People don't want Linux on their PCs, what makes you think they'd want it on their netbooks? A Linux netbook would look, to the consumer, like any of those countless organizers from the 90s, with the exact same "it's just trying to copy a 'real' computer" cheap knock-off feel to it.
The only successful consumer market for Linux as a PC OS is with geeks, and they can install Linux on their Windows netbook just fine. Any benefit Linux can give to the netbook is already being realized.
No, the reason netbooks have crashed and burned is that they suck, plain and simple. As a proper computer, they are atrocious. As a "limited, highly portable email and web device", the netbook pales in comparison to the iPad. That's why the iPad that toppled the netbook. Before the iPad, the netbook was the best device in that category, but just because it was the *only* device in that category. It's no surprise that once a device was created specifically to serve that category, instead of just being so limited in capability that that's all it could reasonably serve, that the netbook failed to compete. Throw in the ability to run pretty much any sort of app a person could want, and games galore, and one wonders how anyone can think the netbook could possibly stand a chance.
With the next generation of Android hardware, all devices will meet or beat iOS' latency requirements.
Yeah, I'm sure that's actually going to happen...
There's a whole lotta vapor coming off Android these days. The *next* version will work on phones again. The *next* version of Flash won't suck. The *next* generation of hardware will blah, blah, blah.
Google's turning Android into a closed platform similar to iOS, but unfortunately they lack the software expertise of Apple, their partners lack the hardware expertise of Apple, and the whole ecosystem lacks the "designs the whole widget" benefit that Apple enjoys.
It was extremely clear what he meant. You clearly misinterpreted his claim, but the fact remains that on iOS, a developer can rely on extremely low latency audio performance, and on Android they cannot. The Android OS itself may well be capable of handling it, but developers target actual installations, not theoretical software capabilities.
then geek cred is watered down garbage nowadays. in my day, every geek I knew wiped new machines as a matter of course. I do to this day, even ones with oem installs. it's not difficult to back up the license files.
You never had any real reason to reinstall DOS, AmigaOS, Macintosh System, Windows 3.x, Mac OS X, etc., out of the box.
The only reason reinstalling the OS as standard suggestion exists is because of Windows. If that's a significant part of geek culture, I do agree with you that geek cred might very well be watered down garbage these days.
But uninstalling crapware on Windows is fairly simple (much simpler and quicker then reinstalling from the bundled OS disc, which you don't always get in the first place), and accomplishes the same ends. If you're worried about bundled keyloggers, you shouldn't be buying from them in the first place. They could just as easily put the keylogger into the installation media, and OEM licenses from major PC makers are tied to discs from only those specific companies.
"Geek Cred" was never about reinstalling your OS out of the box, unless you were a Windows-centric geek wannabe who couldn't build his own PC. Everyone else just used the OS that came preinstalled, or in the case of Linux, had to install it on their own since it's rarely bundled, and if it is, it's probably not the distro you want. But when it is (like VA Linux systems with RedHat, or Macs with Yellow Dog Linux), you would normally just keep the preinstalled distro.
"Geek Cred" did include being adept at reinstalling the OS when things went south, which, again, was predominantly a Windows thing, or performing a first install on homebuilt hardware.
And all of this is a distraction from your (I assume) initial claim that reinstalling your OS out of the box is "computer-101 stuff these days". I'd be amazed if it even approaches happening a million times a year total (outside of perhaps the enterprise, where IT often pushes out their own corporate OS image when deploying new PCs).
You replied to the wrong guy. Those were my words.
Anyway, by "surprised", I mean it shouldn't be anywhere near normal, thus a surprise.
I don't normally get $100 out of the blue, but it can happen. When it does, it's appropriate to be surprised. Likewise, keyloggers most assuredly exist and are deployed, but it's generally going to be a surprise when you find one. This is especially true if the keylogger was deliberately installed by a major corporation like Samsung.
If this isn't supposed to be surprising, are you saying that you think it's fairly normal? That it's likely that at least one of Sony, HP, or Dell includes a keylogger as well?
Apple hasn't "axed FireWire". They only sell three computers (MacBook and the two MacBook Airs) without FireWire. They just updated their Pro notebooks with Thunderbolt, which can actually *replace* FireWire, and they all include FireWire 800 as well. Lack of FireWire does not make a computer unsuitable for creative work.
