I once thought "Laptops are a horrible desktop replacement. Nobody will seriously get rid of their desktop!" -- yet millions flocked to laptops, with the promise of "work anywhere", and because they didn't know how to deal well w/ the problem of synchronizing data between two devices, they ditched their desktop and put up with a not-so-good machine at home.
Then I thought "Cell phones and tablets are great toys, and handy when you need something in a pinch, but you can't really do serious work on them!" And yet millions of people are living on their phones, and not buying desktops. The mobile device now serves as the desktop, and thus Android/IOS has become the desktop OS.
Has it made those people more productive overall? I think not, in many cases. On their phones, people do a horrible job of managing email and a lot of other things that they used to do better on their desktop, but they don't seem to care. Like cell phones of yesterday made bad phone connections the norm, those of today are making bad lots-o-stuff the norm. In some cases, I believe it will lead to better ways of doing things, but in a lot of areas, I think it won't, because people won't care so much as long as they're feeding their Facebook app addiction.
Now, some have decided that they do want bigger screens, so tablets (and phablets) are more popular. They run the same OSes as the phones. I can easily see the desktop starting to make a come-back, not as a full-power personal computer, but as a larger version of the same dumbed-down consumption-oriented devices that people are then used to.
One day, 40 years from now, someone will come out with a "revolutionary" new concept that lets you use additional input devices (such as a keyboard?) and do really powerful things that you can't do on normal devices. Additionally, there will be privacy-enhancing aspects that people discover. As the new generation gets excited about them, a few greybeards will smile and say "Yup, I've seen something like that before! Back in the day, we used to call them PCs." and people will look at them funny.
At 720p, 16:9 (1.78:1) video is only 1280 wide; @ 1512/1520, even with the notch, I'm sure the screen's plenty big for that -- surely the notch doesn't occupy > 15% of the screen. I'm sure 1.85:1 would be fine, too. Never having used a phone w/ a notch, though, I have no idea how video players behave, whether they center (which would be a shame if the notch took a chunk out but you still had room at the other end of the display) or what. For comparison, the aspect ration of the full width of the Power's screen (past the notch) is 2.11:1 (2.1:1 for the lowest end model).
That it snowed is a provable fact. By contrast, you don't expect an insurance payout because a vaccine caused a chronic malfunction in your child -- you want a payout because you *think* or *claim* that it did; and as soon as word gets out that there's money to be had, suddenly a lot more people will be making the same claim, legitimate or not. Why is medical malpractice insurance insurance insanely high? It's not because of a high incidence of malpractice -- sure, there *are* legitimate claims, but it's the crackhead that ODs and then blames the doctor because her baby died as a result, and all of those other fun cases that normal people shake their heads at. Unless the insurance company is itching to get into a new line of business that involves very rapidly-evolving risk estimates/rates and lots of litigation, I can see where they'd shy away from such a thing.
I'm a long-time user of cheap MVNOs (mostly plan-less), but one of the challenges of this is that it seems that these days, the major carriers prioritize their name-brand traffic over other traffic. Thus, depending on the time and place, my data service can be so poor as to be unusable (not just slow -- slow enough that things break), while others using the same towers (but paying the asking price) are fine.
Most of the time it's not that big a deal, because I'm bandwidth-conscious and don't do much that's demanding, but as I prepare for a big trip on which I will need to do *all* my work on the go and be available during the day, this becomes more of a concern to me.
Not sure why I'm bothering to respond to a crazed A/C, but... Are you Mormon (or Ex-Mormon)? You sure seem to have a rather unhealthy fear of what someone else believes. "Forcibly convert"? Like a Voodoo doll from a comedy where they're going to go "ooga booga" and force something to happen to someone?
Hey, if Muslims want to dig through my family records (which are a fairly sad collection; maybe they can find some long-lost rich relatives for me!) and go through some ceremony and call me Muslim after I've been dead for 100 years, more power to 'em. Heck, they could dig my remains up and give 'em a bath, for all I care.
I don't see how the Mormons' concern for their ancestors, though uncommon in Western civilization, is any weirder than what a lot of other religions, particularly Christians, claim. If I understand correctly, Catholics & Orthodox churches believe in infant baptism, and if the baby dies before it's baptized and given its last rites, it's going to hell. Other groups lack a formal ceremony like that, but require a verbal profession of a belief to save you. Mormons say that baptism's required like Catholics, but it's like they consider baptism more of a "checklist" item and instead of damning you because you didn't do it yourself while you were alive, they'll just do the neighborly thing and take care of it for you, so that then you can have the option to be "saved" if you want, and if you don't, that's your business. Rather than forcing you to do something, they feel that they're giving you freedom that you otherwise wouldn't have.
I've had people of various religions -- Christian, Jew, Budhist -- offer to pray for me on occasion, and I've never been offended by it, or creeped out because they thought their particular brand of religion was going to help me out more than another, but rather I was glad that they cared enough to expend the effort in my behalf, and enjoyed learning more about them in the process. If I knew they were praying, burning incense, etc. behind my back in my behalf, I'd be just as pleased. If I found that they were praying that I'd die a thousand horrible deaths, I'd just snort and wish them happiness. To me, this is no different. As for the family research, if they can get it anyone can, and I can think of a lot of people that I'd be more nervous about what they'd do with my genealogy than some religious group.
I do like the Parmesan cheese idea, though. Next time I eat spaghetti I might just have to declare it a Pastafarian baptism event!
You've been able to pipe sound into implants via wire for a long time. The Nucleus 6 (which my son has) added the capability to do wireless -- but it's a proprietary protocol, requiring you to buy a $300 adapter (which I don't have) to use it w/ standard Bluetooth. Obviously, this eliminates the need for the adapter, but I'm curious if anyone can tell me how else it improves the user experience over using the adapter?
Ah. I interpreted you as saying "The ultra-rich have their money in 401(k) accounts", but it looks like you were saying the opposite -- that the ultra-wealthy are the ones *not* in 401(k)s. I would think, though, that for 401(k)s to become a significant "piggy bank" to the rich, they'd have to represent more than the 1% your earlier "middle class holds 1-2% total" declaration suggests -- where it doesn't seem they could provide a boost to other accounts significant enough to even notice.
*sigh* 401(k)s... I'd like to like them, but...yeah, what could have been a decent idea was mutilated by restrictions in a way that nobody can like them. Give employees control of where they invest? Allow them to have almost anything they want inside of that instrument? Great idea, except: 1. The avg worker isn't exactly a financial genius, nor do they want to become one. 2. The choice is restricted to what the employer has to offer (unless you frequently change jobs, etc. to move funds out and into IRAs, but then those aren't 401(k); the 401(k) still stinks.) 3. Too many HR managers are stupid, lazy, or corrupt, and there are plenty of institutions and "consultants" ready to take full advantage of that, so your choices are often very poor. 4. At least in the old days, if a company's pension plan was bad they knew it reflected poorly on them. Now, they just point to the 401(k) and say it's someone else's fault it didn't work out so well.
> 401k plans were never meant to provide retirement for people. They were just meant to funnel money to people who already have all the money.
With an $18k limit on 401(k) contributions, they're not exactly designed for stashing huge amounts of money for rich people. The extra-wealthy may certainly own the majority of funds in *other* instruments at Vanguard, but most of their money is *not* -- cannot be -- in 401(k)s.
N-butyric acid is about the nastiest stuff I've ever smelled, and it's amazing how fast that stench can travel from one end of a large room to another. We had this stoner that started hanging around the chemistry lab a lot. One day I took him to the back room with a conspiratory air, and convinced him that this stuff was "soooo rad", and would "make you higher than a kite". I pumped him up enough that when I uncapped it he sniffed deeply without testing it first. He cried out, coughed, and vomited. Fortunately he was feeling too bad to catch me and do what he wanted, as I escaped back into the safety of the main room, laughing my head off. It didn't take long for the story to get around.
That's a good point -- while rare for me personally, I have on occasion included minimal X libraries for particular apps before while not hosting a full-time console environment. I've run into some apps that offer GUI admin from a remote machine -- but only if you install a "big boy" web server w/ extra modules that starts to make the X installation look small and simple.
Aside from all the jokes about not using vi, etc. I seriously marvel at the idea of a "really stripped-down server" including an X system. Though I fairly regularly use ssh -X on other workstations, I haven't included X at all on a single server (LTSP servers aside) in the last 15 years. I'm curious what kinds of tools server admins are requiring an X environment on the server for.
> I am more pleased with it than my prior Nexus 5. Since I was considering buying a Nexus 5 (to replace my MyTouch 4g Slide), your comment interests me greatly. Could you elaborate on some of the differences you've experienced? Thanks!
There was virtually no CPM software adapted to the C=128
I wasn't aware that it needed to be adapted. When I think of CP/M software I don't think of fancy programs highly customized for specific hardware -- if it had a keyboard and at least an 80x24 screen, it was happy! Being able to run CP/M software was one of the main reasons I got a C128, and I did so for several years with no more adaptation than setting up book scripts on the floppy to automatically load everything the way I wanted.
Slashdot Mirror
And we didn't even have to pay the $44.95!
I once thought "Laptops are a horrible desktop replacement. Nobody will seriously get rid of their desktop!" -- yet millions flocked to laptops, with the promise of "work anywhere", and because they didn't know how to deal well w/ the problem of synchronizing data between two devices, they ditched their desktop and put up with a not-so-good machine at home.
Then I thought "Cell phones and tablets are great toys, and handy when you need something in a pinch, but you can't really do serious work on them!" And yet millions of people are living on their phones, and not buying desktops. The mobile device now serves as the desktop, and thus Android/IOS has become the desktop OS.
Has it made those people more productive overall? I think not, in many cases. On their phones, people do a horrible job of managing email and a lot of other things that they used to do better on their desktop, but they don't seem to care. Like cell phones of yesterday made bad phone connections the norm, those of today are making bad lots-o-stuff the norm. In some cases, I believe it will lead to better ways of doing things, but in a lot of areas, I think it won't, because people won't care so much as long as they're feeding their Facebook app addiction.
Now, some have decided that they do want bigger screens, so tablets (and phablets) are more popular. They run the same OSes as the phones. I can easily see the desktop starting to make a come-back, not as a full-power personal computer, but as a larger version of the same dumbed-down consumption-oriented devices that people are then used to.
One day, 40 years from now, someone will come out with a "revolutionary" new concept that lets you use additional input devices (such as a keyboard?) and do really powerful things that you can't do on normal devices. Additionally, there will be privacy-enhancing aspects that people discover. As the new generation gets excited about them, a few greybeards will smile and say "Yup, I've seen something like that before! Back in the day, we used to call them PCs." and people will look at them funny.
At 720p, 16:9 (1.78:1) video is only 1280 wide; @ 1512/1520, even with the notch, I'm sure the screen's plenty big for that -- surely the notch doesn't occupy > 15% of the screen. I'm sure 1.85:1 would be fine, too. Never having used a phone w/ a notch, though, I have no idea how video players behave, whether they center (which would be a shame if the notch took a chunk out but you still had room at the other end of the display) or what. For comparison, the aspect ration of the full width of the Power's screen (past the notch) is 2.11:1 (2.1:1 for the lowest end model).
That it snowed is a provable fact. By contrast, you don't expect an insurance payout because a vaccine caused a chronic malfunction in your child -- you want a payout because you *think* or *claim* that it did; and as soon as word gets out that there's money to be had, suddenly a lot more people will be making the same claim, legitimate or not. Why is medical malpractice insurance insurance insanely high? It's not because of a high incidence of malpractice -- sure, there *are* legitimate claims, but it's the crackhead that ODs and then blames the doctor because her baby died as a result, and all of those other fun cases that normal people shake their heads at. Unless the insurance company is itching to get into a new line of business that involves very rapidly-evolving risk estimates/rates and lots of litigation, I can see where they'd shy away from such a thing.
I'm a long-time user of cheap MVNOs (mostly plan-less), but one of the challenges of this is that it seems that these days, the major carriers prioritize their name-brand traffic over other traffic. Thus, depending on the time and place, my data service can be so poor as to be unusable (not just slow -- slow enough that things break), while others using the same towers (but paying the asking price) are fine.
Most of the time it's not that big a deal, because I'm bandwidth-conscious and don't do much that's demanding, but as I prepare for a big trip on which I will need to do *all* my work on the go and be available during the day, this becomes more of a concern to me.
...if they give me another 3-digit number to remember, I'm gonna kill myself!
Seriously, though, I agree with a lot of the posts from others detailing reasons why this isn't a great idea.
Yeah, as soon as I read the summary, I hit IMDB to check it out, because I had no idea DeMille directed another version.
The U.S.A. was birthed from the notion that freedom is worth more than a few lives, and that prevention of tyranny is worth spilt blood.
Not sure why I'm bothering to respond to a crazed A/C, but... Are you Mormon (or Ex-Mormon)? You sure seem to have a rather unhealthy fear of what someone else believes. "Forcibly convert"? Like a Voodoo doll from a comedy where they're going to go "ooga booga" and force something to happen to someone?
Hey, if Muslims want to dig through my family records (which are a fairly sad collection; maybe they can find some long-lost rich relatives for me!) and go through some ceremony and call me Muslim after I've been dead for 100 years, more power to 'em. Heck, they could dig my remains up and give 'em a bath, for all I care.
I don't see how the Mormons' concern for their ancestors, though uncommon in Western civilization, is any weirder than what a lot of other religions, particularly Christians, claim. If I understand correctly, Catholics & Orthodox churches believe in infant baptism, and if the baby dies before it's baptized and given its last rites, it's going to hell. Other groups lack a formal ceremony like that, but require a verbal profession of a belief to save you. Mormons say that baptism's required like Catholics, but it's like they consider baptism more of a "checklist" item and instead of damning you because you didn't do it yourself while you were alive, they'll just do the neighborly thing and take care of it for you, so that then you can have the option to be "saved" if you want, and if you don't, that's your business. Rather than forcing you to do something, they feel that they're giving you freedom that you otherwise wouldn't have.
I've had people of various religions -- Christian, Jew, Budhist -- offer to pray for me on occasion, and I've never been offended by it, or creeped out because they thought their particular brand of religion was going to help me out more than another, but rather I was glad that they cared enough to expend the effort in my behalf, and enjoyed learning more about them in the process. If I knew they were praying, burning incense, etc. behind my back in my behalf, I'd be just as pleased. If I found that they were praying that I'd die a thousand horrible deaths, I'd just snort and wish them happiness. To me, this is no different. As for the family research, if they can get it anyone can, and I can think of a lot of people that I'd be more nervous about what they'd do with my genealogy than some religious group.
I do like the Parmesan cheese idea, though. Next time I eat spaghetti I might just have to declare it a Pastafarian baptism event!
You've been able to pipe sound into implants via wire for a long time. The Nucleus 6 (which my son has) added the capability to do wireless -- but it's a proprietary protocol, requiring you to buy a $300 adapter (which I don't have) to use it w/ standard Bluetooth. Obviously, this eliminates the need for the adapter, but I'm curious if anyone can tell me how else it improves the user experience over using the adapter?
Over-inflating means that you inflated it enough that someone noticed?
- Random appearances of Big Foot
You're assuming that the video system isn't hackable. I could see having some fun... :-O
Ah. I interpreted you as saying "The ultra-rich have their money in 401(k) accounts", but it looks like you were saying the opposite -- that the ultra-wealthy are the ones *not* in 401(k)s.
I would think, though, that for 401(k)s to become a significant "piggy bank" to the rich, they'd have to represent more than the 1% your earlier "middle class holds 1-2% total" declaration suggests -- where it doesn't seem they could provide a boost to other accounts significant enough to even notice.
*sigh* 401(k)s... I'd like to like them, but...yeah, what could have been a decent idea was mutilated by restrictions in a way that nobody can like them. Give employees control of where they invest? Allow them to have almost anything they want inside of that instrument? Great idea, except:
1. The avg worker isn't exactly a financial genius, nor do they want to become one.
2. The choice is restricted to what the employer has to offer (unless you frequently change jobs, etc. to move funds out and into IRAs, but then those aren't 401(k); the 401(k) still stinks.)
3. Too many HR managers are stupid, lazy, or corrupt, and there are plenty of institutions and "consultants" ready to take full advantage of that, so your choices are often very poor.
4. At least in the old days, if a company's pension plan was bad they knew it reflected poorly on them. Now, they just point to the 401(k) and say it's someone else's fault it didn't work out so well.
> 401k plans were never meant to provide retirement for people. They were just meant to funnel money to people who already have all the money.
With an $18k limit on 401(k) contributions, they're not exactly designed for stashing huge amounts of money for rich people. The extra-wealthy may certainly own the majority of funds in *other* instruments at Vanguard, but most of their money is *not* -- cannot be -- in 401(k)s.
I never found much on gopher (but never looked too hard) but came across hytelnet and used that quite a bit for a while.
The state AG announced the lawsuit the day before the primary election. Bob's definitely looking to make friends!
N-butyric acid is about the nastiest stuff I've ever smelled, and it's amazing how fast that stench can travel from one end of a large room to another. We had this stoner that started hanging around the chemistry lab a lot. One day I took him to the back room with a conspiratory air, and convinced him that this stuff was "soooo rad", and would "make you higher than a kite". I pumped him up enough that when I uncapped it he sniffed deeply without testing it first. He cried out, coughed, and vomited. Fortunately he was feeling too bad to catch me and do what he wanted, as I escaped back into the safety of the main room, laughing my head off. It didn't take long for the story to get around.
That's a good point -- while rare for me personally, I have on occasion included minimal X libraries for particular apps before while not hosting a full-time console environment. I've run into some apps that offer GUI admin from a remote machine -- but only if you install a "big boy" web server w/ extra modules that starts to make the X installation look small and simple.
Aside from all the jokes about not using vi, etc. I seriously marvel at the idea of a "really stripped-down server" including an X system. Though I fairly regularly use ssh -X on other workstations, I haven't included X at all on a single server (LTSP servers aside) in the last 15 years. I'm curious what kinds of tools server admins are requiring an X environment on the server for.
> where does the seven come in?
1000^7 thousands.
1000^7 thousands = septillion
1000^6 thousands = sextillion
1000^5 thousands = quintillion
1000^4 thousands = quadrillion
1000^3 thousands = trillion
1000^2 thousands = billion
1000^1 thousands = million
1000^0 thousands = thousand
One may argue over whether the short or long system (1000x & offset by 1) makes more sense, but they both have a logical relation.
Or revert -- when I'm deprived of sleep, I tend to grunt a lot, and feel an urge to throw spears and creatures that disturb me....
> I am more pleased with it than my prior Nexus 5.
Since I was considering buying a Nexus 5 (to replace my MyTouch 4g Slide), your comment interests me greatly. Could you elaborate on some of the differences you've experienced?
Thanks!
> staff with an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters
Wow, you just defined "government bureau"!
I went to the site as soon as this was posted
Apparently, 500 other people also sacrificed the chance to yell "First Post!"
There was virtually no CPM software adapted to the C=128
I wasn't aware that it needed to be adapted. When I think of CP/M software I don't think of fancy programs highly customized for specific hardware -- if it had a keyboard and at least an 80x24 screen, it was happy! Being able to run CP/M software was one of the main reasons I got a C128, and I did so for several years with no more adaptation than setting up book scripts on the floppy to automatically load everything the way I wanted.