DCMonkey said:

Ion Todirel said:

*snip*

But IE6 doesn't have one

 

PS: I may be missing something but don't you actually have to insert a coin before it starts playing music? Or perhaps you (W3bbo) could do something drastic like refresh the page.

... or click the mute button in the bottom-left corner.

Edit: Links ...

• Brian Beckman: The Physics in Games - Real-Time Simulation Explained
• Brian Beckman: A Brief History of Computing

1. No IMAP
2. Text ads appended to every email

magicalclick said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

I don't know how you can adjust the focal point from a flat display source. It is certainly tricky, but, possible. I mean, imagine your monitor as the surface of a mirror. The mirror is completely flat, but, it is able to reflect complete range of depths of light source. Imagine we make that the same as monitor. That's what 3D is all about.

 

The stuff in the mirror certainly don't pop-out, but, they are clearly in their own focal point based on z-depth. This is what I am trying to propose. Imagine a monitor like mirror, but, just not your own reflection.

 

Maybe I should call it Mirror TV.

 

You should look at NVIDIA's 3D Vision; it produces the "3D into the screen" effect that you describe. The focal point effect is a different matter.

In some shooters that I've tried with 3D Vision, depth of field and 3D can combine nicely to achieve the effect of the water droplet example (e.g. around gun scopes, iron sights, close walls), but it only works where depth of field has been used/supplied by the game. The system does not use plain depth information of objects to adjust their focus, as I think you're describing.

justth3fax said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

I thank you for the additional (more recent) info that I couldn't locate, the numbers which you present, I believe, make what i am saying even stronger...

 

A smaller percentage consuming an even higher amount...

 

When you say $350 billion cheaper...well, it has been my observation that you get what you pay for...remember the government buys from the low bidder...what is the value you place on your health?  Do you eat the cheapest food you can find?  Do you drive the cheapest car on the market?  Do you live in the lowest rent tenement possible?  I don't.  I work hard and try to get the best I can.  I'm sure we all do.

Does anyone remember the pictures of Walter Reed Army Hospital that were on the news?

 

Yes, some veterans have unique needs but so do alot of non veterans as well...I would say that it is actually lower than the general population as prior to service there is an extensive health screening...lots of people are rejected for minor things.  During service there is continual on-going health evaluation and if some one is found to be in need they are plugged into that treatment program before they even get to the VA.

 

All that is really not the point, put the numbers aside...My point is, the government projections are always wrong, the debt is unsustainable and government can't ever do anything well.  Look @ Medicare...Look @ Medicaid....Look @ Social Security...All are bankrupt, insolvent, unfunded.  Tax revenues cannot cover what the government is spending. DEBT DEBT DEBT it is not sustainable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you say $350 billion cheaper...well, it has been my observation that you get what you pay for...remember the government buys from the low bidder...what is the value you place on your health?

You can't have it both ways. You can't have the best of everything at an affordable price. Much of the debate has been about how the health care system in its current state is on course to bankrupt your whole country, but when I make the proposition for a different setup that would be substantially cheaper you still defend the current system. It's astonishing.

And, I am not proposing that you should have to put a lower value on your health. I would not suggest that you should forfeit you're private insurance or visit a public hospital. Ideally, as many people as possible should use private care rather than public care because it means less spending burden for the government. I am just saying that when you have a public hand in the market, prices are pushed down and that benefits the 99.9% of the population that doesn't have a financial interest in private health insurance.

Also, "you get what you pay for" is seemingly not always applicable; remember that amongst industrialised OECD nations, the U.S. spends about twice as much per capita on health but has the worst quantitative outcomes.

justth3fax said:

Lets do some math...we like math (don't we?)

 

As reported on US Census Bureau website, the 2000 census determined that 26.4 Million citizens are Veterans and that is 12.7% of the population.