Your posts always show a sense of exaggerated self-importance. Just because *you* can't use a computer professionally without FireWire does not mean that's universal. Also, just because Apple sells *some* models without FireWire (actually, FireWire only became universal on Macs around the time when the iPod was FireWire only and when consumers used video cameras with FireWire. The former hasn't been the case for many years now, and the latter is almost irrelevant). Even Apple's cheapest computer has FireWire 800.
Apple is not going to lock down Mac OS X, nor will they axe it in favor of a notebook/desktop version of iOS. They can't and it doesn't make any sense. The Mac, with a proper desktop OS, will exist for as long as people want them. The day they announce that Macs will *only* run software from the Mac App Store is the day millions of Mac users will leave the Mac. Apple just simply can't do that.
There are a lot of things that have to happen between now and then that haven't happened. If that changes, then your fears can have some merit. Until then, it's just senseless fantasy.
Exactly. Who on earth uses the default OS installation these days?
Um, pretty much everyone. Unless you are going to be putting on a completely different OS (like Linux), very few people are going to go through the effort. Even most geeks will just uninstall the crapware instead of going through a full re-install.
They're filled with crapware and even if not, are completely untrustable.
Not Macs.
On any new machine, you have to scrub the disk down and reinstall your own OS from scratch. I thought that was kinda computer-101 stuff these days.
I never would recommend an installation of Windows, but if you are going to do it a retail copy would be the way to go.
Otherwise don't be surprised to find all kinds of crummy software and maybe even crap like this installed.
No, I think it's appropriate to be surprised that a major corporation like Samsung includes a keylogger with their computers. Crapware/bloatware is one thing, but a keylogger goes far beyond reason. In fact, it's not just unreasonable, but is quite likely criminal.
"Meh, corruption isn't news, stfu" == "give me more corruption", in the end.
If you don't get upset over these sort of things, you just invite more. Sure, making a fuss won't necessarily stop it from happening again, but remaining silent certainly won't.
Consent implies the person giving consent is aware of what they are agreeing to. If I mumble, "if you ask me 'what?', you agree to immediately pay me a million dollars", and you ask me, "what?", that does not mean you actually agreed to pay me a million dollars.
Their desktops? I'm not talking about portables now, but actual desktop computers that can be used for making stuff. Not PDAs.
iMac sales are strong. But I'm not sure what your distinction has to do with anything. MacBook Pros are very useful for "making stuff" and aren't PDAs. You really are an idiot.
I have to wonder whether, in 2015, Microsoft will be in the phone software business at all.
I have to wonder whether, in 2015, Apple will be in the personal computer business at all.
Only an idiot would wonder this. Macs are very profitable, and Apple isn't just going to abandon its users (which includes Apple itself) to Windows.
Apple will only ever stop making PCs when people stop buying them. Mac sales have been increasing for years now, ahead of overall industry growth (sometimes even growing while the rest of the market contracts).
Actually, the GP's claim was that MS only ever won with DOS, and everything else stems from that, including Windows and the rest.
Also, he said "new market". If MS buys a successful product, they aren't winning a new market. Seriously, go back in time and erase DOS from history and MS becomes just another standard software company, on par with modern day Corel or Adobe.
It's worse than that even. I don't see how Microsoft can out-geek or out-commodifyAndroid, or out-polish Apple. There are very few markets where MS can possibly get any traction whatsoever. Gaming? That's controlled by The DS, PSP, and iPod touch. Windows integration? That's too nerdy to be mainstream, and once you've hit that level of nerdiness, you don't want Windows on your phone anyway. Business? There's no compelling case here.
The best MS and Nokia can hope for is to get people to buy their phones out of apathy, by being the ubiquitous phone that is offered free and looks nice enough, and Android already has that market locked up. Even still, I think that's their best hope for now. They aren't going to lure tinker geeks from Android or common folk and "just works" geeks from iOS.
I'm sorry, where again are all the iPad-killing Android tablets? First, you say they are coming over the next few months (but let's ignore that that has been the case for a year now!), now you say they've been out all this time?
