"Here in Iceland we're approaching 80% of the population with 50-100mb *fiber*, despite having 1/10th the population density as the US."
Thank you for your uninformed opinion. You're comparing apples to orangoutangs. Iceland is a teeny, tiny country with people living closely together and a small population. The United States is enormously vaster with great distances between towns and villages. 19 million people are a drop in the bucket in the United States. 19 million people is nearly 60 times the population of Iceland. In Iceland most of you are in the urban areas which are easy to connect with high speed internet, cell phones, etc. In the United States we have vast areas with widely spaced populations that make it unfeasible to lay fiber everywhere for everyone.
Maybe someday arrogant people like you will get a clue and be able to do math. Doubtful.
I used to have health insurance. I paid for it, of course, since I was self-employed. But then back in the mid-1990's our state government decided to change the game and kicked out all but one of the insurance companies. The remaining one, BCBS, with its monopoly power raised rates tremendously. I went from insuring our family for a few hundred a month and a $500 deductible to paying well over $15,000 a year and a $60,000 annual deductible-copay combo. It changed from being affordable health insurance to being unaffordable disaster insurance. After five years or so of that I dropped it and just paid cash for health care. It was a lot cheaper. Since then prices have only gone up.
Contrary to the popular opinion the uninsured are not a burden on society. The hospitals make sure we pay. When you go in you sign documents so they can come after you if you don't pay and for the most part they take their money upfront. This is true of the Emergency Room care too. Free health care via the Emergency Room for the uninsured is a myth. The uninsured being a burden on the insured is also a myth. If you don't have the money then they take it out of you weekly. I know many people without health insurance who end up paying weekly to the hospitals and doctors. That is reality.
Talking with doctors, of which I know several, the big issue from their perspective is the greedy lawyers and the enormous paperwork associated with insurance. They like us paying directly because then they don't have to deal with the insurance companies or government to get payment. They tell me that about 20% of the cost is paperwork and about 15% is malpractice insurance to protect themselves from the lawyers bringing frivolous suites. That's 35% of the bill that is getting wasted. Health care costs could drop that much with some good sense. This does not include the savings associated with profits for health insurance companies. I do not expect things to improve on any of these fronts with the government involvement.
Quite frankly we were better off before government got into the role of over regulating the health care and driving out the insurance companies from our state. Now that it has happened things will never go back to where we could buy our own insurance so we must move forward into a new model.
No, I can't afford health or life insurance. I live very, very carefully. That is the best assurance.
3Mbps?!? Virtually nobody has that in Vermont or other rural areas. City folk are spoiled. No wonder the internet is slowing down. Try 128Kbaud on for size. Slow down. There's more to life than streaming.
Mass extinctions are predominantly associated with global cooling and isolated extra-terrestial visitors, e.g., impacts. Global warming is associated with greater species diversity and expansion of life on Earth. Prepare for the dawning of a new age of bio-diversity. People just don't like it because it is change.
No, I want to not have a 'smartmeter' because I don't want the power company knowing that much detailed information about my minute to minute power consumption and then being able to sell it to the highest bidder which they will do. Smartmeters are an invasion of privacy.
Besides, I read my own electric meter and email the number to the power company each month. It saves them having to have a meter reader person come out to our farm every month. Instead he comes once a year. This has worked for years. Ironically, I still have to pay the $7/month meter reading fee but at least I don't have to deal with a stranger traipsing through our gate each month.
"Neurologist Steven Levine, currently working on an app for stroke victims, thinks they should be treated like new medicines: developed using scientific peer review and subject to regulation by the government or professional associations."
Of course. He's afraid of competition. Government regulation will slow that down. We wouldn't want to empower people!
I welcome sealed unit computers, tablets, phones and iPods... with one caveot. They need to be real world rugged (think cracked screens), long lasting (think batteries to start with) and supported in the long term (Apple shouldn't be abandoning support for machines after just a few years).
The above would be environmentally friendly by reducing manufacturing and eWaste since the devices would last longer. The technology is here. The firmware is already upgradeable. The processors are already exceedingly fast. The media, the content, is available. Lets stop dumping equipment so rapidly. Instead, pass it down, pass it along, sell it used when you want the latest and greatest hardware.
