As the bit-rate rises, he becomes less annoyed. At 192k, he starts to notice less of a difference, and so starts to become less annoyed.
Yes, but the original poster said that at 192k, he starts not to become less annoyed.
(I'm too literal-minded to let it pass just because no one else is reading this far down. Actually, I'm only here because I was looking for the inevitable Princess Bride reference...)
It's about time! The picture I have of the first-gen unit has been great, but it has its limitations and the workarounds are cumbersome. I've been looking forward to a picture of a revised unit since the initial iPhone was announced; Apple's second-gen models are always more reliable than the initial ones.
Shouldn't it be "Making Touch Screens Work With Fingers"?
The headline makes it sound like they've figured out how to make those pesky humans more compatible with the touch screen technology. Granted, most handheld operating systems involve the computer and the user meeting each other halfway, but this headline made me envision plastic surgery to make fingers more pointy...
Coulton's success isn't just a "right place at the right time" sort of thing, either... his music is actually very good. The lyrics are witty and original, the progressions are more than just I-IV-V-I, and his tracks are extremely well-produced. My favorites include "Bacteria" (which uses a KFC training tape as the source material), "That Spells DNA," "Ikea," "Shop Vac," "Creepy Doll," "Under the Pines," many of which are geeky and most of which are funny. But he very often churns out more serious stuff: "When You Go," "Drinking With You," a cover of Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," and "I'm Your Moon," a song sung by Charon to Pluto reassuring the newly-christened dwarf planet that it's still the most important thing in Charon's life. (Okay, that one is geeky, too, but just you try listening to it without getting a little lump in your throat.)
The article doesn't mention (I guess it's a little off-topic) that Coulton also serves as Popular Science's "Contributing Troubadour" and is good friends with John Hodgman.
There is no question that having drills for situations like this can save lives when and if the real thing happens. But there is a difference between having a drill and the real thing. What was done here is like having a fire drill that involves setting the school on fire.
For the students involved in this "drill" there is no difference between the trauma they experienced and what they would have experienced in a real situation. By the time the students were told that it was all just pretend, it was too late... they were scared for their lives, crying, hiding, wondering what was going on. Whatever sense of safety they felt in their school (or, in this case, on a school-related trip) was taken from them, and I'm guessing the nightmares are going to last a long time.
Kids soak up information like a sponge... a drill in this situation should have been announced and prepared for, down to the minute, so the students knew exactly what to expect. When the drill is done in a calm, orderly fashion, the kids remember that sense of calm and order when the real thing happens, and things go much better. Ideally, if a gunman enters a school, most of the school should be evacuated in such a way that the students are never entirely sure if it's the real thing or just another drill.
This stunt is, in my mind, a tragedy equal to that of a real gunman situation. The only difference is that this one had no physical injuries...
We been doin' this for generations... ya shine yer flashlight right into the frog's eyes, ya see, and them frogs, they just sit there, starin' back at ya. Then ya pull out yer critter net out and bag em.
Mmmm, good eatin, them frogs. 'Course it works with any varmint, but squirrel, that's lot tougher'n frogmeat. And bears, well, they's not too patient and less'n yer net's reeeeeal big...
I'm officially an instructor at a college, but most non-academicians call me a professor, since to most people that means "person who teaches at a university," even though the pecking order is:
professor
associate professor
assistant professor
instructor
It appears that the researcher/scientist distinction is about the same; i.e., to the general public, they're all "scientists."
Wikipedi[a] is failing to be exactly what the article writer wants it to be. It's succeeding perfectly in being what it is.
Hear, hear. Wikipedia will probably continue to fail at being whatever successful thing you're comparing it to, because Wikipedia is unique. I think the prevailing idea is that Wikipedia should become this amazingly cite-able bastion of unquestioned facts, but by its current nature it cannot ever become that. Nor should it. I see Wikipedia as a place to learn; either you learn something from the article, or by digging deeper and engaging in discussions with other editors about it you learn even more. I'm a prof and would never dream of citing Wikipedia in an academic paper. But for casual learning and light research, it's a dream come true.
Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past
...and roughly 34 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded the first few minutes of a full-length movie, then cancelled that download to try to find a faster one.
I think that the GPP may have been confused by the same thing that confused me when reading the summary: at first glance, the summary makes it sound like Apple will be charging extra to get Boot Camp with LEOPARD. In reality, of course, Apple will be providing Boot Camp for Tiger users for $30, whereas it comes free with Leopard.
And I think the reason for this is because the summary-writer (summarist?) ended the link prematurely; if the link included the word "Tiger" instead of stopping before it, I know I would have been less confused...
Why, I ought to just yank my TiVo out and toss it in the... *sob* Oh, who am I kidding? They have me right where they want me!