But that's really the point. There are little book tablets, and big geek tablets, and dumpy video tablets, yet even combined, they pale in comparison to the iPad. But, we are assured, Real Soon Now this will all change...
You also bring up the straw man that the iPad can't satisfy everyone. You're right, it can't. But no one is claiming that. But they can (and clearly do) satisfy more people than all other tablets that existed since the first tablet ever created *combined*. All this in only nine months!
Geeks have an over-inflated sense of relevancy. If we listened to you, we'd all be running dumpy Archos MP3 players, Linux desktops and Linux netbooks. But we aren't. The most successful geek recommendation is Firefox, and even that is not the market leader.
Android's success in the phone market is an anomaly, and is not an indication that people actually prefer the OS. It's an indication that the phone market has strong primary considerations before even choosing a handset. And once those are addressed, artificial influences that come into play.
When forced to compete head-to-head without these influences, in the form of the iPad and iPod touch, Android fails miserably.
Who knows, maybe consumers prefer a 7" tablet? Doubtful, but possible. But they definitely don't give a shit if they have to buy a $29 adapter to get an SD slot, or if the App Store is "closed" (clue stick: so is the Android Market), or whatever other feature tickles your geek fancy.
And above all else, one thing is extremely apparent: they don't actually prefer Android the OS over iOS the OS.
And reduce in radioactivity quicker than you think, not billions of years, that was his point.
You are completely incorrect. I'm fully aware that the cesium and iodine don't lost billions of years, but the uranium and plutonium most certainly do.
The radioactive iodine doesn't last very long, but the cesium does (it will last longer than anyone alive today).
Driving cars. What a death bringer. And yet, people don't shut down all roadways until safer cars are made that don't pollute at all, have no chance of crashing, and make economic sense.
We also don't say, "hey, roads are already unsafe, so why not up and ante and make them even more dangerous still!"
Coal (for example) exists and is dangerous. That's no excuse for adding even more dangerous matter into the equation.
Cheese burgers. What a death bringer. And yet people don't run in the streets screaming about how cattle are gassing up the environment and clogging arteries. You want to talk about nuclear power being so damned dangerous? We all do things that cut our lifespans by a hell of a lot more than nuclear power every day for much less reason. I feel like the whole world is trolling me right now.
Cheeseburgers already have a set amount risk to my health, most of which can be mitigated by personal behavior, and I'm at very little risk myself if *you* eat a cheeseburger. With nuclear power, this *adds* to the risk I already have in my life, and even if I choose to live my life never generating a single watt of power from nuclear fission, I'm still at risk from places thousands of miles away that do.
It isn't 100% safe, so its unacceptable is unacceptable in a world where everything we do, every day, has a risk attached to it.
Straw man. No one is claiming something has to be 100% safe.
And the big risk with nuclear is always a hypothetical "the world may come to an end if this, this and this happens."
No one is making this claim. Another straw man.
And yet a huge disaster comes about that could be the start of a doomsday movie with almost zero effect on the world,
Another straw man.
and instead of looking at that and saying "holy crap, nuclear power isn't the bomb waiting to go off we thought it was"
Where are you getting all this straw?
people are pointing and saying "see?! disasters happen!" as if we didn't already know.
Oh sure, it's only a "disaster", and not "doomsday", no big deal!
Its time to grow up and realize our highways are going to kill more people every day than nuclear power will in generations.
It's not an either/or proposition. Highways will exist regardless of whether we have nuclear power.
Being afraid of nuclear power is like being afraid of flying. Yeah, when something happens it'll probably involve more people than a car crash, but its a hell of a lot safer and normal usage is a lot easier on the environment.
The ratio of car accidents to plan crashes is far greater than fossil fuel accidents to nuclear incidents. Also, when you shut down a coal plant, the risks go to essentially zero. When you shut down a nuclear plant, you still have waste to deal with.
The increase in background radiation will absolutely cause a raise in cancers, and there's the matter of radioactive material put into the environment that is different than simply a temporary increase in background radiation, and will also certainly cause additional deaths.
No it won't. This argument is based on the Linear no-threshold model which has been shown to be wildly inaccurate at low-levels of radiation dosing.
