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Comment Re:Depends on the content surely (Score 1) 192

Those note taking apps + a stylus on a tablet are pretty baller though. I haven't had one around to get fluent enough over paper with, but I am pretty sure that most of those issues are solved. You can usually just draw a box around what you want and cut it out and move/scale it all in one go, take pictures and annotate, zoom in to you use less space or just keep adding to the canvas of the thing. Really worth checking out if hauling a tablet around is an option for you.

Comment Re:handwrite all day long (Score 1) 192

Just got my wife a surface pro 3 and I was going to say exactly what you did. If I had it myself I'd probably do my notes just like that. When I am designing things out though we usually whiteboard it and then I take a picture of it and go back to my desk right away and type out the requirements/ideas while they are fresh so I can actually read it (terrible handwriting).

But really now I only use paper for designing any code I write, just being able to do boxes, lines, arrows and whatever on demand really help a lot. Typically though that paper gets thrown out over time as once it is in code I just go from there, but for those times I really need to think I have to doodle on paper for some reason.

If I had a surface + pen or something similar I'd 100% be using that all the time and saving the notes forever.

Comment Re:It's more than just "I don't want grammy to see (Score 2) 326

I can't tell you the number of times I've started writing posts or thought to reply to something when I hit shift A and press delete and close the comment. Too many eyes make it not worth it to say anything. Too many people fired or upset or eyes on.

For me it is a bit paralyzing, I have always kept too myself what I like or dislike. When I was younger the internet was a savior, I could finally say what I wanted without fear of mockery IRL, not that i'm controversial at all, just, it was hard to let it out. With the general population being online and the datamining abilities of companies to string things together, posting anything online has become much more dangerous than speaking aloud.

I keep trying to push through it sometimes, but it's hard. Even now I just shift A'ed this post and almost deleted. I'll put it out there this time though.

Comment Re:It's more than just "I don't want grammy to see (Score 1) 326

It is interesting you say this. Back before social media took off I ran a webserver and wrote up basically a quick version of facebook, my friends all logged in and could post things. We used it for planning and sharing stuff over the day. Every once in a while though a topic like you mentioned would come up and people really got on one another's nerves.

It was a consequence of spending more time with one another, even though you aren't in person, that time to read what everyone is thinking can bring up some more differences. It's easy to hang out and go tubing down a river without caring what religion/political leanings people have, but when people start posting about it, it can change a lot.

Some people can see this as bad but I think it can also open the door for people to step up and make things better, to respect other people's views even though you don't agree. In a friend group you have more motivation to work through your disagreements and learn to function with someone you don't quite see eye to eye on.

It also has the opportunity to foster deeper friendships if you find you agree on things that you never knew before.

I don't know that FB though is the best place for that though, perhaps too easy to just be angry at another person and leave it at that.

Comment Re:Restaurants (Score 1) 940

Honestly, I like ordering via computer myself much better. Since online ordering it is much easier to take the menu in at a glance and go over all the options to customize your meal right there. Some places have pretty confusing menus or there isn't much time to sit and look over them if you are talking a fast food place. If you have an app in front of you the order is right there, goes into the database, and is printed all legibly. It can still go wrong on the kitchen end, but no chance of screw ups when things get busy or a waitress is new, or if you have a lot of alterations to the menu.

I guess right now some restaurants have kiosks that are probably the best blend, where you can ask for refills or pay the bill whenever you are done on them, but get a person still there taking care of running your food out and stuff.

Comment Re:Sounds good. (Score 1) 940

Yeah, the problem is really that you still need lots of 'unfun' stuff for humans to be done in order to have the things that you want to do in your leisure time. Using computers are great, assembling the materials and manufacturing the devices and figuring out how to design them are hard and/or tedious depending where you sit in the supply line. Someone has to do it, but most likely, nobody really WANTS to do it, they'd rather use the end product.

Eh anyway, I really liked that post above with the story about new australia. You'd basically have to achieve that state where everybody gets the same amount, everything ever is available to everybody, to even begin to formulate the whole idea of 'no need to work'. In the story the foam wellfare buildings were supposed to be evil, but in truth it would be pretty sweet to have a fallback like that where there were actual opportunities to advance upward if you wanted to, that you weren't trapped there or discouraged with no way out, but that you could choose to live in the foam house and be 'okay' but could easily start working and achieve more, if you wanted.

