At the time, I refused to patent anything...the university technology transfer team use to come to me regularly to ask about licensing the apps, and I pretty much said they were public domain except the content...anyone could take the code and do whatever they wanted, except copyright it and claim it was there's (none of this GPL bullshit...if something is free, it isnt free if you have to make demands on it)...a lot was developed on my own time, and I made certain things that were my own time were not developed / refined on anyone else's purposely.
Why? Because as I found out later...one of my tests was sold by the university for quite a lot of money and they even removed my credits from it (I think the copyright states 'regents of Indiana university' and I've had lawyers come after me twice for having the software listed in my online vita). Sadly, that one had a grant that was administered under the university...so they decided that they owned everything.
I hate web patents in general...I know a few things I've worked on that I think might should have been patented, but I didn't...but appending 'on the web' to a common practice should be obvious to anyone and thus nonpatentable.
I wonder when they consider their earliest creation, because my team most likely has prior art.
I managed a small programming office at Indiana University where we had been using computer based testing since the early 80s. Unfortunately, it meant having to send discs via campus mail or driving across several regional campuses and...I'm lazy. About the time gopher was still popular (preweb) I was writing software to do gopher based tests / surveys without a lot of luck because the medium wasn't great for it...which led to client server apps that worked, but weren't as plastic as I'd like...the web was barely being shown and I readapted my code (err...along with my nerds) to do 'cgi' work (sadly it was an entire web server we wrote that had HyperCard on the backend for storage of tests and surveys).
We demonstrated this at a time few people knew what the web was, and at the time it was generally considered the first test / survey software for the web. Again, mostly because I was lazy. Pretty sure we beat all prior art for this.
Nexis Lexis did this a LONG time ago...I remember taking a law class years ago and a paralegal friend of mine BEGGED for the NL password that came from being a student in that law school...
Why? Because it made her job obsolete to the point that should could PRETEND to do her job, while completing the task in about an hour a week...
"there are people who spend each day reading papers and converting them into a record that the AI can use to train its model?"
That's exactly how it works. You have to get the AI to a certain level before it can take over on its own. When I was doing AI system research, it took about 1000 pages of human rated texts (that had been normalized by several readers each) and at some point, the computers correction mechanisms jumped in and started performing better than any single entity in the group.
Over time, we expanded the pool of documents that could be read, and instead of having a team, we'd just introduce a novel prompt and then have a single person score it for training purposes...and the model was able to integrate what it had learned from previous models AND make a distinction between this document type and the last with much less effort than before. The cost of human involvement went down considerably...so long as there was a connect between inputs and something completely foreign wasn't introduced.
The interesting thing was, over time, enough world languages were introduced through early texts that the model could give higher than chance (I forget the P & the R values for this...but it was far higher than it should have been)...and with just a bit more work on our part, the accuracy went way up (i.e., I did a lot of this myself, not knowing the languages...just trying to game the system until we realized we should actually get someone that knew what the fuck they were doing).
But yes, free form text is something AI can use...will it read it like a human? No. Will you have to dig through to figure out what its outputs mean? Probably. Will it output things that are technically gibberish? Yeah...and sometimes later on, doing things like factor analysis, you realize the gibberish is actually meaningful to a level you never expected...
"And very important: may I ask, with your apps, can you make a comfortable full time living with it, selling and supporting it? That's also part of my point. Most business consume 50-80+ hours per week. If you're only making $20k/year, that's NOT a successful app OR business."
I think $20k for a single app a year is pretty good month. Its also why I'm looking into the Lua framework instead of learning objC -- I know C/C++ but I don't know the ins and outs of objC and the frameworks associated with it. It was also the reason I used Hypercard back in the day (and on the PC side of things, I believe I used Supercard or Livecard or something...it was a pretty good clone!)...I could compile externals / dlls for each of the platforms and do the heavy lifting there...without worrying about the interfacing (or someone looking at the code! I generally did OS the code after I made enough month though because I felt it helped the psychometric community to have functions that worked correctly...you would be amazed at how many psychological or even medical instruments are designed by either content specialists that have no clue about programming...or programmers that don't quite understand why certain things are done certain ways, and decide to take liberties that affect patient care simply because they realize no one is ever going to understand the nerdy side of things).
But using these scripting frameworks? I can actually build something in a few weeks from prototype to delivery and spend maybe an hour or two a week tweaking things.
I can actually hire someone overseas to do the maintenance and leave it at that until the next BIG update...
As for carrying separate devices...then carry an iPad. The iPhone really doesn't get that much use for me any more now that I have the pad...there are little things I use it for, but not like when I first got it. It is nice that I know that a lot of apps are universal and if I don't carry the big guy around, I have something that will work sorta as good.
Or even just hack your iPhone. I have my old 3GS hacked and I can still run things on it...I have a few midi apps that I use on it and pretty much keep solely in the studio. It is no longer a phone, but still useful.
And if I don't make money, I can still write grants and do conferences and get my name out in other ways (I am an academic these days!) Life isn't going to stop because I learned a skill that will be obsolete in 5 years!
BTW hypercard ROCKED...it was incredibly powerful if you knew how to do the right things with it. I used it first as a webserver (I had to build a TCPIP stack for it! C++ externals) and then as a CGI engine for WebStar...I ended up having the first web based testing application based around this product...and students have hated me ever since then! There was NOTHING I couldn't figure out how to do in hypercard...if you wanted to have a quick and painless GUI and then backend it with powerful code...that was the way to go. Hell, my first neural project ended up in this...others were able to do neural nets but it was so incredibly geeky that no one could figure it out. Using neural algs and a HC front end, my team was actually able to get a LOT of research done quicker than guys that had the backing of IBM / Microsoft and otherwise...