Except that you:
1. Ignored the part where I point out this isn't just background radiation. 2. Assume that radiation levels did not increase in some areas beyond safe levels.
The basis of the model is that they looked at the cancer rate of Hiroshima survivors who received very high levels of radiation exposure and assigned a value of N cancer cases per X amount of radiation exposure. Then because they had nothing to go on for low doses, the assumption was made that the cancer rate was linear, so you'd get N/4 cases for an exposure of X/4. Without assigning a threshold exposure value for when you start developing cancer, this is ridiculous and does not at all agree with observation; however, since nobody knew what happens at longer exposure times at lower exposure rates, and thus nobody knows where to put a threshold value, this was the model accepted.
Yes, I watched that Horizon episode too. But that's not what I'm talking about.
> The increase in background radiation will > absolutely cause a raise in cancers
Increase in background radiation where?
Fukushima, Japan. And the surrounding areas where the winds blew radioactive iodine and cesium.
Do you have numbers to cite here?
Of course I do. Keep radiation sensors all across the globe, including in Japan, and I also collect and measure iodine and cesium from the atmosphere. You don't need specific numbers to demonstrate people will die from this, only to show how many can be expected. The exact numbers are unknown (not just to me, but to anyone).
> there's the matter of radioactive material put into > environment
Details? Which isotopes are we talking about? Is it worse than your typical coal plant operating for a month?
Cesium and radioactive iodine. Yes, they are worse than a "typical coal plant operating for a month". Also, the explosion most certainly distributed plutonium and uranium into the local area.
> Radioactive elements can never be made safe.
That's just not true. For example, oxygen-15 makes itself safe in a matter of hours (half-life of 120s with decay to a stable nitrogen isotope). A large fraction of the radioactive release from Fukushima has been elements like that.
They can be made non-radioactive, but that's not what I meant. *While* they are radioactive, they are not safe. You are just playing a word-game. Bringing up a short half-life demonstrates this. Plutonium also loses its radioactivity, it just takes a lot longer.
Now maybe what you mean is that long-half-life isotopes can't really be made safe.
Exactly. Word games. Also, short half-life elements tend to be more dangerous.
I agree; the goal would be to prevent them escaping the containment vessel.
And impossible goal to ensure. This is doubly true when you have an explosion that disperses them across a wide geographical area, including ejecting into the atmosphere which gives the elements access to the entire planet.
> Solar, wind, and hydrothermal are much safer.
I'd _love_ to see numbers for this, on comparable scales.
As would I. But many thousands of people are dead from Chernobyl. Somehow I doubt thousands have died from a damn or wind turbine or solar array.
That is, how safe or unsafe is your typical solar plant generating 0.8GW (which is what each of the reactors at Fukushima was generating)? How safe is your typical wind plant of that capacity? Whole-life numbers (i.e. including construction and maintenance) would be good. Problem is, no one actually tracks that stuff, so we don't have those numbers....
> that would otherwise plague a small area around > the plant
Uh... you can't have it both ways. If pollution from coal plants (including the radioactive elements they put in the air) is localized to a "small area", how is that not the case for nuclear?
Because the coal plant doesn't explode so violently that a plume of radioactive material (including cesium and radioactive iodine) into the atmosphere.
> But since the deaths from nuclear are primarily > cancers
Citation please?
Physics and biology.
> The best you can do is mitigate the risks.
This is true for all power-generation setups. The only question is when in the life cycle the highest risks are. For photovoltaic solar, for example, it seems to me that they are primarily at the solar cell production stage and the related industrial accidents.
Industrial accidents which are far easier to mitigate, and only affect a small area around the factory.
For hydroelectric they're when your dam is operating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_D
Exactly. You *can't* plan for it. So why would you put such dangerous materials into operation in such a place? The reactors in Fukushima took what was a local and temporary event, and turned it into an event that affected the entire planet, and will have effects spanning billions of years.
You know you just lost all credibility when you posted that?
You know you just lost all credibility when you failed to back up your claim with any substance?
Radioactive elements were ejected into the atmosphere by the huge hydrogen explosion. Locally, heavier elements were strewn into the environment. These elements will remain in the area for billions of years.
