Most of the patents all around are pretty stupid. It sounds like Samsung doesn't have a patent on LTE, but on connecting to LTE networks that it would probably be impossible for Apple not to violate. Much in the same way that designing a phone that's not ugly violates patents from Apple. Its pretty obvious that Samsung's been waiting in the tall grass for an LTE iPhone to give Apple a little bit of karma; that its happened so close the other trial just makes the comedic possibilities that much more salivating.
Sorry, I'm confused. When I wrote "He didn't say 'liars', you did" I was talking about XanC & idontgno respectively. Though I don't disagree with the rest of your post:) I don't actually care one way or the other about Armstrong, I just think XanC's point that the drug tests aren't some sort of absolute authority is a good one.
Sorry, I didn't put that very clearly, though you're kind of missing my point as well. I meant to say 'personal statement from Armstrong', but I should have just said 'confession'. And if it was obvious in some sort of video that it wasn't a legal drug, that would be evidence just fine.
I agree, if the video was ambiguous, or if it was just testimony (which is, after all, what they're using) it'd have to be taken with other supporting evidence to be damning. It doesn't change the point that started this sub-discussion, which is that the drug test is not some sort of final authority. It's strong exculpatory evidence, but it doesn't automatically trump any other possible evidence; that's just absurd. There are -- obviously -- other kinds that would trump it in turn.
He never said "liars", you did. He's just saying that the article is mis-framing the problem. I don't know anybody personally who believes the drug tests for these sporting events can't be beaten. That's not the same thing as saying that "If enough people say something is true, it trumps science", its a recognition that there are other ways to come at a solution,and the fallibility of the science we have. If we had video of Armstrong shooting up some kind of drug, or some kind of personal statement to that effect on tape or on paper, I think we'd all agree that trumped the test, wouldn't we?
In this, I don't know enough about the people who've testified. Maybe they're not trustworthy, in which case I'd probably agree with you on this one. But you're still completely misstating the OP's point.
This is only second hand, but from what I've read the noise can carry quite a ways. And one of the problems is that if you *can* hear it, its as consistent as the wind is -- which, unfortunately, is likely to be pretty consistent or why else put up one of these turbines?
Heh, thanks for filling in the rest. I knew there were more, but I was just throwing down what I could remember off the top of my head. I was watching Bjarne talk about C++11 at Going Native and now I'm anxiously awaiting our (long overdue) transition to VS2010 (from 2005). I know it doesn't cover all the good stuff, but it has a lot of the goodness in there. Though, I'm writing cross platform code with a Mac team that refuses to use Clang, so God knows when I'll be allowed to use anything from C++11:(
I mean, it's not, but it makes it sound like C++11 is a minor update. Lambdas, auto, concurrency, are these minor updates? There's a lot of interesting stuff in C++11!
You're missing the point. The 'religious lunatics' part is irrelevant. Powerful person's hurt feelings is the relevant part. If he'd been imprisoned by the King of France for the same thing, no one would be saying the French are against science today.
True, but despite what the Wikipedia says about 'most historians', I've read several accounts that he was actually kind of an asshole (I think, for example, he refused to acknowledge some of Kepler's stuff? Something like that, whoever it was, it was mostly out of jealousy) and the Simplicio thing was on purpose. If so, while he didn't deserve the result (it was overkill), he certainly provoked the response. If it was an innocent mistake, sure, but there's some dispute about whether an 'innocent mistake' is in keeping with his character.
At any rate, the upshot is that the whole "Galileo is a great example of the church & science being on opposite sides" is a misleading interpretation of the events.
Okay, I know its not fun to hear, but what you think you know about Galileo & the church is more complicated and less fun. From Wikipedia:
Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[55] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[56] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.
So while, yes, the Church did lock him up and heliocentrism was at the center of it, it was more about Galileo being stupid in how he wrote his book & the hurt feelings of a powerful man (the Pope). Frankly, no one looked good in that mess. The church was actually one of the biggest sponsors of science back then, something that rarely gets recognized because its so much more fun to set it up as religion vs. science, as if they've been in a death struggle since the beginning of time.
