I have been intrigued by the iPod Touch, and have thought of getting one. My problem is that I would want to use it as a small tablet machine at home with the WiFi for browsing the web conveniently. It could be very useful for that. Unfortunately, Apple seems to have used the 'It runs MacOS X' bullet point only as marketing hype. Sure, a portable web pad would be cool, but without the extensiblity of third party apps it would be a stunted dead-end device.
I maintain a small collection of Palm III devices (and will for the forseeable future as they are $5-15 devices on eBay now) and carry one wherever I go, because it is an extendable device with lots of third party apps and Code Warrior for when I want to write my own. It's slow and underpowered, but that means I only have to replace the two AAA batteries every three months. It's damned durable compared to later generation Palm devices, two of which I destroyed carring in my pocket before moving back to the Palm III with it's hard plastic case (overengineered and they'll not make one like it again- it doesn't sell replacements fast enough.)
I definitely wouldn't want to use an iPod Touch as a phone. And the iPod-ness also repels me, I don't want to put Itunes on any hardware I own, and don't want to spend the time to set up third party apps simply to access the thing fully. I don't want to start out with a device that right up-front sticks barriers in the way of usability.
You left out a few qualifiers. Most people default to using versions that take advantage of the very few advantage(s) that GUI environments provide.
Virtual consoles is one of those features. One of the things that repels me from most 'modern' Linux-based Operating Systems is when they start hiding away xterm. It is NOT an adminstration tool, bucko. And quit shoving those broken 'improved terminal' clunkers at me. I said xterm, not kterminal or some other abomination.
Why do you think so many people seek out Windows (and Windows Mobile, for crying out loud!)?
I think that Windows-using people just accept what is shoveled out to them, and always have.
The more interesting question from a socio-pathology point of view is why certain subcultures seek out and champion alternative interfaces like a holy grail, to the point where, for instance, the iPhone leveraged cultishness as a market entry vehicle.
Well, I DO want to be on that bus. I will have a small device that has a loud public address amplflifer attached to it. With the press of a button it will blatt out "Format C colon" and various other sundrie delights.
The "social" networking possiblities are endless. More fun than that it is now to carry a cellphone jammer or a small backpack sized EMP device.
Also there are the blind-deaf-mute to take into consideration. I'm not sure why "they" are allowed to produce computers at all, for any purpose whatsoever!
But what REALLY gets to me is when the device just quetly hangs once it's gone into standby mode. With the phones, it meant I silently dissapeared off the cell network until I realised there was a problem
That sounds like a feature, unless you're one of those people who grows desperately frantic at the notion that you might be unreachable at any single point in your life.
Well, 'bootstrapped' is an interesting term. Because it was us that pulled them up by their bootstraps. Do they have the muscle to actually stand up and remain balanced on their feet?
China's government is too corrupt to do more than keep their own populace under control, so they can't really 'expand' their tyrrany. Freedom is a virus that they're really unable to deal with on a global level. And big doses of it have been released into their culture and it is spreading.
You don't find that many intelligent skilled outsiders striving to emigrate to China. The outflow is in the opposite direction.
Has there ever been a "controlled experiment" (as much as that is possible) comparing a "totally free market" to one with the "rule of law" including patents and copyrights, such that we can compare the rates of innovation in this society?
There was a long term experiment of that sort. The people in the eastern hemisphere (Europe) can be compared to the people in the western hemisphere (North America) in about the year 1450.
Well, conceivably there could be an incrementally-ratcheting sniping application built the way the GPP described. However, I would think that it would consume an incredible amount of bandwidth, what with the heavy polling of item prices in the last several minutes of an auction. It's an interesting concept.
What's interesting is that the web-api for eBay is proprietary. The sniping software that I used to use was 'outside' the api, and the people maintaining it had to constantly do maintenance to keep it current and working with the eBay servers. I haven't looked at that issue in quite a while, but I imagine that the sniping apps are still largely 'third party' and don't license and have rights to the eBay api.
This would be a far more interesting topic to discuss. Is the eBay api something they should be allowed to 'publish' to ANY organization that produces sniping software, or should it be closed to keep the auctions fair and above ground? I would think that it wouldn't be that hard as a licensee to abuse it. I know that they license the api out to some interests. How and for what purposes?
As I said, an interesting discussion could be had here about this matter.
If they would bid higher, they should have bid higher.
