The Dell XPS series is a good example of this. A 4:3 screen would have fitted perfectly, but instead I've got two one inch black strips glued on where my screen should be. My XPS is from 2005 and sports 1920x1200. I have trouble finding a 22-inch with that resolution, and I mock 50" HD-TVs for their inferior resolution.
The XPS series doesn't sound like the best comparison here.;)
Note: The XPS colors suck, though. I can easily see gradients between colors that are supposed to be smooth. It is nowhere as good as a 10-year old super-cheapo CRT I had lying around and compared the screen with.
It's not incoherent to say that the brain controls the arm, so why is it incoherent to suggest something controls the brain? Occam's Razor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor
If "something" controls the brain, it could be anything. Including an army of malevolent pink unicorns or anything else. Keeping track of an infinite amount of possibilities isn't sensible.
Used to freak me out, and it was hard to swallow since I have that Horatio Algeirs kind of narrative: Grew up on welfare in a house without indoor plumbing and now have a doctorate and am typing this on the toilet I picked (the best... I loves me a good quality toilet) in the house I just remodeled. It would feel very nice to think that I did all of this and deserve this wonderful throne. You do, so feel nice.
Free will is not required. You were born as just you, with a brain capable of juggling all that quantum mayhem into order and manage to come out on top of things. Even if you were largely in for the ride, a different person might not have been as good at adapting to things, and wouldn't have made it.
Does this count as a Slashdot meme already? Every time there is a story on Slashdot about how the net is somehow better somewhere else than in the US the result is "But the US is so big" Americans today are wussies compared to Americans of the past.
Those guys covered that big, fat country in roads. They didn't whine and make excused about about how big the country was, they rolled up their sleeves and paved it.
If it makes you feel better to make excuses while falling behind in technology, feel free to do so. But know that falling behind in technological infrastructure is a very bad thing.
I don't understand the problem with fixing "infinite" plans. Why not use a plan structure like this?:
Full bandwidth until 10 GB limit. 128kbps after limit is reached. Reset each month.
The numbers are just pulled out of the air. You'll want enough GB than most people will never hit it, making the plan infinite for all practical purposes. They can keep their computers turned on every day, all day. No surprises, no huge bill suddenly happening because they passed the cap. Even if someone get some malware maxing their connection. Customers might accept that the email-spamming virus "makes the Internet slow". They will NOT accept a $5000 bill for the bandwith used by said virus.
And after the cap, it's still as good as infinite. Email and browsing will function fine, just a little bit slow.
The only ones that will notice are heavy users. I'll happily pay a bit extra for the bandwidth I use. Just get a bigger plan with more GB before capped.
Such a plan could also easily be extended with off-peak rates. Usage between 2am-6am only count 50% towards your cap limit, for example.
Dead simple to implement, and would make perfect sense for everyone. No?
It's exactly this kind of thinking that the ISPs use to justify filtering p2p and whatnot, and it's completely wrong. You pay for a speed of X, then X is the amount of bandwidth you should be allowed to use. If you're not, that's fine, but doesn't change the fact that those that do are perfectly within their rights to do so. I don't see the problem.
Keep the unlimited plans, but throttle bandwidth according to usage. For example:
0-20GB: 10 Mbps 20-50GB: 1 Mbps 50GB+ : 256k
Quota reset every month. My mother would never touch that 20GB ceiling, but a heavy user might want to buy a more expensive plan that give you full speed for 100GB. You can download as much as you like, you'll just take a bandwidth hit if you exceed your plan.
The business can never work unless there is a link between what consumers pay and what expenses they incur on the company. Any "all-you-can-eat plans" are simply not connected with reality.
Mind you, if people have to pay extra to upload more GB, P2P would no longer be "free". I think that would hurt P2P as nothing the RIAA have ever imagined. P2P popularity goes hand in hand with current "infinite usage" plans.
For me, these forums will never feel like the same safe haven that they used to be. Just add a flash blocker and turn off gif animations? Instant safe haven.
I'm not expecting all epileptics to know about this, but you should spread the word and teach them how to disable animations in their browsers. For anyone photosensitive, killing all animations will probably be a huge benefit.
Hint: massive thermonuclear reaction taking place above our heads every day, subjecting the Earth and everything on it to almost inconceivably powerful doses of electromagnetic energy. Heat stroke? Skin cancer? Those "inconceivably powerful doses of electromagnetic energy" actually kill people.
I like WiFi as much as anyone else. But making comparisons with stuff capable of killing might not convince a suspicious mind.
The reason the sun don't kill us outright is because we're evolved to handle it. (Mind you, oxygen is a crazy reactive element and a different life form might consider breathing it as much fun as swimming in hydrocloric acid.)
If people worry about man-made sources of electromagnetic radiation, soothe them with stories of how infintesmal it is.
how would your family react to hear fuck-you matches, or people calling each other dicks on the radio tomorrow morning? Personally, I'd change channel.
