I applaud Google in their efforts here, but as a current iPhone user, I'm saddened to see it as something I can't/won't immediately be able to take advantage of. What frustrates me--as an Apple customer, as a "fan" of Apple's Accessibility work, and as one of those 466 million hard-of-hearing folks--is the difficulty I have personally had in getting Apple to understand hearing impairment, and to take it more seriously than they do. Apple seems to be of the mind that hearing impairment can be and is resolved with hearing aids, which to those in the know is absurd. Perhaps, though, Google's initiatives will help Apple see what additional work could be done to improve their ecosystem for hard-of-hearing users, not just the specific subset of the hearing-impaired population that can benefit from hearing aids.
This is the exact FolkLore page I came back, days later, to see if it had gotten posted. The blurb "was absolutely not upgradeable" didn't sit well with me, knowing the FolkLore story. Burrell Smith was a certifiable genius, like Woz before him; and that statement just is too rigid and unfairly underplays Smith's design. I'm glad somebody posted the FolkLore page.
But to Burrell Smith and Steve Wozniak, and Brian Howard, and Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld and Bruce Horn and Steve Capps, and Bud Tribble, and Joanna Hoffman and Susan Kare, and Jef Raskin, and on and on, the early Mac team names should be household names in the US. These folks all were certifiable geniuses. Only, now everybody knows Steve Jobs. Just Steve Jobs. I hear so many wrong Steve Jobs stories it is almost incredible. From adults, from kids. It pains me that the public Oral History of computing is as screwed up as it apparently is. But, especially in this one case, the Macintosh RAM, Burrell Smith especially deserves better than "was absolutely not upgradeable", and more over he deserves that his accomplishments be better known to the technologist culture.
(As an aside, it also worries me greatly that the 'veil of secrecy' that "new" "2nd coming of Jobs" Apple has hidden itself behind has largely also served to completely destroy any chance that we, the lovers of such FolkLore, will ever find out the names and personalities behind more recent Apple successes. We've heard of a few names, like Avie Tevanian and Jon Rubenstein and Tony Fadell and Scott Forstall, but they have even mostly been papered over by a nearly cult-like projection of Jony Ive as the sole "Wizard" behind the curtain. Apple Execs like Craig Federighi and Phil Schiller instead get stage time, though Kevin Lynch has been getting some time too. Even if you read Apple's marketing, you'd think Angela Ahrends and Tim Cook are in the trenches inventing stuff which just completely belies what we know of how the process actually works from reading stories like FolkLore. We wonder why kids don't run into STEM? Maybe its because the "Rock Stars" are seemingly all people who don't actually play the instruments, they just lip sync acceptably and can line dance really good after enough practice.)
Given my experience working with Asian and Indian colleagues, I have noticed certain "differences" in language and logic/reasoning skills that I can only attribute to neuro-development (aka: how the brain develops while learning specific language mechanics and cultural normatives). So I have to ask, not knowing a Chinese-language: how does "invent" and "invention" translate between actual Western languages? Because I've seen a lot of empirical evidence to the effect that Asian peoples (Oh, boy, here comes the stereotypes, right?? Not intended, merely trying to understand.) often don't -believe- that taking somebody else's idea and improving upon it is "wrong". (Which is rather the simplistic version of the "Western" notion we're discussing.) Sometimes, I've attributed this behavior to malice, because sometimes the "thief" "tipped their hand" and basically admitted they knew it was copyright violation and they just didn't care. But often enough the attitude has been somewhat more to the Steve Jobsian "Great Artists Steal" concept, where it was not malice but "awe, coupled with an intense passion to improve" the idea. Can we fault that? There have been many times in history where the "inventor" of a product, although genius in that incarnation, was not capable of seeing the much more profound "bigger picture" of that invention's possibilities. If, in the Chinese language/mindset "invent" infers a certain amount of implicit iteration, e.g. "there is nothing new, only the newest thing improved upon", then perhaps what is really being said is "Our 'invention' is 'perfecting' these things, like only China can." In short, they always mean "reinvention".
I'm not disputing the propaganda perspective, nor the arrogance/brashness in which the Chinese governmental regime has historically flat-out lied; but I hold out that with such drastic cultural differences there may be a bit more complexity at work here. Maybe. Enlighten me!
I think this story should serve for non-technical buyers to provide greater awareness of the amount of CONTROL that Apple wields upon their ecosystem. Many users are completely unaware that Apple effectively sets what you can, and often CANNOT, buy to interface with your iDevice. And consumers should know... because when they can't get that accessory they want, or they blame a vendor when a device uses a USB micro-B port/cable instead of Lightning, often their ire is misplaced at the vendors when 90% of the time it is Apple that has denied them the solution they desire. And considering how many vendors "take it on the chin" and never publicly inform the buyers of this, I can only assume there is a non-disparagement clause in the MFi license as well. From the amount of abuse that some vendors take and still remain silent, Apple might be the biggest "abuser" in the relationship. Certainly Apple took advantage with their passthrough Lightning port-to-Lightning plug used in the "bandaid" iPhone battery cases; they even used the fact that their case had it as a competitive finger in the eye to their partners... all without mentioning that they themselves prohibited the vendors from using such a port/plug combination. Mophie has remained silent, still can't use the part. Oddly, tech "journalists" reported the "marketing", knocking MFi partners in reviews for not having the port rather than reporting to buyers about Apple's shenanigans. I've not read a single review yet where this control over ports/options has been exposed.
This is the worst kind of "bend reality to yield to human fantasy" lawmaking. Instead of doing away with the stupid DST convention, they are ADOPTING the stupid as default. They are not FIXING the problems caused by the switching of clocks, they are embracing the flawed solution... seemingly oblivious to the yet-more unintended consequences doing so will bring. I can't even. "Traditional Daily Routine" has now become more rigid than physics. Thank you, lawgiving morons and the morons who chose them. Dumber and dumber the rabbit hole goes.