I really wish there was something like it today as easy to use and as clean to read...the web has promises that it can, but really...it never was as easy as this language...god I miss it!
Yes. I don't really hang with people that make game rip offs...usually pretty serious apps. Me? My background is in music and psychology (did both professionally for years), and I have two apps I've been working on that won't really be useful for the masses, but would be for specific individuals (i.e., management / roster tool as well as translating a few psychological instruments to iOS...which ironically, one of mine I sold YEARS ago on Hypercard and it sold VERY well...and I am still legally the sole licensee of this test in electronic form).
The one friend I knew did medical instrumentation, and he wrote his in a flash translator...I thought it was strange the desktop version was in flash, but its what he knew. I think he used AIR to make it into a desktopable app...and a year ago, his app was pulled because of the flash background. He had the code and logic down, and rewriting in another language meant hiring someone, but if you have a working app...its far easier to rewrite because you now have a working prototype. Made his money back pretty quickly.
But yes, lots of people don't make squat. Just like in the real world. If you follow the leader instead of forging a new path yourself, you won't get noticed.
As for switching carriers...why does your carried mean anything? Get an ipad...or an itouch...you can STILL run those same apps without the phone.
BTW I don't think too many people are thinking about making millions...if they are smart. Idiots believe what they want to believe. I also know plenty of people putting food on the table with things like this...or suplimenting an already good income.
Oh yeah, and the apps I'm writing are actually crossplatform...
Uses the Lua language...the Android side is a bit buggier, but they will get it sorted out soon enough. I don't have one of those devices, but I plan on getting one soon enough if this works out. Who knows...might actually make enough money to make it worth my while doing xplatform again (last time I did this was compiling code between the Mac and PC in the 80s...and that was a pain in the ass).
With $2.5 Billion in sales of independent software in the last year...thats how.
I know several of developers that HATE the idea of what the iStore is...and at the same time, are making far more money using it, selling their products far cheaper, than they ever did before.
You can either be religious about all of this, or you can be pragmatic.
If you were selling anywhere else, you'd have to deal with CC processing, you'd have to deal with boxed products. You'd have to deal with a shitload of other hassles...in this regard, the only hassle you have to do is to mind read what Steve Jobs is planning on doing next and for most developers, this isn't a problem.
Even a friend that just has a product kicked out recently...said he made enough before it was kicked out...and it isn't like his code isn't reusable. Will fix the problems and resubmit.
And if this is too much of a problem, they can always go program for Android.
"There is absolutely no reason why Android couldn't take over tablets as well as smartphones."
But the thing is, Android really isn't taking over smartphones. Android is still a losing proposition for most companies...you are given the choice of making the same phone as everyone else or customizing the hell out of it to differentiate it and leaving your customers to rot the minute you want to sell something new.
Apple does this to an extent...and it pisses me off when they don't offer upgrades to older phones simply because it goes against sales (i.e., there were features not available on older phones that they were perfectly capible of handling and proving this by hacking the phone and flipping a switch saying THIS IS A 3GS INSTEAD OF JUST A 3G)...but there are a LOT of Android phones out there that never had one upgrade and they are locked down pretty tight.
Beyond this, most of the data shows that when given a free market like Europe where there are iPhones in just about every company, the Android is lagging even if they had a headstart to Apple getting overseas. In the US, a lot of people have Androids because their company didn't have iPhones...and most of the folks I know on Verizon are waiting out their contract so that they can trade in their Android. I haven't met a single person on AT&T that owns an android even though I know they make them for this carrier. Its antecdotal data...so take it with a grain of salt. Beyond that, I really don't like the android phones given that I have an iPhone...but if the iphone didn't exist...I'd probably own one. I picked up a Nook with the idea of hacking one so that I could have a second tablet other than my iPad (I had a second gen Kindle...hacked and new PDF reader installed...wasn't good enough...1st gen Nook...B&W with bottom touch...better...color Nook...still annoying but getting closer...I still think I need multiple tablets to emulate my multiple books / notepads...one to read, the other to write...and still have less weight on me than when I use to have to carry around a DSM-IV and an advanced neurology text during grad school every single day!)
But...pretty much, when given equal time...the Android falls short...it is just too fragmented and and inconsistant to be useful except to nerds...and I really don't care about being a nerd anymore...I'll pay more to see something just work...
It really wasn't intended for more than basic multitasking in mind...at times I am pleasantly surprised...other times, it works exactly as intended...which means the background program goes into a low mem / cpu state with very little else running. The multitasking for the most part was intended simply to communicate with the outside world for things like messaging -- or updating GPS.
Garageband on the iPad is a pretty powerful tool...I was surprised how powerful it was on the iPad considering it is a toy when compared to other recording apps on the Mac (ok...it IS built on Logic's codebase).
I'd be surprised if it could...OK...just checked...couldn't get GB to play in the background with my tab programs (which does audio and would probably conflict anyways) OR even a simple PDF reader...
You do free support for your dads company, and you think you know how he wor ld works.
I run my own business on Unix. I also do all the tech support for it.
Secondly, my office? Could give a about what word processor anyone uses. No one is paying us for our word processing skills. Again, PSYCHOMETRICS. I mentioned this in my post...it is advanced statistics. Excel won't work for what we are doing. R works...its UNIX based. I use it....I also use a lot of tools I've built myself to do specialized stats quickly. Instead we use SPSS and others like this (Actually now its called PASW I think).