The companies like Apple could still make plenty of money each year off of the old hardware through offering extended warranties, service, support and firmware/OS upgrades as well as all the sales they make for content. No need to keep wasting hardware.
The battery, case, screen and other technologies are available. I, and many people, are quite willing to pay a premium for better quality and build - witness how successful Apple is as the highest valued and arguably most successful company on this planet. Going with sealed units would enhance the real-world rugged and lasting devices while optimizing for form and size.
The GMO makers tout their products as being so safe and great, such benefit to humanity. They should proudly label their products: Contains GMOs! What's to fear!?! This isn't anti-science but pro-science.
When I play a game I'm often simply looking to relax. To let my brain have some down time from more complex thinking. I don't expect solitaire, Risk, checkers, chess, othello, etc to be new and different. I want the same game with the same rules this century as last century as it was long before.
"it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"
What followed was even more dramatic. Microsoft, since they could get away with copying, settled for that and stopped innovating. Eventually they imploded and lost their market dominance while Apple has far surpassed them.
I would never bother buying a Samsung as a replacement for the iPhone, iPad, iPod. Samsung has only a tiny part of the puzzle even if they totally copy Apple's hardware and software. They still lack all of the smooth integration with my laptop / desktop, the iTunes store and the enormous depth of software and other media available on the Macintosh which I use daily to get my work done.
The point they miss is all of these pieces of hardware are just tools. Tools to let us get our work done or what ever else we're doing. All alone the simple hardware is next to nothing.
There's another issue too. I don't trust Samsung to continue producing or supporting products. They're too wishy-washy. It is a waste of my time to change every year.
creating so-called designer babies could be considered a 'moral obligation' as it makes them grow up into 'ethically better children'
Ethics is a matter of opinion and are not universal. Diversity is key to survival. Don't go the way of the Borg.
screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others.
Bummer about accidentally weeding out creativity and genius in the process. That professor has a lot to learn from the factory farming industry that made all sorts of mistakes with breeding in pigs, cattle and poultry, accidentally creating inferior genetic lines and losing important behavioral traits. We don't know enough to start messing with 'designer' babies.
This falls in the really, really, really bad idea category as in, the late humanity that bred itself to extinction.
No, the reason for the simple solution I proposed is to work within the existing framework of laws and then change the laws. For the current case we can't apply future law but must solve this. Then we can change the laws and regulations to avoid this in the future.
It is obvious that Samsung has indeed copied Apple. There is a simple solution. Rule in favor of Apple thus blocking Samsung from sales but award damages of only $1 and no attorney fees. This whole patenting nonsense has gone way overboard. Time to dismantle the entire patent system since the players can't play nice. That will take legislation.
Interesting how some people say X does not exist just because they don't want it to exist and despite other people observing X does exist. Sort of like anti-evolutionists. Please continuing in your faith based thinking and make those older machines available on eBay so the rest of us can save money by not buying brand spanking new. Thank you!
Wrong. There are lots of people using 10 to 15 year old computers. Just because you want more does not mean that everyone needs more. Some people are more comfortable continuing to use the older hardware and software. It gets the job done. Some people simply don't need that latest and greatest processors, etc. No need to waste money on this year's model or even this decade's model. Bravo to you for continuing to buy on the cutting edge and stimulate the economy but no need for you to be nasty about other people who choose not to waste their money buying differently. You're a prime example of wasteful high priced living but you do churn the economy which makes those older machines available. Thank you.
Hopefully this will kill off those obnoxious Flash based web sites that tell you right from the front page you can't access them since you don't have Flash installed. Our ISP is one of these. What they don't get is Flash doesn't run on all computers and Flash is a horrible CRU hog. They need to stick with HTML.
"What will they use it for? Nothing that they can't already do on a computer or a standard iPad, that's for sure. But the fact that it's yet another Apple Fashion Accessory[1], they will buy buy buy buy buy! Because if you don't have one, you're weird."
There are people who will want the smaller, more easily carried form factor. Fine for makers to offer it. Our family has an iPad (v1.0) which is great for reading documents. I have to read a lot of government regulations and I can get them all on-line as PDFs. Reading on the iPad is easier than reading them on my MacBook. I wouldn't go out and buy a 7" version to replace the what ever inch v1.0 iPad I have but if the price were significantly lower for the smaller one and I were initially buying then it would be a good option. For creating content my MacBook is far better.