I'm a huge Apple fan, have been all my computing life. But I think it instructional for developers (and consumers and fans!) to compare Google's communication style regarding new operating system features and Apple's, cough cough, "communication" style. Google is clear, outlines what features they've added and want to add, and their intent on development track. Apple... well...you get WWDC, and they show stuff, and they'll talk about some stuff, maybe. And maybe what they show and talk about ships, but good luck on getting more information about what is going on if it doesn't ship when planned. And even after that, don't plan on getting adequate, clear documentation; the best resource is the developer forums or Stack Exchange where you will get more (empirical) info from other developers than you do from Apple.
This is NOT how I thought things would go. [Luke was right. (Tell your sister, he was right.)]
Apple users, consumers, developers: we shouldn't stand for it. There –is– a better way. And Google shows it. Apple can pay lip service to the "evil" of Google, but at the end of the dev cycle, that's really all it is. And Apple can utter profundities about secrecy and the delight of surprise, but honestly it's all just nonsense after the "reveal". Apple...Tim Cook...up your game... it is beyond time to stop acting like it is 1997, or 2007.
Can't help but think this might have something to do with the model Apple has established with the Apple TV. Both Apple and Amazon have promised Amazon Video on Apple TV "this fall" (for the second year in a row). Apple's App Store model allows for free apps and subscription services, with a significant discount off the 30% "revenue sharing" for subs that last over a year. Producing a service like this would allow Amazon to much more easily bring in Amazon Video customers from Apple TV—they come in to ad-supported content for free—with a frictionless way to transistion to a paid subscription with a (likely) lower hit than having to revenue-share the full Prime membership. Then Amazon could advertise Prime membership via commercials, and end-run Apple's restrictions on "advertising" outside-the-App-Store purchasing avenues.
Beyond the misleading choice not to baseline the high-nicotine vapors/smokers for prior smoking levels, I also find it curious that the study didn't track the youths' opinions on e-cigs vs cigarettes in terms of health/harm. Considering that over the past 5 years the "official" US government "message" has been that vaping is as, and sometimes more, dangerous than smoking cigarettes (obvious hogwash), I have found a lot of smokers who had switched to vaping (some, entirely, completely off cigarettes) go back to smoking "because the government says there is no difference." This would have been a useful data point to track, especially in a nanny-state like California where such mixed-messaging is too-often used as a governmental propaganda tool. That the researchers decided not to track a simple question of "WHY smoke?" is, to me, quite telling as to the purpose of the study, since that basic question would have shed a lot of light on actual causation (vs mere speculation).
I have an idea for an amendment to this bill. Every politician in the US takes an "oath of office" that contains a statement to the effect that they will "faithfully execute" the office. I believe it is fairly clear to most citizens that lying is certainly NOT "faithfully" executing the role of public office. When in court, a citizen must swear or affirm to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. Let's combine the two! Any citizen who submits to running for public office must agree to abide by the oath of office at the time of application, NOT at the time of taking office (too late by then, eh?). The person standing on the podium at the end of a race with hand held high should be the formality, the pomp and circumstance, not the initiation. And it should be ensconced that taking an oath of public office should effectively put the potential office holder under the same level of "truth telling" as a citizen testifying in public court. From there, ANY public office holder that willfully and knowingly lies, or even spreads mistruths when evidence shows they had ample fore-knowledge, should be held to the penalties of perjury. In other words, every time a politician speaks, they HAVE to tell the truth. NOT just when they're "sworn in" at a Congressional hearing; NOT just when they're in front of a Grand Jury for a corruption scandal...ALWAYS. When Hillary Clinton went on NBC's 'Meet the Press' and baldly lied about how she used her mail server, then those statements ALONE should have been enough (with the information now known) to have her busted for perjury to the American people. When Trump makes completely false statements contrary to intelligence reports it is KNOWN he received, perjury. Any US citizen should have "standing", and more than a handful should intrinsically constitute a "class action". Yes, this in the short term may lead to some (or many) politicians NEVER giving interviews... let's see how long they last in office then. Otherwise, if a public official talks, they'd best be telling the truth, political advertising or statements to the press or campaign promises to the crowds. EVERY TIME THEY COMMUNICATE.
I also had always inferred a similar concept with the title. It might not have been THE reason, but, to me, IMHO, it bespeaks a certain "tell" of the morality of the story. Excepting for the discussion the nonsense of Ridley Scott saying Deckard was a replicant, the role of a "blade runner" was effectively that of a stone-cold killer operating under the color of law. Even in the opening crawl that moral quandary is pretty directly alluded to: "This was not called execution. It was called retirement."
I always took "blade runner" to have a dual-meaning whereby those cops were effectively running on the fine edge of what society could accept as legal, and was legal; they're out there "retiring" replicants, with extreme prejudice, and it is "OK" only because no one really has stopped to think about why ethically it shouldn't be. And I think that is reflected in Deckard's story... he's reached the end of it, he's seen the moral failure in the act of what amounts to murdering replicants who are showing very "human" responses and emotions. Therein reveals a further hidden irony: "blade runners" aren't merely appropriately named because of the dangerousness of their actions, or the razor-thin morality of their actions, but also perhaps for how far out on the edge of human tolerance for suffering they must run. Deckard is clearly spent--physically, emotionally, morally--and by the end of the movie is clearly able to see how psychotic he had become. And breaks. Which obviously leads to the sequel.