I've also run the IT for several larger companies. And I was actually paid for it...unlike you working in your dad's shop. Its funny how the people actually working for a living and having to make budgets run understand TCO where the guy that does work for free and complains about not getting paid...doesn't really know how businesses work.
Sadly, this is how the/. crowd lives...most live at home, never had a real job and still think they know how the world works and wants to tell you about it. Get some experience and then tell me...
Yeah...and this is what short term nerds don't get.
It is much easier to find a Windows Admin than it is a Unix admin...and generally much cheaper. I prefer Unix and I can admin it -- but I try to stay as far away from IT as I can these days...I technically still manage the nerds in my office -- but I can't find a single one that that knows UNIX and works within my price range.
Even in the job I do now (psychometrics / psychological testing) -- I pull up a unix terminal and run unix based CLI stats apps to get my work done and even after trying to explain to my coworkers they can do their job in a 10th of the time if they learn how to use this, they refuse to because running unix or even the standard CLI app is beyond most people.
To find staff members that could do this would be next to impossible as there aren't many psych nerds with the same background I do. So we use what people use...training would be VERY expensive...and by the time they learn, they'd be ready to move on (most are grad students).
So, yes, TCO is very much real. It is also how I justify buying Macs when the rest of my staff uses Windows. Costs more for my MBP than the $500 Dell laptop of the week...but I get so much more done on it.
People that don't understand TCO shouldn't comment on it. Sadly, nerds on this site really don't understand that 95% of the world isn't at their technical level...and once you get out of the IT realm, it is closer to 99% of the population. You quickly figure out that you can use something cheaper and more powerful and get no use out of it -- or you can use something more expensive and less powerful -- but you'll see results from your employees. TCO.
I wish I could keep standard builds around to do this...I work in research with no overlap of duties. I keep ghosted images of every users default build, but this needs to be done with a clean build. That means apps that are installed later are not included.
A lot of apps because of licensing are a pain in the ass to ghost...to reinstall means I have to mess with the old computer to pull it off 'officially' and then put it onto the new. Yeah...I don't get the benefit to choose peoples preferred tools at this level. Lot of stuff that I use that is free is unusable by people that just want to get their work done without being a nerd. I'm happy to run my stats via command line. They aren't.
Beyond that, I'm not given the budget to buy identical hardware. It is 20% of the machines this year, another 20% next...and that complicated things a lot. I'd actually tried waiting to have a common platform...and the money got removed by central admin because they had a shortfall...even though they had signed off on the plan. Meaning that we got screwed. Welcome to the real world.
"deletes all your email, like Google did recently"
You mean, gasp, a free service is worth as much as you pay for it?!?!?!
Please tell me more!
I'm dealing with infrastructure that I pay for. And I'm not banking on everything being in one place. My data is stored offsite, in various locations, and I don't have a single point of failure. I hook up an external HD every few weeks and grab a snapshot in case of a catastrophe, but almost every event that a user lost data -- the new service allows the user to go back and look at archives of different versions of files, and go from there. The benefits far outweigh any of the negatives.
Sounds like an excellent deal. I know a lot of nerds are going to be upset about this, their entire world is built upon servicing computers that take up about 10% of their time and nothing more.
And yet, that 10% of the time is absolutely needed because when a computer is down, it needs to get back up or someone isn't working. I always have to tell my team of nerds that the #1 thing I'm looking for is that they show up...I don't care if they goof off 90% of the time...I care that they are there when problems arise.
I'm going through this sort of thing right now, moving everything to the cloud. Down to one tech person, and I have to do a lot of the tech work myself now (I am mostly a researcher / academic these days...non-tech related) and I can't wait to move this ALL to someone else in a centrally located manner. It will save me time and money and I won't have to worry. I've already moved most of my essential services to the cloud...now to get my desktops managed from the cloud and it will be awesome...
And it works! Thanks for that...isn't as pretty or nice as the built in netflix, but it does the job!
I just hope the plugin devs can keep up faster than Hulu. I had MacMini with Boxee a while ago, and they had to remove the support for Hulu...people figured out ways around it, but it kept getting changed.
Honestly, I'd love to be able to watch the advertisements and support Hulu...actually, I might just sign up for Hulu+ to support them...
"It might turn out to be a paltry sum to have Apple selling their product with interest of seeing it succeed."
I thought News Corp said Apple was taking 30% cut, not 50%...I know that you were only quoting, but 30% is a LOT less than half.
Even so, I delivered newspapers as a kid...from the time I was 11 til I was 15, I had a newspaper route and made a LOT of money. Why? Because as a paperboy, you are technically an independent carrier, and you have to buy the papers from the publisher -- and you mark them up 100% from your wholesale costs. A $0.50 paper cost me $0.25...
Hell, the markup was good enough that when I took vacations or needed help from another paperboy, I just upped my order to the point that instead of telling the other paperboy my customers (and potentially letting them steal them) -- I just bought enough for EVERYONE in my area and told him to deliver every single home. During subscription times when we would get prizes for signing up the most people -- I realized that I could sign someone up for two weeks, get my $5 bonus per person -- and cancel them when it was over and make even greater profit (I ended up winning two trips to disneyland, deliveryperson of the year, as well as almost $10k worth of cash prizes over the 4 years because of this).
What is the point? 30% is not a lot for these companies to get their media -- and their advertisements into the hands of readers. Even at 50%, which I made as a youth (and trust me, I didn't have the pull Apple does) -- they were making money.
