Slashdot Mirror

comparison of phones/tablets available prior to the iPhone/iPad and those that came out after both were unveiled

You've seen something like this smartphone timeline, right?

I don't think it received an award in 2005

The LG Prada won the i-F award in Autumn 2006 (it had been submitted as a demo to a bunch of trade and design fairs through that summer). That's why I put "2006" on this timeline.

Wiki says the Prada won the iF award in 2007. Where did you get your info?

It's difficult to ignore the abrupt physical design changes that came after the iPhone release.

The iPhone's slate form factor was the culmination of a trend in high-end mobile phones that had been brewing for the previous 7 years and ironically only in 2006 did a combination of SoCs, lower-power screens, commercially feasible augmented glass and higher-density polymer batteries come together. This is what that process looked like. Technology moves in clades.

I don't think it received an award in 2005

The LG Prada won the i-F award in Autumn 2006 (it had been submitted as a demo to a bunch of trade and design fairs through that summer). That's why I put "2006" on this timeline.

In 2006, there was a convergence in cheaper displays, better mobile processors and better batteries that you can three companies who had the same design.

Yes:
The Moral Case Against Apple In One Picture

The single greatest online game is the Korean Arse Shooter.

I can't see how Apple can get away for long with charging $1 for muddy sounding 128Kbits lossy when something like MusicGiants is charging only $1.29 for full quality, major label, lossless downloads. If the "premium" between the iTMS low quality and the "full" quality tracks is only 30 cents, then I am missing something. Either MusicGiants will be raising its prices soon, or Apple will be lowering its prices for 128Kbps or upping the quality.

My thinking on this is that if successful, it should prompt Apple to offer lossless downloads from the iTMS Service, if only because Apple likes to present a "high end" image, and having a competitor actively dissing iTMS by lumping it in, quality-wise, with "pirated music from p2p networks" has got to hurt.

Chameides, W.L., H. Yu, S.C. Liu, M. Bergin, X. Zhou, L. Mearns, G. Wang, C.S. Kiang, R.D. Saylor, C. Lio, Y. Huang, A. Steiner, and F. Giorgi, Case study of the effects of atmospheric aerosols and regional haze on agriculture: An opportunity to enhance crop yields in China through emission controls? Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, 96:13626-13633, 1999.

The so-called "direct effect" of regional haze results in an approximately 5-30% reduction in the solar irradiance reaching some of China's most productive agricultural regions. Crop-response model simulations suggest an approximately 1:1 relationship between a percentage increase (decrease) in total surface solar irradiance and a percentage increase (decrease) in the yields of rice and wheat. Collectively, these calculations suggest that regional haze in China is currently depressing optimal yields of approximately 70% of the crops grown in China by at least 5-30%.

meehawl@SPAMBAITREMOVETHISgmail.com

YOUR SIG SUCKS!!!!

Why you ask? Because your email address already appears next to your username. BUT YOU THINK HAVING A GMAIL account MAKES YOU ONE COOL DUDE AND YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS BY MAKING IT BOLD. Well guess what fucko? IT DOESN'T MAKE YOU COOL. But have some spam anyway, Mr. meehawl@gmail.com or is it postmaster@meehawl.com?.

YOUR SIG SUCKS!!!!

The poster is entirely right. What we have now is a rigged system that favours corporations and not people. I find many USians are unable to comprehend an economic system that enpowers both corporations and labour, invested as they are in their own ossified Union of States. The US stopped meaningful expansion a long time ago and has ceased to be a beacon of progress in the Americas. But you need look no further than the European Union to see an economic block that is still expanding and improving Europe. To join the EU you must bring your national laws in accord with certain labour, human rights, capital, and environmental regulations. But when you do, not only will your companies eventually enjoy free access to all the other EU countries, but so will your people. It's not perfect, but it works well and is one reason why most of Eastern Europe is clamouring to join. I put it to USians - imagine an Americas where NAFTA meant migratory freedom for all people, and not just companies, and where all countries in the Americas could join. That's what the EU is about, and why it's difficult to create and often subject to roadblocks and stalls. But it's worth it in the end. There's more about this here.

Although the act of breaking computer codes may seem a barren process, there is intense competition. Crackers form themselves into exotic groups14 and use individual names15 as rich as in any youth subculture argot. Attached to 'gifts', they leave dated message files that carry taunts and boasts about their prowess and storied accounts of their progression and advancement.

This program is the hardest in my life,
it have a propietary variable code serial dongle.
The program send to key a variable stream
and the key answer
with some data depending from data received.
I have captured the data exchange
from program to key
and viceversa
and I have rewrited the DLL to emulate this flow.
But unlucky is not sufficent
because every time you start a program
another flow is needed.
Then I have modified a executable
to make a flow ever the same
and my dongle emulator now work 100%.
This crack has required 2 week of hard work,
and the original dongle.
Thanx to Paul Leadle for dongle,
thanx Jabbar for help about rewriting.

(BLASTSOFT [RBS] 1997)

Frequently, they contain social exchanges or denigrations of others, defined by their arbitrary group monikers or genre conventions:

When so many groups bring you crap fakes non-working,
X-FORCE always gets you
the Best of the Best.
ACCEPT NO IMITATION!
X-Force 1997!

Group News & Greetings
A warm welcome to Tragic Kingdom
as a new XFORCE HQ
OUR DiAMONDS-4-EVER GREETiNGS
MUST GO TO :
Stingray ,
Mach One ,
Ones Wally ,
Slain ,
Wildchild ,
Roamer.

