350 Windows laptop I saw at staples.
That's because the OEM makes a profit from the folks willing to pay to have their crapware preinstalled (Norton, AOL, Yahoo, whoever). It actually is cheaper for the OEM to pay ten bucks for the Windows license and make another $100 from the crapware firms. Windows users don't know any better, because all their computers come with crapware, but Linux users would scream bloody murder (I would, that's for sure).
And since most distros are dirt simple to install, there's really no reason (short of UEFI/Palladium... remember Palladium?) to buy a computer with Linux preinstalled. Installing Linux takes less time and effort than removing crapware from a new Windows machine.
Just to head off the other common complaint, I'd like to mention another recent invention called DNS
Your thermostat will no more need a dot whatever address than the computer on your desk does. DNS is for web sites, nothing more. As to connecting, it will be as easy as using wifi to connect your two computers, neither of which has a domain name but both of which have IP addresses..
The unions help you whether or not you're in one. You like paid vacations, sick time, and weekends? Thank the unions.
Anyone who actually works for a living and doesn't like unions is ignorant and/or stupid. There is no downside to unions as far as the worker is concerned, and if business didn't treat their workers like shit, there would be no need for them.
Don't worry, kid, you'll be fine. I have a CrystaLens in my left eye that gives me 20/16 vision at distance and 20/12 closeup vision. I used to have 20/400 vision. It's completely transparent to the user, as the best designs always are. I focus it just the same as a young person focuses their natural lense; no figuring anything out at all. Look at a thing, and it's in focus.
Your problem when you get old will be the same problem my 81 year old dad has with cell phones and computers -- a fixed income and an attitude. "I did without a cell phone and computer for 80 years and I don't need one now."
When my uncle wanted to put indoor plumbing in my grandfather's house, he had the same attitude. Uncle Bud put it in anyway at the insistance of my grandmother. Grandpa still used the outhouse, even though there was now a bathroom. You get stuck in your ways when you get old.
If people suddenly started buying EVs en masse then they wouldn't be able to find enough labor (or budget) to upgrade all the neighborhoods
But they're not going to start buying them en masse. It will start with the rich and work its way down to the rest of us like every other technology has. Plus, most electrical useage is in the daytime, people will be charging them at night.
I wonder, can the existing transformers be run at a higher voltage
Voltage doesn't come into play, it's amps being pulled by the neighborhood. Too much amperage and a transformer will explode in a loud, pretty shower of blue and yellow sparks.
If we quadrupled the voltage and required stepdown transformers at the point of consumption
There's already a stepdown transformer are the point of consumption. Your house uses 110 volts (220 is two paralell 110 lines), the voltage on the wires up on the utility poles is 750 volts. The high tension lines on the towers are 30,000 volts.
My dad was an electrical lineman. Worked on half the infrastructure in the US; poles, towers, and underground wiring.
Aspirin is less than a penny per pill. Anybody who buys Alieve is stupid, since generic Naproxin Sodium costs 1/3 as much and is the exact same drug.
The patent on Paxil ran out while I was on them, and my co-pay went from $80 for Paxil to $5 for the generic... but whoever manufactures Paxil came out with a time-release version that my incompetent quack* tried to push on me (and they were les effective; I went back to the generics).
But the markup on generics is tiny, especially in comparison to illegal drugs. Take pot, for example. Up to and sometimes over $200 per ounce, and it's easier to grow than tobacco. A pack of cigarettes is an ounce of tobacco, and here a pack of that dangerous legal drug is less than $7 including the horrific taxes on them. Personally, I think the tobacco companies are more evil than the legal drug pushers, but nowhere near as bad as the ones selling illegal drugs.
What was Pfizer's revenue last year compared to Apple or Microsoft? Tiny in comparison.
* Withdrawal from the Paxil almost killed me; the quack took me off of them as I was moving out of my foreclosed house. It was the only time in my life I ever contemplated suicide, and the only thing that kept me alive was knowing how it would affect the people who love me.
Not that amnesic, I remember all of it. I especially remember kind of freaking out when they stuck the needle in my eye. But there was no pain, and I didn't feel high or disoriented, although they warned me that it was illegal for me to drive for the next 24 hours.
There might be some additional benefits: Superhero vision http://www.komar.org/faq/colorado-cataract-surgery-crystalens/
I can vouch for that as an eyewitness. I was severely nearsighted all my life with 20/400 vision. Then I got older and was farsighted as well, then I got an eye infection and the treatment gave me a cataract. My vision is now 20/16 at distance and 20/12 at close up; way better than the normal 20/20. No glasses, no contacts, not even reading glasses... and I'm 60!
You would have been better linking CrystaLens itself rather than your surgeon's site.