Considering the fact that most of the money in this business comes from advertising -- the only real reason you have to pay at all is that the advertisers want to ensure they are putting their products in front of people that actually buy products...not deadbeats.
The only thing holding me back from buying a subscription to this is that it requires me to have an internet connection when I open the app. Rumor is (maybe confirmed yesterday?) that the next OS is going to allow scheduled / background downloads of content like this...and if that happens, I'll probably front for a couple of week to see how well I like it. So far, it seems like a pretty decent magazine. The photojournalism so far is great and is perfect for the medium. Hell, there were a few things I didn't even realize until the second time around (i.e., a few of the photos were panoramic if you touched it)...I'm a huge fan of the Big Picture, and these photos were similar to the ones there...worth paying for just that alone.
Might be the first paper I've subscribed to in years...
"Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."
You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation. People blame the gov't all the time -- without realizing THEY ARE THE GOV'T. As a citizen, you are responsible for your gov't...not the other way around.
"Intel used to do something similar with the Celeron series..."
And it was happening years before that too. I owned a 486SX machine and was looking to upgrade (Doom was big at the time...the original) and played badly on the SX, but was decent on the DX. Turns out that much like the celeron, the math coprocessor was often damaged on the chip and they just downgraded it to the version without the math. But after a while, it was nearly impossible to find one that was actually damaged, but it was still sold this way.
I forget what it took to change the chip...I think there was a jumper that was physically cut and one could solder it, or maybe put it into a different socket that enabled it (it was like 92....I can't remember that far back!) but I remember it wasn't that expensive or difficult -- and much cheaper than buying a new chip. And worked perfectly (and even on the ones that it didn't, there were math libraries that were optimized to look for the errors and would revert to the standard if errors did occur).
"Am I only the one who doesn't need a pat on the back every 5 minutes in order to enjoy something or derive satisfaction from it?"
No, while the vast majority of individuals out there enjoy praise as a motivator, a subset enjoy snark and haughty comments to provide their motivation.
As for the rest, as you say, things are on a continuum. And considering most of what is known in psychology is based off of observational data it gets hard to state that there might be X Events of something, or Y Events. Or because of biases on the observer, they may simply believe that they are being deceitful.
And beyond that, a lot of diagnoses are based on if it is interfering with someones life...a rich bastard with tons of support may not be considered a crazy bastard. Where as the guy on the street pissing on your shoe? Might be. But yeah, there are cases where psychs disagree...its just most of the time when there is, it isn't a pure disagreement.
Court cases? People like to bring in biases...hell, giving another area...a physician for a defendant might claim that bruising on the victim indicates a dissimilar injury, where as a physician for the victim may claim it was because of the violence from the defendant. And here we are talking about another field that ISN'T purely about observational data...and tends to disagree with each other in courts.
But in the real world? Things are generally a bit more agreeable...
Having stated this, I have to note I ditched out on the psych PhD and going back for something completely different...I personally like my science a little more cut and dried (and not really interested in treating the same person for years!)
"the moment that prosecutor had to quote anything that had to do with the DSM IV"
Ain't that the truth. However, it may be different if he pulls up this information to do a cross examination of a witness and uses the information pulled from the DSM to ask questions. A good psychologist will be able to refute a layman easily...even to the point of telling him, "Look...I can only guess at certain interpretations of the law because I didn't go to law school for 2 years, and you'll have to excuse me when I tell you a book of simply classifications for the purpose of medical billing isn't going to override my 4+ years of education".
Sometimes one can argue that these definitions are only the barest briefest of descriptions, other times you just have to drop the hammer and let them know that you are the expert and they need to shut the fuck up...in nicer terms.
As for -- "Diagnosing illnesses is hard. If you just read a list of symptoms, but don't have the training or the education, well, let's just say you can conclude that you have two dozen terminal diseases right now. Mental illnesses doubly so. Even actual trained psychiatrists often disagree about a diagnostic."
One of the biggest problems with the DSM is that it is set up for cross-model descriptions. Most psychologists use a particular model for the basis of their diagnoses, and you may find that one illness is repeated in various ways throughout. I know several psychs that will not give some more well known diagnoses for the fear of stigma...they pick something else...some may choose one because it fits with their rational emotive model while another goes toward their behavioral model. In some models, a particular branch of crazy just doesn't exist...and thus the same diagnosis is broken down into 2 or 3. Hell, some would state this is a better way to attack these problems -- as it becomes a bite sized issue instead of an entire encompassing one.
So personally, I don't particularly look at this as psychiatrists disagreeing more often than not, but coming from a different model or conceptualization. Depending on your focus, you SHOULD look at someone in a completely different way than someone coming from another. Not a disagreement...but sometimes it looks like it is...
It wasn't once you got snarky with the other user and pretty much lambasted anyone that didn't know this.
That's the problem with being condescending instead of being helpful, you decided use that as your first line and now getting hurt because others are condescending to you as well.
I've used unix systems for years and I'd have no clue how to boot into the old kernel either. To me this is like saying vie changed the tires on my car and now the engine won't start. I loth windows and use it maybe once every other week when work demands it, and I could get back and fix a problem like this in 20 minutes...
As for the average user, the average user never have to deal with something like either of these, but I can pretty much guarantee that 9 times out of 10 the user will have a usable windows system sooner than a Linux one...this is something the sniggering asshole patrol will never understand because they are more concerned with showing off their intellectual superiority.
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At the time, I refused to patent anything...the university technology transfer team use to come to me regularly to ask about licensing the apps, and I pretty much said they were public domain except the content...anyone could take the code and do whatever they wanted, except copyright it and claim it was there's (none of this GPL bullshit...if something is free, it isnt free if you have to make demands on it)...a lot was developed on my own time, and I made certain things that were my own time were not developed / refined on anyone else's purposely.
