I don't doubt that you're right or that Android will continue to be popular with the technically savvy. The risk for Android is that it puts Linux's chaos and complexity front and center in the mobile phone market and ends up burning out customers because people are overwhelmed with choices and malware. (Is it the year of the Linux desktop yet?)
Let's face it: Apple doesn't police the App Store out of some Machiavellian power trip or pure altruism, they do it to protect their brand identity (and therefore their ability to demand a premium for their products). That it also happens to be a nice benefit for their customers is just a happy side-effect.
Google's abdicated this role in the Marketplace and I think that's dangerous for the long term viability of Android as a mobile platform. Google isn't acting like it believes it has to care, but it should.
If Nokia weren't so culturally opposed to anything they didn't invent themselves this would be a grand opportunity for them: adopt Android and build a walled garden for Android in the Apple style. A variety of cutting edge phones, with high end features, global support from multiple carrier partners AND a protected/policed app store? It would be a game changer for both Android and Nokia, but they'll never do it. (Look up in NIH syndrome and you'll get a redirect to Nokia's home page.)
This is the value of the App Store that geeks/developers consistently underrate. Apple's walled garden provides a barrier to entry that helps to reduce the risk of ending up with a fart app that's also downloading your private banking information to China.
Google's free-for-all Marketplace is a real risk to Android's long term success because it sets up Android phones to become the must-see destination for viruses, mal-ware, and other shady operations. How long do you think it's going to be before having an Android anti-virus application is a practical requirement? What the uber-geek sees as the positive benefits of the Android eco-system (freedom and unlimited choices) are in fact NEGATIVE attributes to most of the rest of the mobile phone consuming populace. It's sorta like Android is the Linux of mobile phones...oh wait.
I enjoyed the EVO vs. iPhone YouTube video as much as anyone but more than a funny rip on Apple, it's also a perfect demonstration of how a lot of the technical community doesn't get it. Android's popular because the iPhone is hard to get and it's a pretty respectable facsimile of an iPhone, not because it has more WIFIs and GBs than Apple. When rogue apps start to make Android painful to use and own expect consumers to start looking for The Next Big Thing (tm).
Not true; you didn't read carefully enough. Hadlock says he lives in Dallas, Texas. The United States is just one short hour away across the Red River.
Actually, that's not true: robbers also benefit from having an effective police force. They benefit because it actually acts as insurance against excessive costs to themselves should their robbery schemes go bad. With an effective and well regulated police force a robbery that's foiled or ultimately handled by the police serves to cap the maximum penalty for failure (jail) which they can also mitigate against with good legal representation. So, a good police force can make robbery less risky at the upper end of consequences.
Without a police force vigilantism becomes the rule and there's no upper limit to the penalty for failing in a robbery attempt. Death, dismemberment, retribution against close family or friends, etc are are potential risks.
I'm sorry to hear that you went into a coma in Dec 2008 and only just now woke up. Let me catch you up to date. Since January:
America went through 8 months of voodoo economics, record deficit spending by a runaway Congress, record job losses, and a economy which is only slowly coming to the realization that 70% of its recent GDP was based on imaginary money that isn't coming back. Combine that with a majority political party with an ideological aversion to reality and you have a continuing perfect financial storm.
Meanwhile, America's special interests are exploiting a weak and indecisive leader, along with a corrupt and complacent Congress, to supercharge their salaries and golden parachutes.
Now that you're up to date, we have a new American President who is essentially the same as the old President. Japan has just announced a bold new project to generate photovoltaic energy, probably to power some sort of super-Mech in order to resume the conquest of America that they began in the 1980's.
I, for one, would like to welcome our new photovoltaic Japanese Mech overlords. What do you not understand?
Yeah, this administration is TOTALLY different than the last one. Why you'd never see Obama nominate a person for the Secretary of the Treasury who'd intentionally cheated on his income taxes!
It's laughable to think that someone who's a tax cheat would end up running the IRS. Did I say laughable? I meant sad, dispiriting, and totally expected.
We've had good luck with our quality. If it's available in HD we usually are able to display it as such. (40 in. Samsung 1080p.) It's very dependent on the network though so evenings are not always the best time to get great quality due to network congestion.
Older TV shows and movies not recorded in HD have displayed artifacts or 'upconverted' SD quality, but I pretty much expected that given the source material. I only rarely get the motion artifacts and so far I've not see any motion artifacts when the program is streaming in HD.
I _have_ noticed that some older movies are not encoded properly. They're showing up a 4:3 but stretched to fit my 16:6 instead of having the horizontal bars.
Overall, we're really happy with the service, though like you we with the selection was bigger.
I doubt that's the reason: you've already got an account with TiVo, so it would be trivial to compare the account ownership data between the two services and spot fraud.
On top of that I don't believe your Watch Instantly queue is per device; you've only got one as far as I can tell and so from a practical aspect your selections would be intermixed with your neighbor's. I'm sure a lot of folks would find that annoying enough to not share the service.