Not everyone gets that good of results, however. The literature from CrystaLens itself says 98% of patients wind up with 20/25 or better. 20/25 isn't bad, but nowhere near super vision. I got lucky and had an excellent surgeon. My ex-wife wasn't so lucky, she had the surgery at a different place and now wears bifocals.
But the implant TFS is talking about is far from super vision; at 525 pixels you would still be legally blind, which is better than completely blind.
Your congressman sucks. I've never failed to recieve a reply when contacting any of my elected representatives, and in fact Senator Durbin is taking the time to help a crazy homeless woman I know on Social Security (she used to be a nurse before she went crazy). Now-transportation secretary Hood was my congressman once, and when I emailed asking if a certain thing was legal, he replied with a copy of the law itself. And he was one of the ones I really didn't like too much. Note that one is a Democrat and one a Republican.
And I'm no rich guy representing a corporation, and Amy certainly isn't (she's been sleeping on my couch until she can get into a shelter, her few belongings in my garage).
it's just putting a lot more things on the plain old Internet, such as thermostats and smart cards and refrigerators and washing machines and strain gauges and....
Thermostats and strain guages, sure, but why would one need their washing machine, refrigerator, or toaster on the internet? "Just because" is a dumb reason for doing something, especially something that costs cash. Plus, you could already put your thermostat on the internet, this simply allows you to put tinier things on it, because it uses less memory and power.
I've had that surgery. They don't use scalpels, they use needles. First they shoot ultrasound down the needle to turn the lens into goo, then extract it through the needle, then insert the artificial lens through the needle where it unrolls. Here are photos and an explanation, which pretty much matches what the surgeon told me.
I hope you got the CrystaLens, they can actually focus. I don't even need reading glasses and I'm 60. I used to need both contacts AND reading glasses.
Voters are already tracked; your registration is a matter of record. In many states (Illinois is one) you have to declare a party when voting in a primary election, and that, too, is a matter of public record.
Decriminalizing drugs won't help; users are still going to have to buy them from illegal sellers. Outright legalization and regulation is the only way. It worked with alcohol, the only Chicago gangs there are now are drug gangs. You don't see alcohol gangs anymore. Had they simply decriminalized alcohol, Capone's heirs would still be gunning folks down in the streets.
Actually, this is more impressive than the fictional Dr. Seldon, since the real scientists didn't have the use of any mind-reading robots, or a machine to enhanse the brain function of... er... I forgot what Seldon't partner's name was, been a while since I read the series.
My memory on this is fuzzy.... but wasn't there a bit that said the farther in the future you go, the more accurate the prediction?
You have to remember that Foundation was fiction, and like almost all SF, the realities aren't going to match the fiction. Don't take a lot of stock in Foundation, it was an excellent series but don't quote it in a college paper unless the subject is literature.
Indeed. I had a CrystaLens implanted in my left eye, and two years later a vitrectomy. Someone should tell the AC they don't use knives in eye surgery, they use needles.
TFS says "The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic" but this is at least misleading. The first surgery I had (lens replacement) took over an hour and would be far simpler than this procedure, and the vitrectomy, which repairs a detatched retina and replaces the eye's vitreous with nitrogen gas took two and a half hours.
It was more than a local, as well. They put you into what they call "twilight sleep". You're awake, but not really. I was offered the choice between a local (including the twilight drug) and a general for the vitrectomy, I told Dr. Odin (yes, that's his real name!) "knock me out" but the anestesiologist talked me out of it.
I should have taken the general for the vitrectomy. Having your head bolted to an operating table is sheer hellish pain when you have spinal arthritis.
I've had two eye surgeries in my left eye; an artificial lens implant and a vitrectomy. There was no pain in the eye whatever with either surgery, not even post-op.
Not being able to put eyedrops in is only a matter of your fear. Artificial tears don't hurt, neither do new contact lenses (back in 1975 when they were primitive, I couldn't use them, I tried).
Sometimes you can't opt for a general, for the lens replacement you can't be asleep, but I would imagine with this artificial retina you would have a choice; I had a choice with the vitrectomy (without which I would have gone completely blind in that eye).
I'm not saying I can't work a Windows machine, I've been using Windows since W95 (and DOS before that). It's just that doing anything on a Windows machine takes ten times as many clicks, Windows is not laid out rationally, and changes its interface way too much with each release. It's not difficult, it's just annoying.
As to "market share" most non-nerds I know never even heard of Linux before I clued them in. Linux has no advertising, MS and Apple spend millions on it.
As someone who drinks in a ghetto bar, I have to tell you from personal experience that you're wrong. They're selling dope to the 'hos, most of whom are addicted to some drug or another. They usually have nice hot rods, apartments, and girlfiends (ofen even have children).