Why? Because as I found out later...one of my tests was sold by the university for quite a lot of money and they even removed my credits from it (I think the copyright states 'regents of Indiana university' and I've had lawyers come after me twice for having the software listed in my online vita). Sadly, that one had a grant that was administered under the university...so they decided that they owned everything.
I hate web patents in general...I know a few things I've worked on that I think might should have been patented, but I didn't...but appending 'on the web' to a common practice should be obvious to anyone and thus nonpatentable.
I wonder when they consider their earliest creation, because my team most likely has prior art.
I managed a small programming office at Indiana University where we had been using computer based testing since the early 80s. Unfortunately, it meant having to send discs via campus mail or driving across several regional campuses and...I'm lazy. About the time gopher was still popular (preweb) I was writing software to do gopher based tests / surveys without a lot of luck because the medium wasn't great for it...which led to client server apps that worked, but weren't as plastic as I'd like...the web was barely being shown and I readapted my code (err...along with my nerds) to do 'cgi' work (sadly it was an entire web server we wrote that had HyperCard on the backend for storage of tests and surveys).
We demonstrated this at a time few people knew what the web was, and at the time it was generally considered the first test / survey software for the web. Again, mostly because I was lazy. Pretty sure we beat all prior art for this.
Nexis Lexis did this a LONG time ago...I remember taking a law class years ago and a paralegal friend of mine BEGGED for the NL password that came from being a student in that law school...
Why? Because it made her job obsolete to the point that should could PRETEND to do her job, while completing the task in about an hour a week...
"there are people who spend each day reading papers and converting them into a record that the AI can use to train its model?"
That's exactly how it works. You have to get the AI to a certain level before it can take over on its own. When I was doing AI system research, it took about 1000 pages of human rated texts (that had been normalized by several readers each) and at some point, the computers correction mechanisms jumped in and started performing better than any single entity in the group.
Over time, we expanded the pool of documents that could be read, and instead of having a team, we'd just introduce a novel prompt and then have a single person score it for training purposes...and the model was able to integrate what it had learned from previous models AND make a distinction between this document type and the last with much less effort than before. The cost of human involvement went down considerably...so long as there was a connect between inputs and something completely foreign wasn't introduced.
The interesting thing was, over time, enough world languages were introduced through early texts that the model could give higher than chance (I forget the P & the R values for this...but it was far higher than it should have been)...and with just a bit more work on our part, the accuracy went way up (i.e., I did a lot of this myself, not knowing the languages...just trying to game the system until we realized we should actually get someone that knew what the fuck they were doing).
But yes, free form text is something AI can use...will it read it like a human? No. Will you have to dig through to figure out what its outputs mean? Probably. Will it output things that are technically gibberish? Yeah...and sometimes later on, doing things like factor analysis, you realize the gibberish is actually meaningful to a level you never expected...
"And very important: may I ask, with your apps, can you make a comfortable full time living with it, selling and supporting it? That's also part of my point. Most business consume 50-80+ hours per week. If you're only making $20k/year, that's NOT a successful app OR business."
I think $20k for a single app a year is pretty good month. Its also why I'm looking into the Lua framework instead of learning objC -- I know C/C++ but I don't know the ins and outs of objC and the frameworks associated with it. It was also the reason I used Hypercard back in the day (and on the PC side of things, I believe I used Supercard or Livecard or something...it was a pretty good clone!)...I could compile externals / dlls for each of the platforms and do the heavy lifting there...without worrying about the interfacing (or someone looking at the code! I generally did OS the code after I made enough month though because I felt it helped the psychometric community to have functions that worked correctly...you would be amazed at how many psychological or even medical instruments are designed by either content specialists that have no clue about programming...or programmers that don't quite understand why certain things are done certain ways, and decide to take liberties that affect patient care simply because they realize no one is ever going to understand the nerdy side of things).
But using these scripting frameworks? I can actually build something in a few weeks from prototype to delivery and spend maybe an hour or two a week tweaking things.
I can actually hire someone overseas to do the maintenance and leave it at that until the next BIG update...
As for carrying separate devices...then carry an iPad. The iPhone really doesn't get that much use for me any more now that I have the pad...there are little things I use it for, but not like when I first got it. It is nice that I know that a lot of apps are universal and if I don't carry the big guy around, I have something that will work sorta as good.
Or even just hack your iPhone. I have my old 3GS hacked and I can still run things on it...I have a few midi apps that I use on it and pretty much keep solely in the studio. It is no longer a phone, but still useful.
And if I don't make money, I can still write grants and do conferences and get my name out in other ways (I am an academic these days!) Life isn't going to stop because I learned a skill that will be obsolete in 5 years!
BTW hypercard ROCKED...it was incredibly powerful if you knew how to do the right things with it. I used it first as a webserver (I had to build a TCPIP stack for it! C++ externals) and then as a CGI engine for WebStar...I ended up having the first web based testing application based around this product...and students have hated me ever since then! There was NOTHING I couldn't figure out how to do in hypercard...if you wanted to have a quick and painless GUI and then backend it with powerful code...that was the way to go. Hell, my first neural project ended up in this...others were able to do neural nets but it was so incredibly geeky that no one could figure it out. Using neural algs and a HC front end, my team was actually able to get a LOT of research done quicker than guys that had the backing of IBM / Microsoft and otherwise...