You're not entirely wrong, but its always easy to say that about someone ELSE'S culture & religion:) All I was trying to say is that the perception we have of AIDS here -- that its caused by unprotected sex and/or dirty needle use -- isn't the same over there. My father's involved with an international charity that does a lot of work in Africa & Asia trying to reduce AIDS incidence, so I get to hear a lot about the problems they encounter. They're slowly winning, but there are a lot of factors that make it slow going. I'm sure there's a tipping point, but they aren't anywhere near there yet. So any help that's given is greatly appreciated, and definitely not wasted.
A thousand children are born every day with HIV. There 2.5 million children with AIDS at the end of 2009. How easy was it for them to avoid it?
Your attitude isn't far wrong as a Western perspective, but the truth is AIDS is pretty rampant in other parts of the world (particularly Africa). Over there, culture & religion are huge roadblocks to stopping the spread, which means there is a great deal of 'collateral damage' to people who you'd think would be safe (children, spouses, etc.).
Whatever you think, 1.9 million people died in 2009 from AIDS, while 1.7 million died from tuberculosis. Not that tuberculosis isn't a fine target for money too, I just think its too facile to dismiss AIDS as 'easy to avoid' and therefore not worth pursuing.
I'd agree that AT&T is more at fault, but its hard to say that Apple doesn't bear some of the blame. They chose AT&T as their exclusive carrier. Isn't it up to them to understand how their phone interacts with the network? AT&T should have seen the problem coming too, but that doesn't change the fact that Apple pushed more overhead onto their carrier than it could handle to save battery. There's definitely some shared responsibility there, though its not clear who should have been the one to see the problem coming. I suspect if either had they'd have worked something out, either Apple would have toned down the aggressive data connections and/or pushed AT&T into fixing their command channel issues.
1.0 - Onyxia & Molten Core (1 tier, 2 raids) 1.6 - Blackwing Lair (1 tier) 1.9 - The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj (1 tier, unless you count the 20-man) 1.11 - Shadow of the Necropolis (1 tier) 2.0 - Magtharidon, SSC, Gruul & TK at launch (2 tiers, 4 raids + KZ) 2.1 - The Black Temple (1 tier) 2.4 - Sunwell (1 tier) 3.0 - Sarthion, Malygos & Nax (3 tiers) 3.1 - Secrets of Ulduar (1 tier) 3.2 - Call of the Crusade (1 tier) 3.3 - Fall of the Lich King (1 tier) 4.0 - Throne of the Four Winds, Blackwing Descent & Bastion of Twilight (3 tiers) 4.2 - Rise of the Firelands (1 tier) 4.3 - Deathwing (1 tier)
So, how exactly have things changed? I keep hearing that we got more in the old days, but I'm not seeing it. The Burning Crusade launched with more raids (though only 13 bosses total across all four, same as Cataclysm if you include the heroic-only boss you need to unlock) but other than that, its been pretty consistent on what you get. As far as I can tell they've never included more than one raid per patch and only multiple raids per tier on expansions -- and those are fairly consistent in content as well (Karazhan being the notable exception, but its hard to classify since it was the only 10-man at launch).
Also, they've never claimed lack of storage space was a database issue. They've said that storage space isn't unlimited because they want people to make decisions about what they keep. Frankly, I'm with them on this one -- I played Ultima Online and one of the first things Origin discovered is that in an unlimited space world you get weird goddamn behaviour from people. I remember them citing examples like one dude who stockpiled a 100,000 shirts in his bank. People are strange!
They didn't do this to 'add an avenue for real money gold buying'. They don't need to -- that already exists, as they've pointed out in several posts. TCG rewards are Bind-on-Equip already, and sold on the auction house for significant money. Its not that hard to buy or obtain one of those and sell it in game for solid gold returns.
Personally, I'm not a fan of this because I think for $10 it should show up on every character for the account its applied to. This way you're paying $10 for a one-time pet, and that seems vastly over-priced. I could care less that you can buy it on the auction-house. The idea that this will be some easy way to convert real life money to gold is stupid. You can't predict what price you'll get so you may end up getting a really lousy return on your $10 investment. Or you might make a fair bit. Who knows? Either way, its a fair way from converting money into gold efficiently. This is a classic example of making a mountain out of a molehill.