"consider that Apple has been selling high-priced laptops for over a decade, despite the emergence of $350 laptops, they still manage to sell them for $2000+."
Apple's $2K MacBook's are a lot better than the el-cheapo $350 laptops and last a lot longer. There is a huge reason Apple can command a premium: Quality. Apple's laptops last ten to 15 years and can be passed down in the family. A $350 el-cheapo laptop lasts a year or two. Doing the math that makes the Apple laptop cost about $200 per year which is a lot less than the $350 per year for the 'el-cheapo' laptop. Not only that but the lifetime cost of maintenance on the Apple's has been shown in studies to be a small fraction of the Windows PCs (probably OS for 'el-cheapo') so there is more savings.
68% of the market is occupied by almost all the other smart phone companies put together. In other words, they're all tiny minorities. The iPhone rules.
Remember, Windows PC makers 'dominated' the market and Apple had only a 'small' share. Except, Apple had the largest single company share and the most growth and the greatest profits by far. How many units are sold by all X makers in aggregate isn't really all that important here.
Apple also has the iTunes store that makes money off the back end. The other makers don't have that. They're jealous but failed. Apple's making it.
The was no announcement of 2.0, this is only speculation.
Precisely. So they announce rumors for what isn't announced while they don't sell what isn't available. v1.0 may never make it to actual consumer hands - Microsoft has done that before. Meanwhile they'll either drop it saying the market isn't there (as demonstrated by the totally failed iPad, iPhone, iPod) or they'll bring out 2.0 and call it 1.x or just change the name. Microsoft's afraid to get in the water.
Slashdot Mirror
"Here in Iceland we're approaching 80% of the population with 50-100mb *fiber*, despite having 1/10th the population density as the US."
Thank you for your uninformed opinion. You're comparing apples to orangoutangs. Iceland is a teeny, tiny country with people living closely together and a small population. The United States is enormously vaster with great distances between towns and villages. 19 million people are a drop in the bucket in the United States. 19 million people is nearly 60 times the population of Iceland. In Iceland most of you are in the urban areas which are easy to connect with high speed internet, cell phones, etc. In the United States we have vast areas with widely spaced populations that make it unfeasible to lay fiber everywhere for everyone.
Maybe someday arrogant people like you will get a clue and be able to do math. Doubtful.
I used to have health insurance. I paid for it, of course, since I was self-employed. But then back in the mid-1990's our state government decided to change the game and kicked out all but one of the insurance companies. The remaining one, BCBS, with its monopoly power raised rates tremendously. I went from insuring our family for a few hundred a month and a $500 deductible to paying well over $15,000 a year and a $60,000 annual deductible-copay combo. It changed from being affordable health insurance to being unaffordable disaster insurance. After five years or so of that I dropped it and just paid cash for health care. It was a lot cheaper. Since then prices have only gone up.
Contrary to the popular opinion the uninsured are not a burden on society. The hospitals make sure we pay. When you go in you sign documents so they can come after you if you don't pay and for the most part they take their money upfront. This is true of the Emergency Room care too. Free health care via the Emergency Room for the uninsured is a myth. The uninsured being a burden on the insured is also a myth. If you don't have the money then they take it out of you weekly. I know many people without health insurance who end up paying weekly to the hospitals and doctors. That is reality.
Talking with doctors, of which I know several, the big issue from their perspective is the greedy lawyers and the enormous paperwork associated with insurance. They like us paying directly because then they don't have to deal with the insurance companies or government to get payment. They tell me that about 20% of the cost is paperwork and about 15% is malpractice insurance to protect themselves from the lawyers bringing frivolous suites. That's 35% of the bill that is getting wasted. Health care costs could drop that much with some good sense. This does not include the savings associated with profits for health insurance companies. I do not expect things to improve on any of these fronts with the government involvement.
Quite frankly we were better off before government got into the role of over regulating the health care and driving out the insurance companies from our state. Now that it has happened things will never go back to where we could buy our own insurance so we must move forward into a new model.
No, I can't afford health or life insurance. I live very, very carefully. That is the best assurance.
3Mbps?!? Virtually nobody has that in Vermont or other rural areas. City folk are spoiled. No wonder the internet is slowing down. Try 128Kbaud on for size. Slow down. There's more to life than streaming.