 

link = http://www.fastfacts.census.gov/jsp/saff/SAFFInfo.jsp?_pageId=tp12_veterans

 

The US Department of Veterans Affairs is exclusively government operated health care entity.  On 23 JUN, the House voted 409 to 1 to pass H.R.1016 which appropriates $53 Billion dollars for fiscal year 2010 (Oct 1, 2009 - Sept 30, 2010)

 

link = http://www.vmwusa.org/index.php/govtaffairs/2010-va-budget-updates   (scroll to bottom half of page)

 

I have a contact within the VA who has operational business knowledge.  The medical center that this person works at has approx. 79000 veterans in its' geographical/operational jurisdiction.  When I asked how many are actually use the VA from the area I was told that it was less than 25000.  There is currently a push to increase this to 30000.  Many Vets are actually not allowed to use the VA due to the Millenium Bill.  This places a cap on the amount of income or assets a vet can have before them are deemed ineligible.  I cannot use VA...I make too much...BTW, neither can my retired father...even though when we were both in the military a verbal contract was made with all veterans that the VA would take care of their medical needs.  That is a different story though...

 

So, if I were to round the percentage of utilization up to a full 1/3 would that be fair...i say yes.  1/3 of 26.4 million = 8.7666666 million or in significant figures 8.77 million or 4.23% of the population.  That is if we extrapilate the ratio out to its logical conclusion.

Lets take a moment to summarize...

 

$53 Billion Dollars to provide 1 year of health care for approx. 8.77 Million veterans.  This covers all VA operational and upkeep expendatures for 1 year.

 

Ok, lets now say that the VA (100% government controlled, fixed price, below market average salary MDs, Nurses, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practicianers, etc...) were to serve 100% of the public...

 

Lets get the multiplier to figure out the cost....

 

100/4.23 = 23.64066 = 23.6 (significant figures again)

 

Ok, in order for the VA to fully provide health care for 100% of the "known" reported population: $53 Billion * 23.6 = $1,250.8 Billion = $1.2508 Trillion

 

That is what 1 year of health care would cost, that is assuming that the VA already had in place and operational enough adequately staffed and equipped facilities.

 

Also, the it is more difficult for fraudulant billing in the VA as...well who gets billed?  Yeah the Vets have a co-pay if there is no service connected injury being treated...$50 bucks for as many appointments and procedures you can squeeze into a full day (of sitting in waiting rooms).

 

Sure, the VA bills the Vets insurance company...that is if they disclose it...but in a single payer world, there is no insurance provider.

What is the current US debt...I can't keep track but there is a website that shows it...

 

link = http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

Right now, every dollar that I earn from Jan 1 thru some time in May goes to the government in taxes...how much will that increase?

How much more debt can the US stack up from wasteful spending and give aways before the AAA credit rating goes away and China dumps their stock of Dollars...or worse?  China has already announce a couple of years ago that they were going to start divesting themselves of the Dollar...

 

I doubt that the 'non-partisan' congressional accounting office really thinks that this new health care law is going to reduce the debt...

 

A crash is coming...hold on, prepare and be ready...its not going to just affect America...

 

Please, my friends...don't applaude the coming reckoning...politicians have sold us all into chains...

 

Your numbers are way off ...

26.4 million veterans was/is not 12.7% of the population, its less than that since there was/are tens of millions of minors which you haven't counted. In 2000, 26.4 million was more like 9.4%, so the rest of your figures are also wrong.

Using proper and recent numbers, in 2010 there are about 8.1 million (from 2009; source) veterans utilising $53 billion of VA health care. So to give said care to the entire U.S. population (including minors) based on 2010 population estimates would cost $2.02 trillion (or $1.99 trillion for 2008's population), not the $1.25 trillion you estimated. However, compare with real 2008 spending at 16.2% (source) of $14.44 trillion GDP (source), which comes to $2.34 trillion.

Ceteris paribus, if the VA system was used for the whole population in 2008 at 2010 spending levels it would have been $350 billion cheaper, reducing debt rather than increasing it.