If you mean to suggest (and maybe you aren't!) that Microsoft pushed this into Windows 8 because Apple put in Lion, I'd disagree with that. Microsoft's stated aim is "One OS for all devices". Since that hits handhelds, full-screen is a no-brainer and I suspect has been in the works since they started on this strategy.
There's no coincidence here I think, other than both Apple & Microsoft are thinking the same thing "Standardize our OS to work on as many devices as possible." I really, really doubt Apple added that feature because they thought full-screen applications on a desktop were a killer feature -- like others have said, it was that way years ago. Its because they're thinking the same thing as Microsoft. Ever since Lion its felt like iOS and OSX are on a collision course; they may not merge in the end, but I'd personally be surprised if they didn't. At the very least, the same massive bleed/overlap is happening there, Microsoft is just more up front about why they're doing it.
Well, sometimes, but fair enough:) I'm not trying to debate that its estimate can be badly wrong -- anyone who uses it for enough time will see that -- I'm just taking issue with the summary's suggestion that it actually moves back & forth. I've seen progress bars that do that -- even some Microsoft products' progress bars -- and its bloody irritating. But if you're going to slag something, slag it accurately.
Also, its worth noting that for all its derision, Mac OSX gets its estimation just as wrong. The article does mention that accurately guessing time to completion is incredibly complex for a file transfer. Its one of those things that works very well 98% of the time, but for that 2% where it doesn't, it's so spectacularly wrong that you can't help but remember it. At any rate, downplaying the estimation is probably a good thing. Sometimes its better not to offer information if it can -- even if its only rarely -- be incredibly wrong.
No, I don't. You raise some interesting questions, several of which I considered but were hard to factor without a lot more information. Do the paper manuals get updated often? Or do they sit on a shelf somewhere barely used? Hell, maybe they get replaced every two months (though somehow I doubt it)!
I wasn't necessarily trying to make a definitive assertion, I was mostly just annoyed at the way the article proposed that saving 326,000 gallons of fuel as an obvious major win. I just did the quick math in my head and found a big disparity. Its entirely possible that the maps are far more expensive than I think and that would bring the two closer together, but they don't exactly go into it in the article.
I figure if you're going to put a figure or two forward as proof of how something is a good idea, its on you to provide more context or people like me will do napkin math and might come up with something else.
No, I realize there were other factors involved. I considered the price of producing the maps but assumed it didn't add much to the comparison unless the maps cost a lot more than I assumed. I'm not really arguing against adopting iPads (or whatever handheld) I just took a little umbrage at the way they just threw in the "We save 326,000 gallons of fuel!" as if it was obviously a win. If they were talking 'save the planet', then I'd expect some idea of what % of overall consumption that constituted, so I assumed they were going for a monetary gain. And when I did the ballpark math it annoyed me that it wasn't as obviously a big win as they implied.
And like you point out, there are plenty of other advantages for going digital. Some downsides too, of course, like the danger of electronic failure (though you can ruin paper maps -- assuming they're not laminated -- in a variety of ways as well).
Just had a funny thought -- iPads all have wireless. Does this mean the pilots have to shut them down during takeoff & landing?;)
(Yes, yes I know they aren't likely to need them turned on during either, but its a funny thought)
I know the time estimation is loopy, I've seen that plenty of times. I meant that the actually progress bar doesn't jump around. The summary suggests it does, but I've never seen that.
I know there is one, I just can't remember what it looks like. I have a vague sense that its a solid green bar (lighter in colour) with something bouncing back & forth, but I might be mixing it up with something else. I know it has one though, I've definitely seen it.
And what's 0123456 was talking about is that I believe when its a large number of files it gives you the 'indeterminate' progress bar while it has some status like 'Calculating files to copy' or 'Preparing to copy'. But there are times when it does that for like two minutes (or worse), and then completes almost instantly. So it literally took longer to calculate how long it would take than to do it. That's fairly rare, but it does happen. It used to happen a lot more often with Vista with the 'Long Goodbye' bug (moving to the recycle bin) but that was eventually fixed. That didn't eliminate the problem, but it did reduce its occurrence quite a bit I believe.