Hmmm, I wonder... "conventional wisdom" has been that all of the paving humanity has been doing has created heat islands that are increasing localized global warming. But given this research, I am left to wonder: is there an offset? Clearly I'd think that paving or building over large plots of arid land would certainly squelch this CO2 emission. Of course, there is the carbon cost of the manufacture/construction to consider, but have we perhaps been abating something we didn't even know existed (or, at least, know was a significant CO2 source)? It would seem to me the next logical step for this group would be to pave or concrete over part of one of their experimental plots, accounting for the CO2 "cost" in doing so, and compare. I hate to see all the parking lots and acre-sized warehouses that are overtaking the lush green in my area, but...
(Also, causes me to ponder fictional planets like Coruscant or Trantor.)
This is so dumb. They needed a study for this? And then, when they do the study they target "particularly males". This is how "bad science" is done. You know how to do GOOD f'ing science? Get your IVM meat done, do it right, and make it taste and cook like Filet Mignon. Everyone will eat it. No one will care that it is grown in a lab. All the nonsense "studies" and whatnot UNTIL then only prove your IVM meat sucks. Nobody with 23 braincells to rub together would REFUSE to eat "meat" comparable to Filet. This isn't difficult, jackasses.
I want Candy Crush gone from my Win10 box. I have no interest in it. Apparently all of my clients feel the same.
But It JUST. WON'T. DIE!
Worse, folks don't seem to associate that if they right-click and Uninstall, that next 10 minutes of slow internet/computer is thanks to background file transfer/install of Windows putting the crapware back on. They do it over and overand over in defiant hope it will magically disappear, under the mistaken impression they've done something wrong. (Along with Paid Wi-Fi, Minecraft, Twitter, etc)
Whatever happened to the old skool idea that the USER controlled the computer? Where, oh, where is Tron when we need him most??
So, if alcohol hacks your brain into thinking it is hungry, if you do NOT then eat--you purposefully resist the urge--does those same "starvation mode" signals then trigger different metabolic responses from the body as well and lead to weight LOSS? Of the functioning alcoholics that I know, a not-insignificant number of them are rail skinny; while, yes, others are obese (mostly beer-gut "fat"). But I have empirically noticed that the skinny ones tend not to eat; they "drink" their dinners. In a few instances, those folks are also ones who "can eat what I want and not get fat"... but perhaps mostly because they likely rarely eat regularly. It would be an interesting next step to follow through on the research and see what the mice do if kept hydrated but underfed, or perhaps fed just a moderate calorie diet, versus a high calorie diet typical of many people. Comparing to recent research on fasting, alcohol might could turn out to be yet another "hack" that allows for metabolic disruption and significant weight-loss. (Though I'm not sure doctors/scientists would approve, given alcohol's other deleterious health effects, but if you're already a drinker I'd think obesity would be significantly more harmful on top of it.)
I've been doing this IT thing for a long time. A very long time.
I don't think there is an IT expert/admin on Slashdot who would attest that--if given the job to engineer/configure an email server for Secretary of State (much less, merely private citizen) Clinton--this server was in any way designed or implemented properly. Not for security, not for compliance, nothing.
So... am I to believe that Hillary Clinton is so woefully incapable of finding a competent IT engineer/admin? Here is ALL OF SLASHDOT. Am I to believe that? Because, if so, she's woefully incompetent for ANY governmental position; I don't believe she should be in any position of power that directly impacts me, my freedom. And anyone who supports her, at this point, in this community, given what is so obvious to see about her character and her intentions, either has to be insane or be seen as complicit in her and her "party's" power grab. It is that simple.
As documented in the book, AppleDesign [https://amzn.com/1888001259], Apple's Industrial Design Group prototyped just such machines in the mid-to-late-80s and early-90s. Too bad that Apple has failed to use its own in-house design history for inspiration. I really expected to eventually see a Mac mini that incorporated the stacking concept, instead they basically emasculated it.
With "cloud computing", the Internet of Things, and concepts like the Intel NUC and Arduino and Raspberry Pi already upon us, modular computing makes a lot of sense. When users have much more personalized devices like iPhones and iPads, big "contained" boxes of computers don't make much sense. Instead, clusters of computing and storage, invisibly inter-meshed with cloud resources will take over and deliver "computing" just as with how electrons are delivered through a mesh of power plants big and small, solar panels, batteries, and generators. As with power, the cost and bandwidth of the delivery pipes compared with localized need will determine the "network".
Same here. The 128Kbps MAX is a joke unworthy of a $5 a month "penalty". I especially like how AT&T tries to wrap the same $5 fee as Verizon's "Safety Mode" as "We're not doing what Verizon is doing. We don't charge you!" Uh huh. And both of them sitting on this 128kbps thing like a badge of honor. 128Kbps is all but unusable. I'd like to see Randall Stephenson do a John Legere and live for a week on 128Kbps data. If he can do it for a day, I'll get off my high horse. (He wouldn't be able to, so, no worries there.) At least Verizon says 128Kbps is what you should expect; AT&T pulls a mealy-mouthed "128Kbps max". Like... what? 2Kbps? 1Kbps? How 'bout we drop into the "human readable bitstream" speeds... Are those possible, acceptable speeds, AT&T? Jerks. 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. Always with these guys.
Go back through the transcripts of EVERY Quarterly call and Keynote/Product/WWDC speech Tim Cook has given since he took over the helm from Steve Jobs...Cook has said, in pretty much the SAME TERMS, EXACTLY this same line. Every. Single. Time.
And what have we gotten?