Mass extinctions are predominantly associated with global cooling and isolated extra-terrestial visitors, e.g., impacts. Global warming is associated with greater species diversity and expansion of life on Earth. Prepare for the dawning of a new age of bio-diversity. People just don't like it because it is change.
"You are native to and live in a big city"
Well, there's your problem.
No, I want to not have a 'smartmeter' because I don't want the power company knowing that much detailed information about my minute to minute power consumption and then being able to sell it to the highest bidder which they will do. Smartmeters are an invasion of privacy.
Besides, I read my own electric meter and email the number to the power company each month. It saves them having to have a meter reader person come out to our farm every month. Instead he comes once a year. This has worked for years. Ironically, I still have to pay the $7/month meter reading fee but at least I don't have to deal with a stranger traipsing through our gate each month.
Please.
No.
Giga bandwidth wasting graphic simplification.
Text is best.
Be eloquent.
"Neurologist Steven Levine, currently working on an app for stroke victims, thinks they should be treated like new medicines: developed using scientific peer review and subject to regulation by the government or professional associations."
Of course. He's afraid of competition. Government regulation will slow that down. We wouldn't want to empower people!
I welcome sealed unit computers, tablets, phones and iPods... with one caveot. They need to be real world rugged (think cracked screens), long lasting (think batteries to start with) and supported in the long term (Apple shouldn't be abandoning support for machines after just a few years).
The above would be environmentally friendly by reducing manufacturing and eWaste since the devices would last longer. The technology is here. The firmware is already upgradeable. The processors are already exceedingly fast. The media, the content, is available. Lets stop dumping equipment so rapidly. Instead, pass it down, pass it along, sell it used when you want the latest and greatest hardware.
The companies like Apple could still make plenty of money each year off of the old hardware through offering extended warranties, service, support and firmware/OS upgrades as well as all the sales they make for content. No need to keep wasting hardware.
The battery, case, screen and other technologies are available. I, and many people, are quite willing to pay a premium for better quality and build - witness how successful Apple is as the highest valued and arguably most successful company on this planet. Going with sealed units would enhance the real-world rugged and lasting devices while optimizing for form and size.
The GMO makers tout their products as being so safe and great, such benefit to humanity. They should proudly label their products: Contains GMOs! What's to fear!?! This isn't anti-science but pro-science.
When I play a game I'm often simply looking to relax. To let my brain have some down time from more complex thinking. I don't expect solitaire, Risk, checkers, chess, othello, etc to be new and different. I want the same game with the same rules this century as last century as it was long before.
"it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"
What followed was even more dramatic. Microsoft, since they could get away with copying, settled for that and stopped innovating. Eventually they imploded and lost their market dominance while Apple has far surpassed them.
I would never bother buying a Samsung as a replacement for the iPhone, iPad, iPod. Samsung has only a tiny part of the puzzle even if they totally copy Apple's hardware and software. They still lack all of the smooth integration with my laptop / desktop, the iTunes store and the enormous depth of software and other media available on the Macintosh which I use daily to get my work done.
The point they miss is all of these pieces of hardware are just tools. Tools to let us get our work done or what ever else we're doing. All alone the simple hardware is next to nothing.
There's another issue too. I don't trust Samsung to continue producing or supporting products. They're too wishy-washy. It is a waste of my time to change every year.
creating so-called designer babies could be considered a 'moral obligation' as it makes them grow up into 'ethically better children'
Ethics is a matter of opinion and are not universal. Diversity is key to survival. Don't go the way of the Borg.
screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others.
Bummer about accidentally weeding out creativity and genius in the process. That professor has a lot to learn from the factory farming industry that made all sorts of mistakes with breeding in pigs, cattle and poultry, accidentally creating inferior genetic lines and losing important behavioral traits. We don't know enough to start messing with 'designer' babies.
This falls in the really, really, really bad idea category as in, the late humanity that bred itself to extinction.
No, the reason for the simple solution I proposed is to work within the existing framework of laws and then change the laws. For the current case we can't apply future law but must solve this. Then we can change the laws and regulations to avoid this in the future.