Actually, I was thinking more directly than that. 11,000 iPads are -- without a volume discount (so its a high estmate) -- would be $5.5M roughly. 326,000 gallons fuel -- (if its the same fuel price as you find at the pump) would be roughly $1.1M. So while it might make a lot of sense long term, its going to take 5 years of fuel savings to recoup the investment in iPads. If jet fuel is more expensive than car fuel, it has to be 5x as expensive to make it worth it in a single year.
First, I've never seen the progress bar in a Windows file transfer progress bar slide 'back and forth in a seemingly random, haphazard way'. I've seen progress bars that do that, and but I've never seen a Windows file transfer dialog do that. The estimation can jump around like crazy at times, but the progress bar was always fine (since, I assume, it's simply based on # of files completed). Maybe Windows 98 did that? I don't remember it doing that, but its been a while. Certain XP, Vista & Windows 7 don't.
Second, if you RTFA the estimated transfer time is currently still there; its just downplayed.
Exactly what I was thinking of when I read this article. That said, the UK does not have 'Free Speech' (neither do we in Canada) so even that example isn't necessary to press criminal charges in cases like this.
As someone above pointed out though, posting "inflammatory, inaccurate messages" is a pretty weak basis for arresting anyone. Presumably said messages need to lead to some kind of crime. I imagine it will require proving the link between the post & the crime, and then proving intent. If that's a constraint, that might prove difficult in this case, but overall I could see an upside to that kind of potential for charges. I know I've read of cases where people do this kind of thing to horrible consequence without repercussions to themselves. I seem to recall there was some woman in the news recently who badgered some teenage girl with false messages purporting to be from schoolmates, eventually driving the the poor kid to suicide. Everyone knew the woman had done it, but there was no crime with which to charge her. I suppose in the UK that wouldn't have been a problem.
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Most of the patents all around are pretty stupid. It sounds like Samsung doesn't have a patent on LTE, but on connecting to LTE networks that it would probably be impossible for Apple not to violate. Much in the same way that designing a phone that's not ugly violates patents from Apple. Its pretty obvious that Samsung's been waiting in the tall grass for an LTE iPhone to give Apple a little bit of karma; that its happened so close the other trial just makes the comedic possibilities that much more salivating.
Sorry, I'm confused. When I wrote "He didn't say 'liars', you did" I was talking about XanC & idontgno respectively. Though I don't disagree with the rest of your post :) I don't actually care one way or the other about Armstrong, I just think XanC's point that the drug tests aren't some sort of absolute authority is a good one.
Sorry, I didn't put that very clearly, though you're kind of missing my point as well. I meant to say 'personal statement from Armstrong', but I should have just said 'confession'. And if it was obvious in some sort of video that it wasn't a legal drug, that would be evidence just fine.
I agree, if the video was ambiguous, or if it was just testimony (which is, after all, what they're using) it'd have to be taken with other supporting evidence to be damning. It doesn't change the point that started this sub-discussion, which is that the drug test is not some sort of final authority. It's strong exculpatory evidence, but it doesn't automatically trump any other possible evidence; that's just absurd. There are -- obviously -- other kinds that would trump it in turn.
He never said "liars", you did. He's just saying that the article is mis-framing the problem. I don't know anybody personally who believes the drug tests for these sporting events can't be beaten. That's not the same thing as saying that "If enough people say something is true, it trumps science", its a recognition that there are other ways to come at a solution,and the fallibility of the science we have. If we had video of Armstrong shooting up some kind of drug, or some kind of personal statement to that effect on tape or on paper, I think we'd all agree that trumped the test, wouldn't we?
In this, I don't know enough about the people who've testified. Maybe they're not trustworthy, in which case I'd probably agree with you on this one. But you're still completely misstating the OP's point.
This is only second hand, but from what I've read the noise can carry quite a ways. And one of the problems is that if you *can* hear it, its as consistent as the wind is -- which, unfortunately, is likely to be pretty consistent or why else put up one of these turbines?