You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Mac users wait, and then wait, and then wait some more, and then finally TiVo announces it... for $100? The thing which has been a free download for Windows users for... ever? I'm miffed, but also genuinely curious why they would so obviously spit in the face of their customers like this. Is the Mac port somehow dependent on Toast's technology? Do they figure that Mac users must all be rich and spendy, and thus won't care about forking over $100? Are they just desperate for cash?
We're supposed to hear more about the "iTV" and Leopard tomorrow. Maybe there will be a TiVo-related announcement made there that will make me feel a little less affronted, but after waiting this long for TiVo to show even a little Mac love, I'm not holding my breath...
...that the correct order to watch them, if you haven't seen them before, is IV, V, VI, I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
Whatever Lucas' intentions were, I, II and III were made to be shown to millions of people who had seen IV, V and VI. The first time you see the original trilogy, it's about Luke. The second time, it's about Anakin.
I wrote a little freeware app for the Mac (NetCD) which used the then-free CDDB, and its development ended as I watched the MacWorld Keynote where Steve first announced iTunes. I wasn't bitter and still am not... iTunes did it right, and I was happy to see it (and know it was free).
The fact that iTunes used CDDB (and they actually managed to engineer a different agreement that was better than what the rest of us developers had... probably because Apple paid Escient to do so) was what really ensured that FreeDB would stay on the sidelines. When the CDDB was free, there was no need for FreeDB; during the short time after Escient bought the CDDB and before iTunes came out, FreeDB was growing steadily but hadn't achieved enough fame to move ahead of the CDDB. When iTunes came out, Joe User, when asked where the track names were coming from, would answer "iTunes puts it there." The CDDB (and FreeDB) was nurtured by geeks and hobbyists; Escient's (and Gracenote's) version was/is used and abused by consumers.
True, but again the contextual menus are never *necessary* on the Mac, just convenient.
It also requires you have a keyboard handy
Which would be the case if you're on a laptop. I'm assuming the parent was complaining about the lack of a two-button mouse built in because he/she doesn't want to have to carry around an external two-button mouse.
Not everyone uses a computer while sitting at a desk, and indeed three of my four home computers are not in a desk-like setup.
I agree. We actually have a laptop atop the microwave in the kitchen, and there is no mouse-space there. But I think that a two-button mouse on a laptop would be ergonomically inconvenient, especially for beginners... the "tap the trackpad to click" feature I have enabled on my laptop (because it allows for a quiet mouse click in low-noise environments) drives my wife nuts, and I think having a right-button and a wrong-button would do the same.
If Apple responded to its customers' requests, how come there are no left and right mouse buttons? It's still the single most annoying feature and you'd think it should be eliminated by now.
But sometimes simpler is better, and in my understanding, that has been Apple's standpoint on this issue for a long time. I'm not saying that Apple's interface design is the be-all-end-all, but it beats the living daylights out of Windows' on a regular basis.
As an educator, I've seen the results of two-button mice in the hands of beginners and it's not pretty.
Nearly everyone I've talked to who laments about the lack of a two button mouse, in my experience, is actually looking for contextual menus, which is what the right mouse-button brings up on Windows. To get a contextual menu on the Mac, you hold the control key down when you click. It's oh-so-easy to do, but of course you have to know how to do it... the Mac interface, however, is designed to not REQUIRE contextual menus. If some action can only be done by a menu command, the menu command should appear in the menubar, where users expect to find menus. If it is also present in a contextual menu, that's a useful duplicity for slightly more advanced users.
I'm not saying two-button mice are bad... I have an IntelliMouse on my desktop at work and I love it. The most useful feature to me on that thing is the scroll wheel, but I appreciate the second button as well (though I actually have it programmed to double-click, which is more useful for me).
I agree with you, and I generally can't stand even reading his articles... but he's probably got a pretty safe prediction with this one. It seems that those who say "It'll probably be hacked" are seldom disproven.
I just recently learned that our school district (Greeley, Colorado) has done away with recess altogether. Apparently the superintendent feels that the time should be better used in the classroom.
I know a teacher in the district (in fact, as I recall, she was recently named "Teacher of the Year" for the district, if not the state), and her experience confirms what most people would find obvious about the system: the kids hate it, the teachers hate it, the parents hate it, and student's ability to concentrate (especially in the afternoon hours) has taken a nosedive.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but the original poster said that at 192k, he starts not to become less annoyed.
(I'm too literal-minded to let it pass just because no one else is reading this far down. Actually, I'm only here because I was looking for the inevitable Princess Bride reference...)
It's about time! The picture I have of the first-gen unit has been great, but it has its limitations and the workarounds are cumbersome. I've been looking forward to a picture of a revised unit since the initial iPhone was announced; Apple's second-gen models are always more reliable than the initial ones.
