Some interesting stuff about the habits and routines we follow when we're around technology.

Such as:

Quote:

Size matters (in megapixels) If you've listened to any camera marketing, you've probably had it pounded into your head that with megapixels, more is better. And of course, the more megapixels you want, the more you have to spend. What a coincidence.

The last digital camera I owned was 800k and the batteries last 3 minutes. I've steered clear (and resorted to using my phone) ever since.

And:

Quote:

You have to run your battery all the way down before you charge it This is one I've heard for a long time, especially when you're talking about what to do when you first get a new battery-operated gadget. And while it's not that hard to imagine running the juice on a new device all the way down before charging it the very first time, that's not at all an easy thing to do on an ongoing basis given that we often find ourselves fearing being away from a power source and, therefore, charging up as a precautionary measure.

Site: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20026047-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Hmm... some interesting ones there, though none too surprising. The thing about the megapixels is very typical for computer-related stuff, and let's face it has affected plenty of components over the years. Customers need some aspect of the complex systems that they can understand and compare, which is why you get things like 32-bit systems being sold with more RAM than they can address, or CPUs like the P4 which were punch for punch slower than their Pentium III counterparts, but could more easily be ramped up to produce those dizzyingly big GHz numbers the consumers were after.

Actually, since most consumer digital cameras use a rather small image sensors, ramming more and more pixels onto it has in some cases essentially reduced image quality, particularly when trying to take shots at high ISO.

"Geek Gestalt" said:

Sadly, that would be a naive assumption. The truth is, it's very difficult to permanently get rid of your data. And if you want to do so, you probably need to go get a drill.

Not quite sure which boat he's trying to sit in here: first he claims digital data isn't as secure as we think, and ISPs don't have the means of storing all the information that passes their way, then he says it's actually difficult to get rid of the data on a hard drive. Meh, if the latter were true, somebody would've come along and made a fortune helping to solve the former. Though I guess he's only considering people who think emptying Windows' recycle bin is the equivalent of shredding and setting fire to a document. You're probably pretty safe rewriting your drive a few times.

But he's definitely got a point about the fickleness of digital data. Isn't it true that from a historical point of view we actually have more information stored from say 1985-95 than we do from 1995-2005, simply because in the latter decade so much information was sent electronically and never stored? I'm sure I read that someplace, I just didn't write it down