Disqus - Latest Comments for jamiehardt

Re: HP webOS devices (TouchPad, Veer, and Pre series) to be killed in Q4 2011

jamiehardt — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:10:58 -0000

It's those commercials where a celebrity holds the tablet over their face while their face talks on it. I saw several of them before I even realized it was for a WebOS tablet. That's the problem, the XOOM and the Thrive and the Galaxy Tab all sort of smear together in advertising.

Re: The Real Scandal of the Foreclosure Mess - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic

jamiehardt — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:54:11 -0000

Attempt to defend a federal land registration system on its own merits without changing the subject. I admit I don't really care about the principle involved -- a Federal MERS that can walk into a court and basically claim whatever its computers say that day is the indefeasible title to a lot in question is a bit more creepy to me than raising your taxes if you don't have health insurance.

"It *would* take a lot of money out of the pockets of states and counties, but oh well."

This seems like a serious bug to me, since that money's going to end up coming back to the locality anyways, but instead of being spent by the city council, it'll be disbursed by the congressional earmark and block grant process, with the concomitant strings attached.

Re: The Real Scandal of the Foreclosure Mess - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic

jamiehardt — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:41:04 -0000

Note that a few US jurisdictions implement a Torrens title system, which is what you're describing. However some people here seem to be arguing that we should have a federalized title system, which some European countries have, and definitely make the system more "efficient," but it significantly widens the scope of federal power.

Re: Singular Software: PluralEyes

jamiehardt — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 21:54:25 -0000

Horrifying in the sense of 'uncanny' I guess

Re: Dumb Arguments

jamiehardt — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:30:37 -0000

Why are you still reading Megan, Kevin?

Re: The Business of War - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Culture - The Atlantic

jamiehardt — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:11:20 -0000

I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" recently and if there's anything that united the aristocracies of Europe before World War I it was the attitude that working and making money was simply beneath them. They would spend all their time worrying about how to SPEND it, and they might occasionally tolerate a wealthy industrialist or artist at their parties, but generally they saw people who were self-made or merely wealthy, even like Andrew Carengie when he bought a house in England, as being parvenus and not having the sort of character necessary to stand in the elite of society.

Since Imperial-World War period plays a very similar function in European history as the Manifest destiny-Civil War plays in American history, I can't help to see the parallel. The elites of the southern US before the Civil War and Europe before World War I believed that working for a living damaged one's character and made one unfit to lead; it made someone self-interested and greedy, and liable to bend laws to accumulate more wealth, instead of making money the only way that was truly appropriate for the gentry, namely, through rents on hereditary land.

Re: Infographic: Inception Timeline

jamiehardt — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:04:37 -0000

All parting guests of Inception will enjoy a complimentary home game.

Re: http://chance-of-doom.tumblr.com/post/530908373

jamiehardt — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:48:51 -0000

Well at least he seems to have a sense of humor...

Re: Bill Gates on the iPad: Hey, Apple, You’re Doing It Wrong

jamiehardt — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:32:06 -0000

BillG has been going on about voice control UI and handwriting recognition concepts for a decade now, and the company has made about zero progress in actually shipping this feature in a way that isn't a hinderance over a keyboard.

I think these features are just personal hobbyhorses for him, even after he's gone from the company, and he simply cannot credit a tablet for what it is if it's lacking those features. Notice he doesn't bother mentioning the more obvious and generic problems, like multitasking, the business situation with the app store, the whole Flash situation.

It's possible BillG got an idea in his head around 2000 about what the "future of computing" was going to look like, and it looked a lot like a Tablet running Windows X.0 with voice commands and a stylus, and he's blinkered and can't objectively evaluate similar products that don't check off all his boxes.

If the iPad doesn't work, there's going to be a lot of Android pads by Christmas time this year, and it's pretty clear, at this time, that a tablet you buy in the next two years is going to be running a souped-up mobile OS with mobile OS's semantics, and that the PC-OS-on-a-tablet concept, at this point, can be accurately called a failed experiment.

Re: GF1 Field Test — 16 Days in the Himalayas

jamiehardt — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:48:01 -0000

You know what, I discovered the 1:1 zoom button, but wow it's beautiful. I'd ask if you knew how many footcandles were off the key, but that might be pushing it :P Did you do any noise reduction on this shot in post, or did you push it at all?

Re: GF1 Field Test — 16 Days in the Himalayas

jamiehardt — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:38:41 -0000

What was the light source for people-1-large jpeg, the interior shot of the woman at ISO 400? I don't really see the noise problem you're complaining about. If you could demonstrate the ISO noise with an example it would be very edifying...

Re: Walt Disney’s Creative Organization Chart

jamiehardt — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:18:58 -0000

This chart's about 20 years too early for any theme park divisions.

This org chart is sortof a testament to how simple Disney's business was in the 40s. They didn't have Buena Vista or any distribution operation at all (they shipped through Columbia at the time). There was no TV, no cable networks, no home entertainment divisions, no record labels. It's all a neat little package where stories go in one end and shorts and the occasional feature pop out the other.

There are also some pretty big elisions, like "Production Control" and "Army-Navy relations" being so small, when in fact the first was Roy's fiefdom and the second represented about half of Disney's business during the war years (if you see animation in any World War II training/informational film, it was done at Disney).

Note also, conspiracy buffs, that the management echelon has a "morgue." I have a feeling this is some kind of terminology for something, but as a sometime Disney production employee, I've never heard it...

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:04:00 -0000

Bloody hell, tickets are $110 dollars.

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:51:24 -0000

All people, places, and things are Marklar :)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w...

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Computer Needs a Home

jamiehardt — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:09:19 -0000

Only intel macs run Snowy Leopard I'm sorry to say, so this guy won't
cut it in that department. It would be much faster than your iMac,
but it's pinky halfway to a modern mac.

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:18:14 -0000

I'm afraid of Roland Emmerich accusing me of bullshitting a scene.

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:18:08 -0000

It's not so much that he's a robot, or even that he's a Victorian
robot, but to top it all off he's the Forrest Gump of Victorian robots.

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:16:58 -0000

Then again, someone mentioned in her comments that Ricardo Montalban was in the list yesterday, but died on the same day as McGoohan. Hmm....

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:56:12 -0000

Your meta-flame is powerless against my onslaught...

Re: Sigh

jamiehardt — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:31:33 -0000

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:20:31 -0000

Maybe I should get a tour just so I can see Nicholas Cage's living room.

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:29:30 -0000

Brains!?

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:17:26 -0000

I hope the bicycle-wheel version doesn't cost $14000 :)

By iPhone/Par iPhone

Re: Sprinkles of Genius, With a Chance of Doom

jamiehardt — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:53:45 -0000

Beg pardon,
"G-d" is Jewish enough, I'm the pseudo ;)

Re: Calling Mau!

jamiehardt — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:16:14 -0000

So, what number were you guys living in again?