This is a great idea, but in practice the majority of the RSI injuries I see come from the repetitive side to side motion made while dragging the mouse across the screen. In a traditional palm-down mouse, your radial and ulnar bones in your lower arm cross. This constricts the tendon sheaths, resulting in inflammation and eventually scarring.
The ideal long term hand position is thumb-up...think of holding a joystick (does anyone remember those?). The bones doesnt cross, and you use stronger muscles to move the cursor. In this position, your bicep and deltoid (shoulder) muscles carry the load, instead of the weaker muscles in your lower arms. Your palmar muscles are quite strong, and more than capable of the workload of a day's worth of traditional clicking.
If you've ever been rock climbing, you'll notice your arms muscles tire long before your fingers do. Or try this, pick up your mouse and move it side to side 200 times. Arm tired yet? Now click 200 times at the same rate. Feels easier, doesnt it?
GentleMouse may help alleviate some of the causes of RSI; however, in my opinion a upright mouse design will keep your arms healthy in a much more ergonomic way.
A small black hole carries more weight than the earth and moon? Firstly, it carries mass, not weight. Secondly, ignoring the visible event horizon, black holes do not have "size". They are zero-dimensional singularities. The result is that any mass, even say the mass of a proton, can collapse into black-hole density if you manage to compress it to point-size.
Black holes created during the experiments at the LHC would be of such low mass, they would evaporate due to Hawking radiation long before even reaching the interior wall off the collision chamber.
As this article relates mainly to taxes in the US, and I don't know where the parent is located, I'll grant him the benefit of the doubt.
Firstly, in most local governments (and a large portion of state govts as well), basic services are funded through a combination of property and sales tax, NOT excise tax. Excise taxes in the current form apply to mostly to luxury items, or NON-ESSENTIAL goods and services. In legal terms, yes, sales tax = excise tax, however not in principle. The reason phone services are taxes as excise tax is because prior to 1900, if you had a telephone, it was a luxury.
The national phone grid is not funded by taxes, rather it is funded by the service fess collected by the companies that operate the copper and fiber. The power grid in 49 of 50 states is also privately owned and funded. Only one US state, Nebraska, operates a totally public power system. Even then, only about 14% of its operating budget comes from the tax rolls; the rest is funded through usage-based billing.
Nonetheless, I agree with the spirit of the post. Enacting a internet-based sales tax would only serve to line the coffers of politically controlled interests. I like pork on my plate, but not in the government budget.
Why is legitimate criticism of the futility of permitting NASA to continue leading the vanguard of spaceflight modded as a troll?
Because you obviously do not understand the complexity and (gasp) dangers still present in space flight. When Columbia burned up, remember the cries for a moratorium on manned space travel? The tortoise won the race, while the hare died in a fire.
How come YOU aren't leading the charge into spaceflight, if its so easy?
Oh, Stormwatch: I love you. I've got myself a new Xmas present to self.
I grew up learning to type on the old school IBM keyboards (and a electric typewriter...we were poor). Some folks dislike the clickity-clack of the original IBMs but there is just something satisfying about grinding out 65 wpm on one of those babies.
I remember watching that CNN coverage, and I noticed the same tagline when it came up. It was quickly corrected to "speed of sound" but still...I'm glad someone got it on film, and now that's on my hard drive for all eternity. Thanks:)
Just last night, I was considering submitting a Ask Slashdot question on how other users deal with otherwise trustworthy sites that serve obtrusive popup/under ads. For example Merriam Webster's dictionary pages http://www.m-w.com/ which I was directed to following a link in a./ post. But I figured....popups? So 2001. Why bother the friendly folks with such a ancient topic?
For those thinking I don't know how to manage my unwanted ad exposure, keep in mind I am running Firefox 2.0 with Pop-up blocking; typically a solid solution. The MW website, however, delivered 2 ads that broke past FF's utility. It left me with my old tactic: A good-old-fashioned "You just lost a customer" email. I have a text template to make the process quicker, so here's last nights email to the House of Definitions:
To Whom it may concern:
Please be advised that I will no longer be visiting your website nor advising it to my children or students. I visited your website today and was confronted with not one, but 2 popup ads on the definitions result page. One led me directly to http://www.vonage.com/startsavingnow/ and the other was a kmart ad served by tribalfusion. Bear in mind that I use the Mozilla Firefox browser with Popup blocking active, and your website contains malicious code that defeats the pop-up window feature.