Slashdot Mirror
People don't want Linux on their PCs, what makes you think they'd want it on their netbooks? A Linux netbook would look, to the consumer, like any of those countless organizers from the 90s, with the exact same "it's just trying to copy a 'real' computer" cheap knock-off feel to it.
The only successful consumer market for Linux as a PC OS is with geeks, and they can install Linux on their Windows netbook just fine. Any benefit Linux can give to the netbook is already being realized.
No, the reason netbooks have crashed and burned is that they suck, plain and simple. As a proper computer, they are atrocious. As a "limited, highly portable email and web device", the netbook pales in comparison to the iPad. That's why the iPad that toppled the netbook. Before the iPad, the netbook was the best device in that category, but just because it was the *only* device in that category. It's no surprise that once a device was created specifically to serve that category, instead of just being so limited in capability that that's all it could reasonably serve, that the netbook failed to compete. Throw in the ability to run pretty much any sort of app a person could want, and games galore, and one wonders how anyone can think the netbook could possibly stand a chance.
iPads work with both keyboards and styluses.
You mean this unsubstantiated claim?
With the next generation of Android hardware, all devices will meet or beat iOS' latency requirements.
Yeah, I'm sure that's actually going to happen...
There's a whole lotta vapor coming off Android these days. The *next* version will work on phones again. The *next* version of Flash won't suck. The *next* generation of hardware will blah, blah, blah.
Google's turning Android into a closed platform similar to iOS, but unfortunately they lack the software expertise of Apple, their partners lack the hardware expertise of Apple, and the whole ecosystem lacks the "designs the whole widget" benefit that Apple enjoys.
It was extremely clear what he meant. You clearly misinterpreted his claim, but the fact remains that on iOS, a developer can rely on extremely low latency audio performance, and on Android they cannot. The Android OS itself may well be capable of handling it, but developers target actual installations, not theoretical software capabilities.
That's not even Geek 101 stuff.
then geek cred is watered down garbage nowadays. in my day, every geek I knew wiped new machines as a matter of course. I do to this day, even ones with oem installs. it's not difficult to back up the license files.
You never had any real reason to reinstall DOS, AmigaOS, Macintosh System, Windows 3.x, Mac OS X, etc., out of the box.
The only reason reinstalling the OS as standard suggestion exists is because of Windows. If that's a significant part of geek culture, I do agree with you that geek cred might very well be watered down garbage these days.
But uninstalling crapware on Windows is fairly simple (much simpler and quicker then reinstalling from the bundled OS disc, which you don't always get in the first place), and accomplishes the same ends. If you're worried about bundled keyloggers, you shouldn't be buying from them in the first place. They could just as easily put the keylogger into the installation media, and OEM licenses from major PC makers are tied to discs from only those specific companies.
"Geek Cred" was never about reinstalling your OS out of the box, unless you were a Windows-centric geek wannabe who couldn't build his own PC. Everyone else just used the OS that came preinstalled, or in the case of Linux, had to install it on their own since it's rarely bundled, and if it is, it's probably not the distro you want. But when it is (like VA Linux systems with RedHat, or Macs with Yellow Dog Linux), you would normally just keep the preinstalled distro.
"Geek Cred" did include being adept at reinstalling the OS when things went south, which, again, was predominantly a Windows thing, or performing a first install on homebuilt hardware.
And all of this is a distraction from your (I assume) initial claim that reinstalling your OS out of the box is "computer-101 stuff these days". I'd be amazed if it even approaches happening a million times a year total (outside of perhaps the enterprise, where IT often pushes out their own corporate OS image when deploying new PCs).
You replied to the wrong guy. Those were my words.
Anyway, by "surprised", I mean it shouldn't be anywhere near normal, thus a surprise.
I don't normally get $100 out of the blue, but it can happen. When it does, it's appropriate to be surprised. Likewise, keyloggers most assuredly exist and are deployed, but it's generally going to be a surprise when you find one. This is especially true if the keylogger was deliberately installed by a major corporation like Samsung.
If this isn't supposed to be surprising, are you saying that you think it's fairly normal? That it's likely that at least one of Sony, HP, or Dell includes a keylogger as well?
