They also don't explain by what method the control group got fatter "overall" during the experiment. They didn't receive the health "smap" before and they didn't receive it after. Why would starting an experiment whose purpose they have no idea of cause them to suddenly get fatter?
By the way, there's a band in Japan who might object to having their name used to refer to opt-in junk email.
The whole "your job is a privilege" mind-washing spiel is just that. A job is a contract entered into between an employer and an employee, whereby one person agrees to pay for the other one's work. If you didn't have skills they need, then why are they paying you? There should be a balance. If you let someone bully you with how "lucky" you are to let them treat you like crap, then you're probably likely to have a pretty miserable career.
However, the only time putting a piece of paper over your Wacom tablet would be useful is if you're emulating pen-and-ink or colored pencils, etc. For painting, I *prefer* the slickness, as a paintbrush doesn't transmit the roughness of the paper the same way (unless you're dry-brushing or scumbling.)
"Enough time" would be only a few minutes at the most, and usually less than a few seconds; the only long-lived isotope of gold is Au-195, which has a half-life of 186 days. Also, this particular isotope happens to also be the only one that cannot be created by neutron irradiation. It is instead created by electron capture, a process whereby an electron is combined with a proton in the nucleus, resulting in a neutron and a neutrino, the latter of which is ejected.
So it would seem the very properties that make gold so desirable also make it incredibly hard to irradiate.
It works a little differently for Japanese - you can't associate hundreds of kanji to each sound, for example. A Japanese speaker could create a mental visual mnemonic of a string of kanji characters in his head, for example, which gives the sounds a lot more distinction than just Arabic numerals could provide. For example, "hi" could be "sun," "fu" means "not," and "mi" could be "look," so you could tell yourself, "Don't look at the sun.":)
However, using the "information wants to be free" as an excuse to steal is no excuse; it tarnishes the nobility of the ideology. Think of it this way: you're not paying for the information; you're paying for the investment of time, energy, and *my* money in gathering that information and producing something useful or enjoyable for you.
The real issue should be kept to: copyright is good; copyright without limits is bad.
I don't think the problem is so much that people correct, but the tone in which they correct - "Oh my God, how could you make such a heinous mistake? What is *wrong* with you? Were you dropped on your head as a child?" etc. Basically, advice is fine. Advice couched in the tones of an insensitive clod who pretends he's never made a typo is as good as not giving it in the first place, as you just end up alienating the person.
As for giving unsolicited advice and expecting someone to appreciate it, be careful; every post a person makes on Slashdot falls into that category, whether it's about spelling or not. When a post is written in a testy, holier-than-thou voice is when the flame wars start. Be careful to not become the pot calling the kettle black.:)
Actually, as far as everyone I've talked to, "chi," or "ki" as it's called here, is alive and well in Japan. As a student of aikido (guess what the "ki" stands for?) I can tell you there are thousands of firm believers. Also, my acupuncturist is doing a damn fine job believing in the stuff, and he has done wonders for my chronic back and shoulder problems.
The Japanese believe in ki as simply a fact of being; to them, it is the energy that animates your body, much as we talk about having a spirit or a soul. They have the most amazing ability to not really care whether Westerners approve of it or not, either; rather, they simply seem bemused and wonder how one can *not* believe in it (like saying you don't believe in wind, for example.) Most of them just accept it and go on with their lives.
Yes, you can tell someone in less than a minute. Now assuming that your explanation was useful and the other person is comfortable with computers, they're set. They'll probably master it within a couple of days...or a week. Computers are computers, no matter what shape or size they are. Also, becoming comfortable with the keyboard layout on a cell phone still takes time, too. Nothing is free.
Anyway, the conversation was about going beyond the norm on input speed. If SMS satisfies you, great; your mailing needs are probably few. If you rely on SMS for regulary correspondence, it is definitely not the most efficient method. Future systems will either require either a much more intuitive and predictive input method, or a little bit of effort on the user's part. Versus the several years it takes to master Japanese characters, I'd call a week a steal.