I really wish there was something like it today as easy to use and as clean to read...the web has promises that it can, but really...it never was as easy as this language...god I miss it!
"Are they really making money off it?"
Yes. I don't really hang with people that make game rip offs...usually pretty serious apps. Me? My background is in music and psychology (did both professionally for years), and I have two apps I've been working on that won't really be useful for the masses, but would be for specific individuals (i.e., management / roster tool as well as translating a few psychological instruments to iOS...which ironically, one of mine I sold YEARS ago on Hypercard and it sold VERY well...and I am still legally the sole licensee of this test in electronic form).
The one friend I knew did medical instrumentation, and he wrote his in a flash translator...I thought it was strange the desktop version was in flash, but its what he knew. I think he used AIR to make it into a desktopable app...and a year ago, his app was pulled because of the flash background. He had the code and logic down, and rewriting in another language meant hiring someone, but if you have a working app...its far easier to rewrite because you now have a working prototype. Made his money back pretty quickly.
But yes, lots of people don't make squat. Just like in the real world. If you follow the leader instead of forging a new path yourself, you won't get noticed.
As for switching carriers...why does your carried mean anything? Get an ipad...or an itouch...you can STILL run those same apps without the phone.
BTW I don't think too many people are thinking about making millions...if they are smart. Idiots believe what they want to believe. I also know plenty of people putting food on the table with things like this...or suplimenting an already good income.
Oh yeah, and the apps I'm writing are actually crossplatform...
http://www.anscamobile.com/
Uses the Lua language...the Android side is a bit buggier, but they will get it sorted out soon enough. I don't have one of those devices, but I plan on getting one soon enough if this works out. Who knows...might actually make enough money to make it worth my while doing xplatform again (last time I did this was compiling code between the Mac and PC in the 80s...and that was a pain in the ass).
With $2.5 Billion in sales of independent software in the last year...thats how.
I know several of developers that HATE the idea of what the iStore is...and at the same time, are making far more money using it, selling their products far cheaper, than they ever did before.
You can either be religious about all of this, or you can be pragmatic.
If you were selling anywhere else, you'd have to deal with CC processing, you'd have to deal with boxed products. You'd have to deal with a shitload of other hassles...in this regard, the only hassle you have to do is to mind read what Steve Jobs is planning on doing next and for most developers, this isn't a problem.
Even a friend that just has a product kicked out recently...said he made enough before it was kicked out...and it isn't like his code isn't reusable. Will fix the problems and resubmit.
And if this is too much of a problem, they can always go program for Android.
"There is absolutely no reason why Android couldn't take over tablets as well as smartphones."
But the thing is, Android really isn't taking over smartphones. Android is still a losing proposition for most companies...you are given the choice of making the same phone as everyone else or customizing the hell out of it to differentiate it and leaving your customers to rot the minute you want to sell something new.
Apple does this to an extent...and it pisses me off when they don't offer upgrades to older phones simply because it goes against sales (i.e., there were features not available on older phones that they were perfectly capible of handling and proving this by hacking the phone and flipping a switch saying THIS IS A 3GS INSTEAD OF JUST A 3G)...but there are a LOT of Android phones out there that never had one upgrade and they are locked down pretty tight.
Beyond this, most of the data shows that when given a free market like Europe where there are iPhones in just about every company, the Android is lagging even if they had a headstart to Apple getting overseas. In the US, a lot of people have Androids because their company didn't have iPhones...and most of the folks I know on Verizon are waiting out their contract so that they can trade in their Android. I haven't met a single person on AT&T that owns an android even though I know they make them for this carrier. Its antecdotal data...so take it with a grain of salt. Beyond that, I really don't like the android phones given that I have an iPhone...but if the iphone didn't exist...I'd probably own one. I picked up a Nook with the idea of hacking one so that I could have a second tablet other than my iPad (I had a second gen Kindle...hacked and new PDF reader installed...wasn't good enough...1st gen Nook...B&W with bottom touch...better...color Nook...still annoying but getting closer...I still think I need multiple tablets to emulate my multiple books / notepads...one to read, the other to write...and still have less weight on me than when I use to have to carry around a DSM-IV and an advanced neurology text during grad school every single day!)
But...pretty much, when given equal time...the Android falls short...it is just too fragmented and and inconsistant to be useful except to nerds...and I really don't care about being a nerd anymore...I'll pay more to see something just work...
It really wasn't intended for more than basic multitasking in mind...at times I am pleasantly surprised...other times, it works exactly as intended...which means the background program goes into a low mem / cpu state with very little else running. The multitasking for the most part was intended simply to communicate with the outside world for things like messaging -- or updating GPS.
Garageband on the iPad is a pretty powerful tool...I was surprised how powerful it was on the iPad considering it is a toy when compared to other recording apps on the Mac (ok...it IS built on Logic's codebase).
I'd be surprised if it could...OK...just checked...couldn't get GB to play in the background with my tab programs (which does audio and would probably conflict anyways) OR even a simple PDF reader...
Ahhh....waaaaah!
You do free support for your dads company, and you think you know how he wor ld works.
I run my own business on Unix. I also do all the tech support for it.
Secondly, my office? Could give a about what word processor anyone uses. No one is paying us for our word processing skills. Again, PSYCHOMETRICS. I mentioned this in my post...it is advanced statistics. Excel won't work for what we are doing. R works...its UNIX based. I use it....I also use a lot of tools I've built myself to do specialized stats quickly. Instead we use SPSS and others like this (Actually now its called PASW I think).