* iPhones with bigger screens: Something the Android manufacturers had been doing for a few years before Apple, and something that would have been trivial for Apple's engineers to do. (In fact we knew, from various reports and Isaacson's Jobs book, that Apple had long been experimenting with MANY screen sizes, for years.) Chassis gets thinner, gains an unsightly camera bulge that Apple would have laughed at a year before if it showed up on a Samsung, battery life stays pretty much the same: inadequate. * iPads with a smaller screen, and a bigger screen: see above * an iPad Pencil: neat. (Had a pressure sensitive Wacom in 1994, so can't really get THAT excited. Everything old is new again, I suppose.) * the Apple Watch: another response to another nascent Android-industry first; and product that a year after launch still does nothing appreciably better (and a lot worse) than the Android-ecosystem units. * a Mac Pro: a "pro" computer that debuted to long manufacturing delays to replace a "pro" computer that Apple didn't bother to update for 3 years that hasn't been updated in over 18 months. Uh huh. * Retina 27" iMacs: neat. Expensive. * Retina 21" iMacs with 5400rpm 2.5" spinning drives, glued shut, and no expandable RAM: Uh huh. * the one-port MacBook: charge your laptop or charge your battery-life-barely-decent iPhone. But not both. Charge your laptop or use an external monitor/projector. But not both. Or, buy this $80 dongle that weighs 1/4 the weight of the whole laptop. Uh huh. Oh, and EXPENSIVE. MUCH more $$$ than the ChromeBooks that K-12 is now buying...didn't the MacBook used to be an Ed Market target?? * a Mac Mini: same as the last, minus $100, with a 5400rpm 2.5" spinning drive, no expandable RAM. Slower than the year before's model. Uh huh. Now 18+ months old. * no new Cinema Display. In fact, no new Display from Apple in several years. Despite improvements in Thunderbolt. (Oh, yeah, reminds me about that Mac Pro again.) What should I plug my MacBook Pro into again when I'm IN the office? Ahhh, a crap-ass HP or Dell monitor, gotcha. * Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. At least 4 iterations of iOS and OS X that have each taken nearly 6 months to reach an acceptable level of "stability". Yet many people STILL can't seem to get Mail on OS X to display their messages correctly. Or notify them of new messages correctly. Or show messages in the correct folders. Or even show messages at all. Because email is "new", I guess. iOS updates that brick brand new iPhones' radios. iOS updates that disable hardware features. iOS updates that disable Wi-Fi. Bugs. A lot of bugs. * Swift: cool. World can't have enough languages. * Apple Music: I think I've seen this service before. * iCloud: I think I've seen this service before. (Oh, and before you ask...NO, you can't merge your old iTunes account with your new iCloud account yet.) * Apple Pay: don't know a single user who actually, uh, uses it. * new versions of iTunes. Yeah. I'm just going to slowly walk away now...
I'm sure I'm missing something. But I really DO await all this magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust that Tim Cook is expecting Apple to fart out later this year. And next year's magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust fart will even be better! No doubt. Because he SAYS so.
Meanwhile, I spent 2 hours of my life today troubleshooting various Apple bugs for clients that Apple blames on every thing but Apple. Known issues. Apple software. Clearly...CLEARLY...not "a bug". "You're holding it wrong." Riiiiiight. I've been an Apple user since 1983. I sold Apple gear from 1989 until 1996. I worked for Apple in the early '90s. I've been working on Apple gear since. I have a hint for you all: that magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust they're farting out? Sometimes, at best, it is just hot air. You should HOPE it is just hot air. The downside is much worse.
Not excited for the 4-inch iPhone, but glad it is "back" in the line up. I was disappointed that Apple stupidly went bigger--after having spent so much time talking shit about big devices--without also hewing to their prior conviction that ~4" was the "best" size. Apple either HAS design credibility, or does not. Human hands haven't changed significantly since the iPhone 5 shipped and their iPhone design philosophy was either right or wrong. Can't have it both ways. So this is rectifying a mistake; can't get excited about that. Plus, no 3D Touch, that sucks.
That Jack said 140 characters is staying, I'm wondering might be one of those Steve Jobsian deft maneuvers where you say what people are listening for, but aren't actually saying what you're planning (and thus don't actually ANSWER the question).
I'd not mind Twitter to stick to 140 characters for tweets as they appear in the Feed. In fact, I tweeted Jack my suggestion: - 140 characters Tweets would stay. You could continue to tweet 140 characters at a time, OR the 140 character tweet could also be a Summary Tweet that includes expands out into a Super Tweet. - Super Tweet that would be 500 characters (something like that). The Summary Tweet would show in the Timeline with a "more..." expander widget. Users could choose to subscribe to a Feed or an Expanded Feed, and that would determine how much Tweet the feed is sent. If you sub to an Expanded Feed, you get the 500 character tweets in your timeline without having to make a call-back to Twitter to "load more". For normal feeds, you'd have to wait while the tweet expands. 140 characters can just be too limited a lot of the time, and anywhere from 200 to 500 would be a welcome expansion. The user would be able to edit the Summary Tweet "part" of a Super Tweet before Sending. - Finally, Twitter should support a Long-form Note. This wouldn't be that difficult, basically some standardized manner to link to a blog post or article, which might be hosted at Twitter, or not be. The nice thing is that they could implement Notes the way Jack has already been using OS X's Note app, use an image representation and attach that to the Summary Tweet/Super Tweet that links to it.
That doesn't mean that 140 has to go away, just as Jack says. It will stay. But that wouldn't have to mean that Twitter can't expand the kinds of Tweets as well.
My thought too. Nothing stopping him from taking any other iPhone 5c, setting Auto-Erase to on, and proving his hacking team's prowess on YouTube for the world to see. (The exception is that the court order doesn't actually reveal what specific iOS version the iPhone is running. The FBI alludes, a lot, that it is running iOS 9.something, but doesn't otherwise clearly say. Which I find a bit suspicious; they spewed out a lot of other info about the device.)
I await reading the FBI/DHS memo detailing the alert on the threat of the Sweet Meteor of Death hitting the 2016 Super Bowl. I mean, come on, the odds are about the same as for this.