Heh, thanks for filling in the rest. I knew there were more, but I was just throwing down what I could remember off the top of my head. I was watching Bjarne talk about C++11 at Going Native and now I'm anxiously awaiting our (long overdue) transition to VS2010 (from 2005). I know it doesn't cover all the good stuff, but it has a lot of the goodness in there. Though, I'm writing cross platform code with a Mac team that refuses to use Clang, so God knows when I'll be allowed to use anything from C++11 :(
I mean, it's not, but it makes it sound like C++11 is a minor update. Lambdas, auto, concurrency, are these minor updates? There's a lot of interesting stuff in C++11!
You're missing the point. The 'religious lunatics' part is irrelevant. Powerful person's hurt feelings is the relevant part. If he'd been imprisoned by the King of France for the same thing, no one would be saying the French are against science today.
True, but despite what the Wikipedia says about 'most historians', I've read several accounts that he was actually kind of an asshole (I think, for example, he refused to acknowledge some of Kepler's stuff? Something like that, whoever it was, it was mostly out of jealousy) and the Simplicio thing was on purpose. If so, while he didn't deserve the result (it was overkill), he certainly provoked the response. If it was an innocent mistake, sure, but there's some dispute about whether an 'innocent mistake' is in keeping with his character.
At any rate, the upshot is that the whole "Galileo is a great example of the church & science being on opposite sides" is a misleading interpretation of the events.
Okay, I know its not fun to hear, but what you think you know about Galileo & the church is more complicated and less fun. From Wikipedia:
Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[55] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[56] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.
So while, yes, the Church did lock him up and heliocentrism was at the center of it, it was more about Galileo being stupid in how he wrote his book & the hurt feelings of a powerful man (the Pope). Frankly, no one looked good in that mess. The church was actually one of the biggest sponsors of science back then, something that rarely gets recognized because its so much more fun to set it up as religion vs. science, as if they've been in a death struggle since the beginning of time.
You're not entirely wrong, but its always easy to say that about someone ELSE'S culture & religion :) All I was trying to say is that the perception we have of AIDS here -- that its caused by unprotected sex and/or dirty needle use -- isn't the same over there. My father's involved with an international charity that does a lot of work in Africa & Asia trying to reduce AIDS incidence, so I get to hear a lot about the problems they encounter. They're slowly winning, but there are a lot of factors that make it slow going. I'm sure there's a tipping point, but they aren't anywhere near there yet. So any help that's given is greatly appreciated, and definitely not wasted.
A thousand children are born every day with HIV. There 2.5 million children with AIDS at the end of 2009. How easy was it for them to avoid it?
Your attitude isn't far wrong as a Western perspective, but the truth is AIDS is pretty rampant in other parts of the world (particularly Africa). Over there, culture & religion are huge roadblocks to stopping the spread, which means there is a great deal of 'collateral damage' to people who you'd think would be safe (children, spouses, etc.).
Whatever you think, 1.9 million people died in 2009 from AIDS, while 1.7 million died from tuberculosis. Not that tuberculosis isn't a fine target for money too, I just think its too facile to dismiss AIDS as 'easy to avoid' and therefore not worth pursuing.
I'd agree that AT&T is more at fault, but its hard to say that Apple doesn't bear some of the blame. They chose AT&T as their exclusive carrier. Isn't it up to them to understand how their phone interacts with the network? AT&T should have seen the problem coming too, but that doesn't change the fact that Apple pushed more overhead onto their carrier than it could handle to save battery. There's definitely some shared responsibility there, though its not clear who should have been the one to see the problem coming. I suspect if either had they'd have worked something out, either Apple would have toned down the aggressive data connections and/or pushed AT&T into fixing their command channel issues.
I'm confused. When did we get two raids per tier?