I've also run the IT for several larger companies. And I was actually paid for it...unlike you working in your dad's shop. Its funny how the people actually working for a living and having to make budgets run understand TCO where the guy that does work for free and complains about not getting paid...doesn't really know how businesses work.
Sadly, this is how the /. crowd lives...most live at home, never had a real job and still think they know how the world works and wants to tell you about it. Get some experience and then tell me...
Yeah...and this is what short term nerds don't get.
It is much easier to find a Windows Admin than it is a Unix admin...and generally much cheaper. I prefer Unix and I can admin it -- but I try to stay as far away from IT as I can these days...I technically still manage the nerds in my office -- but I can't find a single one that that knows UNIX and works within my price range.
Even in the job I do now (psychometrics / psychological testing) -- I pull up a unix terminal and run unix based CLI stats apps to get my work done and even after trying to explain to my coworkers they can do their job in a 10th of the time if they learn how to use this, they refuse to because running unix or even the standard CLI app is beyond most people.
To find staff members that could do this would be next to impossible as there aren't many psych nerds with the same background I do. So we use what people use...training would be VERY expensive...and by the time they learn, they'd be ready to move on (most are grad students).
So, yes, TCO is very much real. It is also how I justify buying Macs when the rest of my staff uses Windows. Costs more for my MBP than the $500 Dell laptop of the week...but I get so much more done on it.
People that don't understand TCO shouldn't comment on it. Sadly, nerds on this site really don't understand that 95% of the world isn't at their technical level...and once you get out of the IT realm, it is closer to 99% of the population. You quickly figure out that you can use something cheaper and more powerful and get no use out of it -- or you can use something more expensive and less powerful -- but you'll see results from your employees. TCO.
I wish I could keep standard builds around to do this...I work in research with no overlap of duties. I keep ghosted images of every users default build, but this needs to be done with a clean build. That means apps that are installed later are not included.
A lot of apps because of licensing are a pain in the ass to ghost...to reinstall means I have to mess with the old computer to pull it off 'officially' and then put it onto the new. Yeah...I don't get the benefit to choose peoples preferred tools at this level. Lot of stuff that I use that is free is unusable by people that just want to get their work done without being a nerd. I'm happy to run my stats via command line. They aren't.
Beyond that, I'm not given the budget to buy identical hardware. It is 20% of the machines this year, another 20% next...and that complicated things a lot. I'd actually tried waiting to have a common platform...and the money got removed by central admin because they had a shortfall...even though they had signed off on the plan. Meaning that we got screwed. Welcome to the real world.
"deletes all your email, like Google did recently"
You mean, gasp, a free service is worth as much as you pay for it?!?!?!
Please tell me more!
I'm dealing with infrastructure that I pay for. And I'm not banking on everything being in one place. My data is stored offsite, in various locations, and I don't have a single point of failure. I hook up an external HD every few weeks and grab a snapshot in case of a catastrophe, but almost every event that a user lost data -- the new service allows the user to go back and look at archives of different versions of files, and go from there. The benefits far outweigh any of the negatives.
Sounds like an excellent deal. I know a lot of nerds are going to be upset about this, their entire world is built upon servicing computers that take up about 10% of their time and nothing more.
And yet, that 10% of the time is absolutely needed because when a computer is down, it needs to get back up or someone isn't working. I always have to tell my team of nerds that the #1 thing I'm looking for is that they show up...I don't care if they goof off 90% of the time...I care that they are there when problems arise.
I'm going through this sort of thing right now, moving everything to the cloud. Down to one tech person, and I have to do a lot of the tech work myself now (I am mostly a researcher / academic these days...non-tech related) and I can't wait to move this ALL to someone else in a centrally located manner. It will save me time and money and I won't have to worry. I've already moved most of my essential services to the cloud...now to get my desktops managed from the cloud and it will be awesome...
And it works! Thanks for that...isn't as pretty or nice as the built in netflix, but it does the job!
I just hope the plugin devs can keep up faster than Hulu. I had MacMini with Boxee a while ago, and they had to remove the support for Hulu...people figured out ways around it, but it kept getting changed.
Honestly, I'd love to be able to watch the advertisements and support Hulu...actually, I might just sign up for Hulu+ to support them...
Thanks! This is pretty cool!
I have been tryin to figure out how to get Hulu on this same combo...what plugin are you using?
"It might turn out to be a paltry sum to have Apple selling their product with interest of seeing it succeed."
I thought News Corp said Apple was taking 30% cut, not 50%...I know that you were only quoting, but 30% is a LOT less than half.
Even so, I delivered newspapers as a kid...from the time I was 11 til I was 15, I had a newspaper route and made a LOT of money. Why? Because as a paperboy, you are technically an independent carrier, and you have to buy the papers from the publisher -- and you mark them up 100% from your wholesale costs. A $0.50 paper cost me $0.25...
Hell, the markup was good enough that when I took vacations or needed help from another paperboy, I just upped my order to the point that instead of telling the other paperboy my customers (and potentially letting them steal them) -- I just bought enough for EVERYONE in my area and told him to deliver every single home. During subscription times when we would get prizes for signing up the most people -- I realized that I could sign someone up for two weeks, get my $5 bonus per person -- and cancel them when it was over and make even greater profit (I ended up winning two trips to disneyland, deliveryperson of the year, as well as almost $10k worth of cash prizes over the 4 years because of this).
What is the point? 30% is not a lot for these companies to get their media -- and their advertisements into the hands of readers. Even at 50%, which I made as a youth (and trust me, I didn't have the pull Apple does) -- they were making money.