Of course, the whole idea of using VA figures to make these estimates is inherently flawed; I am sure there are lots of things that make caring for veterans more expensive than for the general population (disabilities, PTSD etc.), in which case these estimated savings might actually be understating potential real savings.

spivonious said:

I consider myself Libertarian, but if there's one thing in the bill that I agree with, it's mandating coverage. The uninsured using the emergency room instead of a primary care physician is a big reason that medical costs have gotten so high. Hospitals have no choice but to raise prices to cover their losses.

 

I think the current bill (as far as I understand it) has missed the point of health care reform. We need to lower health care costs, not punish the insurance companies for wanting to make a little money. 50 years ago health insurance was only for big things; nowadays we use it to pay for everything from prescriptions to regular checkups. Payouts go up, premiums must go up too. It's just how the world works.

 

Anyway, I'm going to stay out of this until I get a chance to actually read what was passed.

We need to lower health care costs, not punish the insurance companies for wanting to make a little money.

Paradox ...

Also, the overall trend appears to be towards more censorship and regulation on the Internet, not less. So Google will probably find in the future that the size of the market that it deems morally acceptable is increasingly limited.

AndyC said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

Except it's just as annoying the other way round. I often use the mouse wheel to scroll the active window's document, without the mouse being over that window (I've usually moved it out of the way to avoid the pointer obscuring text etc). The fact that Windows was designed to always work without a mouse (wheras Mac OS has historically required one to function) probably influenced the approach Windows took. I have to say that I personally much prefer it, it seems far more logical and useful to me.

I can appreciate the usefulness of that scenario as well, but I think there should at least be an option to choose which way you want it to work (Windows 8?). For the kind of work I'm doing, the Mac way is so much more efficient; there is so much less clicking involved.

BitFlipper said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

Re eliminating all human labour, this idea can only work sustainably if every person in the whole world has a "machine double" that they can send to (or leave at) the office/farm/factory. This way everyone is still employed by proxy and can therefore still "earn" a wage.

 

You are making this way more complicated than it needs to be. This reminds me of the comment someone once made that "One day we will have a room full of robots sitting in front of computers typing away".

 

Well ok, but why exactly do you need a computer inside a robot, controlling the mechanical robot so that it can input information via a physical keyboard one character at a time? Why not interface it directly to the computer? Or better yet, why have two computers at all?

 

The answer is much simpler: Things are getting more and more automated. All the hard physical work in a auto factory is done by an almost fully automated assembly line. What would have required 100s or 1000s of people now only require a fraction. So no-one is sending a robot to the "office".

 

So instead of driving down to the mall, you will order something online, and a fully automated system will deliver the item you ordered.

 

It is already happening. Our standard of living keeps going up (present little financial glitch notwithstanding). We are doing less and less physical work for a more luxurious life.  We no longer need to go and slave on the crop fields anymore or hunt for our food. Instead our jobs are very comfortable compared to what it used to be a long time ago. The idea is similar to the "Star Trek" idea, where eventually no-one really has to work for a living. If you want something, just request it, and since everything is automated, it no longer costs anything to produce. Everything is build and maintained by computers controlling "robots". Food will be produced or grown in fully automated factories, with little or no human supervision. Eventually the idea of money will go away since all of our  needs will be taken care of.

 

Probably hard to imagine that, but I think that is where it will trend towards at least. And even in this fully automated world, none of the computers need to be smarter than us. Is an auto-assembly robot smarter than us? No, but it surely can do our work for us.

So no-one is sending a robot to the "office".

Yes, I explained that badly. I mean that each employee would need to have some stake (be it a physical robot, software system or otherwise) in the business/farm where they used to work to ensure that they continue to be paid a "wage" for their stake. Sort of like a shareholder in a company who receives a dividend on their equity.

... since everything is automated, it no longer costs anything to produce.

I don't think so. Firstly, there are other costs to be factored into production besides labour. Secondly, you will have to tell every business they are no longer allowed to make a profit. Thirdly, people would still need to be "employed" and wages paid anyway as long as you don't want people resorting to crime to survive.

It's different to the Solaris method because keyboard input always goes to the active/foreground window, but mouse input goes to whichever window the mouse is hovering over. For example, you can have a text editor as the active window and an inactive browser window to the side with the mouse over it. The text editor will take your key presses and the browser window will take your mouse commands when you scroll.