Slashdot Mirror
I applaud Google in their efforts here, but as a current iPhone user, I'm saddened to see it as something I can't/won't immediately be able to take advantage of. What frustrates me--as an Apple customer, as a "fan" of Apple's Accessibility work, and as one of those 466 million hard-of-hearing folks--is the difficulty I have personally had in getting Apple to understand hearing impairment, and to take it more seriously than they do. Apple seems to be of the mind that hearing impairment can be and is resolved with hearing aids, which to those in the know is absurd. Perhaps, though, Google's initiatives will help Apple see what additional work could be done to improve their ecosystem for hard-of-hearing users, not just the specific subset of the hearing-impaired population that can benefit from hearing aids.
This is the exact FolkLore page I came back, days later, to see if it had gotten posted. The blurb "was absolutely not upgradeable" didn't sit well with me, knowing the FolkLore story. Burrell Smith was a certifiable genius, like Woz before him; and that statement just is too rigid and unfairly underplays Smith's design. I'm glad somebody posted the FolkLore page.
But to Burrell Smith and Steve Wozniak, and Brian Howard, and Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld and Bruce Horn and Steve Capps, and Bud Tribble, and Joanna Hoffman and Susan Kare, and Jef Raskin, and on and on, the early Mac team names should be household names in the US. These folks all were certifiable geniuses. Only, now everybody knows Steve Jobs. Just Steve Jobs. I hear so many wrong Steve Jobs stories it is almost incredible. From adults, from kids. It pains me that the public Oral History of computing is as screwed up as it apparently is. But, especially in this one case, the Macintosh RAM, Burrell Smith especially deserves better than "was absolutely not upgradeable", and more over he deserves that his accomplishments be better known to the technologist culture.
(As an aside, it also worries me greatly that the 'veil of secrecy' that "new" "2nd coming of Jobs" Apple has hidden itself behind has largely also served to completely destroy any chance that we, the lovers of such FolkLore, will ever find out the names and personalities behind more recent Apple successes. We've heard of a few names, like Avie Tevanian and Jon Rubenstein and Tony Fadell and Scott Forstall, but they have even mostly been papered over by a nearly cult-like projection of Jony Ive as the sole "Wizard" behind the curtain. Apple Execs like Craig Federighi and Phil Schiller instead get stage time, though Kevin Lynch has been getting some time too. Even if you read Apple's marketing, you'd think Angela Ahrends and Tim Cook are in the trenches inventing stuff which just completely belies what we know of how the process actually works from reading stories like FolkLore. We wonder why kids don't run into STEM? Maybe its because the "Rock Stars" are seemingly all people who don't actually play the instruments, they just lip sync acceptably and can line dance really good after enough practice.)
I just want to play Spaceship Warlock, with sound. That is all.
Given my experience working with Asian and Indian colleagues, I have noticed certain "differences" in language and logic/reasoning skills that I can only attribute to neuro-development (aka: how the brain develops while learning specific language mechanics and cultural normatives). So I have to ask, not knowing a Chinese-language: how does "invent" and "invention" translate between actual Western languages?
Because I've seen a lot of empirical evidence to the effect that Asian peoples (Oh, boy, here comes the stereotypes, right?? Not intended, merely trying to understand.) often don't -believe- that taking somebody else's idea and improving upon it is "wrong". (Which is rather the simplistic version of the "Western" notion we're discussing.) Sometimes, I've attributed this behavior to malice, because sometimes the "thief" "tipped their hand" and basically admitted they knew it was copyright violation and they just didn't care. But often enough the attitude has been somewhat more to the Steve Jobsian "Great Artists Steal" concept, where it was not malice but "awe, coupled with an intense passion to improve" the idea. Can we fault that? There have been many times in history where the "inventor" of a product, although genius in that incarnation, was not capable of seeing the much more profound "bigger picture" of that invention's possibilities. If, in the Chinese language/mindset "invent" infers a certain amount of implicit iteration, e.g. "there is nothing new, only the newest thing improved upon", then perhaps what is really being said is "Our 'invention' is 'perfecting' these things, like only China can." In short, they always mean "reinvention".
I'm not disputing the propaganda perspective, nor the arrogance/brashness in which the Chinese governmental regime has historically flat-out lied; but I hold out that with such drastic cultural differences there may be a bit more complexity at work here. Maybe. Enlighten me!
I think this story should serve for non-technical buyers to provide greater awareness of the amount of CONTROL that Apple wields upon their ecosystem. Many users are completely unaware that Apple effectively sets what you can, and often CANNOT, buy to interface with your iDevice. And consumers should know... because when they can't get that accessory they want, or they blame a vendor when a device uses a USB micro-B port/cable instead of Lightning, often their ire is misplaced at the vendors when 90% of the time it is Apple that has denied them the solution they desire. And considering how many vendors "take it on the chin" and never publicly inform the buyers of this, I can only assume there is a non-disparagement clause in the MFi license as well. From the amount of abuse that some vendors take and still remain silent, Apple might be the biggest "abuser" in the relationship. Certainly Apple took advantage with their passthrough Lightning port-to-Lightning plug used in the "bandaid" iPhone battery cases; they even used the fact that their case had it as a competitive finger in the eye to their partners... all without mentioning that they themselves prohibited the vendors from using such a port/plug combination. Mophie has remained silent, still can't use the part. Oddly, tech "journalists" reported the "marketing", knocking MFi partners in reviews for not having the port rather than reporting to buyers about Apple's shenanigans. I've not read a single review yet where this control over ports/options has been exposed.
This is the worst kind of "bend reality to yield to human fantasy" lawmaking. Instead of doing away with the stupid DST convention, they are ADOPTING the stupid as default. They are not FIXING the problems caused by the switching of clocks, they are embracing the flawed solution... seemingly oblivious to the yet-more unintended consequences doing so will bring.
I can't even. "Traditional Daily Routine" has now become more rigid than physics. Thank you, lawgiving morons and the morons who chose them. Dumber and dumber the rabbit hole goes.
