but it clearly just gets worse in the future. There's no doubt there will be plenty of catwalks with no guard rails and plenty of other Imperial style over substance. It's remarkable though that light sabers just get more treacherous to use. The flaming laser guard on the evil light saber in the teaser looks like a great way to lose and arm and frankly just didn't look all that cool. After not really understanding Star Trek and what made it amazing, JJ Abrams will bring his special brand of ruination to the Star Wars franchise. Thanks, Disney. Thanks.
Where Beta means: can change suddenly without warning,
Doesn't Google Whatever mean that already. What's the point of the beta moniker. Google will just change what they want whenever. Use Google Frob and you're at risk of seeing the features and UI change without warning.
Mind you I'm not a hardware guy, but I saw this very exploit used over Firewire on a pre-OSX Macintosh at MacHack years ago. The entire audience did the ew, ah, thing and withdrew in horror. Subsequently nothing was done to fix Firewire or the fact that remote devices could write whatever they wanted and exercise whatever privilege on the host device. I suspect that this is the same thing we see here and it is surprising that such a vulnerability exists. There's blame to go around, I'm sure but it seems unlikely if this is a hardware vulnerability that anything Microsoft could do would really fix the problem short of breaking Firewire support entirely.
Whose spec was this anyhow? While blame is shared according to Wikipedia, Firewire was Apple's interface design.
I was an Apple loyalist through the worst of times, I was first out the door to buy a Titanium laptop. I have diversified a lot in the last couple of years. Those things said, I really, really want to like the MacBook Air. It's a gorgeous machine. It evokes the same kind of visceral "must own" response that the original Titanium Powerbooks did. This machine makes too many compromises to be a primary machine for the serious poweruser or developer. No ethernet, no WWAN, no optical drive, no firewire and oddly no audio-in. In headier times, having one of these machines for sofa browsing would be great, but that's not where I am right now nor or most of the computing "professionals" that I know.
It's hard to know the target market for this machine, though it's clear the machine was designed for Steve personally. I'm sure that this machine will look great sticking out of the designer backpack on the passenger seat of a new 3-series BMW that Mommy and Daddy bought for college commuting, but it's hard to relate to a market that far removed from the kind of office that has machines in varying states of assembly. The MBA is a glorious consumer machine but the slashdot crowd is not the core market for this product.
Ultimately, the slashdot crowd isn't Apple's market at all and it's a happy accident for Apple that slashdot intersects with other products aimed at Apple's core demographics.
Unless you expect snazzy features like push email and Exchange support from Apple. That's not happened so far and no word that it will. Of course, that could all change in 2 weeks at iPodCaseWorld or whatever Apple's show in SF is called today.
Is this bitterness because OSX only costs $129 per year for the semi-annual OS upgrade (realizing that Leotard is 6 months late). You wish the OS upgrade cost enough to justify the price difference for the Apple hardware key?
So visual voicemail is a totally inaccurate and nonmeaningful way to refer to this feature of THE NETWORK!
It's random access voicemail. Referring to it this way takes it from voicemail with buddy icons to being clearly what you mean. As for the feature, it's some iPhone software but a major infrastructure change in the network. I expect that it's been in the works for a while at Cingular and iPhone gets to be the first device to support it. I would be stunned if the feature isn't available on other devices over the 18 months following the actual launch of the iPhone and resultant small voluntary group of feature beta testers.
Seriously, Apple has already cast their dice in a move away from computing. iPod, iPhone, iThisandthat are moves that show that Apple isn't really committed to long term computing at least in the traditional sense. Application developers have already felt the sting of the insular computer as appliance strategy. Without real applications (which might or might not last in their Office and Photoshopy forms) OSX has little potential as an ongoing consumer and business platform.
All that said, working with production apps like Adobe CS or Office is unquestionably cheaper on Windows. The workflow is virtually indistinguishable (I continue to work with both) and users won't care. For consumers, it might be that they just want an Internet appliance with unified consumer level apps. For them, OSX will be fine with the iLife suite. Not pro level, but pretty and tightly integrated. Of course, if those same consumers want to game then they'd better like WoW, because that's about it.