The computer I use and the programs that I run belong to me, not to you. I have no issues with your Privacy Policy, and your cookie policy. I simply request that you communicate with your third-party providers to prevent them from displaying code on your website that hijacks your customer's browser in this manner. While you are not responsible for the advertising content in said ads, you are reponsible for the user experience when visiting your site. At the present, it is not an enjoyable experience for someone who does not wish to be deluged in advertising. In addition, by continuing to host code which overrides a core browser component makes your site a possible vector for virus/malware transmission, should either your server or the servers of one of your advertisers ever be compromised.
I realize that advertising income supports your website, and more importantly your bottom line. The days when your core business was selling hardback dictionaries are over, and business models change.
However, upon the visit to your page, I am confronted with 8 total ads; the two popup/popunder ads mentioned previously, one for Hostgator, 2 Google ads for a Scooby-Doo DVD, one large graphical ad for Qwest, and two tolerable text links to your affiliate partners. All I wanted was a definition...not a great deal on DSL service!
As before, I will no longer be visiting or recommending your website or your products. There are other sources for the information you provide. In order for me to return, simple changes in your advertising strategy are requested, including the removal of popup/popunder advertising.
Sincerely,
Terry Hall
We shall see what kind of response I get. The message has worked in the past with some smaller sites, including my local bank's website. Why they needed pop-ups for revenue, I'll never know.
Re:Net neutrality == gov't regulation
on
HR 5252 Bill Dies
·
· Score: 1
Certainly:
We have 4 OC-3 connections to ATT and Level 3 fiber backbone services, total billing in the neighborhood of $100k per month.
Ignoring headend equipment purchases, customer premises equipment and plant maintenance, and figuring a monthly charge of ~$40/month per residential customer, the startup overbuilder in my OP will need 2,500 subs to break even. Real world sub numbers are higher.
Re:Net neutrality == gov't regulation
on
HR 5252 Bill Dies
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
(Beware: this post contains information for someone involved in the cable industry, and thus knows what he is talking about. Slashdotters looking for ignorant bullshit are advised to proceed elsewhere.)
Again, I'm forced to reply to someone making assumptions about the state of cable TV service in America. The fact is that Time Warner, Comcast and nearly every other MSO in the nation pay a pretty penny just for the RIGHT to service the areas which they do. They are a business participating the the same free market that you are welcome to participate in.
While your local cable company isn't going to give up their "local concessions" any sooner than AT&T or any of your POTS providers are, you are welcome to come to my town and establish licensing and permission from the various city offices and county boards that mandate easements and pole rental in the 11 communities that we serve. Pay their fee, and poof! Your complaint about government regulation seems to go up in smoke.
Come on in; in the telco industry, it's called an overbuilder. Keep in mind that in most jurisdictions you are required to cover the entire franchise area that you wish to serve, meaning you can't just service the homes by the golf course where snobbies will pay for whatever is the newest and coolest. You also have to service the south end of town, where the minority population lives paycheck to paycheck, and paying the TV bill is a option rather than a requirement in the monthly budget. (No offense to any creed or color intended, simply describing the simple facts in my job.)
Once you have completed building the entire town, have fun trying to achieve a sustainable ROI in the first 5 years before your funding and capital dries up while you try to convert a entrenched customer base from their choice of either satellite or cable service. Oh yes, don't forget about the (literally) millions of dollars charged by folks' favorite channels. You know, it will be tough to get subscribers without TNT, ESPN, FX, the NFL Network and HBO/Showtime. Wait?! You wanted to offer High Definition? Hmmm, prepared to pay double, since those dollars you are paying to ESPN only covered their standard definition feeds. But at least there are local feeds in HD...unfortunately the retransmission consent laws permit a broadcaster (ie, FREE TV) to charge cable and satellite operators for their HD. (Which is precisely the reason many MSOs still do not offer local channels in HD) In our system, monthly basic service provides 67 channels for $42.50 + sales tax and city franchise fees totaling $48.12. Of that $48, $39 goes to content providers and city coffers. Our revenue monthly for providing your service: $9.
I'd go on about the expense to provide service as an independent ISP...but I believe I made my point already. Point is, the free market exists in cable service just like any business; but the big bucks are going to the content providers (ESPN, HBO, Google/YouTube, etc.) not to the cable co.
The cavemen from the Geico commercials made a public release claiming responsiblity for global warming:
Quote: "We now know that we may have gotten a little carried away, but we were tired of all that goddamn snow!"