(Accreditation in X-FORCE .NFO file)

Avid Readers, of whom there at least two, will be undoubtedly overjoyed to know that they can read my gripping final comments on this debacle.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I figure the blocking is to make room in the search market for the new Chinese Google lookalike, OpenFind.

Here.

The EULA is an astonishing last-ditch attempt by software publishers to fix the meaning and value of their product. In effect, it attempts to retain complete control over preferred reading of the software, while denying the consumer any rights of ownership9, control10 or appropriation11. In return for this, typically, a software publisher only promises that the product "will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying written materials" for a period of 90 days or so.

Here.

The EULA is an astonishing last-ditch attempt by software publishers to fix the meaning and value of their product. In effect, it attempts to retain complete control over preferred reading of the software, while denying the consumer any rights of ownership9, control10 or appropriation11. In return for this, typically, a software publisher only promises that the product "will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying written materials" for a period of 90 days or so.

That said, the only practical use anyone has actually found for Flash is those "Skip Intro" pages that everyone skips with a grunt of mild irritation.

That's simply not the case. There are some compelling Flash applications, such as the...

Korean Arse Shooter .

I missed that one out. ;-P

*In my best Samuel L. Jackson Voice*

Engrish Motherfucker, Do you speak it?

See The Samuel L. Jackson Soundboard

Zathrus writes:
Kurzweil repeatedly refers to "The Singularity", which is (as he defines it), "a merger between human intelligence and machine intelligence that is going to create something bigger than itself." For reference, this is very similar to something that Vernor Vinge [amazon.com] has espoused in several novels, chiefly Marooned in Realtime [amazon.com]. Basically that technological progress is logarithmic in scale, not linear.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the "Singularity" is just Rapture For Nerds . That's Ken McLeod's phrase, not mine.

Blind faith in the "Singularity" is nothing more or less than an epiphenomena of the psychological condition of technophilia that borders on fetishism.

EllisDees wrote: Yes, the Taliban are shitty people, but our whole reason for attacking them was to 'get Bin Laden'.

Oh I don't know about all Taliban... these guys look kind cute.

And as for not "getting" Bin Laden...
He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemys' life - Neitzsche.

Yeah, Techno fetishists everywhere are already creaming their pants over the demonstration of the new "doctrine" of remote warfare displayed by the US in the Afghan War.

It's certainly good for initial deployment and aerial interdiction and control, but remains untested for endgame positional tactics using soft assets.

But this development is nothing that Our Prophet Philip Dick did not foresee in such stories as Second Variety .

It reminds me of how Twain saw the devastating and immobilizing affect on warfare of machine guns and trench technology in the closing chapters of his 1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court .

Or HG Wells foreseeing aerial warfare and the bombardment of cities and civilian populations in The War in the Air .

But because war is politics by any means necessary, when one approach is blocked the street will find a way to express itself through another. If politicized groups and countries cannot hope to use conventional warfare, then they will move on to more promising avenues and asymmetrical opportunities. Things more horribly inventive than destroying buildings with sharp knives and opportunity.

And as so many here have pointed out, most of this is self-serving propgaanda. 30% of munitions dropped still fail to explode. And this article points out, the Rout of the Taliban was largely a social victory. Factions on the ground saw which way the wind was blowing, shaved their beards, and changed sides.

But most of the same local bosses are still running things... why else do you think so many high-profile "Taliban" are being let go. Why is it proving so difficult to arrest Omar, a practically dead, half-blind guy doing a Steve McQueen on a motorbike?



Meanwhile, Blair ran a victory lap in Kabul. Right.

Remember, the Russians also "took" Afghanistan with virtually no resistance within a few months. But their mistake was to stay longer, and eventually the factions started uniting against them. That KC-130 that crashed, they are flying bricks. One hasn't crashed in error since the start of the 1970s. Odds are it was brought down by a shoulder-launched SAM at extremely close range.

And now the Marines are exiting and being replaced by the 101st, who'll be digging fortifying those bases that annoy the Russians so much. They are there for the long haul? I hope they have better luck than Reagan's Marines in Lebanon.

And why are Katz's articles so goddamn difficult to read? Does he go through a rewrite phase where he trys to find longer latinate words whenever possible, replacing anything short and punchy with polysyllabic monstrosities? A dose of Strunk and Whyte would go a long way there.

Top Ten possible decoded messages in no particular order:

1) Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated.

2) You've got mail!

3) Hi, how are you? I send this to you to have your advice.

4) w007!

5) link to goatsex

6) iFellOverandBroke <snicker>

7) All your Base are Belong to Us.

8) Get your *FREE* University Diploma!

9) For Entertainment purposes only. This message has been billed at $5.00 per AU

10) and last, but not least, this

Who started it? The Afghani people, the "Afghani" jihad warriors, the dispossessed Palestianians, the Israelis? JimPooley made a valid point. For 20 years, Irish-American social and terrorist groups in the US funded a massive bombing campaign in Britain and Ireland that slaughtered thousands. Over this time, scores of people -- some fundraisers, some terrorists -- found refuge in the US and despite British and Irish please, were not extradited. Sometimes for "lack of evidence", sometimes because of legal loopholes, sometimes because of sympathetic authorities. Should Britain have started bombing the states where these people resided? Would Britain have been justified in killing innocent people to try to force the US government to change its policies? The only way out of this honourably is using international law and international courts of justice. The South Africans waited generations for justice. The people in the Balkans have waited nearly a decade. But eventually, given enough concerted military and political pressure, war criminals can be brought to justice. But the US has always flouted international law, having been found guilty several times of war crimes itself. Obviously, no. The Afghan situation is uncomfortably similar. These are the people you're bombing.