Your points are all valid, however they don't address the "16-year-old-who-sends-recieves-10,000-text-messages-a-month-and-lacks-any-and-all-language-and-social-skills-and-will-be-an-abject-failure-as-an-adult" issue.
Hah! I noticed this "trend" when I lived in England (2005). It's especially bad with the kids who finish school at 16 (the ones that don't pass A-levels, or whatever the system is). They just sit around the coffee shops drinking coke or cider and texting all day, since they have no jobs and are out of school. We called them "cider kids". They were (are?) truly a pain in the ass to the regular functioning society around them.
I'm not sure I'd compare texting as an email substitute as I would a phone call substitute. I frequently replace a phone call with a text, but I don't think I've ever replaced an email with a text.
Then again, I would never email something that could simply be texted either.
I find it easier just to ignore the text (or the need to text) and then I'm STILL free to do other things.
I get the importance of text (I have two teenage kids and it's our primary method of communication throughout the school day), but I DON'T get the importance of texting for purely social (as in "sooo bored, sumbody txt me!") reasons. Kids who are texting out of boredom really need to get a life.
I saw a young couple at a restaurant the other day (obviously on some sort of "date") and as soon as the waiter took their drink orders, they both busted out their phones then texted throughout my entire meal. That's a pretty hot date right there. Wouldn't surprise me if they were texting each other.
When I studied Arab culture the most prominent point was that being an engineer is a high water mark for many. EVERYONE is an engineer (or claims to be). It's part of the culture.
The fact that many terrorist are also Arab is probably why many terrorists are engineers.
Ohhhh... I get it. They already keep their kids from having it, and want to enforce that on your kids.
Exactly. I have coworkers who won't let their children mingle with mine, because, gasp, we have the Harry Potter books. Turns out my kids are a lot smarter than theirs, because my kids actually read.
True, but both require training. If all you did was trying to memorize trivia, you wouldn't be that good at reasoning. If you google everything, then you won't be that good at memorizing things.
This is exactly right. Long term memory is the hard drive and the "thinking" part is RAM. This is why all our "really smart" friends (read: good at trivia) aren't really that smart in real life. This is why rote memorization is a horrible instructional method and makes for poor curriculum. Most importantly, this is why aptitude tests are designed to test our aptitude, and not our memory. This is why tests like the SAT don't ask you what year the Constitution was signed, or what the capitol of North Dakota is. It doesn't ask you what the Pythagorean theorem is, only it tests your knowledge of how to use it.
In my opinion, one's ability to learn new things quickly is more important than recalling static facts that are easily retrieved from Google or Wikipedia.
I suppose if I just wanted to look relevant to people with your preferences, the iPad would be a superior option, but that's not my primary goal.
Peoples' perception about my tool of choice are not at issue here. None of the people I know with iPads have an iPad because they are worried what other people might think about them.
Simply stated, next to the power of a real laptop, or the elegance of a tablet, the net-book seems a little, well, irrelevant.
The "intellectual capacity to store information" and the "ability to think innovatively" are controlled by two completely different cognitive mechanisms.
VLC's strength is that it can play ANYTHING well, but iPods can only load and play.m4v format
Don't you think maybe that's why VLC on an iPad would be a good thing? Surely you don't believe that there's no way to get a video format other than.m4v onto the iPad so that VLC can play it, or am I missing something?
The strange thing is the netbook is somewhere between a laptop and a tablet. That's why I've never understood the appeal of a netbook. Need portability? Get a tablet. Need raw power, use a laptop.
I have to admit that when I see a netbook in public, I think it looks incredibly irrelevant next to iPad guy.
From a business model and as a startup video game shop, I'd gladly take a shot at porting games to Mac, even if it's only 8%. If I'm only competing with a few other shops for several MILLION Mac customers, I can probably make more money than trying to compete with thousands of companies for a share of the hundreds of million PC users.
BTW, the Macbook Pro is a decent gaming platform for casual stuff (World of Warcraft).
That's a fair assessment. I remember WarcraftII had so many better things about it than the 486-era PCs...spacial sound ("Job's Done!" was easy to figure out where it was coming from), peer-to-peer connection, (snicker)800x600 32-bit color...all stuff my buddy couldn't get on the PC version.
So the Mac isn't an awful platform, but it is an awful ecosystem for gaming. Maybe Steam will help?
I'm what the slashdot community would commonly refer to as an Apple "fanboi", but to not accept that the Mac is a failed gaming platform is just too much kool-aid for even me.
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You can also receive texts from multiple senders at once.
You can also call and talk to many people at once...and have been able to since at least the 1970s.
Everything old is new again, I suppose.
Your points are all valid, however they don't address the "16-year-old-who-sends-recieves-10,000-text-messages-a-month-and-lacks-any-and-all-language-and-social-skills-and-will-be-an-abject-failure-as-an-adult" issue.
He would have been first, but he was texting from an over-burdened out-dated European cellular network.
Hah! I noticed this "trend" when I lived in England (2005). It's especially bad with the kids who finish school at 16 (the ones that don't pass A-levels, or whatever the system is). They just sit around the coffee shops drinking coke or cider and texting all day, since they have no jobs and are out of school. We called them "cider kids". They were (are?) truly a pain in the ass to the regular functioning society around them.