I'm a huge Apple fan, have been all my computing life. But I think it instructional for developers (and consumers and fans!) to compare Google's communication style regarding new operating system features and Apple's, cough cough, "communication" style. Google is clear, outlines what features they've added and want to add, and their intent on development track. Apple... well...you get WWDC, and they show stuff, and they'll talk about some stuff, maybe. And maybe what they show and talk about ships, but good luck on getting more information about what is going on if it doesn't ship when planned. And even after that, don't plan on getting adequate, clear documentation; the best resource is the developer forums or Stack Exchange where you will get more (empirical) info from other developers than you do from Apple.
This is NOT how I thought things would go. [Luke was right. (Tell your sister, he was right.)]
Apple users, consumers, developers: we shouldn't stand for it. There –is– a better way. And Google shows it. Apple can pay lip service to the "evil" of Google, but at the end of the dev cycle, that's really all it is. And Apple can utter profundities about secrecy and the delight of surprise, but honestly it's all just nonsense after the "reveal". Apple...Tim Cook...up your game... it is beyond time to stop acting like it is 1997, or 2007.
Can't help but think this might have something to do with the model Apple has established with the Apple TV. Both Apple and Amazon have promised Amazon Video on Apple TV "this fall" (for the second year in a row). Apple's App Store model allows for free apps and subscription services, with a significant discount off the 30% "revenue sharing" for subs that last over a year. Producing a service like this would allow Amazon to much more easily bring in Amazon Video customers from Apple TV—they come in to ad-supported content for free—with a frictionless way to transistion to a paid subscription with a (likely) lower hit than having to revenue-share the full Prime membership. Then Amazon could advertise Prime membership via commercials, and end-run Apple's restrictions on "advertising" outside-the-App-Store purchasing avenues.
Beyond the misleading choice not to baseline the high-nicotine vapors/smokers for prior smoking levels, I also find it curious that the study didn't track the youths' opinions on e-cigs vs cigarettes in terms of health/harm. Considering that over the past 5 years the "official" US government "message" has been that vaping is as, and sometimes more, dangerous than smoking cigarettes (obvious hogwash), I have found a lot of smokers who had switched to vaping (some, entirely, completely off cigarettes) go back to smoking "because the government says there is no difference." This would have been a useful data point to track, especially in a nanny-state like California where such mixed-messaging is too-often used as a governmental propaganda tool. That the researchers decided not to track a simple question of "WHY smoke?" is, to me, quite telling as to the purpose of the study, since that basic question would have shed a lot of light on actual causation (vs mere speculation).
I have an idea for an amendment to this bill. Every politician in the US takes an "oath of office" that contains a statement to the effect that they will "faithfully execute" the office. I believe it is fairly clear to most citizens that lying is certainly NOT "faithfully" executing the role of public office. When in court, a citizen must swear or affirm to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. Let's combine the two!
Any citizen who submits to running for public office must agree to abide by the oath of office at the time of application, NOT at the time of taking office (too late by then, eh?). The person standing on the podium at the end of a race with hand held high should be the formality, the pomp and circumstance, not the initiation. And it should be ensconced that taking an oath of public office should effectively put the potential office holder under the same level of "truth telling" as a citizen testifying in public court. From there, ANY public office holder that willfully and knowingly lies, or even spreads mistruths when evidence shows they had ample fore-knowledge, should be held to the penalties of perjury. In other words, every time a politician speaks, they HAVE to tell the truth. NOT just when they're "sworn in" at a Congressional hearing; NOT just when they're in front of a Grand Jury for a corruption scandal...ALWAYS.
When Hillary Clinton went on NBC's 'Meet the Press' and baldly lied about how she used her mail server, then those statements ALONE should have been enough (with the information now known) to have her busted for perjury to the American people. When Trump makes completely false statements contrary to intelligence reports it is KNOWN he received, perjury. Any US citizen should have "standing", and more than a handful should intrinsically constitute a "class action".
Yes, this in the short term may lead to some (or many) politicians NEVER giving interviews... let's see how long they last in office then. Otherwise, if a public official talks, they'd best be telling the truth, political advertising or statements to the press or campaign promises to the crowds. EVERY TIME THEY COMMUNICATE.
Damn I'm old.
I also had always inferred a similar concept with the title. It might not have been THE reason, but, to me, IMHO, it bespeaks a certain "tell" of the morality of the story. Excepting for the discussion the nonsense of Ridley Scott saying Deckard was a replicant, the role of a "blade runner" was effectively that of a stone-cold killer operating under the color of law. Even in the opening crawl that moral quandary is pretty directly alluded to: "This was not called execution. It was called retirement."
I always took "blade runner" to have a dual-meaning whereby those cops were effectively running on the fine edge of what society could accept as legal, and was legal; they're out there "retiring" replicants, with extreme prejudice, and it is "OK" only because no one really has stopped to think about why ethically it shouldn't be. And I think that is reflected in Deckard's story... he's reached the end of it, he's seen the moral failure in the act of what amounts to murdering replicants who are showing very "human" responses and emotions. Therein reveals a further hidden irony: "blade runners" aren't merely appropriately named because of the dangerousness of their actions, or the razor-thin morality of their actions, but also perhaps for how far out on the edge of human tolerance for suffering they must run. Deckard is clearly spent--physically, emotionally, morally--and by the end of the movie is clearly able to see how psychotic he had become. And breaks. Which obviously leads to the sequel.
Hmmm, I wonder... "conventional wisdom" has been that all of the paving humanity has been doing has created heat islands that are increasing localized global warming. But given this research, I am left to wonder: is there an offset? Clearly I'd think that paving or building over large plots of arid land would certainly squelch this CO2 emission. Of course, there is the carbon cost of the manufacture/construction to consider, but have we perhaps been abating something we didn't even know existed (or, at least, know was a significant CO2 source)? It would seem to me the next logical step for this group would be to pave or concrete over part of one of their experimental plots, accounting for the CO2 "cost" in doing so, and compare. I hate to see all the parking lots and acre-sized warehouses that are overtaking the lush green in my area, but...