Why complicate the issue? If the goal is to make all drivers pay for the infrastructure they use and if it's safe to assume that non-resident use of the infrastructure is incidental or at worst a wash, then why not simple set a flat rate per mile driven per year? Most states I'm aware of require an annual inspection at which the odometer reading is taken. All vehicles registered in the state then pay for their infrastructure usage regardless of their power source.
They seem to think nuclear winter isn't that far fetched. The link is to an HTML summary at Physics Today, but there's also a link there to the PDF of the paper.
I'm not gonna say that outside culture doesn't have an effect but there are, from day one, major behavioral differences I've observed in my own children.
My son insisted on playing with cars and even making little vroom vroom noises before he could talk or walk! Since my wife stays at home, his exposure to culture outside the home was pretty minimal up to that point.
I also coach both girls and boys soccer; we start them at age four out here. Again, the difference in behavior is striking. We spend all of our time trying to get the girls to stop being polite and actually GO GET THE BALL. For the boys, we spend all of our time trying to keep them from fighting and to actually GO GET THE BALL.
Back in 94 I worked a co-op for a major IT company's unix tech support call center. I think I started out at around $15 hour but I was up to $17/hour by the end of my second co-op there.
I'd had other internships/co-ops before that, which didn't pay as well but both were with smaller companies.
I got great (and varied) experiences from all of them.
Don't just look at the $$$ also consider what you'll be learning in the process. The combined work experience I had when I graduated made it easy to find a job. (I graduated in May of 06 but I already had my job by Oct 05 and not with the company I'd co-op'ed for. I'm still with that employer today.)
Bah! It will be comically shallow unless I'm able to repeatedly smooth my skirts. You should probably be able to take multiple levels of skirt smoothing.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't doubt that you're right or that Android will continue to be popular with the technically savvy. The risk for Android is that it puts Linux's chaos and complexity front and center in the mobile phone market and ends up burning out customers because people are overwhelmed with choices and malware. (Is it the year of the Linux desktop yet?)
Let's face it: Apple doesn't police the App Store out of some Machiavellian power trip or pure altruism, they do it to protect their brand identity (and therefore their ability to demand a premium for their products). That it also happens to be a nice benefit for their customers is just a happy side-effect.
Google's abdicated this role in the Marketplace and I think that's dangerous for the long term viability of Android as a mobile platform. Google isn't acting like it believes it has to care, but it should.
If Nokia weren't so culturally opposed to anything they didn't invent themselves this would be a grand opportunity for them: adopt Android and build a walled garden for Android in the Apple style. A variety of cutting edge phones, with high end features, global support from multiple carrier partners AND a protected/policed app store? It would be a game changer for both Android and Nokia, but they'll never do it. (Look up in NIH syndrome and you'll get a redirect to Nokia's home page.)
^ this.
This is the value of the App Store that geeks/developers consistently underrate. Apple's walled garden provides a barrier to entry that helps to reduce the risk of ending up with a fart app that's also downloading your private banking information to China.
Google's free-for-all Marketplace is a real risk to Android's long term success because it sets up Android phones to become the must-see destination for viruses, mal-ware, and other shady operations. How long do you think it's going to be before having an Android anti-virus application is a practical requirement? What the uber-geek sees as the positive benefits of the Android eco-system (freedom and unlimited choices) are in fact NEGATIVE attributes to most of the rest of the mobile phone consuming populace. It's sorta like Android is the Linux of mobile phones...oh wait.
I enjoyed the EVO vs. iPhone YouTube video as much as anyone but more than a funny rip on Apple, it's also a perfect demonstration of how a lot of the technical community doesn't get it. Android's popular because the iPhone is hard to get and it's a pretty respectable facsimile of an iPhone, not because it has more WIFIs and GBs than Apple. When rogue apps start to make Android painful to use and own expect consumers to start looking for The Next Big Thing (tm).
Not true; you didn't read carefully enough. Hadlock says he lives in Dallas, Texas. The United States is just one short hour away across the Red River.
Actually, that's not true: robbers also benefit from having an effective police force. They benefit because it actually acts as insurance against excessive costs to themselves should their robbery schemes go bad. With an effective and well regulated police force a robbery that's foiled or ultimately handled by the police serves to cap the maximum penalty for failure (jail) which they can also mitigate against with good legal representation. So, a good police force can make robbery less risky at the upper end of consequences.
Without a police force vigilantism becomes the rule and there's no upper limit to the penalty for failing in a robbery attempt. Death, dismemberment, retribution against close family or friends, etc are are potential risks.
I'm sorry to hear that you went into a coma in Dec 2008 and only just now woke up. Let me catch you up to date. Since January:
America went through 8 months of voodoo economics, record deficit spending by a runaway Congress, record job losses, and a economy which is only slowly coming to the realization that 70% of its recent GDP was based on imaginary money that isn't coming back. Combine that with a majority political party with an ideological aversion to reality and you have a continuing perfect financial storm.