Apple hasn't "axed FireWire". They only sell three computers (MacBook and the two MacBook Airs) without FireWire. They just updated their Pro notebooks with Thunderbolt, which can actually *replace* FireWire, and they all include FireWire 800 as well. Lack of FireWire does not make a computer unsuitable for creative work.
Your posts always show a sense of exaggerated self-importance. Just because *you* can't use a computer professionally without FireWire does not mean that's universal. Also, just because Apple sells *some* models without FireWire (actually, FireWire only became universal on Macs around the time when the iPod was FireWire only and when consumers used video cameras with FireWire. The former hasn't been the case for many years now, and the latter is almost irrelevant). Even Apple's cheapest computer has FireWire 800.
Apple is not going to lock down Mac OS X, nor will they axe it in favor of a notebook/desktop version of iOS. They can't and it doesn't make any sense. The Mac, with a proper desktop OS, will exist for as long as people want them. The day they announce that Macs will *only* run software from the Mac App Store is the day millions of Mac users will leave the Mac. Apple just simply can't do that.
There are a lot of things that have to happen between now and then that haven't happened. If that changes, then your fears can have some merit. Until then, it's just senseless fantasy.
Exactly. Who on earth uses the default OS installation these days?
Um, pretty much everyone. Unless you are going to be putting on a completely different OS (like Linux), very few people are going to go through the effort. Even most geeks will just uninstall the crapware instead of going through a full re-install.
They're filled with crapware and even if not, are completely untrustable.
Not Macs.
On any new machine, you have to scrub the disk down and reinstall your own OS from scratch. I thought that was kinda computer-101 stuff these days.
That's not even Geek 101 stuff.
Yeah, I think it might be difficult to get a few billion Americans to join in on a boycott...
I never would recommend an installation of Windows, but if you are going to do it a retail copy would be the way to go.
Otherwise don't be surprised to find all kinds of crummy software and maybe even crap like this installed.
No, I think it's appropriate to be surprised that a major corporation like Samsung includes a keylogger with their computers. Crapware/bloatware is one thing, but a keylogger goes far beyond reason. In fact, it's not just unreasonable, but is quite likely criminal.
"Meh, corruption isn't news, stfu" == "give me more corruption", in the end.
If you don't get upset over these sort of things, you just invite more. Sure, making a fuss won't necessarily stop it from happening again, but remaining silent certainly won't.
Consent implies the person giving consent is aware of what they are agreeing to. If I mumble, "if you ask me 'what?', you agree to immediately pay me a million dollars", and you ask me, "what?", that does not mean you actually agreed to pay me a million dollars.
Their desktops? I'm not talking about portables now, but actual desktop computers that can be used for making stuff. Not PDAs.
iMac sales are strong. But I'm not sure what your distinction has to do with anything. MacBook Pros are very useful for "making stuff" and aren't PDAs. You really are an idiot.
I have to wonder whether, in 2015, Apple will be in the personal computer business at all.
Only an idiot would wonder this. Macs are very profitable, and Apple isn't just going to abandon its users (which includes Apple itself) to Windows.
Apple will only ever stop making PCs when people stop buying them. Mac sales have been increasing for years now, ahead of overall industry growth (sometimes even growing while the rest of the market contracts).
Windows -> DirectX -> Xbox.
Actually, the GP's claim was that MS only ever won with DOS, and everything else stems from that, including Windows and the rest.
Also, he said "new market". If MS buys a successful product, they aren't winning a new market. Seriously, go back in time and erase DOS from history and MS becomes just another standard software company, on par with modern day Corel or Adobe.
iPhone supports Exchange. I assume Android does also.
It's worse than that even. I don't see how Microsoft can out-geek or out-commodifyAndroid, or out-polish Apple. There are very few markets where MS can possibly get any traction whatsoever. Gaming? That's controlled by The DS, PSP, and iPod touch. Windows integration? That's too nerdy to be mainstream, and once you've hit that level of nerdiness, you don't want Windows on your phone anyway. Business? There's no compelling case here.
The best MS and Nokia can hope for is to get people to buy their phones out of apathy, by being the ubiquitous phone that is offered free and looks nice enough, and Android already has that market locked up. Even still, I think that's their best hope for now. They aren't going to lure tinker geeks from Android or common folk and "just works" geeks from iOS.
nice selective criteria there, iOS has greater market share than Android overall
Oh? Not according to Techcrunch. Nice lie there.