...isn't that CBS cancelled the show, but that it's being axed to make room for New Insipid Reality Show #462 and "Ooh! Pirates!"
The "Tiffany Network," eh?
Shouldn't it be "Making Touch Screens Work With Fingers"?
The headline makes it sound like they've figured out how to make those pesky humans more compatible with the touch screen technology. Granted, most handheld operating systems involve the computer and the user meeting each other halfway, but this headline made me envision plastic surgery to make fingers more pointy...
Coulton's success isn't just a "right place at the right time" sort of thing, either... his music is actually very good. The lyrics are witty and original, the progressions are more than just I-IV-V-I, and his tracks are extremely well-produced. My favorites include "Bacteria" (which uses a KFC training tape as the source material), "That Spells DNA," "Ikea," "Shop Vac," "Creepy Doll," "Under the Pines," many of which are geeky and most of which are funny. But he very often churns out more serious stuff: "When You Go," "Drinking With You," a cover of Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," and "I'm Your Moon," a song sung by Charon to Pluto reassuring the newly-christened dwarf planet that it's still the most important thing in Charon's life. (Okay, that one is geeky, too, but just you try listening to it without getting a little lump in your throat.)
The article doesn't mention (I guess it's a little off-topic) that Coulton also serves as Popular Science's "Contributing Troubadour" and is good friends with John Hodgman.
There is no question that having drills for situations like this can save lives when and if the real thing happens. But there is a difference between having a drill and the real thing. What was done here is like having a fire drill that involves setting the school on fire.
For the students involved in this "drill" there is no difference between the trauma they experienced and what they would have experienced in a real situation. By the time the students were told that it was all just pretend, it was too late... they were scared for their lives, crying, hiding, wondering what was going on. Whatever sense of safety they felt in their school (or, in this case, on a school-related trip) was taken from them, and I'm guessing the nightmares are going to last a long time.
Kids soak up information like a sponge... a drill in this situation should have been announced and prepared for, down to the minute, so the students knew exactly what to expect. When the drill is done in a calm, orderly fashion, the kids remember that sense of calm and order when the real thing happens, and things go much better. Ideally, if a gunman enters a school, most of the school should be evacuated in such a way that the students are never entirely sure if it's the real thing or just another drill.
This stunt is, in my mind, a tragedy equal to that of a real gunman situation. The only difference is that this one had no physical injuries...
We been doin' this for generations... ya shine yer flashlight right into the frog's eyes, ya see, and them frogs, they just sit there, starin' back at ya. Then ya pull out yer critter net out and bag em.
Mmmm, good eatin, them frogs. 'Course it works with any varmint, but squirrel, that's lot tougher'n frogmeat. And bears, well, they's not too patient and less'n yer net's reeeeeal big...
The seniority system goes something like this...
I'm officially an instructor at a college, but most non-academicians call me a professor, since to most people that means "person who teaches at a university," even though the pecking order is:
professor
associate professor
assistant professor
instructor
It appears that the researcher/scientist distinction is about the same; i.e., to the general public, they're all "scientists."
Wikipedi[a] is failing to be exactly what the article writer wants it to be. It's succeeding perfectly in being what it is.
Hear, hear. Wikipedia will probably continue to fail at being whatever successful thing you're comparing it to, because Wikipedia is unique. I think the prevailing idea is that Wikipedia should become this amazingly cite-able bastion of unquestioned facts, but by its current nature it cannot ever become that. Nor should it. I see Wikipedia as a place to learn; either you learn something from the article, or by digging deeper and engaging in discussions with other editors about it you learn even more. I'm a prof and would never dream of citing Wikipedia in an academic paper. But for casual learning and light research, it's a dream come true.
This is an outrage!
--
Hello, friend. Is your media bland and undesirable? Visit gawker.com today!
Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past
...and roughly 34 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded the first few minutes of a full-length movie, then cancelled that download to try to find a faster one.
I think that the GPP may have been confused by the same thing that confused me when reading the summary: at first glance, the summary makes it sound like Apple will be charging extra to get Boot Camp with LEOPARD. In reality, of course, Apple will be providing Boot Camp for Tiger users for $30, whereas it comes free with Leopard.
And I think the reason for this is because the summary-writer (summarist?) ended the link prematurely; if the link included the word "Tiger" instead of stopping before it, I know I would have been less confused...
$8000 is a substantial reward. However, though we're free to use any methods necessary, Darth wants them ALIVE. No disintegrations!
Why, I ought to just yank my TiVo out and toss it in the... *sob* Oh, who am I kidding? They have me right where they want me!