Considering the fact that most of the money in this business comes from advertising -- the only real reason you have to pay at all is that the advertisers want to ensure they are putting their products in front of people that actually buy products...not deadbeats.
The only thing holding me back from buying a subscription to this is that it requires me to have an internet connection when I open the app. Rumor is (maybe confirmed yesterday?) that the next OS is going to allow scheduled / background downloads of content like this...and if that happens, I'll probably front for a couple of week to see how well I like it. So far, it seems like a pretty decent magazine. The photojournalism so far is great and is perfect for the medium. Hell, there were a few things I didn't even realize until the second time around (i.e., a few of the photos were panoramic if you touched it)...I'm a huge fan of the Big Picture, and these photos were similar to the ones there...worth paying for just that alone.
Might be the first paper I've subscribed to in years...
If you can't afford $75 a year, then your taxes will be much lower...just like the millionaire pays a lot more in taxes than you do...in theory.
"Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."
You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation. People blame the gov't all the time -- without realizing THEY ARE THE GOV'T. As a citizen, you are responsible for your gov't...not the other way around.
"Intel used to do something similar with the Celeron series..."
And it was happening years before that too. I owned a 486SX machine and was looking to upgrade (Doom was big at the time...the original) and played badly on the SX, but was decent on the DX. Turns out that much like the celeron, the math coprocessor was often damaged on the chip and they just downgraded it to the version without the math. But after a while, it was nearly impossible to find one that was actually damaged, but it was still sold this way.
I forget what it took to change the chip...I think there was a jumper that was physically cut and one could solder it, or maybe put it into a different socket that enabled it (it was like 92....I can't remember that far back!) but I remember it wasn't that expensive or difficult -- and much cheaper than buying a new chip. And worked perfectly (and even on the ones that it didn't, there were math libraries that were optimized to look for the errors and would revert to the standard if errors did occur).
But yeah, this has been going on for YEARS....
"Am I only the one who doesn't need a pat on the back every 5 minutes in order to enjoy something or derive satisfaction from it?"
No, while the vast majority of individuals out there enjoy praise as a motivator, a subset enjoy snark and haughty comments to provide their motivation.
Then again, some us prefer both.
Well, I agree on the lawyer bit!
As for the rest, as you say, things are on a continuum. And considering most of what is known in psychology is based off of observational data it gets hard to state that there might be X Events of something, or Y Events. Or because of biases on the observer, they may simply believe that they are being deceitful.
And beyond that, a lot of diagnoses are based on if it is interfering with someones life...a rich bastard with tons of support may not be considered a crazy bastard. Where as the guy on the street pissing on your shoe? Might be. But yeah, there are cases where psychs disagree...its just most of the time when there is, it isn't a pure disagreement.
Court cases? People like to bring in biases...hell, giving another area...a physician for a defendant might claim that bruising on the victim indicates a dissimilar injury, where as a physician for the victim may claim it was because of the violence from the defendant. And here we are talking about another field that ISN'T purely about observational data...and tends to disagree with each other in courts.
But in the real world? Things are generally a bit more agreeable...
Having stated this, I have to note I ditched out on the psych PhD and going back for something completely different...I personally like my science a little more cut and dried (and not really interested in treating the same person for years!)
"the moment that prosecutor had to quote anything that had to do with the DSM IV"
Ain't that the truth. However, it may be different if he pulls up this information to do a cross examination of a witness and uses the information pulled from the DSM to ask questions. A good psychologist will be able to refute a layman easily...even to the point of telling him, "Look...I can only guess at certain interpretations of the law because I didn't go to law school for 2 years, and you'll have to excuse me when I tell you a book of simply classifications for the purpose of medical billing isn't going to override my 4+ years of education".
Sometimes one can argue that these definitions are only the barest briefest of descriptions, other times you just have to drop the hammer and let them know that you are the expert and they need to shut the fuck up...in nicer terms.
As for -- "Diagnosing illnesses is hard. If you just read a list of symptoms, but don't have the training or the education, well, let's just say you can conclude that you have two dozen terminal diseases right now. Mental illnesses doubly so. Even actual trained psychiatrists often disagree about a diagnostic."
One of the biggest problems with the DSM is that it is set up for cross-model descriptions. Most psychologists use a particular model for the basis of their diagnoses, and you may find that one illness is repeated in various ways throughout. I know several psychs that will not give some more well known diagnoses for the fear of stigma...they pick something else...some may choose one because it fits with their rational emotive model while another goes toward their behavioral model. In some models, a particular branch of crazy just doesn't exist...and thus the same diagnosis is broken down into 2 or 3. Hell, some would state this is a better way to attack these problems -- as it becomes a bite sized issue instead of an entire encompassing one.
So personally, I don't particularly look at this as psychiatrists disagreeing more often than not, but coming from a different model or conceptualization. Depending on your focus, you SHOULD look at someone in a completely different way than someone coming from another. Not a disagreement...but sometimes it looks like it is...
It wasn't once you got snarky with the other user and pretty much lambasted anyone that didn't know this.
That's the problem with being condescending instead of being helpful, you decided use that as your first line and now getting hurt because others are condescending to you as well.
I've used unix systems for years and I'd have no clue how to boot into the old kernel either. To me this is like saying vie changed the tires on my car and now the engine won't start. I loth windows and use it maybe once every other week when work demands it, and I could get back and fix a problem like this in 20 minutes...
As for the average user, the average user never have to deal with something like either of these, but I can pretty much guarantee that 9 times out of 10 the user will have a usable windows system sooner than a Linux one...this is something the sniggering asshole patrol will never understand because they are more concerned with showing off their intellectual superiority.