(Also, causes me to ponder fictional planets like Coruscant or Trantor.)
This is so dumb. They needed a study for this? And then, when they do the study they target "particularly males". This is how "bad science" is done.
You know how to do GOOD f'ing science? Get your IVM meat done, do it right, and make it taste and cook like Filet Mignon. Everyone will eat it. No one will care that it is grown in a lab. All the nonsense "studies" and whatnot UNTIL then only prove your IVM meat sucks. Nobody with 23 braincells to rub together would REFUSE to eat "meat" comparable to Filet. This isn't difficult, jackasses.
I want Candy Crush gone from my Win10 box. I have no interest in it. Apparently all of my clients feel the same.
But
It JUST. WON'T. DIE!
Worse, folks don't seem to associate that if they right-click and Uninstall, that next 10 minutes of slow internet/computer is thanks to background file transfer/install of Windows putting the crapware back on. They do it over and overand over in defiant hope it will magically disappear, under the mistaken impression they've done something wrong. (Along with Paid Wi-Fi, Minecraft, Twitter, etc)
Whatever happened to the old skool idea that the USER controlled the computer? Where, oh, where is Tron when we need him most??
So, if alcohol hacks your brain into thinking it is hungry, if you do NOT then eat--you purposefully resist the urge--does those same "starvation mode" signals then trigger different metabolic responses from the body as well and lead to weight LOSS?
Of the functioning alcoholics that I know, a not-insignificant number of them are rail skinny; while, yes, others are obese (mostly beer-gut "fat"). But I have empirically noticed that the skinny ones tend not to eat; they "drink" their dinners. In a few instances, those folks are also ones who "can eat what I want and not get fat"... but perhaps mostly because they likely rarely eat regularly. It would be an interesting next step to follow through on the research and see what the mice do if kept hydrated but underfed, or perhaps fed just a moderate calorie diet, versus a high calorie diet typical of many people. Comparing to recent research on fasting, alcohol might could turn out to be yet another "hack" that allows for metabolic disruption and significant weight-loss. (Though I'm not sure doctors/scientists would approve, given alcohol's other deleterious health effects, but if you're already a drinker I'd think obesity would be significantly more harmful on top of it.)
Excellent responses. Makes my EE-heart thump a bit faster reading things like this and Eben certainly delivered. All credit due... BRAVO!
I've been doing this IT thing for a long time. A very long time.
I don't think there is an IT expert/admin on Slashdot who would attest that--if given the job to engineer/configure an email server for Secretary of State (much less, merely private citizen) Clinton--this server was in any way designed or implemented properly. Not for security, not for compliance, nothing.
So... am I to believe that Hillary Clinton is so woefully incapable of finding a competent IT engineer/admin? Here is ALL OF SLASHDOT. Am I to believe that? Because, if so, she's woefully incompetent for ANY governmental position; I don't believe she should be in any position of power that directly impacts me, my freedom. And anyone who supports her, at this point, in this community, given what is so obvious to see about her character and her intentions, either has to be insane or be seen as complicit in her and her "party's" power grab. It is that simple.
As documented in the book, AppleDesign [https://amzn.com/1888001259], Apple's Industrial Design Group prototyped just such machines in the mid-to-late-80s and early-90s. Too bad that Apple has failed to use its own in-house design history for inspiration. I really expected to eventually see a Mac mini that incorporated the stacking concept, instead they basically emasculated it.
With "cloud computing", the Internet of Things, and concepts like the Intel NUC and Arduino and Raspberry Pi already upon us, modular computing makes a lot of sense. When users have much more personalized devices like iPhones and iPads, big "contained" boxes of computers don't make much sense. Instead, clusters of computing and storage, invisibly inter-meshed with cloud resources will take over and deliver "computing" just as with how electrons are delivered through a mesh of power plants big and small, solar panels, batteries, and generators. As with power, the cost and bandwidth of the delivery pipes compared with localized need will determine the "network".
Same here. The 128Kbps MAX is a joke unworthy of a $5 a month "penalty". I especially like how AT&T tries to wrap the same $5 fee as Verizon's "Safety Mode" as "We're not doing what Verizon is doing. We don't charge you!" Uh huh. And both of them sitting on this 128kbps thing like a badge of honor. 128Kbps is all but unusable. I'd like to see Randall Stephenson do a John Legere and live for a week on 128Kbps data. If he can do it for a day, I'll get off my high horse. (He wouldn't be able to, so, no worries there.) At least Verizon says 128Kbps is what you should expect; AT&T pulls a mealy-mouthed "128Kbps max". Like... what? 2Kbps? 1Kbps? How 'bout we drop into the "human readable bitstream" speeds... Are those possible, acceptable speeds, AT&T? Jerks. 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. Always with these guys.
Go back through the transcripts of EVERY Quarterly call and Keynote/Product/WWDC speech Tim Cook has given since he took over the helm from Steve Jobs...Cook has said, in pretty much the SAME TERMS, EXACTLY this same line. Every. Single. Time.
And what have we gotten?
* iPhones with bigger screens: Something the Android manufacturers had been doing for a few years before Apple, and something that would have been trivial for Apple's engineers to do. (In fact we knew, from various reports and Isaacson's Jobs book, that Apple had long been experimenting with MANY screen sizes, for years.) Chassis gets thinner, gains an unsightly camera bulge that Apple would have laughed at a year before if it showed up on a Samsung, battery life stays pretty much the same: inadequate.