Global climate changes over long time-scale eras. Humans may be exacerbating a global trend, or even reversing a cooling trend. Only time will tell. That's the risk of tampering intentionally with a global system that had functioned for eons...while we have about 100 years of data to support our decision.
Imagine if today's society existed at the beginning of the last Ice Age. We'd be a confused bunch, then.
Apparently you don't live in the Midwest. Sure, Nebraska (where I live), Iowa and a handful of other states sit atop the largest freshwater aquifer in North America. But just like rivers, the Ogallala Aquifer contains trace amounts of salts and minerals from the bedrock. After 50+ years of irrigation, soil salinity keeps going up. Add that to the fact that we now have to drill 300+ feet in some places to reach groundwater when it used to be accessible at only 15-20 feet. The deeper into the aquifer you go, the higher the salt/mineral content. (The whole density thing at work there.)
Desalination makes sense anywhere, provided you've got a long term view and the process is cheap enough to be reasonably implemented.
As long as we're all thinking about Homer J Simpson, his line "D'oh!" was originally written in the script as an 'Annoyed Grunt'. D'oh was borrowed by voice actor Dan Castellaneta from an actor in the old Laurel and Hardy films. http://www.think-ink.net/doh/meaning.htm
I'm glad he borrowed it, because D'oh is such a better line than MY annoyed grunts.
On a side note, if you can find Castellaneta's CD "I am Not Homer"...it's hilarious.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a great idea, but in practice the majority of the RSI injuries I see come from the repetitive side to side motion made while dragging the mouse across the screen. In a traditional palm-down mouse, your radial and ulnar bones in your lower arm cross. This constricts the tendon sheaths, resulting in inflammation and eventually scarring.
The ideal long term hand position is thumb-up...think of holding a joystick (does anyone remember those?). The bones doesnt cross, and you use stronger muscles to move the cursor. In this position, your bicep and deltoid (shoulder) muscles carry the load, instead of the weaker muscles in your lower arms. Your palmar muscles are quite strong, and more than capable of the workload of a day's worth of traditional clicking.
If you've ever been rock climbing, you'll notice your arms muscles tire long before your fingers do. Or try this, pick up your mouse and move it side to side 200 times. Arm tired yet? Now click 200 times at the same rate. Feels easier, doesnt it?
GentleMouse may help alleviate some of the causes of RSI; however, in my opinion a upright mouse design will keep your arms healthy in a much more ergonomic way.
Aye, and what's it's top speed? I'm up to 617,480 furlongs per fortnight.
Good god, did you even take a physics class?
A small black hole carries more weight than the earth and moon? Firstly, it carries mass, not weight. Secondly, ignoring the visible event horizon, black holes do not have "size". They are zero-dimensional singularities. The result is that any mass, even say the mass of a proton, can collapse into black-hole density if you manage to compress it to point-size.
Black holes created during the experiments at the LHC would be of such low mass, they would evaporate due to Hawking radiation long before even reaching the interior wall off the collision chamber.
As this article relates mainly to taxes in the US, and I don't know where the parent is located, I'll grant him the benefit of the doubt.
Firstly, in most local governments (and a large portion of state govts as well), basic services are funded through a combination of property and sales tax, NOT excise tax. Excise taxes in the current form apply to mostly to luxury items, or NON-ESSENTIAL goods and services. In legal terms, yes, sales tax = excise tax, however not in principle. The reason phone services are taxes as excise tax is because prior to 1900, if you had a telephone, it was a luxury.
The national phone grid is not funded by taxes, rather it is funded by the service fess collected by the companies that operate the copper and fiber. The power grid in 49 of 50 states is also privately owned and funded. Only one US state, Nebraska, operates a totally public power system. Even then, only about 14% of its operating budget comes from the tax rolls; the rest is funded through usage-based billing.
Nonetheless, I agree with the spirit of the post. Enacting a internet-based sales tax would only serve to line the coffers of politically controlled interests. I like pork on my plate, but not in the government budget.
Because you obviously do not understand the complexity and (gasp) dangers still present in space flight. When Columbia burned up, remember the cries for a moratorium on manned space travel? The tortoise won the race, while the hare died in a fire.
How come YOU aren't leading the charge into spaceflight, if its so easy?
128.
(Filler content to make this post long enough.....there, that should be plenty.)
Oh, Stormwatch: I love you. I've got myself a new Xmas present to self.
I grew up learning to type on the old school IBM keyboards (and a electric typewriter...we were poor). Some folks dislike the clickity-clack of the original IBMs but there is just something satisfying about grinding out 65 wpm on one of those babies.
Clearly we are all ignoring the true danger of improper cookie use: a fat ass.
I love how the "Institute for Security and Open Methodologies" proudly displays a website that appears (at least for me) to be broken in Firefox 2.0.
I dug out IE from the Start Menu (ugh) and hmm....appears to be fixed. Perhaps this "Institute" should practice what I assume it preaches.
I remember watching that CNN coverage, and I noticed the same tagline when it came up. It was quickly corrected to "speed of sound" but still...I'm glad someone got it on film, and now that's on my hard drive for all eternity. Thanks :)
How ironic that this story appeared today.
Just last night, I was considering submitting a Ask Slashdot question on how other users deal with otherwise trustworthy sites that serve obtrusive popup/under ads. For example Merriam Webster's dictionary pages http://www.m-w.com/ which I was directed to following a link in a ./ post. But I figured....popups? So 2001. Why bother the friendly folks with such a ancient topic?
For those thinking I don't know how to manage my unwanted ad exposure, keep in mind I am running Firefox 2.0 with Pop-up blocking; typically a solid solution. The MW website, however, delivered 2 ads that broke past FF's utility. It left me with my old tactic: A good-old-fashioned "You just lost a customer" email. I have a text template to make the process quicker, so here's last nights email to the House of Definitions:
To Whom it may concern:
Please be advised that I will no longer be visiting your website nor advising it to my children or students. I visited your website today and was confronted with not one, but 2 popup ads on the definitions result page. One led me directly to http://www.vonage.com/startsavingnow/ and the other was a kmart ad served by tribalfusion. Bear in mind that I use the Mozilla Firefox browser with Popup blocking active, and your website contains malicious code that defeats the pop-up window feature.
The computer I use and the programs that I run belong to me, not to you. I have no issues with your Privacy Policy, and your cookie policy. I simply request that you communicate with your third-party providers to prevent them from displaying code on your website that hijacks your customer's browser in this manner. While you are not responsible for the advertising content in said ads, you are reponsible for the user experience when visiting your site. At the present, it is not an enjoyable experience for someone who does not wish to be deluged in advertising. In addition, by continuing to host code which overrides a core browser component makes your site a possible vector for virus/malware transmission, should either your server or the servers of one of your advertisers ever be compromised.
I realize that advertising income supports your website, and more importantly your bottom line. The days when your core business was selling hardback dictionaries are over, and business models change.
However, upon the visit to your page, I am confronted with 8 total ads; the two popup/popunder ads mentioned previously, one for Hostgator, 2 Google ads for a Scooby-Doo DVD, one large graphical ad for Qwest, and two tolerable text links to your affiliate partners. All I wanted was a definition...not a great deal on DSL service!
As before, I will no longer be visiting or recommending your website or your products. There are other sources for the information you provide. In order for me to return, simple changes in your advertising strategy are requested, including the removal of popup/popunder advertising.
Sincerely,
Terry Hall
We shall see what kind of response I get. The message has worked in the past with some smaller sites, including my local bank's website. Why they needed pop-ups for revenue, I'll never know.
Certainly:
We have 4 OC-3 connections to ATT and Level 3 fiber backbone services, total billing in the neighborhood of $100k per month.
Ignoring headend equipment purchases, customer premises equipment and plant maintenance, and figuring a monthly charge of ~$40/month per residential customer, the startup overbuilder in my OP will need 2,500 subs to break even. Real world sub numbers are higher.
OMG! William Shatner reads Slashdot!
(Beware: this post contains information for someone involved in the cable industry, and thus knows what he is talking about. Slashdotters looking for ignorant bullshit are advised to proceed elsewhere.)
Again, I'm forced to reply to someone making assumptions about the state of cable TV service in America. The fact is that Time Warner, Comcast and nearly every other MSO in the nation pay a pretty penny just for the RIGHT to service the areas which they do. They are a business participating the the same free market that you are welcome to participate in.
While your local cable company isn't going to give up their "local concessions" any sooner than AT&T or any of your POTS providers are, you are welcome to come to my town and establish licensing and permission from the various city offices and county boards that mandate easements and pole rental in the 11 communities that we serve. Pay their fee, and poof! Your complaint about government regulation seems to go up in smoke.