1.0 - Onyxia & Molten Core (1 tier, 2 raids)
1.6 - Blackwing Lair (1 tier)
1.9 - The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj (1 tier, unless you count the 20-man)
1.11 - Shadow of the Necropolis (1 tier)
2.0 - Magtharidon, SSC, Gruul & TK at launch (2 tiers, 4 raids + KZ)
2.1 - The Black Temple (1 tier)
2.4 - Sunwell (1 tier)
3.0 - Sarthion, Malygos & Nax (3 tiers)
3.1 - Secrets of Ulduar (1 tier)
3.2 - Call of the Crusade (1 tier)
3.3 - Fall of the Lich King (1 tier)
4.0 - Throne of the Four Winds, Blackwing Descent & Bastion of Twilight (3 tiers)
4.2 - Rise of the Firelands (1 tier)
4.3 - Deathwing (1 tier)
So, how exactly have things changed? I keep hearing that we got more in the old days, but I'm not seeing it. The Burning Crusade launched with more raids (though only 13 bosses total across all four, same as Cataclysm if you include the heroic-only boss you need to unlock) but other than that, its been pretty consistent on what you get. As far as I can tell they've never included more than one raid per patch and only multiple raids per tier on expansions -- and those are fairly consistent in content as well (Karazhan being the notable exception, but its hard to classify since it was the only 10-man at launch).
Also, they've never claimed lack of storage space was a database issue. They've said that storage space isn't unlimited because they want people to make decisions about what they keep. Frankly, I'm with them on this one -- I played Ultima Online and one of the first things Origin discovered is that in an unlimited space world you get weird goddamn behaviour from people. I remember them citing examples like one dude who stockpiled a 100,000 shirts in his bank. People are strange!
They didn't do this to 'add an avenue for real money gold buying'. They don't need to -- that already exists, as they've pointed out in several posts. TCG rewards are Bind-on-Equip already, and sold on the auction house for significant money. Its not that hard to buy or obtain one of those and sell it in game for solid gold returns.
Personally, I'm not a fan of this because I think for $10 it should show up on every character for the account its applied to. This way you're paying $10 for a one-time pet, and that seems vastly over-priced. I could care less that you can buy it on the auction-house. The idea that this will be some easy way to convert real life money to gold is stupid. You can't predict what price you'll get so you may end up getting a really lousy return on your $10 investment. Or you might make a fair bit. Who knows? Either way, its a fair way from converting money into gold efficiently. This is a classic example of making a mountain out of a molehill.
If you mean to suggest (and maybe you aren't!) that Microsoft pushed this into Windows 8 because Apple put in Lion, I'd disagree with that. Microsoft's stated aim is "One OS for all devices". Since that hits handhelds, full-screen is a no-brainer and I suspect has been in the works since they started on this strategy.
There's no coincidence here I think, other than both Apple & Microsoft are thinking the same thing "Standardize our OS to work on as many devices as possible." I really, really doubt Apple added that feature because they thought full-screen applications on a desktop were a killer feature -- like others have said, it was that way years ago. Its because they're thinking the same thing as Microsoft. Ever since Lion its felt like iOS and OSX are on a collision course; they may not merge in the end, but I'd personally be surprised if they didn't. At the very least, the same massive bleed/overlap is happening there, Microsoft is just more up front about why they're doing it.
Well, sometimes, but fair enough :) I'm not trying to debate that its estimate can be badly wrong -- anyone who uses it for enough time will see that -- I'm just taking issue with the summary's suggestion that it actually moves back & forth. I've seen progress bars that do that -- even some Microsoft products' progress bars -- and its bloody irritating. But if you're going to slag something, slag it accurately.
Also, its worth noting that for all its derision, Mac OSX gets its estimation just as wrong. The article does mention that accurately guessing time to completion is incredibly complex for a file transfer. Its one of those things that works very well 98% of the time, but for that 2% where it doesn't, it's so spectacularly wrong that you can't help but remember it. At any rate, downplaying the estimation is probably a good thing. Sometimes its better not to offer information if it can -- even if its only rarely -- be incredibly wrong.
No, I don't. You raise some interesting questions, several of which I considered but were hard to factor without a lot more information. Do the paper manuals get updated often? Or do they sit on a shelf somewhere barely used? Hell, maybe they get replaced every two months (though somehow I doubt it)!