I say this because I live in Japan, speak Japanese, and regularly send emails via my cell phone in both English and Japanese. English is a real bitch to type whereas Japanese is super-fast. So, yes, I'm speaking from personal experience.
As another poster mentioned, Japanese do indeed use the so-called 50-sound input system, which doesn't necessarily require five keystrokes as there is also a reverse key (allowing you to go backwards through the list.) It also has excellent type-ahead find for words, and remembers the most frequent words and phrases you type so that you can often complete a sentence within two key presses.
As for keyboard typing, I touch-type QWERTY at 80+ words per minute in both languages, and Japanese is once again faster simply because the words are shorter and the grammar simpler. A lot of extra time is wasted in English typing letters that serve no phonetic purpose in a word, as well as commas, spaces and the shift key for capitals. Spell everything phonetically, eliminate spaces and capitalization, and we'll be a long way towards competing. Until then, English is simply less efficient to type because it uses the alphabet instead of phonemes.
So really you're just agreeing with the results of the test - which is that the best designed Morse code equipment is superior to text messaging on a numeric keypad. It doesn't require someone with 80 years of practice, either - just enough. I used to have an interest in ham radio when I was a kid, and I have seen the advanced key switches myself. Amazing stuff.
So we have Morse code, which works now and could be fitted to a phone. You have two thumbs and, as you pointed out, two big buttons; fit one to be the dot, one to be the dash. There you go. Ergonomic, really hard to make a mistake (assuming you know which hand is which), and already tried-and-true. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I don't think this is a case to cry foul, but to appreciate a superior message-sending format. Morse code can be learned relatively quickly, actually - within a week, if you really want to. When you get right down to it, it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes. You would think Slashdot people would appreciate that. )
As far as other technologies go, such as type-ahead find, etc, a japanese person would trump someone using the alphabet because they use a phonetic system that combines a consonant and vowel in every symbol, giving them a two-for-one deal. Combined with the fact that most nouns involve only two kanji and a far simpler grammatical structure and now you know why everyone in Japan emails via their cell, even with the limited keypad. Trust me, Japanese is a lot harder to learn than Morse.
I have the same feeling towards Windows Media Player for OSX, so don't feel bad. At least you're not perpetually a full version behind. Perhaps it's just the balance of the universe being maintained. Tell you what: ou work on Microsoft, I'll work on Apple.:)
It has everything to do with a platform war. Game manufacturers work very long hours to make sure that their games are optimized for Windows before they ever even think (if ever) of porting their game to another platform. The ports are usually "if it runs without crashing and at a decent frame rate, call it good and cash the check." Does this make Linux or OSX bad gaming environments? Of course not. It simply means they are being treated as an afterthought.
Windows, on the other hand, is terrible at multi-tasking; sorry. As an animator and videographer, I have used both Macs and PCs for over ten years, both on the 9x series and NT side, and have found that Windows' ability to multi-task seems to have actually gotten worse with each iteration. It just can't handle heavy task loads well if it involves more than one application at a time.
I will agree, though, that if I'm going to play a game I shut down whatever I don't need. I keep a memory monitor in my task bar, though, and can tell you that a lot of RAM gets wasted on a per-process basis regardless of whether or not it's in use.
Actually, it's supposed to be reserved for universities and some corporations until the bugs can get worked out, plus a reserved period to allow them to utilize it while the rest of the world's hardware gets ramped up. However, since it *is* being managed by government and higher education, it's no surprise that it hasn't been rolled out for the masses yet.
Thank you. That pretty much sums it up for me, too. Slashdot obtains revenue through its ads, which I actually sometimes use (gasp!), which means that I have, in my own way, contributed.
Speaking of contribution, that puts a flaw in the example. Since I am contributing (dubious as that might be), I am contributing my own time and energy into Slashdot. I participate and put something back in. I don't attempt to steal the extra features offered by a subscription without paying, so I am therefore playing by the rules.
I agree that they should lighten up, but at the same time, if you find something useful and use it on a regular basis, pay for it. Even if you don't like the "corporation" (AKA "the Man"), don't forget that there is somebody on the front line who put a hell of a lot of work into that piece of software you're enjoying.