So you were dating somebody who sent and received 30,000 text messages a day...must of been a very fulfilling relationship.
I'm not sure I'd compare texting as an email substitute as I would a phone call substitute. I frequently replace a phone call with a text, but I don't think I've ever replaced an email with a text.
Then again, I would never email something that could simply be texted either.
I find it easier just to ignore the text (or the need to text) and then I'm STILL free to do other things.
I get the importance of text (I have two teenage kids and it's our primary method of communication throughout the school day), but I DON'T get the importance of texting for purely social (as in "sooo bored, sumbody txt me!") reasons. Kids who are texting out of boredom really need to get a life.
I saw a young couple at a restaurant the other day (obviously on some sort of "date") and as soon as the waiter took their drink orders, they both busted out their phones then texted throughout my entire meal. That's a pretty hot date right there. Wouldn't surprise me if they were texting each other.
When I studied Arab culture the most prominent point was that being an engineer is a high water mark for many. EVERYONE is an engineer (or claims to be). It's part of the culture.
The fact that many terrorist are also Arab is probably why many terrorists are engineers.
Ohhhh... I get it. They already keep their kids from having it, and want to enforce that on your kids.
Exactly. I have coworkers who won't let their children mingle with mine, because, gasp, we have the Harry Potter books. Turns out my kids are a lot smarter than theirs, because my kids actually read.
siding with families over video game profits
...talk about your text book example of false dichotomy.
I play all kinds of games with my kids, some violent. I also have a very strong family.
Screw them if they want to tell me that a "good family" means "not playing violent video games".
True, but both require training. If all you did was trying to memorize trivia, you wouldn't be that good at reasoning. If you google everything, then you won't be that good at memorizing things.
This is exactly right. Long term memory is the hard drive and the "thinking" part is RAM. This is why all our "really smart" friends (read: good at trivia) aren't really that smart in real life. This is why rote memorization is a horrible instructional method and makes for poor curriculum. Most importantly, this is why aptitude tests are designed to test our aptitude, and not our memory. This is why tests like the SAT don't ask you what year the Constitution was signed, or what the capitol of North Dakota is. It doesn't ask you what the Pythagorean theorem is, only it tests your knowledge of how to use it.
In my opinion, one's ability to learn new things quickly is more important than recalling static facts that are easily retrieved from Google or Wikipedia.
I suppose if I just wanted to look relevant to people with your preferences, the iPad would be a superior option, but that's not my primary goal.
Peoples' perception about my tool of choice are not at issue here. None of the people I know with iPads have an iPad because they are worried what other people might think about them.
Simply stated, next to the power of a real laptop, or the elegance of a tablet, the net-book seems a little, well, irrelevant.
My wife would love a Nokia Sybian device, for sure.
The "intellectual capacity to store information" and the "ability to think innovatively" are controlled by two completely different cognitive mechanisms.
People look at my funny when I'm holding my iPad to my head for the phone call.
VLC's strength is that it can play ANYTHING well, but iPods can only load and play .m4v format
Don't you think maybe that's why VLC on an iPad would be a good thing? Surely you don't believe that there's no way to get a video format other than .m4v onto the iPad so that VLC can play it, or am I missing something?
Hopefully it won't crash any time you scrub the play head like the OSX version does.
The strange thing is the netbook is somewhere between a laptop and a tablet. That's why I've never understood the appeal of a netbook. Need portability? Get a tablet. Need raw power, use a laptop.
I have to admit that when I see a netbook in public, I think it looks incredibly irrelevant next to iPad guy.
Or second time suggests that a dangerous practice is still dangerous, regardless of the amount of industry oversight.
Chalking a second oil accident up as an indication of systemic problems is anecdotal, at best.
From a business model and as a startup video game shop, I'd gladly take a shot at porting games to Mac, even if it's only 8%. If I'm only competing with a few other shops for several MILLION Mac customers, I can probably make more money than trying to compete with thousands of companies for a share of the hundreds of million PC users.
BTW, the Macbook Pro is a decent gaming platform for casual stuff (World of Warcraft).
The mac's keyboard system only accepted input from 2 keys at once, plus modifiers.
Of all the dubious claims, this is a new one to me.
I played Descent...a lot...with the keyboard. Not sure what you are even describing was ever an issue (or even true?).
That's a fair assessment. I remember WarcraftII had so many better things about it than the 486-era PCs...spacial sound ("Job's Done!" was easy to figure out where it was coming from), peer-to-peer connection, (snicker)800x600 32-bit color...all stuff my buddy couldn't get on the PC version.
So the Mac isn't an awful platform, but it is an awful ecosystem for gaming. Maybe Steam will help?
I'm what the slashdot community would commonly refer to as an Apple "fanboi", but to not accept that the Mac is a failed gaming platform is just too much kool-aid for even me.
I wish I couldn't HEAR Sarah Palin from my house...
why no AM as well?
The fact that Apple caved and provided an utterly useless feature like FM radio is bad enough...now you want Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck as well?