* iPads with a smaller screen, and a bigger screen: see above
* an iPad Pencil: neat. (Had a pressure sensitive Wacom in 1994, so can't really get THAT excited. Everything old is new again, I suppose.)
* the Apple Watch: another response to another nascent Android-industry first; and product that a year after launch still does nothing appreciably better (and a lot worse) than the Android-ecosystem units.
* a Mac Pro: a "pro" computer that debuted to long manufacturing delays to replace a "pro" computer that Apple didn't bother to update for 3 years that hasn't been updated in over 18 months. Uh huh.
* Retina 27" iMacs: neat. Expensive.
* Retina 21" iMacs with 5400rpm 2.5" spinning drives, glued shut, and no expandable RAM: Uh huh.
* the one-port MacBook: charge your laptop or charge your battery-life-barely-decent iPhone. But not both. Charge your laptop or use an external monitor/projector. But not both. Or, buy this $80 dongle that weighs 1/4 the weight of the whole laptop. Uh huh. Oh, and EXPENSIVE. MUCH more $$$ than the ChromeBooks that K-12 is now buying...didn't the MacBook used to be an Ed Market target??
* a Mac Mini: same as the last, minus $100, with a 5400rpm 2.5" spinning drive, no expandable RAM. Slower than the year before's model. Uh huh. Now 18+ months old.
* no new Cinema Display. In fact, no new Display from Apple in several years. Despite improvements in Thunderbolt. (Oh, yeah, reminds me about that Mac Pro again.) What should I plug my MacBook Pro into again when I'm IN the office? Ahhh, a crap-ass HP or Dell monitor, gotcha.
* Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. At least 4 iterations of iOS and OS X that have each taken nearly 6 months to reach an acceptable level of "stability". Yet many people STILL can't seem to get Mail on OS X to display their messages correctly. Or notify them of new messages correctly. Or show messages in the correct folders. Or even show messages at all. Because email is "new", I guess. iOS updates that brick brand new iPhones' radios. iOS updates that disable hardware features. iOS updates that disable Wi-Fi. Bugs. A lot of bugs.
* Swift: cool. World can't have enough languages.
* Apple Music: I think I've seen this service before.
* iCloud: I think I've seen this service before. (Oh, and before you ask...NO, you can't merge your old iTunes account with your new iCloud account yet.)
* Apple Pay: don't know a single user who actually, uh, uses it.
* new versions of iTunes. Yeah. I'm just going to slowly walk away now...
I'm sure I'm missing something. But I really DO await all this magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust that Tim Cook is expecting Apple to fart out later this year. And next year's magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust fart will even be better! No doubt. Because he SAYS so.
Meanwhile, I spent 2 hours of my life today troubleshooting various Apple bugs for clients that Apple blames on every thing but Apple. Known issues. Apple software. Clearly...CLEARLY...not "a bug". "You're holding it wrong." Riiiiiight. I've been an Apple user since 1983. I sold Apple gear from 1989 until 1996. I worked for Apple in the early '90s. I've been working on Apple gear since. I have a hint for you all: that magic sparkle fairy unicorn dust they're farting out? Sometimes, at best, it is just hot air. You should HOPE it is just hot air. The downside is much worse.
(Look up the word 'hubris' in the dictionary.)
Not excited for the 4-inch iPhone, but glad it is "back" in the line up. I was disappointed that Apple stupidly went bigger--after having spent so much time talking shit about big devices--without also hewing to their prior conviction that ~4" was the "best" size. Apple either HAS design credibility, or does not. Human hands haven't changed significantly since the iPhone 5 shipped and their iPhone design philosophy was either right or wrong. Can't have it both ways. So this is rectifying a mistake; can't get excited about that. Plus, no 3D Touch, that sucks.
That Jack said 140 characters is staying, I'm wondering might be one of those Steve Jobsian deft maneuvers where you say what people are listening for, but aren't actually saying what you're planning (and thus don't actually ANSWER the question).
I'd not mind Twitter to stick to 140 characters for tweets as they appear in the Feed. In fact, I tweeted Jack my suggestion:
- 140 characters Tweets would stay. You could continue to tweet 140 characters at a time, OR the 140 character tweet could also be a Summary Tweet that includes expands out into a Super Tweet.
- Super Tweet that would be 500 characters (something like that). The Summary Tweet would show in the Timeline with a "more..." expander widget. Users could choose to subscribe to a Feed or an Expanded Feed, and that would determine how much Tweet the feed is sent. If you sub to an Expanded Feed, you get the 500 character tweets in your timeline without having to make a call-back to Twitter to "load more". For normal feeds, you'd have to wait while the tweet expands. 140 characters can just be too limited a lot of the time, and anywhere from 200 to 500 would be a welcome expansion. The user would be able to edit the Summary Tweet "part" of a Super Tweet before Sending.
- Finally, Twitter should support a Long-form Note. This wouldn't be that difficult, basically some standardized manner to link to a blog post or article, which might be hosted at Twitter, or not be. The nice thing is that they could implement Notes the way Jack has already been using OS X's Note app, use an image representation and attach that to the Summary Tweet/Super Tweet that links to it.
That doesn't mean that 140 has to go away, just as Jack says. It will stay. But that wouldn't have to mean that Twitter can't expand the kinds of Tweets as well.
My thought too. Nothing stopping him from taking any other iPhone 5c, setting Auto-Erase to on, and proving his hacking team's prowess on YouTube for the world to see.
(The exception is that the court order doesn't actually reveal what specific iOS version the iPhone is running. The FBI alludes, a lot, that it is running iOS 9.something, but doesn't otherwise clearly say. Which I find a bit suspicious; they spewed out a lot of other info about the device.)
I await reading the FBI/DHS memo detailing the alert on the threat of the Sweet Meteor of Death hitting the 2016 Super Bowl. I mean, come on, the odds are about the same as for this.