People confuse software with ideas because it's intangible. Indeed, before Bill Gates came around, the idea of licensing software per copy was considered absurd. However, consider the years and millions of dollars poured into a piece of software and then realize that you're not paying for an idea, you're paying for skills and time.
My rules are very simple: if I don't like it, I throw it away. If it's a game and I want to play it through, I buy it. If I plan to make money through the use of someone's software, I buy a license before my own product is ever made public. Turnabout is fair play.
That comment is, unfortunately, slightly out of context. They were trying to help people relate to why they were excited about 50 nano-Kelvins, which is still arguably really, really cold. The idea is, if you scaled the temperatures up to something that normal people could relate to, then this breakthrough in superconductivity could be likened to something at above room temperature (where the previous upper limit was room temperature itself.)
Living in Osaka, I can tell you how the WW2 bombings have permanently affected Japan's urban design. Compared to the clean lines of Kyoto's streets, Osaka is an unmanageable warren of narrow, twisting alleyways. Finding your way around requires either a very large book of very detailed maps, or in-car GPS navigation (I'm not kidding; that's what most people rely on.)
Since when are reactionaries and radicals mutually exclusive? Those who react to the editorial would be, regardless of political alignment, reactionaries.
Defacing would differ from actually contributing to the wiki process in that someone does something adds something counter-productive instead of insightful. (Yes, you can be insightful whether you agree with the opinion stated or not.) Someone who deletes the whole article and puts "So-and-so sucks!" would be an example of a defacing reactionary.
We could just call it a flame-baiting troll, if that would make you feel better.:)
I've had my page for three years, I update it regularly, and I am unable to find it on Google. Period. I have emailed Google twice on the subject, "when I type in my exact site name plus my full name, don't you think it's a little odd that it doesn't come up?" and have never gotten more than an automated response.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, George Bush fired people within the CIA for not supporting him, so apparently, yeah, you can. :)
They also don't explain by what method the control group got fatter "overall" during the experiment. They didn't receive the health "smap" before and they didn't receive it after. Why would starting an experiment whose purpose they have no idea of cause them to suddenly get fatter?
By the way, there's a band in Japan who might object to having their name used to refer to opt-in junk email.
The whole "your job is a privilege" mind-washing spiel is just that. A job is a contract entered into between an employer and an employee, whereby one person agrees to pay for the other one's work. If you didn't have skills they need, then why are they paying you? There should be a balance. If you let someone bully you with how "lucky" you are to let them treat you like crap, then you're probably likely to have a pretty miserable career.
However, the only time putting a piece of paper over your Wacom tablet would be useful is if you're emulating pen-and-ink or colored pencils, etc. For painting, I *prefer* the slickness, as a paintbrush doesn't transmit the roughness of the paper the same way (unless you're dry-brushing or scumbling.)
"Enough time" would be only a few minutes at the most, and usually less than a few seconds; the only long-lived isotope of gold is Au-195, which has a half-life of 186 days. Also, this particular isotope happens to also be the only one that cannot be created by neutron irradiation. It is instead created by electron capture, a process whereby an electron is combined with a proton in the nucleus, resulting in a neutron and a neutrino, the latter of which is ejected.
So it would seem the very properties that make gold so desirable also make it incredibly hard to irradiate.
It works a little differently for Japanese - you can't associate hundreds of kanji to each sound, for example. A Japanese speaker could create a mental visual mnemonic of a string of kanji characters in his head, for example, which gives the sounds a lot more distinction than just Arabic numerals could provide. For example, "hi" could be "sun," "fu" means "not," and "mi" could be "look," so you could tell yourself, "Don't look at the sun." :)
It's just our way of expressing our joy in the nerd-worthiness.
However, using the "information wants to be free" as an excuse to steal is no excuse; it tarnishes the nobility of the ideology. Think of it this way: you're not paying for the information; you're paying for the investment of time, energy, and *my* money in gathering that information and producing something useful or enjoyable for you.
The real issue should be kept to: copyright is good; copyright without limits is bad.