I wasn't necessarily trying to make a definitive assertion, I was mostly just annoyed at the way the article proposed that saving 326,000 gallons of fuel as an obvious major win. I just did the quick math in my head and found a big disparity. Its entirely possible that the maps are far more expensive than I think and that would bring the two closer together, but they don't exactly go into it in the article.
I figure if you're going to put a figure or two forward as proof of how something is a good idea, its on you to provide more context or people like me will do napkin math and might come up with something else.
No, I realize there were other factors involved. I considered the price of producing the maps but assumed it didn't add much to the comparison unless the maps cost a lot more than I assumed. I'm not really arguing against adopting iPads (or whatever handheld) I just took a little umbrage at the way they just threw in the "We save 326,000 gallons of fuel!" as if it was obviously a win. If they were talking 'save the planet', then I'd expect some idea of what % of overall consumption that constituted, so I assumed they were going for a monetary gain. And when I did the ballpark math it annoyed me that it wasn't as obviously a big win as they implied.
And like you point out, there are plenty of other advantages for going digital. Some downsides too, of course, like the danger of electronic failure (though you can ruin paper maps -- assuming they're not laminated -- in a variety of ways as well).
Just had a funny thought -- iPads all have wireless. Does this mean the pilots have to shut them down during takeoff & landing? ;)
(Yes, yes I know they aren't likely to need them turned on during either, but its a funny thought)
I know the time estimation is loopy, I've seen that plenty of times. I meant that the actually progress bar doesn't jump around. The summary suggests it does, but I've never seen that.
I know there is one, I just can't remember what it looks like. I have a vague sense that its a solid green bar (lighter in colour) with something bouncing back & forth, but I might be mixing it up with something else. I know it has one though, I've definitely seen it.
And what's 0123456 was talking about is that I believe when its a large number of files it gives you the 'indeterminate' progress bar while it has some status like 'Calculating files to copy' or 'Preparing to copy'. But there are times when it does that for like two minutes (or worse), and then completes almost instantly. So it literally took longer to calculate how long it would take than to do it. That's fairly rare, but it does happen. It used to happen a lot more often with Vista with the 'Long Goodbye' bug (moving to the recycle bin) but that was eventually fixed. That didn't eliminate the problem, but it did reduce its occurrence quite a bit I believe.
Actually, I was thinking more directly than that. 11,000 iPads are -- without a volume discount (so its a high estmate) -- would be $5.5M roughly. 326,000 gallons fuel -- (if its the same fuel price as you find at the pump) would be roughly $1.1M. So while it might make a lot of sense long term, its going to take 5 years of fuel savings to recoup the investment in iPads. If jet fuel is more expensive than car fuel, it has to be 5x as expensive to make it worth it in a single year.
First, I've never seen the progress bar in a Windows file transfer progress bar slide 'back and forth in a seemingly random, haphazard way'. I've seen progress bars that do that, and but I've never seen a Windows file transfer dialog do that. The estimation can jump around like crazy at times, but the progress bar was always fine (since, I assume, it's simply based on # of files completed). Maybe Windows 98 did that? I don't remember it doing that, but its been a while. Certain XP, Vista & Windows 7 don't.
Second, if you RTFA the estimated transfer time is currently still there; its just downplayed.
Exactly what I was thinking of when I read this article. That said, the UK does not have 'Free Speech' (neither do we in Canada) so even that example isn't necessary to press criminal charges in cases like this.
As someone above pointed out though, posting "inflammatory, inaccurate messages" is a pretty weak basis for arresting anyone. Presumably said messages need to lead to some kind of crime. I imagine it will require proving the link between the post & the crime, and then proving intent. If that's a constraint, that might prove difficult in this case, but overall I could see an upside to that kind of potential for charges. I know I've read of cases where people do this kind of thing to horrible consequence without repercussions to themselves. I seem to recall there was some woman in the news recently who badgered some teenage girl with false messages purporting to be from schoolmates, eventually driving the the poor kid to suicide. Everyone knew the woman had done it, but there was no crime with which to charge her. I suppose in the UK that wouldn't have been a problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater