Posts by BenWilson
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Windoze isn't nearly so annoying on netbooks...it seems to be a really cut down version, and that's just fine by me. I just want a lightweight OS that works. A lounge machine isn't really expected to crunch numbers, just provide basic things like word processing, web browsing, picture viewing, music playing. If I want to actually work, I'll go to the workstation, which is much better set up with a proper chair, desk with notes laid out, dual monitors, mice, ergonomic keyboard, headsets, quiet room, telephones, printer, servers, router, fridge, coffee, library, strong lighting.
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A lounge room device turns out to be surprisingly useful. But it's also already sorted - netbooks. I have to say that the reading experience on them is actually a lot nicer than a book shaped object, mostly because you don't have to hold them. You just sit them on your lap, and you've got both hands free for drinks and remotes, pausing only to tap a key. They're good for webcam calls too, which are finally after all these years actually worth doing. I imagine it would get tiring holding an iPad for that, if it had a camera, which it doesn't.
There is something neat about a touch-screen, though, I could see my kids appreciating it, and myself cleaning it a lot.
As for perching it in the kitchen, a netbook doesn't actually need perching, so isn't in any danger of slipping off the sill into sink or cookpot. But you do still need to control it like a computer, and that, I think is probably the main thing that would sell the iPad - a nice simple interface.
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Actually, on reflection, perhaps Lady Gaga is just being self-deprecating in her choice of name. That's not necessarily insulting to the audience. Could just be truthful labeling, and you were warned.
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What? Have you even listened to her album? She writes and performs really good pop songs. Songs that make me want to dance and not wear any pants.
I guess that's the purpose. I hear it and find myself distracted by inanimate objects and minor household chores. But if it gets girl's pants off then I'm all for girls listening to it.
And you know her stage name is a play on "Radio Gaga"? She's much smarter than you think.
Isn't that one of those "insult the audience" jokes? She's effectively saying that she's that kind of boring crap that the original song was lamenting? Or did she actually not get what that song was about?
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I'm currently finding everyone in Cougar Town funny except Cox. But she's the bulk of it so I'm not sure if it's worth one more go.
As for Lost I'm expecting to feel after the last episode rather like I did when I got to lvl 60 in Warcraft - "Thank fuck that's finished <uninstall>".
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I'm only watching Lost out of sheer bloodymindedness now.
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This has been a very interesting debate, thanks to all contributors. I feel about 10 times as informed for about one third of the effort that I've had to put in reading the papers about this debacle.
Don't have any opinion yet, other than that it seems fairly outrageous that the Government tore down a fair and apparently done deal.
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To be fair, how many interesting stories can you come up with in a galaxy-spanning post-scarcity society where death is a (reversible) lifestyle choice? It would be a nice place to live in, but hellishly dull. :)
We're limited only by our imagination. Seems that the limit is not as unlimited as first thought. It's a given that we have to write about a future that we can engage with. I doubt the real future will be like that. I certainly doubt our ability to predict anything, given the hilarity of old science fiction.
Never really got the appeal, myself, but have to admit I'm the minority report on that one.
I'm still stuck at halfway through my first China Mieville. Just didn't grab me. The Algebraist did a much better job - that was a one night stand.
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Will be remembered by me as 'the year we made contact'.
Heh, yup. Both 2001 and 2010 came up for me as sober reflections on how far out popular scientific imagination is from actual scientific reality. Not just the utter, utter failure of the space race to have enabled casual space flights to the moon, let alone a manned flight to Jupiter, but also the totally false expectations placed on my own science - Artificial Intelligence. It always makes me crack up that people have their expectations and imaginations of this kind of science set up by such creations as HAL, who say things like "No HAL 9000 has ever made a mistake", and here I am writing software in which the number of mistakes it makes in identifying penis-enlargement spam is simply an adjustable constant, depending on how much you care. I can't think of a software system ever delivered that wasn't chock full of bugs, let alone stuff that deals with complex problems that suggest an Artificial Intelligence solution.
We're still not even close to just talking to our computers to get stuff done. Just getting them to type up what we're saying is hard enough.
As for the whole USA vs Russia thing in 2010, that was out of date within 6 years of the movie, and no mention was ever made in either film of the actual technology juggernaut of the next 20 years - the internet - which did actually exist at the time.
I found I really disliked that movie, upon reflection. 2001 was ground breaking. 2010 was a sell-out, with a cheezy finish. At least Clark was visionary enough in 2001 to see that our first contact with super advanced aliens was going to be something that couldn't be summed up by simple human understanding and cheap political messages.
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The key is to fund quality science and fund enough. Where we've failed as a country over the last 30 years is by pretending we can do more with less money by picking winners. All we've proved is we can do less with less money.
If only we could treat that as a meta-science experiment.
I agree, of course, that the flow on benefit from more science funding does find its way into our society in many ways. But the links are not direct, and this nation has a habit of demanding such links. The user-pays mentality. People see it as corporate welfare. But they don't really have any realistic alternatives. I'd just as soon allow the corporate welfare, as yet another kind of social welfare, because, like social welfare, the flow on benefits are in so many dimensions towards the kind society I value.
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