Truthfully, the best way to live is clearly the world of the matrix. If you never knew that you were hooked up to a battery the whole time, it is a pretty good deal. The robots absolutely need you so they will maintain the human farms as a number one priority. The farms take little space and can grow vertically, allowing room for much more population on the surface. Further, I bet the robots could easily colonize many planets, plopping down a human battery stack on anything with a solid surface for the colony. Human's would spread throughout the universe quite easily. The whole time we are diligently protected and watched over by our robot keepers, because if we die, they die.

Though maybe that falls apart because once they clear the atmosphere they have solar. Hmmm :(

Comment Re:I think the problem is overstated (Score 1) 669

No problem at all! I meant to come across that way in my post. It's the people that seem to expect the world to be mind readers, or just not talk about, or even censor, using certain words that MIGHT trigger SOMEONE. The real way is to communicate that certain phrases might upset you, and to please not use them around me. That is certainly acceptable and the basis of a respectful relationship between people.

Comment Re:I think the problem is overstated (Score 1) 669

I think the issue with trigger warnings is the desire for it to take over the public. Anybody can trigger off of anything, it is impossible to predict what can bother a person.

In the real world, conversations should kind go like this. You are talking to your friend one day, you mention you got bit by a dog, describe the incident in detail, and he stops you, tells you about his trama, and you go, oh sorry man. From that point on you try to avoid bringing it up, because he asked to not bring it up, and that's what you do.

In the world that I have been reading about for the past year or so, they would have jumped down your throat for even mentioning a dog attack, talked about your privilege in growing up in an area with leashed dogs, and you should know better not to even talk about them in the first place.

I'm all for trigger warnings on sites on very specific topics, like on a support site for rape victims, it is a good idea to have the trigger warnings in there, in there if someone were to describe something in detail, that makes sense, and fits within the framework of the space. But they don't belong out of there 'in public' as it were.

I thought I did read that trigger warnings are actually harmful to people that have actual trama, that most people shouldn't be rendered catatonic when the same word describing their attack comes up in normal conversation, and if they are affected by it, the best way to heal through it is repeated exposure to it such that it doesn't cause any reaction at all.

That said I can still see respecting another enough to let them choose when they do or don't want to deal with a thing.

Still, trigger warnings and the like are ok in specific areas, just that group that wants them out there, to sanitize the world to fit their space, well, that scares me if things like that come to pass, it really does. That's my trigger.

Comment Re: Obligatory (Score 1) 669

I think both you and the GP hit the nail on the head. The difference is the internet. And I'm not talking about 'oh your head is down and not looking around you' kind of internet, I'm talking the global reach and ability to talk to almost anybody world wide in seconds.

One big issue is, is this an issue? What are examples of collage kids being offended by microagressions that is outside a vocal minority? If one were to walk around on campus would there be an air of this PC polluting the place, or would that only be an outward facing view they all have to share because of the slew of internet stories telling them that everyone else is offended by them?

As people our brains are also easily manipulated by anecdotal evidence. Well, I just read 200 slashdot comments supporting/opposing me, this must be the world view everybody shares!!

Offending people generates clickbait which leads to ad revenue. This leads to offensive, polarized discussions, which generate the most traffic and comments, getting payed the most to do so. While not everybody has set out to do this, there are hundreds of sites that this is their aim.

Find a random blog post/twitter complaint, elevate it to "People are OUTRAGED over the new "Blue Baby" flavored bubble gum" and just ride the wave of clicks for cash.

I think a lot of people are really unaware of how often this is being done, and are regularly pushed clickbait articles about offense everyday, it starts to generate within them the world view that everybody is mad all the time about everything.

I could be off, I'm older and no longer on campus, but even in my time (about 15 years ago) there were some pretty loud people pretty angry at just about anything, it's just, everyone has a louder voice, and the groups can get bigger, and the ad revenue driven entertainment we still call news thrives off of this.

It's the internet, unleashed in the wild for enough time now to start affecting an entire generation. We'll have to figure it all out as a people, but, I think we'll make it.