Good advice. Take everything gracefully, or at least with a grain of salt. :)
I don't think the problem is so much that people correct, but the tone in which they correct - "Oh my God, how could you make such a heinous mistake? What is *wrong* with you? Were you dropped on your head as a child?" etc. Basically, advice is fine. Advice couched in the tones of an insensitive clod who pretends he's never made a typo is as good as not giving it in the first place, as you just end up alienating the person.
:)
As for giving unsolicited advice and expecting someone to appreciate it, be careful; every post a person makes on Slashdot falls into that category, whether it's about spelling or not. When a post is written in a testy, holier-than-thou voice is when the flame wars start. Be careful to not become the pot calling the kettle black.
Actually, as far as everyone I've talked to, "chi," or "ki" as it's called here, is alive and well in Japan. As a student of aikido (guess what the "ki" stands for?) I can tell you there are thousands of firm believers. Also, my acupuncturist is doing a damn fine job believing in the stuff, and he has done wonders for my chronic back and shoulder problems.
The Japanese believe in ki as simply a fact of being; to them, it is the energy that animates your body, much as we talk about having a spirit or a soul. They have the most amazing ability to not really care whether Westerners approve of it or not, either; rather, they simply seem bemused and wonder how one can *not* believe in it (like saying you don't believe in wind, for example.) Most of them just accept it and go on with their lives.
Yes, you can tell someone in less than a minute. Now assuming that your explanation was useful and the other person is comfortable with computers, they're set. They'll probably master it within a couple of days...or a week. Computers are computers, no matter what shape or size they are. Also, becoming comfortable with the keyboard layout on a cell phone still takes time, too. Nothing is free.
Anyway, the conversation was about going beyond the norm on input speed. If SMS satisfies you, great; your mailing needs are probably few. If you rely on SMS for regulary correspondence, it is definitely not the most efficient method. Future systems will either require either a much more intuitive and predictive input method, or a little bit of effort on the user's part. Versus the several years it takes to master Japanese characters, I'd call a week a steal.
I say this because I live in Japan, speak Japanese, and regularly send emails via my cell phone in both English and Japanese. English is a real bitch to type whereas Japanese is super-fast. So, yes, I'm speaking from personal experience.
As another poster mentioned, Japanese do indeed use the so-called 50-sound input system, which doesn't necessarily require five keystrokes as there is also a reverse key (allowing you to go backwards through the list.) It also has excellent type-ahead find for words, and remembers the most frequent words and phrases you type so that you can often complete a sentence within two key presses.
As for keyboard typing, I touch-type QWERTY at 80+ words per minute in both languages, and Japanese is once again faster simply because the words are shorter and the grammar simpler. A lot of extra time is wasted in English typing letters that serve no phonetic purpose in a word, as well as commas, spaces and the shift key for capitals. Spell everything phonetically, eliminate spaces and capitalization, and we'll be a long way towards competing. Until then, English is simply less efficient to type because it uses the alphabet instead of phonemes.
So really you're just agreeing with the results of the test - which is that the best designed Morse code equipment is superior to text messaging on a numeric keypad. It doesn't require someone with 80 years of practice, either - just enough. I used to have an interest in ham radio when I was a kid, and I have seen the advanced key switches myself. Amazing stuff.
So we have Morse code, which works now and could be fitted to a phone. You have two thumbs and, as you pointed out, two big buttons; fit one to be the dot, one to be the dash. There you go. Ergonomic, really hard to make a mistake (assuming you know which hand is which), and already tried-and-true. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I don't think this is a case to cry foul, but to appreciate a superior message-sending format. Morse code can be learned relatively quickly, actually - within a week, if you really want to. When you get right down to it, it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes. You would think Slashdot people would appreciate that. )
As far as other technologies go, such as type-ahead find, etc, a japanese person would trump someone using the alphabet because they use a phonetic system that combines a consonant and vowel in every symbol, giving them a two-for-one deal. Combined with the fact that most nouns involve only two kanji and a far simpler grammatical structure and now you know why everyone in Japan emails via their cell, even with the limited keypad. Trust me, Japanese is a lot harder to learn than Morse.