Come on in; in the telco industry, it's called an overbuilder. Keep in mind that in most jurisdictions you are required to cover the entire franchise area that you wish to serve, meaning you can't just service the homes by the golf course where snobbies will pay for whatever is the newest and coolest. You also have to service the south end of town, where the minority population lives paycheck to paycheck, and paying the TV bill is a option rather than a requirement in the monthly budget. (No offense to any creed or color intended, simply describing the simple facts in my job.)
Once you have completed building the entire town, have fun trying to achieve a sustainable ROI in the first 5 years before your funding and capital dries up while you try to convert a entrenched customer base from their choice of either satellite or cable service. Oh yes, don't forget about the (literally) millions of dollars charged by folks' favorite channels. You know, it will be tough to get subscribers without TNT, ESPN, FX, the NFL Network and HBO/Showtime. Wait?! You wanted to offer High Definition? Hmmm, prepared to pay double, since those dollars you are paying to ESPN only covered their standard definition feeds. But at least there are local feeds in HD...unfortunately the retransmission consent laws permit a broadcaster (ie, FREE TV) to charge cable and satellite operators for their HD. (Which is precisely the reason many MSOs still do not offer local channels in HD) In our system, monthly basic service provides 67 channels for $42.50 + sales tax and city franchise fees totaling $48.12. Of that $48, $39 goes to content providers and city coffers. Our revenue monthly for providing your service: $9.
I'd go on about the expense to provide service as an independent ISP...but I believe I made my point already. Point is, the free market exists in cable service just like any business; but the big bucks are going to the content providers (ESPN, HBO, Google/YouTube, etc.) not to the cable co.
Is this something we should be keeping away from nano-emo kids?
Try again. FLoating Point OPerations/Second.
The cavemen from the Geico commercials made a public release claiming responsiblity for global warming:
Quote: "We now know that we may have gotten a little carried away, but we were tired of all that goddamn snow!"
Global climate changes over long time-scale eras. Humans may be exacerbating a global trend, or even reversing a cooling trend. Only time will tell. That's the risk of tampering intentionally with a global system that had functioned for eons...while we have about 100 years of data to support our decision.
Imagine if today's society existed at the beginning of the last Ice Age. We'd be a confused bunch, then.
Apparently you don't live in the Midwest. Sure, Nebraska (where I live), Iowa and a handful of other states sit atop the largest freshwater aquifer in North America. But just like rivers, the Ogallala Aquifer contains trace amounts of salts and minerals from the bedrock. After 50+ years of irrigation, soil salinity keeps going up. Add that to the fact that we now have to drill 300+ feet in some places to reach groundwater when it used to be accessible at only 15-20 feet. The deeper into the aquifer you go, the higher the salt/mineral content. (The whole density thing at work there.)
Desalination makes sense anywhere, provided you've got a long term view and the process is cheap enough to be reasonably implemented.
I know its not a space race, but I'm sure Issac Azimov still is getting a boner in his grave.
It's only a matter of time before ALL his predictions come true.
Oh I don't know about that...the DMCA and recent gay-marriage proposals seem to contradict your (correct) line of thinking.
Music and video copying and transfers were happening without a concrete legal barrier, so one was erected in the form of the DMCA.
Gay marriages started happening, so citizens and lawmakers started stumping to make it illegal, but it already had happened.
Never underestimate the power of America to turn the Constitution into a mere inconvenience.
Cursive words, eh? Luckily for me, I haven't written in cursive since 6th grade. Dodged another MS bullet without even realizing it.
When you're poor and in college, you WILL eat nearly anything for 30 bucks.
As long as we're all thinking about Homer J Simpson, his line "D'oh!" was originally written in the script as an 'Annoyed Grunt'. D'oh was borrowed by voice actor Dan Castellaneta from an actor in the old Laurel and Hardy films. http://www.think-ink.net/doh/meaning.htm
I'm glad he borrowed it, because D'oh is such a better line than MY annoyed grunts.
On a side note, if you can find Castellaneta's CD "I am Not Homer"...it's hilarious.
Sadly, I must admit that you're right on corn based packing peanuts. They remind my of the puffy style Cheetos...sans cheese.
Try kneading some baby oil into it if it isn't completely dried out; usually if the cap is left off only the top gets crusty.
It also masks that distinctive smell...but if you're into that smell you can either use plain mineral oil or buy the PlayDoh cologne.