I agree to a point, that the kind of tools who nickel and dime and ratchet the price up should be allowed to fool around if it amuses them to do so. But the rest of us want to get along with things.
I go to a LOT of real-life auctions, so I know quite a bit about the dynamics of auctions. eBay is a proxy bidding system. An 'extend by 15 minutes' rule sounds like an incredible opportunity for a lot of 'gaming' that is far worse than things the way they are. Hell, nickel and dimers could keep an auction going for hours with such an arrangement. A real-life auctioneer would put a stop to that kind of bs immediately, an automatic extension just changes the rules of the 'gaming' it does not 'fix' anything.
eBay needs to devolve back into a peer to peer selling community. I sell items on eBay regularly, and buy items there as well. However, my focus is on unusual tech items and gear that it simply isn't possible to get any other way locally. There are 'communities of interest' that have few or no other forum to buy and sell and trade amongst one another who use eBay this way.
And then there are the 'PowerSellers' and the big boilerplate bid pages. And the crooks and scammers.
I suspect that eBay doesn't make as much money from a peer to peer community as they can by becoming an 'open' version of Amazon.com but I would hope that if they recognize there _are_ p-p sellers out there as customers.
It's weird, because the way to 'upgrade' Macs is generally to plug in a bunch of USB or IEE-1394 devices. The Mac Mini is a veritable ocotopus once you've added enough to make it a useful machine. Talk about wire clutter...
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I have been intrigued by the iPod Touch, and have thought of getting one. My problem is that I would want to use it as a small tablet machine at home with the WiFi for browsing the web conveniently. It could be very useful for that. Unfortunately, Apple seems to have used the 'It runs MacOS X' bullet point only as marketing hype. Sure, a portable web pad would be cool, but without the extensiblity of third party apps it would be a stunted dead-end device.
I maintain a small collection of Palm III devices (and will for the forseeable future as they are $5-15 devices on eBay now) and carry one wherever I go, because it is an extendable device with lots of third party apps and Code Warrior for when I want to write my own. It's slow and underpowered, but that means I only have to replace the two AAA batteries every three months. It's damned durable compared to later generation Palm devices, two of which I destroyed carring in my pocket before moving back to the Palm III with it's hard plastic case (overengineered and they'll not make one like it again- it doesn't sell replacements fast enough.)
I definitely wouldn't want to use an iPod Touch as a phone. And the iPod-ness also repels me, I don't want to put Itunes on any hardware I own, and don't want to spend the time to set up third party apps simply to access the thing fully. I don't want to start out with a device that right up-front sticks barriers in the way of usability.
As long as the extra flashy junk doesn't impede my ability to get useful information from a website, I will be fine with it.
Then you're already too late.
To sum it up in a way the clueful will understand, there isn't a source tarball, let alone a CVS server to connect to.
You left out a few qualifiers. Most people default to using versions that take advantage of the very few advantage(s) that GUI environments provide.
Virtual consoles is one of those features. One of the things that repels me from most 'modern' Linux-based Operating Systems is when they start hiding away xterm. It is NOT an adminstration tool, bucko. And quit shoving those broken 'improved terminal' clunkers at me. I said xterm, not kterminal or some other abomination.
Why do you think so many people seek out Windows (and Windows Mobile, for crying out loud!)?
I think that Windows-using people just accept what is shoveled out to them, and always have.
The more interesting question from a socio-pathology point of view is why certain subcultures seek out and champion alternative interfaces like a holy grail, to the point where, for instance, the iPhone leveraged cultishness as a market entry vehicle.
Well, I DO want to be on that bus. I will have a small device that has a loud public address amplflifer attached to it. With the press of a button it will blatt out "Format C colon" and various other sundrie delights.
The "social" networking possiblities are endless. More fun than that it is now to carry a cellphone jammer or a small backpack sized EMP device.
Also there are the blind-deaf-mute to take into consideration. I'm not sure why "they" are allowed to produce computers at all, for any purpose whatsoever!
We wouldn't mind you having that electrode, either, since once a wire is in place, it's a two-way channel.
"He's folded the hand towel incorrectly once again. Issue the corrective pulse." etc. etc.
Your mom/spouse/roomate won't have to deal with a mess in the bathroom any longer, to say nothing about the improved cleanliness of public facilities.
That sounds like a feature, unless you're one of those people who grows desperately frantic at the notion that you might be unreachable at any single point in your life.
