But if you had a car that got only 25 MPG, you would have spent less than $3000 more on gas. Do you really feel like the hybrid drive system added less than $3000 in cost to your initial purchase price (even ignoring time value of money)?
No. The Kindle does this exactly right (from a UI point of view –not talking about patent nonsense).
It's "one click" to purchase. When you've clicked, you're at the confirmation screen. From that screen, all standard navigation (back, home) works; but there's a single button on that screen. That button reads, and I paraphrase, "oops, I didn't mean to click that, un-buy."
This is awesome UI. Do NOT present a confirmation dialog for undoable actions; instead, make them easy to undo.
Gas density is around 6 lbs/gallon, not 3.4 lbs/gallon.
I know a decent amount of HTML, but that's about it as far as my programming knowledge is concerned. I'm looking to get into a programming language as a hobby, with no plans to pursue it as a profession. What would you all recommend I look at? I've gotten conflicting opinions on Ruby, PHP, C#...what would you suggest (again, just as a hobby) and why? Thanks for the time.
PowerPC or MIPS assembly. After that, you'll understand what a computer does.
Then Common Lisp or Scheme. After that, you'll understand what a programming language does.
Then Perl. After that, you'll understand the alternatives.
Then C, and you can write some real code.
This is why you always pay for things like computers with a credit card.
Also, when you figure out reentry, you get a supply of human-flavored jam and jelly.
Wouldn't the other limitation of a computer powerful enough to simulate all of the particles in a universe be that it would have to be as big or at least a significant fraction of the universe itself?
It's not clear that we know the answer to this question. In terms of processing speed, there's no requirement for simulating at full speed, so this is not an issue. In terms of precision, a bit- (or word-) serial approach can achieve any finite precision with merely a reduction in speed, so also not an issue. So the remaining questions are (a) is a simple finite precision Turing machine sufficient for simulating the universe and (b) how much space do we need for information? (a) comes down to a strong form of the Church-Turing thesis, which Is we're not sure; (b) is a function of both maximum density of information and the actual information in the universe (taking into account redundancy), which are closely linked (see also the holographic principle).
In summary, who knows?
If you're not good enough at arithmetic to understand that this isn't an issue, should you really be developing software?
The person who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