It is obvious that Samsung has indeed copied Apple. There is a simple solution. Rule in favor of Apple thus blocking Samsung from sales but award damages of only $1 and no attorney fees. This whole patenting nonsense has gone way overboard. Time to dismantle the entire patent system since the players can't play nice. That will take legislation.
Interesting how some people say X does not exist just because they don't want it to exist and despite other people observing X does exist. Sort of like anti-evolutionists. Please continuing in your faith based thinking and make those older machines available on eBay so the rest of us can save money by not buying brand spanking new. Thank you!
"if you're an Apple shareholder, that sort of mindless fanboyism"
Ah, the "Anonymous Coward" strikes again with name calling instead of thinking or debating rationally.
No, I'm not an Apple shareholder nor am I a 'fanboy' or iPhone owner or user.
Trying being rational and don't get so hyper. Perhaps if you post using your real name it will help with your temper tantrums.
Wrong. There are lots of people using 10 to 15 year old computers. Just because you want more does not mean that everyone needs more. Some people are more comfortable continuing to use the older hardware and software. It gets the job done. Some people simply don't need that latest and greatest processors, etc. No need to waste money on this year's model or even this decade's model. Bravo to you for continuing to buy on the cutting edge and stimulate the economy but no need for you to be nasty about other people who choose not to waste their money buying differently. You're a prime example of wasteful high priced living but you do churn the economy which makes those older machines available. Thank you.
Hopefully this will kill off those obnoxious Flash based web sites that tell you right from the front page you can't access them since you don't have Flash installed. Our ISP is one of these. What they don't get is Flash doesn't run on all computers and Flash is a horrible CRU hog. They need to stick with HTML.
Flying cars are a very, very bad idea.
1) Too many people already can't control their cars in the mere 2D space of roads.
2) Many people are not sober which exasperated #1.
3) We don't need more people buzzing over our house. There is already too much air traffic.
4) It's a horrible waste of energy.
"Which city"
Well there's your problem.
"What will they use it for? Nothing that they can't already do on a computer or a standard iPad, that's for sure. But the fact that it's yet another Apple Fashion Accessory[1], they will buy buy buy buy buy! Because if you don't have one, you're weird."
There are people who will want the smaller, more easily carried form factor. Fine for makers to offer it. Our family has an iPad (v1.0) which is great for reading documents. I have to read a lot of government regulations and I can get them all on-line as PDFs. Reading on the iPad is easier than reading them on my MacBook. I wouldn't go out and buy a 7" version to replace the what ever inch v1.0 iPad I have but if the price were significantly lower for the smaller one and I were initially buying then it would be a good option. For creating content my MacBook is far better.
"consider that Apple has been selling high-priced laptops for over a decade, despite the emergence of $350 laptops, they still manage to sell them for $2000+."
Apple's $2K MacBook's are a lot better than the el-cheapo $350 laptops and last a lot longer. There is a huge reason Apple can command a premium: Quality. Apple's laptops last ten to 15 years and can be passed down in the family. A $350 el-cheapo laptop lasts a year or two. Doing the math that makes the Apple laptop cost about $200 per year which is a lot less than the $350 per year for the 'el-cheapo' laptop. Not only that but the lifetime cost of maintenance on the Apple's has been shown in studies to be a small fraction of the Windows PCs (probably OS for 'el-cheapo') so there is more savings.
68% of the market is occupied by almost all the other smart phone companies put together. In other words, they're all tiny minorities. The iPhone rules.
Remember, Windows PC makers 'dominated' the market and Apple had only a 'small' share. Except, Apple had the largest single company share and the most growth and the greatest profits by far. How many units are sold by all X makers in aggregate isn't really all that important here.
Apple also has the iTunes store that makes money off the back end. The other makers don't have that. They're jealous but failed. Apple's making it.
(No, I don't have an iPhone, just observing.)
The was no announcement of 2.0, this is only speculation.
Precisely. So they announce rumors for what isn't announced while they don't sell what isn't available. v1.0 may never make it to actual consumer hands - Microsoft has done that before. Meanwhile they'll either drop it saying the market isn't there (as demonstrated by the totally failed iPad, iPhone, iPod) or they'll bring out 2.0 and call it 1.x or just change the name. Microsoft's afraid to get in the water.
So much for open government and responsiveness. Yes, but only if we ask for what they want to give us.