I thought gnome was the desktop Red Hat always touted. They sold it hard in opposition to KDE for a long, long while.
If you're in IT you're like a dishwasher at a concentration camp.
IT are the janitors. Someone else, likely Finance, decides which brand of floor sweeper they use.
So I should quit my job because they use MS Windows as their platform?
Unless you live under slavery, YES IT IS YOUR CHOICE.
Geez.
Only AA batteries, too. Not C or D cells. So fat chicks will still be able to have their vibrators to use in the plane's restroom.
If it's work related, why can't you leave Friday morning?
Well, 'bootstrapped' is an interesting term. Because it was us that pulled them up by their bootstraps. Do they have the muscle to actually stand up and remain balanced on their feet?
China's government is too corrupt to do more than keep their own populace under control, so they can't really 'expand' their tyrrany. Freedom is a virus that they're really unable to deal with on a global level. And big doses of it have been released into their culture and it is spreading.
You don't find that many intelligent skilled outsiders striving to emigrate to China. The outflow is in the opposite direction.
That's right. Because gibbering about spelling is what makes a person an intellectual.
Has there ever been a "controlled experiment" (as much as that is possible) comparing a "totally free market" to one with the "rule of law" including patents and copyrights, such that we can compare the rates of innovation in this society?
There was a long term experiment of that sort. The people in the eastern hemisphere (Europe) can be compared to the people in the western hemisphere (North America) in about the year 1450.
You're as guilty of stereotyping as any common racist who hassles strangers coming into 'his' bar.
Nice fantasy. You should spin it up into a SF short story.
Apple is less about choice and more about giving them the best experience possible.
This kind of symantic slippery is typical Apple marketing buzz.
What's the standard deviation on that 75% figure you quoted? Did you just drag it out of your imagination?
Steve Jobs does his best marketing to psuedo-intellectuals and the undereducated intelligent.
Well, conceivably there could be an incrementally-ratcheting sniping application built the way the GPP described. However, I would think that it would consume an incredible amount of bandwidth, what with the heavy polling of item prices in the last several minutes of an auction. It's an interesting concept.
What's interesting is that the web-api for eBay is proprietary. The sniping software that I used to use was 'outside' the api, and the people maintaining it had to constantly do maintenance to keep it current and working with the eBay servers. I haven't looked at that issue in quite a while, but I imagine that the sniping apps are still largely 'third party' and don't license and have rights to the eBay api.
This would be a far more interesting topic to discuss. Is the eBay api something they should be allowed to 'publish' to ANY organization that produces sniping software, or should it be closed to keep the auctions fair and above ground? I would think that it wouldn't be that hard as a licensee to abuse it. I know that they license the api out to some interests. How and for what purposes?
As I said, an interesting discussion could be had here about this matter.
If they would bid higher, they should have bid higher.
I agree to a point, that the kind of tools who nickel and dime and ratchet the price up should be allowed to fool around if it amuses them to do so. But the rest of us want to get along with things.
I go to a LOT of real-life auctions, so I know quite a bit about the dynamics of auctions. eBay is a proxy bidding system. An 'extend by 15 minutes' rule sounds like an incredible opportunity for a lot of 'gaming' that is far worse than things the way they are. Hell, nickel and dimers could keep an auction going for hours with such an arrangement. A real-life auctioneer would put a stop to that kind of bs immediately, an automatic extension just changes the rules of the 'gaming' it does not 'fix' anything.
What's wrong with sniping?
If you don't understand the concept of proxy bidding, then you don't deserve to win the auction.
eBay needs to devolve back into a peer to peer selling community. I sell items on eBay regularly, and buy items there as well. However, my focus is on unusual tech items and gear that it simply isn't possible to get any other way locally. There are 'communities of interest' that have few or no other forum to buy and sell and trade amongst one another who use eBay this way.
And then there are the 'PowerSellers' and the big boilerplate bid pages. And the crooks and scammers.
I suspect that eBay doesn't make as much money from a peer to peer community as they can by becoming an 'open' version of Amazon.com but I would hope that if they recognize there _are_ p-p sellers out there as customers.
It's weird, because the way to 'upgrade' Macs is generally to plug in a bunch of USB or IEE-1394 devices. The Mac Mini is a veritable ocotopus once you've added enough to make it a useful machine. Talk about wire clutter...