The few supposed exceptions turned out not to be. The body cannot adjust to it. HIV is a polymorphic virus that mutates almost every replication. There is no evolutionary pressure to be resistant to it, because there is no survival rate. Which "exceptions that turned out not to be" are these? I'd appreciate some links to read more about this.
An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected.
As the problem is simply one of image, create two brands, say "Wikipedia Core" and "Wikipedia Fringe". Keep everything, but only elevate articles into the core on some sort of vote / consensus. Keeps both sides happy. Exactly. This is not really about choosing a soul for Wikipedia. It's a matter of managing information.
Split the "Fringe" part off as a separate project, just make sure they seamlessly integrate. If there is some problem with bandwidth or funding-related issues, make it a separate project and kill it off later if it isn't successful.
In the last instance, people will pay everything they have for food. They will steal. They will kill.
Doctors are expensive because they save lives. Granted, it would be nice to have more, but more doctors could also mean more bad doctors. The good doctors would still have higher salary, though maybe less than now.
Sometimes, I want to listen to classic rock. Sometimes metal. Sometimes trance. Sometimes, I want to listen to Final Fantasy soundtracks. I do not want to listen to all of them at once. I do not want to listen to some strange meld of them all. Short of making a half dozen usernames for each genre I like, what is the solution? In last.fm: 1: Click the "Stop" button 2: Enter "trance" 3: Click the "Play" button
In Pandora: 1: Choose "create new station" 2: Enter a name, for example "Trance" 3: Choose an artist or song to use as starting point
Of course it's not perfect yet. They'll need some more time to mature, but they're on the right track.
DST should be extended year-round. Seriously: Go to work an hour earlier, come home an hour earlier.
This has absolutely nothing to do with daylight saving time. Talk to your boss and get flex time or something. You can have your wish fulfilled instantly. Redefining time for your whole country/world just to change your working hours is a pretty crazy suggestion.
You still need promotion, experience, and funding. Nope, nope, and... nope.
You need to play your music your your niche audience, and get fans. Anything else is music industry bling. I know lots of great music that I have never seen the video of, and I couldn't care less.
For a start, they're not going to get tons of free publicity. Plenty of musicians already release their music for free, without expecting any payment. They don't get articles in slashdot. If lots of other musicians "catch on" they'll find the whole "band releases album on net" story is long past stale, no-one cares, and hundreds, never mind millions, aren't going to be made. If enough artists release for free, services like http://www.pandora.com/ and http://www.last.fm/ will be built to make use of it.
Then you don't even have go looking to find those new artists. You'll just assemble a musical profile, and whenever some artist anywhere in the world release his music - it will get tagged and matched with your peers and slowly work its way into your personal radio channel.
That is what the music industry is fearing, and what will indeed kill them. Very soon, artists will just plug their masterpieces into the net, and after a while their music will have played for thousands of people interested in just that kind of music. Why should you sell your future profits for marketing when you'll hit your key audience automagically, at zero cost?
Just make great music and drop it on the web. If an artist is good enough to become famous doing that, all that is needed is to think of a way to convert fame into money. But that's a lot easier than making great music.
This will be a network effect. Just wait for critical mass and enjoy the ride.
One day every other month where our home internet is down doesn't seem like the end of the world Your home internet is down?
Ok, sure it is, but every other month sounds a bit on the high side. I'm sure your providers could actually do a bit better. If my home Internet has ever been down, it has only been for 5 minutes or so, don't know if it was my configuration or the actual connection.
Slashdot Mirror
The XPS series doesn't sound like the best comparison here.
Note: The XPS colors suck, though. I can easily see gradients between colors that are supposed to be smooth. It is nowhere as good as a 10-year old super-cheapo CRT I had lying around and compared the screen with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor
If "something" controls the brain, it could be anything. Including an army of malevolent pink unicorns or anything else. Keeping track of an infinite amount of possibilities isn't sensible.
Free will is not required. You were born as just you, with a brain capable of juggling all that quantum mayhem into order and manage to come out on top of things. Even if you were largely in for the ride, a different person might not have been as good at adapting to things, and wouldn't have made it.
Those guys covered that big, fat country in roads. They didn't whine and make excused about about how big the country was, they rolled up their sleeves and paved it.
If it makes you feel better to make excuses while falling behind in technology, feel free to do so. But know that falling behind in technological infrastructure is a very bad thing.
I don't understand the problem with fixing "infinite" plans. Why not use a plan structure like this?:
Full bandwidth until 10 GB limit.
128kbps after limit is reached.
Reset each month.
The numbers are just pulled out of the air. You'll want enough GB than most people will never hit it, making the plan infinite for all practical purposes. They can keep their computers turned on every day, all day. No surprises, no huge bill suddenly happening because they passed the cap. Even if someone get some malware maxing their connection. Customers might accept that the email-spamming virus "makes the Internet slow". They will NOT accept a $5000 bill for the bandwith used by said virus.