Meanwhile, America's special interests are exploiting a weak and indecisive leader, along with a corrupt and complacent Congress, to supercharge their salaries and golden parachutes.
Now that you're up to date, we have a new American President who is essentially the same as the old President. Japan has just announced a bold new project to generate photovoltaic energy, probably to power some sort of super-Mech in order to resume the conquest of America that they began in the 1980's.
I, for one, would like to welcome our new photovoltaic Japanese Mech overlords. What do you not understand?
--
No regards.
"for insurance.. they are by far the best i've ever seen"
I'll second that endorsement. USAA is simply one of the best companies I've ever worked with.
Hey, I've got an access card exactly like that one!
Wanna play hucka-bucka beanstalk?
Minor nitpick: I don't believe she ever said that. I think it was on SNL and now most people believe she actually said it.
Still funny though.
Hah! You should have multi-classed. Those of us who took levels in both Fraternity and Hard Science get to have it both ways!
Wow! Someone needs bonus karma for making a reference to classic literature on Slashdot that's both funny and on topic. It might be a first.
What Constitutional basis would the IRS have for this power grab?
_LOW_ UID's? I wouldn't consider 677118 to be particularly low.
Now get off my lawn!
Yeah, this administration is TOTALLY different than the last one. Why you'd never see Obama nominate a person for the Secretary of the Treasury who'd intentionally cheated on his income taxes!
It's laughable to think that someone who's a tax cheat would end up running the IRS. Did I say laughable? I meant sad, dispiriting, and totally expected.
Whoo hoo! Change I can believe in!
I'm pretty sure it was nasty, not rusty, when I picked it up although it may be both by now since I think I dropped it somewhere near the dam.
We've had good luck with our quality. If it's available in HD we usually are able to display it as such. (40 in. Samsung 1080p.) It's very dependent on the network though so evenings are not always the best time to get great quality due to network congestion.
Older TV shows and movies not recorded in HD have displayed artifacts or 'upconverted' SD quality, but I pretty much expected that given the source material. I only rarely get the motion artifacts and so far I've not see any motion artifacts when the program is streaming in HD.
I _have_ noticed that some older movies are not encoded properly. They're showing up a 4:3 but stretched to fit my 16:6 instead of having the horizontal bars.
Overall, we're really happy with the service, though like you we with the selection was bigger.
I doubt that's the reason: you've already got an account with TiVo, so it would be trivial to compare the account ownership data between the two services and spot fraud.
On top of that I don't believe your Watch Instantly queue is per device; you've only got one as far as I can tell and so from a practical aspect your selections would be intermixed with your neighbor's. I'm sure a lot of folks would find that annoying enough to not share the service.
Why complicate the issue? If the goal is to make all drivers pay for the infrastructure they use and if it's safe to assume that non-resident use of the infrastructure is incidental or at worst a wash, then why not simple set a flat rate per mile driven per year? Most states I'm aware of require an annual inspection at which the odometer reading is taken. All vehicles registered in the state then pay for their infrastructure usage regardless of their power source.
The Handmaid's Tale
One of my favorite works of fiction, oh no wait, least favorite. :(
At the risk of adding something substantive to the conversation, Physics Today just covered this topic: Environmental consequences of nuclear war.
They seem to think nuclear winter isn't that far fetched. The link is to an HTML summary at Physics Today, but there's also a link there to the PDF of the paper.
I dunno, I would have liked to see a snake spin a web.
I'm not gonna say that outside culture doesn't have an effect but there are, from day one, major behavioral differences I've observed in my own children.
My son insisted on playing with cars and even making little vroom vroom noises before he could talk or walk! Since my wife stays at home, his exposure to culture outside the home was pretty minimal up to that point.
I also coach both girls and boys soccer; we start them at age four out here. Again, the difference in behavior is striking. We spend all of our time trying to get the girls to stop being polite and actually GO GET THE BALL. For the boys, we spend all of our time trying to keep them from fighting and to actually GO GET THE BALL.
Um...you are aware that the chosen one attended an equally fringe-end church himself, right?
Trinity United Church of Christ
It's a bit unfair to go after one candidate's religious views as extremist while ignoring the other's.
Especially for Vault-Tec! Have you reserved you slot? Do it today!
Back in 94 I worked a co-op for a major IT company's unix tech support call center. I think I started out at around $15 hour but I was up to $17/hour by the end of my second co-op there.
I'd had other internships/co-ops before that, which didn't pay as well but both were with smaller companies.
I got great (and varied) experiences from all of them.
Don't just look at the $$$ also consider what you'll be learning in the process. The combined work experience I had when I graduated made it easy to find a job. (I graduated in May of 06 but I already had my job by Oct 05 and not with the company I'd co-op'ed for. I'm still with that employer today.)
Bah! It will be comically shallow unless I'm able to repeatedly smooth my skirts. You should probably be able to take multiple levels of skirt smoothing.