I have the same feeling towards Windows Media Player for OSX, so don't feel bad. At least you're not perpetually a full version behind. Perhaps it's just the balance of the universe being maintained. Tell you what: ou work on Microsoft, I'll work on Apple. :)
Of course not! Didn't you know that all expats go through extensive mind-wa - I mean, "lifestyle reorientation" - upon entering the United States?
It has everything to do with a platform war. Game manufacturers work very long hours to make sure that their games are optimized for Windows before they ever even think (if ever) of porting their game to another platform. The ports are usually "if it runs without crashing and at a decent frame rate, call it good and cash the check." Does this make Linux or OSX bad gaming environments? Of course not. It simply means they are being treated as an afterthought.
Windows, on the other hand, is terrible at multi-tasking; sorry. As an animator and videographer, I have used both Macs and PCs for over ten years, both on the 9x series and NT side, and have found that Windows' ability to multi-task seems to have actually gotten worse with each iteration. It just can't handle heavy task loads well if it involves more than one application at a time.
I will agree, though, that if I'm going to play a game I shut down whatever I don't need. I keep a memory monitor in my task bar, though, and can tell you that a lot of RAM gets wasted on a per-process basis regardless of whether or not it's in use.
Actually, it's supposed to be reserved for universities and some corporations until the bugs can get worked out, plus a reserved period to allow them to utilize it while the rest of the world's hardware gets ramped up. However, since it *is* being managed by government and higher education, it's no surprise that it hasn't been rolled out for the masses yet.
Thank you. That pretty much sums it up for me, too. Slashdot obtains revenue through its ads, which I actually sometimes use (gasp!), which means that I have, in my own way, contributed.
Speaking of contribution, that puts a flaw in the example. Since I am contributing (dubious as that might be), I am contributing my own time and energy into Slashdot. I participate and put something back in. I don't attempt to steal the extra features offered by a subscription without paying, so I am therefore playing by the rules.
I agree that they should lighten up, but at the same time, if you find something useful and use it on a regular basis, pay for it. Even if you don't like the "corporation" (AKA "the Man"), don't forget that there is somebody on the front line who put a hell of a lot of work into that piece of software you're enjoying.
People confuse software with ideas because it's intangible. Indeed, before Bill Gates came around, the idea of licensing software per copy was considered absurd. However, consider the years and millions of dollars poured into a piece of software and then realize that you're not paying for an idea, you're paying for skills and time.
My rules are very simple: if I don't like it, I throw it away. If it's a game and I want to play it through, I buy it. If I plan to make money through the use of someone's software, I buy a license before my own product is ever made public. Turnabout is fair play.
That comment is, unfortunately, slightly out of context. They were trying to help people relate to why they were excited about 50 nano-Kelvins, which is still arguably really, really cold. The idea is, if you scaled the temperatures up to something that normal people could relate to, then this breakthrough in superconductivity could be likened to something at above room temperature (where the previous upper limit was room temperature itself.)
In other words, still no practical application.
Since my Visa number was recently stolen and used, I can tell you that it's fairly major if you're one of the affected.
Living in Osaka, I can tell you how the WW2 bombings have permanently affected Japan's urban design. Compared to the clean lines of Kyoto's streets, Osaka is an unmanageable warren of narrow, twisting alleyways. Finding your way around requires either a very large book of very detailed maps, or in-car GPS navigation (I'm not kidding; that's what most people rely on.)
Since when are reactionaries and radicals mutually exclusive? Those who react to the editorial would be, regardless of political alignment, reactionaries.
:)
Defacing would differ from actually contributing to the wiki process in that someone does something adds something counter-productive instead of insightful. (Yes, you can be insightful whether you agree with the opinion stated or not.) Someone who deletes the whole article and puts "So-and-so sucks!" would be an example of a defacing reactionary.
We could just call it a flame-baiting troll, if that would make you feel better.
I've had my page for three years, I update it regularly, and I am unable to find it on Google. Period. I have emailed Google twice on the subject, "when I type in my exact site name plus my full name, don't you think it's a little odd that it doesn't come up?" and have never gotten more than an automated response.