And after the cap, it's still as good as infinite. Email and browsing will function fine, just a little bit slow.
The only ones that will notice are heavy users. I'll happily pay a bit extra for the bandwidth I use. Just get a bigger plan with more GB before capped.
Such a plan could also easily be extended with off-peak rates. Usage between 2am-6am only count 50% towards your cap limit, for example.
Dead simple to implement, and would make perfect sense for everyone. No?
Keep the unlimited plans, but throttle bandwidth according to usage. For example:
0-20GB: 10 Mbps
20-50GB: 1 Mbps
50GB+ : 256k
Quota reset every month. My mother would never touch that 20GB ceiling, but a heavy user might want to buy a more expensive plan that give you full speed for 100GB. You can download as much as you like, you'll just take a bandwidth hit if you exceed your plan.
The business can never work unless there is a link between what consumers pay and what expenses they incur on the company. Any "all-you-can-eat plans" are simply not connected with reality.
Mind you, if people have to pay extra to upload more GB, P2P would no longer be "free". I think that would hurt P2P as nothing the RIAA have ever imagined. P2P popularity goes hand in hand with current "infinite usage" plans.
What is this NSFW thing you keep talking about?
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1024244.ece
I'm not expecting all epileptics to know about this, but you should spread the word and teach them how to disable animations in their browsers. For anyone photosensitive, killing all animations will probably be a huge benefit.
Someone else already mentioned how to do it:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=504340&cid=22907278
Grandparent was obviously joking. I have no idea why so many replied...
I like WiFi as much as anyone else. But making comparisons with stuff capable of killing might not convince a suspicious mind.
The reason the sun don't kill us outright is because we're evolved to handle it. (Mind you, oxygen is a crazy reactive element and a different life form might consider breathing it as much fun as swimming in hydrocloric acid.)
If people worry about man-made sources of electromagnetic radiation, soothe them with stories of how infintesmal it is.
Best regards from a civil European.
The latest information I had, was that there were some connection between the bubonic plague (Black Death) and AIDS resistance:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198 :
An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pocket full of solid state memory.
Exactly!
The idea of paying a fixed fee to MPAA is as ridiculous.
Car analogy:
Would you like to be paying $5 per month per car to the "Horse Shoe and Saddle Association" because cars stole their profits?
People can make great music with very low investments. Internet is disruptive technology, and the music business is headed for complete restructuring.
Split the "Fringe" part off as a separate project, just make sure they seamlessly integrate. If there is some problem with bandwidth or funding-related issues, make it a separate project and kill it off later if it isn't successful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
In the last instance, people will pay everything they have for food. They will steal. They will kill.
Doctors are expensive because they save lives. Granted, it would be nice to have more, but more doctors could also mean more bad doctors. The good doctors would still have higher salary, though maybe less than now.
I think a few people missed your subtle humor ;)
1: Click the "Stop" button
2: Enter "trance"
3: Click the "Play" button
In Pandora:
1: Choose "create new station"
2: Enter a name, for example "Trance"
3: Choose an artist or song to use as starting point
Of course it's not perfect yet. They'll need some more time to mature, but they're on the right track.
This has absolutely nothing to do with daylight saving time. Talk to your boss and get flex time or something. You can have your wish fulfilled instantly. Redefining time for your whole country/world just to change your working hours is a pretty crazy suggestion.
You need to play your music your your niche audience, and get fans. Anything else is music industry bling. I know lots of great music that I have never seen the video of, and I couldn't care less.
Then you don't even have go looking to find those new artists. You'll just assemble a musical profile, and whenever some artist anywhere in the world release his music - it will get tagged and matched with your peers and slowly work its way into your personal radio channel.
That is what the music industry is fearing, and what will indeed kill them. Very soon, artists will just plug their masterpieces into the net, and after a while their music will have played for thousands of people interested in just that kind of music. Why should you sell your future profits for marketing when you'll hit your key audience automagically, at zero cost?
Just make great music and drop it on the web. If an artist is good enough to become famous doing that, all that is needed is to think of a way to convert fame into money. But that's a lot easier than making great music.
This will be a network effect. Just wait for critical mass and enjoy the ride.
Ok:
.torrent files start your client automatically, allow me to present 1-click piracy:
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3493606/VA_-_Industrial_Legacy_Vol.1.2006.MP3.Electro.Industrial.Collect
Or, if you have already hooked
http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/3493606/VA_-_Industrial_Legacy_Vol.1.2006.MP3.Electro.Industrial.Collect.3493606.TPB.torrent
Ok, sure it is, but every other month sounds a bit on the high side. I'm sure your providers could actually do a bit better. If my home Internet has ever been down, it has only been for 5 minutes or so, don't know if it was my configuration or the actual connection.
(Yes, I'm Scandinavian)