Come back when you learn how to read.
I'm sorry, where again are all the iPad-killing Android tablets? First, you say they are coming over the next few months (but let's ignore that that has been the case for a year now!), now you say they've been out all this time?
But that's really the point. There are little book tablets, and big geek tablets, and dumpy video tablets, yet even combined, they pale in comparison to the iPad. But, we are assured, Real Soon Now this will all change...
You also bring up the straw man that the iPad can't satisfy everyone. You're right, it can't. But no one is claiming that. But they can (and clearly do) satisfy more people than all other tablets that existed since the first tablet ever created *combined*. All this in only nine months!
Geeks have an over-inflated sense of relevancy. If we listened to you, we'd all be running dumpy Archos MP3 players, Linux desktops and Linux netbooks. But we aren't. The most successful geek recommendation is Firefox, and even that is not the market leader.
Android's success in the phone market is an anomaly, and is not an indication that people actually prefer the OS. It's an indication that the phone market has strong primary considerations before even choosing a handset. And once those are addressed, artificial influences that come into play.
When forced to compete head-to-head without these influences, in the form of the iPad and iPod touch, Android fails miserably.
Who knows, maybe consumers prefer a 7" tablet? Doubtful, but possible. But they definitely don't give a shit if they have to buy a $29 adapter to get an SD slot, or if the App Store is "closed" (clue stick: so is the Android Market), or whatever other feature tickles your geek fancy.
And above all else, one thing is extremely apparent: they don't actually prefer Android the OS over iOS the OS.
And reduce in radioactivity quicker than you think, not billions of years, that was his point.
You are completely incorrect. I'm fully aware that the cesium and iodine don't lost billions of years, but the uranium and plutonium most certainly do.
The radioactive iodine doesn't last very long, but the cesium does (it will last longer than anyone alive today).
Driving cars. What a death bringer. And yet, people don't shut down all roadways until safer cars are made that don't pollute at all, have no chance of crashing, and make economic sense.
We also don't say, "hey, roads are already unsafe, so why not up and ante and make them even more dangerous still!"
Coal (for example) exists and is dangerous. That's no excuse for adding even more dangerous matter into the equation.
Cheese burgers. What a death bringer. And yet people don't run in the streets screaming about how cattle are gassing up the environment and clogging arteries. You want to talk about nuclear power being so damned dangerous? We all do things that cut our lifespans by a hell of a lot more than nuclear power every day for much less reason. I feel like the whole world is trolling me right now.
Cheeseburgers already have a set amount risk to my health, most of which can be mitigated by personal behavior, and I'm at very little risk myself if *you* eat a cheeseburger. With nuclear power, this *adds* to the risk I already have in my life, and even if I choose to live my life never generating a single watt of power from nuclear fission, I'm still at risk from places thousands of miles away that do.
It isn't 100% safe, so its unacceptable is unacceptable in a world where everything we do, every day, has a risk attached to it.
Straw man. No one is claiming something has to be 100% safe.
And the big risk with nuclear is always a hypothetical "the world may come to an end if this, this and this happens."
No one is making this claim. Another straw man.
And yet a huge disaster comes about that could be the start of a doomsday movie with almost zero effect on the world,
Another straw man.
and instead of looking at that and saying "holy crap, nuclear power isn't the bomb waiting to go off we thought it was"
Where are you getting all this straw?
people are pointing and saying "see?! disasters happen!" as if we didn't already know.
Oh sure, it's only a "disaster", and not "doomsday", no big deal!
Its time to grow up and realize our highways are going to kill more people every day than nuclear power will in generations.
It's not an either/or proposition. Highways will exist regardless of whether we have nuclear power.
Being afraid of nuclear power is like being afraid of flying. Yeah, when something happens it'll probably involve more people than a car crash, but its a hell of a lot safer and normal usage is a lot easier on the environment.
The ratio of car accidents to plan crashes is far greater than fossil fuel accidents to nuclear incidents. Also, when you shut down a coal plant, the risks go to essentially zero. When you shut down a nuclear plant, you still have waste to deal with.
The increase in background radiation will absolutely cause a raise in cancers, and there's the matter of radioactive material put into the environment that is different than simply a temporary increase in background radiation, and will also certainly cause additional deaths.
No it won't. This argument is based on the Linear no-threshold model which has been shown to be wildly inaccurate at low-levels of radiation dosing.
Except that you:
1. Ignored the part where I point out this isn't just background radiation.
2. Assume that radiation levels did not increase in some areas beyond safe levels.
The basis of the model is that they looked at the cancer rate of Hiroshima survivors who received very high levels of radiation exposure and assigned a value of N cancer cases per X amount of radiation exposure. Then because they had nothing to go on for low doses, the assumption was made that the cancer rate was linear, so you'd get N/4 cases for an exposure of X/4. Without assigning a threshold exposure value for when you start developing cancer, this is ridiculous and does not at all agree with observation; however, since nobody knew what happens at longer exposure times at lower exposure rates, and thus nobody knows where to put a threshold value, this was the model accepted.
Yes, I watched that Horizon episode too. But that's not what I'm talking about.
> The increase in background radiation will
> absolutely cause a raise in cancers
Increase in background radiation where?
Fukushima, Japan. And the surrounding areas where the winds blew radioactive iodine and cesium.
Do you have numbers to cite here?
Of course I do. Keep radiation sensors all across the globe, including in Japan, and I also collect and measure iodine and cesium from the atmosphere. You don't need specific numbers to demonstrate people will die from this, only to show how many can be expected. The exact numbers are unknown (not just to me, but to anyone).
> there's the matter of radioactive material put into
> environment
Details? Which isotopes are we talking about? Is it worse than your typical coal plant operating for a month?
Cesium and radioactive iodine. Yes, they are worse than a "typical coal plant operating for a month". Also, the explosion most certainly distributed plutonium and uranium into the local area.
> Radioactive elements can never be made safe.
That's just not true. For example, oxygen-15 makes itself safe in a matter of hours (half-life of 120s with decay to a stable nitrogen isotope). A large fraction of the radioactive release from Fukushima has been elements like that.
They can be made non-radioactive, but that's not what I meant. *While* they are radioactive, they are not safe. You are just playing a word-game. Bringing up a short half-life demonstrates this. Plutonium also loses its radioactivity, it just takes a lot longer.
Now maybe what you mean is that long-half-life isotopes can't really be made safe.
Exactly. Word games. Also, short half-life elements tend to be more dangerous.
I agree; the goal would be to prevent them escaping the containment vessel.
And impossible goal to ensure. This is doubly true when you have an explosion that disperses them across a wide geographical area, including ejecting into the atmosphere which gives the elements access to the entire planet.
> Solar, wind, and hydrothermal are much safer.
I'd _love_ to see numbers for this, on comparable scales.
As would I. But many thousands of people are dead from Chernobyl. Somehow I doubt thousands have died from a damn or wind turbine or solar array.
That is, how safe or unsafe is your typical solar plant generating 0.8GW (which is what each of the reactors at Fukushima was generating)? How safe is your typical wind plant of that capacity? Whole-life numbers (i.e. including construction and maintenance) would be good. Problem is, no one actually tracks that stuff, so we don't have those numbers....
> that would otherwise plague a small area around
> the plant
Uh... you can't have it both ways. If pollution from coal plants (including the radioactive elements they put in the air) is localized to a "small area", how is that not the case for nuclear?
Because the coal plant doesn't explode so violently that a plume of radioactive material (including cesium and radioactive iodine) into the atmosphere.
> But since the deaths from nuclear are primarily
> cancers
Citation please?
Physics and biology.
> The best you can do is mitigate the risks.
This is true for all power-generation setups. The only question is when in the life cycle the highest risks are. For photovoltaic solar, for example, it seems to me that they are primarily at the solar cell production stage and the related industrial accidents.
Industrial accidents which are far easier to mitigate, and only affect a small area around the factory.
For hydroelectric they're when your dam is operating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_D
You know you just lost all credibility when you posted that?
You know you just lost all credibility when you failed to back up your claim with any substance?
Radioactive elements were ejected into the atmosphere by the huge hydrogen explosion. Locally, heavier elements were strewn into the environment. These elements will remain in the area for billions of years.