Comment Re:2B tears (Score 1) 63

I do honestly think the isolation of becoming suddenly rich is probably difficult enough to the point that I would wonder if I were better off working at a good salary in a field I enjoyed rather than sitting on mega millions. I mean look at the posts about notch ever since he hit it big with minecraft, everybody is just mad at the guy all damn time, he can't win.

I think being 'new money' is probably pretty isolating, and what really is the point and joy of life, of creating anything really, if you don't have people to share it with. A huge house, the stress free management and freedom from daily chores, unlimited travel /vacationing...but you can't go anywhere and interact with people and make connections. It'll always be suspect.

That has to be hard. And I get it, it's not "I can't pay my rent/mortgage" hard, but, its kinda like you got your life and place in life figured and sorted out, then it's all turned up side down, everybody you know treats you differently, has expectations, wants you to solve their problems. You, stop being the you you though you were.

I saw notches post about his new house and the party he has with celebrities in it, and just thought how big, sad, and lonely that house looked, and wondered if any of those people were really his friends.

Objectively, what you really want is 2 billion dollars in the bank and nobody with a clue you have it. Live a normal, comfortable life, that's the true dream. Drop fame, I can't imagine that has ever been good for anybody.

Comment Re:Unison (Score 1) 748

Right exactly, the sophistication would increase over time. Accidents always happen all the time.

But I tell you the damn computer could avoid so many more than we can as people. Hell, if you have a heart attack in your car a good system could route you to the hospital and turn your vehicle into an ambulance getting everyone out of the way and notify the hospital that you are incoming. Without that the guy would most likely swerve off into traffic causing a cascading accident.

The whole idea is that cars will have inhuman reaction times coupled with greater sensory perception and awareness. This whole 'steer into 5 people or murder the driver' is probably such a complex thing for a machine OR human to even sense in the amount of time that an accident occurs. At least if a machine could see actually determine it in time, you damn well bet the machine had time to make a more informed decision than a person would.

I mean life is not 100% predictable. "Hey, didn't your car detect that nuclear launch and get out of the way of the blast zone? NO? It won't help!" It is so damn obvious how many deaths and accidents and just general frustration in driving could be avoided by automated and networked roadways, really I don't see why humanity isn't jumping for joy at the thought of something like this.

Comment Re:the new slow dummies in the left lane (Score 1) 748

This is exactly why control of cars needs to be out of human hands.

Optimal flow of traffic is too hard and large a problem for any driver to determine what they should be doing from their point of view, let alone the expectation that each driver is capable and conscious enough to make 'non obvious' moves, like going slower.

I have no doubt that with some algorithms and real time traffic stats that we'd all get to where we wanted to go much faster and safer than we can now, but we have to take our human hands out of it.

I don't understand why the pride issue or whatever either, there is no way that over the 70 years or so we'll probably be on the roadways that we can guarantee full cognizance at every given moment of driving. We all get distracted, mad, happy, surprised, excited, and each mood will affect our driving.

Eh, I'll never see it in my lifetime, but I tell you it'll be a much better world of transportation when computers are getting us from point a to b.

Comment Re:wah wah wah clickbait (Score 1) 400

Just saw a story today with someone putting out a "Despecialized" edition of starwars, which you should be able to find with some googling. They tried their best to remove all the 'fixes' added to the movies and do some color correction and a bunch of other stuff you'd probably like if really into that stuff.

Also saw on youtube some recuts of the 'new' trilogy that tried to remove as much cheese as possible, and after skipping around them I think they do a pretty good job improving the movies as much as they could.

Anyway didn't read clickbait article, but periodically rewatch star wars with the kids and still enjoy it. I especially like empire and the fight at the end, and honestly with age I get a bit more enjoyment out of it. As I got older I noticed that each section of the fight vader was trying to make a different point, from toying, to lessons, to dead serious frustration at the end. You don't need overly flashy choreography to tell the story, even within an action sequence, and I think empire does it really well there.

It's like anything though, takes a bit of mental gymnastics to still appreciate media that doesn't hold up technically as well. I can look back at a lot of games I loved and still see how amazing they were for the time and understand why I used to spend hours on them. I can certainly do the same with movies, star wars included.

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