The ubiquity of Windows means you can never truly escape it.

Kettch:

I think that tweak would do something like what Dr Herbie described, which sounds like it could be worse than the default setup. Also, the Windows boxes that I use are mostly lab computers; hacking the registry is not really an option.

Bass said:

CreamFilling512 said:

*snip*

I think it's a bit of the reverse, that machines are subservient to the human species. They are, and will continue to be our undead slave species. Let's just hope they never learn to rebel.

 

I see this as gradual. Of course many aspects of industrial production are already handled by machines, with humans at best filling a supervisory or QA role. It goes past that, when you visit the Automated Teller Machine or have your Washing Machine wash your clothing for you. It's all around us, and the world will (hopefully, IMO) only get more computerized, more automated, up to a point where humans only fill the most intellectual and rigorous of careers, and perhaps at some point, that too - will be computerized.

Re eliminating all human labour, this idea can only work sustainably if every person in the whole world has a "machine double" that they can send to (or leave at) the office/farm/factory. This way everyone is still employed by proxy and can therefore still "earn" a wage.

If businesses/farms were to start using their own machines in place of human employees (or their "machine doubles") en masse then your idea wouldn't work. Unless outlawed, this seems highly likely because it essentially means free labour. You would have a situation where the unemployment rate would approach 100% and no one except the very powerful business owners could earn a living, which we know would lead to societal collapse. And realistically, even the business/machine owners would be doomed in the long term because it's impossible to sell your goods or services if no one can afford to buy them.

The kind of human labour replacement that is happening now is generally a good thing I think; the resulting unemployment is a small price to pay for helping to keep us away from Malthusian equilibrium (and most of the jobs replaced would drive a human insane anyway). But I do think it is possible to reach a point where net human welfare starts to decrease when the suffering brought about by job losses exceeds the productivity gains that machines can provide.

Another question I will forward is "Do you think this a bad thing, if human labor is decreased or eliminated by machines?" My answer to this question would be "hell no". It would mean humanity would never be forced to work for a living ever again, and I find that to be a Very Good Thing.

You must either hate your job or be very lazy.

Bass said:

Sabot said:

*snip*

You said "up until recently", but if I were to choose MySQL today, it administration would be on par? If not, what exactly is missing?

This really is a serious question by the way. In the future I will probably have the need for a database. I want to make a good, balanced, decision.

You seem to be really exicited about SQL Server. I've done my own research on it. But I am interested to understand why I should spend thousands of dollars (or worse, force my customers to spend thousands of dollars in additional to my own fees - money I'd rather have) on a database when there are SQL-99 compliant databases which are free. What am I missing out on exactly if I support  Postgres or MySQL?

Even more difficult to justify, why should I write properitary database code such as T-SQL which will ensure my code will never work with more then one database and operating system? What should I tell customers who want to use my product on other databases? I hope it's not "I'd really love to invoice you for $500k mister, but tough sh*t, I've decided early on to write completely unportable code. How about you hand that check over to my rich competitor who supports your DB because his code is SQL-99?"

I really don't ever want to have to say "No, you can't" to a high paying customer just because his infrastructure and my code don't work together. That's why portability is important to me, in my industry there exists no monoculture where everyone uses Windows and SQL Server.

Will my productivity with T-SQL really increase that much to justify possibly losing customers? Does T-SQL like practically write itself or something?

You said "up until recently", but if I were to choose MySQL today, it administration would be on par? If not, what exactly is missing?

It's really just edge cases where MySQL isn't sufficient. For example, it can handle nested queries up to three levels deep while Oracle can go up to 16 levels. If I'm wrong on this then someone tell me, but this was the case last I knew.

Microsoft also does SQL Server Express which is free as well. There is not much need for you to spend thousands on a RDBMS unless you need some ultra-specific trait.