Apple doesn't really offer a professional platform no matter how handy a unix command line and perl scripting are. I remember when they tried harder and in fact had a richer environment of third party developers. Tight intergration of app and OS has killed the third party ecosystem on MacOS X which is ironic, really since that's usually what Microsoft is accused of.
Oh, and the article is about hardware vendors competing, not really Apple v. Microsoft.
Right now this is basic research. Some potentially cool applications but nothing yet. Unsurprisingly, it's Microsoft doing the basic research anymore. I remember when other companies funded such things. Apple used to have an entire skunkworks dedicated to basic and advanced research. Sigh. Well, at least we'll be able to see the new and creative appear from the academic computing centers, it'll just run on Vista first.
It looks like it's got chiclet keys. They may not be rubber ala the PC Junior but I can't see that thing being comfy to type on.
"MacBook features a unique new keyboard design that sits flush against the bed for a sleeker, lower profile. Plus, you'll find a firmer touch when typing. That ought to make your fingers happy." That has the ominous tone of marketing to cover for a crappy keyboard. It will be interesting once people start putting hands on these machines.
Here, here. As the one other guy that bought an N-Gage, I have to say it's an awesome phone. I use a Nokia 6620 now because it's got EDGE but the N-Gage is essentially the same device. I don't need a camera but I do like the Symbian stuff and having real bluetooth on a not-clamshell phone is a big deal. Death of the N-Gage really just means that savvy shoppers will buy them for cheap on eBay.
As far as whether indexing is evil, not inherently. Neither is providing the OS to 90+% of the personal computers out there, inherently. It's all in what you do with it.
Giving Google power to search and cache all human knowledge has enormous potential for evil. Why shouldn't they roll over and the government search all Gmail to find whatever flavor of evil-doer is on the outs at the moment? Why can't the very items you search for be used against you? It's an enormous potential evil no matter how you slice it. Depending on a company whose loyalties lie somewhere other than you as the individual is an inherent risk.
Further, I never said google hasn't innovated, I'm saying that they haven't looked overly creative of late which is no different than the boys in Redmond. As for source closure, I don't see source for gmail, or the search engine or for that matter GoogleTalk actually posted anywhere so as points go that's kindof a wash.
"Microsoft is just stealing ideas!" "Google will kick their butt!" "Google is my pal and I'll never use MSN!"
Whatever, the fundamental fact remains that publicly traded companies are not your friend. They are big companies driven by profit and accountability to shareholders. The concern for the individual is ZERO regardless of what cute corporate motto they might have.
The darlings of slashdot won't come to your rescue without profit being involved. Google won't save you, and you're fools to want them to. Apple hasn't fixed the fundamental problems of OSX and the move to intel has delayed optimization and improved performance for months to years, they aren't friends either.
Sure this is a little off topic, but as threads degenerate into flames for on publicly traded monolith and accolades for another, it's important to keep perspective that basically all publicly traded companies are the same.
Google isn't innovating either. They've acquired Picassa, Keyhole and others. GoogleTalk is just jabber repackaged. This community tends to laude those efforts as though Google continues to be a haven of innovation. That remains to be seen. Their innovation comes in repackaging acquisitions and open standards anymore. MSFT just rebuilds what they see, how is it really that different?
See, I think you've got it wrong. Microsoft doesn't publish financial filings that take analysts 2 days to sort out. Microsoft doesn't hide behind a cutesy "don't be evil" fascade. Microsoft doesn't blacklist journalists for publishing. Microsoft allows third party apps to house data they don't control.
I know what Microsoft wants. My money and lots of it.
What does Google want? Something more precious. Google wants all my information and yours and everyone else's. The software is free, but the information is theres. Look at what Google logs per their user aggreements. Google Talk logs your chat habits, file sizes and chat companions are valuable data. That should worry you. Google is a giant corporation and not your friend. Google will screw you and report it to the stockholders as a profit, bet on it. Google pretends to be your friend, but they are not.
This could lead to a screed about Apple not being your friend either. Keep your eyes open and know what this company wants from you.
I notice a number of replies that show users are ready to charge off an use anything Google makes without thought to implications. We are talking about a company that has already indexed everything on the web, they want your email, they want you hard drive and now your instant messaging. Doesn't this scare anyone? Isn't there some serious reservation about privacy concerns for your own stuff? Worry that law enforcement might use it in some ugly way?
This is a company that has already blackballed a news organization that pointed out how easy digging out the dirt on its own executives is.
"Don't be evil" on a plaque is not enough protection against the most advanced data mining operation ever built. Regardless of intent, Google is what we always worried the feds would build and the online community keeps giving them more.
Nursing perhaps, but that's just because nobody has come up with a scheme to fix the nursing shortage by cutting nurses out of the action. The high costs in health care always blamed on the workers from the doctors to the lowest orderly the pay squeeze has hit. Nurses are protected at the moment only because they are in such short supply, don't expect that to last. When the the supply tips (either because we get enough or because we find some way around hiring nurses) nursing wages will plummet as well.
Here, Here. Well, except for the Wesley Clark sentiment in your sig.
The N-Gage is an essential part of my travelling ensemble as it does duty as PDA and bluetooth GPRS modem. When T-Mobile couldn't come to the table with a decent discount when my T-68i snuffed it, Gamesop happily sold me an N-Gage. It's a little bigger than ideal, but since all the features from speakerphone to bluetooth to Symbian to GPRS are well implemented and work (unlike other phones) I can live with the size. The battery life is hella long even with bluetooth constantly on which beats the Sony-Ericsson devices handily. It's not perfect but much better for the money than just about anything else. Funny, I haven't mentioned gaming. Probably because I don't care.
Ok, I admit it, I own an N-Gage (though I admitted it in another thread already). Sure, it's not the perfect game platform nor a perfect phone. As game platform it's overpriced but for a super featured phone it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked GSM phone with the Nokia series 60 platform, full-on GPRS support, bluetooth and expandable memory is going to cost a whole lot more than the $299 retail on the N-Gage. At $199 with 3 games as it's currently priced at Gamestop the damned thing is a bargain even if you never open the games. Oh, did it get mentioned that the device is also an MP3 and AAC player. For those who care it's got an FM radio. More importantly it's got a speakerphone that works pretty well. It's also got support for all the whizzy midi and mp3 ringers you might care to load on it and a color screen for your favorite graphics.
I'll grant that the taco like shape is weird, but it makes the phone wide enough that it can be held between ear and shoulder while fumbling for the headset. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think that the N-Gage is one of the most misunderstood products in recent memory, both by consumers and by the manufacturer's marketing department.
The N-Gage is by no means a perfect device but for a fusion device with a few compromises it's not half bad.
In my defense. Yes, I did buy and N-Gage. Why? Because it was $199 on a day that I needed to immediately replace my Sony-Ericsson T68i with a device that had feature parity. If you can find a bluetooth capable, GPRS enabled phone for under $200 elsewhere let me know. Further, it's got a speaker phone built in a pretty decent contact manager and calendar. The whole game, mp3, radio thing is weird featuritis on what's an otherwise useful phone.
Vanity domains and.forward files already solve this problem. Besides, how often are people going to change broadband providers and the like?
Further, email portability is already here for those who have accounts with.mac or hotmail or yahoo.com or any number of other service aggregators either pay or free. Frankly, i'm starting to think this whole list is silly.
Right now, GSM does this for anybody who uses GSM. I walked into Gamestop, bought an N-Gage, changed the SIM from my old phone into it and was on the phone immediately.
Besides, GPRS is cool but dog slow and having more GPRS users won't enhance the Internet particularly.
before the atomic clock the Earth was always on time.
It's good to know that the fudge factor isn't always necessary too, what with a leap second occurring every year at some point the slop has to be soaked up in the system. Were the powers that be planning to save up a leap day? If they had, where would they have put it? Frankly, just letting the extra second add onto the end of the year and letting 43200 years swap noon and midnight would have been an interesting social experiment. Assuming mankind hasn't destroyed itself by then, of course.
Ok, it's time for a physician to open his yap. There's plenty of hubris, and doctors are just mechanics and get paid too much/too little. Doctors should pay, blah, blah. And the like already spewed onto this thread. Here's my take.
First, I ran through the numbers a few weeks ago. Financially, if one became an RN (Registered Nurse) instead of a Physician Family Practitioner, you would be financially ahead of the physician by the time you account for deferred earnings and accrued educational debt until that physician had been out of residency for 10 years. That means that the nurse who began a career on graduation with a BS at 23 would be 41 before their counterpart that did premed and went to medical school would be financially even with them. Smart investing and good use of shift differentials as well as perhaps a masters degree in nursing could put them ahead indefinitely.
Further, medicine isn't recession proof. In the metro Seattle area, over 40 primary care doctors have become unemployed because the closure of a couple of large groups and layoffs by the big local HMO. Those guys don't just bounce into new jobs overnight.
The money in medicine is going elsewhere (lookup Tenet (NYSE: THC)). It's funneling into giant management corporations and insurance houses. Those of us out working with patients see very little of the money that comes in. Most family practices have overheads in the 50-60% range would greatly cuts the amount to the physician paid by the insurance. That combined with the endless gameplaying where insurance companies pay only a fraction of billed amounts.
As for the implication that doctors would rather operate than anything else is silly. I do office procedures, yes, but those are time consuming and pay relatively poorly. Besides, it's still possible to do the right thing without constantly thinking about the bottom line. I'm sure there are unscrupulous doctors out there, and frankly I've seen some questionable things done over the years but it's hardly the rule.
Most docs are out there humping it just ot make the debt service for their student loans. The days of fat cat doctors who made millions is long since over. I'd recommend getting ahold of a recent copy of Medical Economics to anyone who'd like to get a sense of what primary care physicians are up against. For those who intentionally decided on engineering instead of medicine, you made the right choice. A decent engineer makes as much or more than a family doc and has no call and minimal liability.
Cartoon Network has become of little interest in satisfying my anime habit. Their track record for butchering series reduces shows like Tenchi and Outlaw Star to little more than trailers for the DVDs. Really, this has even largely happened to Dragonball and Dragonball Z as well, but it has less impact on the overall storyline.
If the block is adult swim, why are anime series reduced to a Y-7 rating? Yes, it's costing me alot to watch anime on DVD, but the series are much more enjoyable in their entirety with directly translated subtitles to go with the English dubs (which in the case of Funimations work is often inexplicable reworked).
Slashdot Mirror
but it clearly just gets worse in the future. There's no doubt there will be plenty of catwalks with no guard rails and plenty of other Imperial style over substance. It's remarkable though that light sabers just get more treacherous to use. The flaming laser guard on the evil light saber in the teaser looks like a great way to lose and arm and frankly just didn't look all that cool. After not really understanding Star Trek and what made it amazing, JJ Abrams will bring his special brand of ruination to the Star Wars franchise. Thanks, Disney. Thanks.
Where Beta means: can change suddenly without warning,
Doesn't Google Whatever mean that already. What's the point of the beta moniker. Google will just change what they want whenever. Use Google Frob and you're at risk of seeing the features and UI change without warning.
Mind you I'm not a hardware guy, but I saw this very exploit used over Firewire on a pre-OSX Macintosh at MacHack years ago. The entire audience did the ew, ah, thing and withdrew in horror. Subsequently nothing was done to fix Firewire or the fact that remote devices could write whatever they wanted and exercise whatever privilege on the host device. I suspect that this is the same thing we see here and it is surprising that such a vulnerability exists. There's blame to go around, I'm sure but it seems unlikely if this is a hardware vulnerability that anything Microsoft could do would really fix the problem short of breaking Firewire support entirely.
Whose spec was this anyhow? While blame is shared according to Wikipedia, Firewire was Apple's interface design.
I was an Apple loyalist through the worst of times, I was first out the door to buy a Titanium laptop. I have diversified a lot in the last couple of years. Those things said, I really, really want to like the MacBook Air. It's a gorgeous machine. It evokes the same kind of visceral "must own" response that the original Titanium Powerbooks did. This machine makes too many compromises to be a primary machine for the serious poweruser or developer. No ethernet, no WWAN, no optical drive, no firewire and oddly no audio-in. In headier times, having one of these machines for sofa browsing would be great, but that's not where I am right now nor or most of the computing "professionals" that I know.
It's hard to know the target market for this machine, though it's clear the machine was designed for Steve personally. I'm sure that this machine will look great sticking out of the designer backpack on the passenger seat of a new 3-series BMW that Mommy and Daddy bought for college commuting, but it's hard to relate to a market that far removed from the kind of office that has machines in varying states of assembly. The MBA is a glorious consumer machine but the slashdot crowd is not the core market for this product.
Ultimately, the slashdot crowd isn't Apple's market at all and it's a happy accident for Apple that slashdot intersects with other products aimed at Apple's core demographics.
Unless you expect snazzy features like push email and Exchange support from Apple. That's not happened so far and no word that it will. Of course, that could all change in 2 weeks at iPodCaseWorld or whatever Apple's show in SF is called today.
Is this bitterness because OSX only costs $129 per year for the semi-annual OS upgrade (realizing that Leotard is 6 months late). You wish the OS upgrade cost enough to justify the price difference for the Apple hardware key?
So visual voicemail is a totally inaccurate and nonmeaningful way to refer to this feature of THE NETWORK!
It's random access voicemail. Referring to it this way takes it from voicemail with buddy icons to being clearly what you mean. As for the feature, it's some iPhone software but a major infrastructure change in the network. I expect that it's been in the works for a while at Cingular and iPhone gets to be the first device to support it. I would be stunned if the feature isn't available on other devices over the 18 months following the actual launch of the iPhone and resultant small voluntary group of feature beta testers.
Seriously, Apple has already cast their dice in a move away from computing. iPod, iPhone, iThisandthat are moves that show that Apple isn't really committed to long term computing at least in the traditional sense. Application developers have already felt the sting of the insular computer as appliance strategy. Without real applications (which might or might not last in their Office and Photoshopy forms) OSX has little potential as an ongoing consumer and business platform.
All that said, working with production apps like Adobe CS or Office is unquestionably cheaper on Windows. The workflow is virtually indistinguishable (I continue to work with both) and users won't care. For consumers, it might be that they just want an Internet appliance with unified consumer level apps. For them, OSX will be fine with the iLife suite. Not pro level, but pretty and tightly integrated. Of course, if those same consumers want to game then they'd better like WoW, because that's about it.
Apple doesn't really offer a professional platform no matter how handy a unix command line and perl scripting are. I remember when they tried harder and in fact had a richer environment of third party developers. Tight intergration of app and OS has killed the third party ecosystem on MacOS X which is ironic, really since that's usually what Microsoft is accused of.
Oh, and the article is about hardware vendors competing, not really Apple v. Microsoft.
Right now this is basic research. Some potentially cool applications but nothing yet. Unsurprisingly, it's Microsoft doing the basic research anymore. I remember when other companies funded such things. Apple used to have an entire skunkworks dedicated to basic and advanced research. Sigh. Well, at least we'll be able to see the new and creative appear from the academic computing centers, it'll just run on Vista first.
It looks like it's got chiclet keys. They may not be rubber ala the PC Junior but I can't see that thing being comfy to type on.
"MacBook features a unique new keyboard design that sits flush against the bed for a sleeker, lower profile. Plus, you'll find a firmer touch when typing. That ought to make your fingers happy." That has the ominous tone of marketing to cover for a crappy keyboard. It will be interesting once people start putting hands on these machines.
Here, here. As the one other guy that bought an N-Gage, I have to say it's an awesome phone. I use a Nokia 6620 now because it's got EDGE but the N-Gage is essentially the same device. I don't need a camera but I do like the Symbian stuff and having real bluetooth on a not-clamshell phone is a big deal. Death of the N-Gage really just means that savvy shoppers will buy them for cheap on eBay.
As far as whether indexing is evil, not inherently. Neither is providing the OS to 90+% of the personal computers out there, inherently. It's all in what you do with it.
Giving Google power to search and cache all human knowledge has enormous potential for evil. Why shouldn't they roll over and the government search all Gmail to find whatever flavor of evil-doer is on the outs at the moment? Why can't the very items you search for be used against you? It's an enormous potential evil no matter how you slice it. Depending on a company whose loyalties lie somewhere other than you as the individual is an inherent risk.
Further, I never said google hasn't innovated, I'm saying that they haven't looked overly creative of late which is no different than the boys in Redmond. As for source closure, I don't see source for gmail, or the search engine or for that matter GoogleTalk actually posted anywhere so as points go that's kindof a wash.
"Microsoft is just stealing ideas!" "Google will kick their butt!" "Google is my pal and I'll never use MSN!"
Whatever, the fundamental fact remains that publicly traded companies are not your friend. They are big companies driven by profit and accountability to shareholders. The concern for the individual is ZERO regardless of what cute corporate motto they might have.
The darlings of slashdot won't come to your rescue without profit being involved. Google won't save you, and you're fools to want them to. Apple hasn't fixed the fundamental problems of OSX and the move to intel has delayed optimization and improved performance for months to years, they aren't friends either.
Sure this is a little off topic, but as threads degenerate into flames for on publicly traded monolith and accolades for another, it's important to keep perspective that basically all publicly traded companies are the same.
Google isn't innovating either. They've acquired Picassa, Keyhole and others. GoogleTalk is just jabber repackaged. This community tends to laude those efforts as though Google continues to be a haven of innovation. That remains to be seen. Their innovation comes in repackaging acquisitions and open standards anymore. MSFT just rebuilds what they see, how is it really that different?
See, I think you've got it wrong. Microsoft doesn't publish financial filings that take analysts 2 days to sort out. Microsoft doesn't hide behind a cutesy "don't be evil" fascade. Microsoft doesn't blacklist journalists for publishing. Microsoft allows third party apps to house data they don't control.
I know what Microsoft wants. My money and lots of it.
What does Google want? Something more precious. Google wants all my information and yours and everyone else's. The software is free, but the information is theres. Look at what Google logs per their user aggreements. Google Talk logs your chat habits, file sizes and chat companions are valuable data. That should worry you. Google is a giant corporation and not your friend. Google will screw you and report it to the stockholders as a profit, bet on it. Google pretends to be your friend, but they are not.
This could lead to a screed about Apple not being your friend either. Keep your eyes open and know what this company wants from you.
I notice a number of replies that show users are ready to charge off an use anything Google makes without thought to implications. We are talking about a company that has already indexed everything on the web, they want your email, they want you hard drive and now your instant messaging. Doesn't this scare anyone? Isn't there some serious reservation about privacy concerns for your own stuff? Worry that law enforcement might use it in some ugly way?
This is a company that has already blackballed a news organization that pointed out how easy digging out the dirt on its own executives is.
"Don't be evil" on a plaque is not enough protection against the most advanced data mining operation ever built. Regardless of intent, Google is what we always worried the feds would build and the online community keeps giving them more.
Nursing perhaps, but that's just because nobody has come up with a scheme to fix the nursing shortage by cutting nurses out of the action. The high costs in health care always blamed on the workers from the doctors to the lowest orderly the pay squeeze has hit. Nurses are protected at the moment only because they are in such short supply, don't expect that to last. When the the supply tips (either because we get enough or because we find some way around hiring nurses) nursing wages will plummet as well.
Here, Here. Well, except for the Wesley Clark sentiment in your sig.
The N-Gage is an essential part of my travelling ensemble as it does duty as PDA and bluetooth GPRS modem. When T-Mobile couldn't come to the table with a decent discount when my T-68i snuffed it, Gamesop happily sold me an N-Gage. It's a little bigger than ideal, but since all the features from speakerphone to bluetooth to Symbian to GPRS are well implemented and work (unlike other phones) I can live with the size. The battery life is hella long even with bluetooth constantly on which beats the Sony-Ericsson devices handily. It's not perfect but much better for the money than just about anything else. Funny, I haven't mentioned gaming. Probably because I don't care.
Ok, I admit it, I own an N-Gage (though I admitted it in another thread already). Sure, it's not the perfect game platform nor a perfect phone. As game platform it's overpriced but for a super featured phone it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked GSM phone with the Nokia series 60 platform, full-on GPRS support, bluetooth and expandable memory is going to cost a whole lot more than the $299 retail on the N-Gage. At $199 with 3 games as it's currently priced at Gamestop the damned thing is a bargain even if you never open the games. Oh, did it get mentioned that the device is also an MP3 and AAC player. For those who care it's got an FM radio. More importantly it's got a speakerphone that works pretty well. It's also got support for all the whizzy midi and mp3 ringers you might care to load on it and a color screen for your favorite graphics.
I'll grant that the taco like shape is weird, but it makes the phone wide enough that it can be held between ear and shoulder while fumbling for the headset. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think that the N-Gage is one of the most misunderstood products in recent memory, both by consumers and by the manufacturer's marketing department.
The N-Gage is by no means a perfect device but for a fusion device with a few compromises it's not half bad.
In my defense. Yes, I did buy and N-Gage. Why? Because it was $199 on a day that I needed to immediately replace my Sony-Ericsson T68i with a device that had feature parity. If you can find a bluetooth capable, GPRS enabled phone for under $200 elsewhere let me know. Further, it's got a speaker phone built in a pretty decent contact manager and calendar. The whole game, mp3, radio thing is weird featuritis on what's an otherwise useful phone.
Vanity domains and .forward files already solve this problem. Besides, how often are people going to change broadband providers and the like?
.mac or hotmail or yahoo.com or any number of other service aggregators either pay or free. Frankly, i'm starting to think this whole list is silly.
Further, email portability is already here for those who have accounts with
10 Free the handsets
Right now, GSM does this for anybody who uses GSM. I walked into Gamestop, bought an N-Gage, changed the SIM from my old phone into it and was on the phone immediately.
Besides, GPRS is cool but dog slow and having more GPRS users won't enhance the Internet particularly.
before the atomic clock the Earth was always on time.
It's good to know that the fudge factor isn't always necessary too, what with a leap second occurring every year at some point the slop has to be soaked up in the system. Were the powers that be planning to save up a leap day? If they had, where would they have put it? Frankly, just letting the extra second add onto the end of the year and letting 43200 years swap noon and midnight would have been an interesting social experiment. Assuming mankind hasn't destroyed itself by then, of course.
A keyboard that I'll be able to find no matter how much crap I stack on my desk.
Ok, it's time for a physician to open his yap. There's plenty of hubris, and doctors are just mechanics and get paid too much/too little. Doctors should pay, blah, blah. And the like already spewed onto this thread. Here's my take.
First, I ran through the numbers a few weeks ago. Financially, if one became an RN (Registered Nurse) instead of a Physician Family Practitioner, you would be financially ahead of the physician by the time you account for deferred earnings and accrued educational debt until that physician had been out of residency for 10 years. That means that the nurse who began a career on graduation with a BS at 23 would be 41 before their counterpart that did premed and went to medical school would be financially even with them. Smart investing and good use of shift differentials as well as perhaps a masters degree in nursing could put them ahead indefinitely.
Further, medicine isn't recession proof. In the metro Seattle area, over 40 primary care doctors have become unemployed because the closure of a couple of large groups and layoffs by the big local HMO. Those guys don't just bounce into new jobs overnight.
The money in medicine is going elsewhere (lookup Tenet (NYSE: THC)). It's funneling into giant management corporations and insurance houses. Those of us out working with patients see very little of the money that comes in. Most family practices have overheads in the 50-60% range would greatly cuts the amount to the physician paid by the insurance. That combined with the endless gameplaying where insurance companies pay only a fraction of billed amounts.
As for the implication that doctors would rather operate than anything else is silly. I do office procedures, yes, but those are time consuming and pay relatively poorly. Besides, it's still possible to do the right thing without constantly thinking about the bottom line. I'm sure there are unscrupulous doctors out there, and frankly I've seen some questionable things done over the years but it's hardly the rule.
Most docs are out there humping it just ot make the debt service for their student loans. The days of fat cat doctors who made millions is long since over. I'd recommend getting ahold of a recent copy of Medical Economics to anyone who'd like to get a sense of what primary care physicians are up against. For those who intentionally decided on engineering instead of medicine, you made the right choice. A decent engineer makes as much or more than a family doc and has no call and minimal liability.
Cartoon Network has become of little interest in satisfying my anime habit. Their track record for butchering series reduces shows like Tenchi and Outlaw Star to little more than trailers for the DVDs. Really, this has even largely happened to Dragonball and Dragonball Z as well, but it has less impact on the overall storyline.
If the block is adult swim, why are anime series reduced to a Y-7 rating? Yes, it's costing me alot to watch anime on DVD, but the series are much more enjoyable in their entirety with directly translated subtitles to go with the English dubs (which in the case of Funimations work is often inexplicable reworked).