You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Mac users wait, and then wait, and then wait some more, and then finally TiVo announces it... for $100? The thing which has been a free download for Windows users for... ever? I'm miffed, but also genuinely curious why they would so obviously spit in the face of their customers like this. Is the Mac port somehow dependent on Toast's technology? Do they figure that Mac users must all be rich and spendy, and thus won't care about forking over $100? Are they just desperate for cash?
We're supposed to hear more about the "iTV" and Leopard tomorrow. Maybe there will be a TiVo-related announcement made there that will make me feel a little less affronted, but after waiting this long for TiVo to show even a little Mac love, I'm not holding my breath...
To learn the physics behind the oscillation overthruster, it's easy... take the physics behind the flux capacitor, and turn them upside-down.
[Trying to figure out some "+5 funny" remark tying this to quark "flavors"]
Now, if only I knew how to sell it...
1. Send it to me.
2. ???
3. Profit!
...that the correct order to watch them, if you haven't seen them before, is IV, V, VI, I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
Whatever Lucas' intentions were, I, II and III were made to be shown to millions of people who had seen IV, V and VI. The first time you see the original trilogy, it's about Luke. The second time, it's about Anakin.
I wrote a little freeware app for the Mac (NetCD) which used the then-free CDDB, and its development ended as I watched the MacWorld Keynote where Steve first announced iTunes. I wasn't bitter and still am not... iTunes did it right, and I was happy to see it (and know it was free).
The fact that iTunes used CDDB (and they actually managed to engineer a different agreement that was better than what the rest of us developers had... probably because Apple paid Escient to do so) was what really ensured that FreeDB would stay on the sidelines. When the CDDB was free, there was no need for FreeDB; during the short time after Escient bought the CDDB and before iTunes came out, FreeDB was growing steadily but hadn't achieved enough fame to move ahead of the CDDB. When iTunes came out, Joe User, when asked where the track names were coming from, would answer "iTunes puts it there." The CDDB (and FreeDB) was nurtured by geeks and hobbyists; Escient's (and Gracenote's) version was/is used and abused by consumers.
Three pages of very short comments.
Not so good for the one-handed, no?
True, but again the contextual menus are never *necessary* on the Mac, just convenient.
It also requires you have a keyboard handy
Which would be the case if you're on a laptop. I'm assuming the parent was complaining about the lack of a two-button mouse built in because he/she doesn't want to have to carry around an external two-button mouse.
Not everyone uses a computer while sitting at a desk, and indeed three of my four home computers are not in a desk-like setup.
I agree. We actually have a laptop atop the microwave in the kitchen, and there is no mouse-space there. But I think that a two-button mouse on a laptop would be ergonomically inconvenient, especially for beginners... the "tap the trackpad to click" feature I have enabled on my laptop (because it allows for a quiet mouse click in low-noise environments) drives my wife nuts, and I think having a right-button and a wrong-button would do the same.
If Apple responded to its customers' requests, how come there are no left and right mouse buttons? It's still the single most annoying feature and you'd think it should be eliminated by now.
But sometimes simpler is better, and in my understanding, that has been Apple's standpoint on this issue for a long time. I'm not saying that Apple's interface design is the be-all-end-all, but it beats the living daylights out of Windows' on a regular basis.
As an educator, I've seen the results of two-button mice in the hands of beginners and it's not pretty.
Nearly everyone I've talked to who laments about the lack of a two button mouse, in my experience, is actually looking for contextual menus, which is what the right mouse-button brings up on Windows. To get a contextual menu on the Mac, you hold the control key down when you click. It's oh-so-easy to do, but of course you have to know how to do it... the Mac interface, however, is designed to not REQUIRE contextual menus. If some action can only be done by a menu command, the menu command should appear in the menubar, where users expect to find menus. If it is also present in a contextual menu, that's a useful duplicity for slightly more advanced users.
I'm not saying two-button mice are bad... I have an IntelliMouse on my desktop at work and I love it. The most useful feature to me on that thing is the scroll wheel, but I appreciate the second button as well (though I actually have it programmed to double-click, which is more useful for me).
*sighs heavily and puts on flamesuit*
Dvorak's forecast of the future is often wrong.
I agree with you, and I generally can't stand even reading his articles... but he's probably got a pretty safe prediction with this one. It seems that those who say "It'll probably be hacked" are seldom disproven.
I just recently learned that our school district (Greeley, Colorado) has done away with recess altogether. Apparently the superintendent feels that the time should be better used in the classroom.
I know a teacher in the district (in fact, as I recall, she was recently named "Teacher of the Year" for the district, if not the state), and her experience confirms what most people would find obvious about the system: the kids hate it, the teachers hate it, the parents hate it, and student's ability to concentrate (especially in the afternoon hours) has taken a nosedive.
I have ten pounds of Element 119 right here...
Dude, for the last time, that's not Element 119. They're called "CornNuts." And they don't give you, or anyone else, "special powers."