The Wikipedia feature comparison is nice and comprehensive.

jamie said:

ManipUni said:

*snip*

the only time i have to deal with - shift -enter vs enter is Word and Frontpage (and now C9)

the entire world uses enter as ONE space... except ms

It's not hard to change the line spacing in Word. Bring up the Paragraph dialog and set the default Spacing After value to 0. This bugged me too for about one second before I fixed it.

Duncanma said:

It is an interesting idea, we could just lock posts older than a certain date... I know that many blog engines do that. Perhaps a warning and a suggestion to create a new thread would be enough though. Thanks for the suggestions!

• One was thrown when I attempted to use the Replace function while pointing to a "corrupt" target file. The target file (a bitmap) was in fact one that was produced using the Export function and it couldn't be read with Paint. The Export function worked on another resource though so this "corruption" might be an isolated issue.
• Another one was thrown when I attempted to use the Export function and overwrite an existing file that was being accessed from another program.
• There was another when I attempted to open a file of an unsupported type.
• One more was thrown when I tried to use the Cancel function.

I am not sure about the zoom problem but the exception errors should be a simple fix. I should add that the zoom problem is not all that noticeable with small graphics, but is much more evident with larger ones.

Heywood_J said:

Among businesses, there will always be strong resistance to making any changes to computer systems. The most important reason for avoiding operating system upgrades is one that few people are willing to acknowledge -- my employer doesn't provide me a computer so I can run an operating system, they give me a computer so i can get work done. 

If I switch to Windows 7, will my existing applications be able to do more?  Will they acquire new features?  Of course not.  So why bother with all the potential problems?

jamie said:

Ion Todirel said:

*snip*

youre right ... so where did i see blowdart....  sabot / charles / blowdart england?

rhm said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

I find it hard to believe that you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, do you?

If you did you'd realise that the App Store is the killer app - while the built-in software is OK-ish, nothing special, the apps you can download make Apple's devices far more than a phone or a music player. The apps, even with the restrictions Apple puts on 3rd party apps, add so much functionality and entertainment value that they make the device 10 times as valuable as it would otherwise be. Even if Microsoft made a Zune with built in software that was twice as good as Apple's, it would still be an uninteresting proposition.

Oh, and even if you don't have an iPhone/iPod to see how great the App Store is for users of them, there's an obvious example to explain how flawed your argument is: Do you like the PC? Do you use only the software that came with Windows on it? Of course not. What makes PCs great is being able to install a ton of stuff on them, some from Microsoft, but most from other vendors. Now if you're thinking "that's irrelevant because we're talking about a music player, not a computer", then you've missed the point about the iPhone/iPod - they are very general purpose mobile computing devices. As such, the supply of software is critical to them.

If Microsoft makes another Zune that is just a music/video playing device, it honestly doesn't matter how good it is - it will just fade into the background with all the other great and not-so-great music/video playing devices.

evildictaitor said:

GoddersUK said:

*snip*

Gladiatorza's contribution to this thread amounts to spam

http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/TechOff/259443-Using-SystemReflection-to-obtain-parameter-values-dynamically/#Page=2

CannotResolveSymbol said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

I'll have to respecfully disagree here.  I think the primary selling point for the iPod Touch (over the iPod Nano or iPod Classic) is the third-party software library (and the built-in Apple applications--  primarily Safari, Mail and Calendar).  If I wanted a device that I were only going to use as an MP3 and video player, there are less expensive options out there (such as the iPod Nano).  And in the case of a pure music player, the iPod touch (or iPhone) really isn't that great--  physical buttons (or a scroll wheel) make a huge difference if you have to use the device when you can't see it.

Sure, there's a lot of rubbish on the App Store, but there's going to be a lot of rubbish for any device where there's a market for third-party development (there are lots of rubbish applications that run on Windows, lots of rubbish games that run on the XBox 360, etc.).   That doesn't mean that it doesn't have a thriving, essential third-party ecosystem.  How many of the millions of Windows applications do you currently have installed on your machine?  20?  30?  Without having done a complete survey of the App Store, I'd guess that its useful application to junk ratio is about the same as Windows, if not higher.