I got one, and frankly, I loves it. First some background. I'm a medical student, who's abroad for school, so I can't take a ton of books. And I love to read, so I had a bit of a problem, re-reading the same books over and over again.
The Kindle has been great. It's small enough to fit in one of the pockets of my bag, so I take it everywhere, and it always gets people looking at it, saying how cool it is.
It's not without problems though, since I'm overseas, I can't use the coolest part, which is the FREE internet. And that makes me sad, but it's ok, i can buy books and transfer them to my Kindle.
Oh, and to all the people who say it's ugly...Yes. Yes it is. But it's ugly like a stealth fighter, or a Tank. It's not a shiny plastic and steel thing, but it looks like it means bisness. It's there to do one thing, and it does it very very well.
Well, of course! Apple is the underdog. Never mind the fact that is has the number one selling music player, and the market share is increasing, and that iTunes is extremely popular, and people are killing others for a iPhone...
Oh wait. Maybe Apple ISN'T the underdog. Maybe its practices are just the same as any other large company that wants to make a profit. It's no different from any others in that respect, in fact, it may be worse, as people excuse Apple for a lot, as they still think of it as the underdog.
Well, the problem is that 90% of the photos are crap. And by that, I mean, overexposed, not centered in the shot, cut of or what have you. I've heard that National Geographic photographers consider it a good day when one out of 100 photos they've taken is good enough for NG.
Also, from a far more cynical point of view, do you really think NASA is going to give out the crappy out of focus pictures, or the crystal clear ones that inspire people to give them more money?
Remember, NASA has a budget of something like 1% of the Military budget. They can't afford to have public opinion go against them one inch.
I remember I had a huge argument with my sister over which was more, a few or a couple. She insisted that a few is more, as a couple is two. I sad a few is less, as in if you were offered a few bags of gold and a couple bags of gold, I'd think that a few was 2-3, and couple was 3-5.
Seems that what they're calling "Numbers" are the same as our quantity descriptors. Small number, medium number, and large number. Seems reasonable, I'm no anthropologist, but I think that numbers really start when you have a lot of trade going on, when you have to KNOW that 5 ears of corn is worth 1 basket of peas.
A large group kills a big monster. Then, in a shocking twist, goes back to do it again! As their leader said, "He's got a 10% Rare drop rate. Gotta get that full set."
Next week, watch as people complain about the latest changes, and kill 10 of the local wildlife for a trader!
To be honest, I don't see why people are against having chips implanted. People always are howling about Big Brother when you talk about stuff like that, but think about it this way.
As far as I know, Passive RFID chips, the kind that are implanted in pets and, most likely, people, have a "Range" of 10 cm to a few meters. Unless the goverment is going to place readers every 10 feet, you're not going to be tracked. I'm not saying that they won't register every time you enter a building, but they do that now in many places.
I think it's like Credit Cards in a way. I personaly would like to buy stuff and have the store just push a button, it reads my RFID, pops up a photo of me, the store hits "OK" and I walk out. Of course there would be ID theft, but there's that now.
Not sure when it will happen, but I personaly don't see it as the end of all privacy and goodness in the world.
A kind of similar tale for me. My college has a program where it "gives" the new students a laptop. It's a basic model, HP Compaq 6515b. Does it's job, not high end, but it does what it's supposed to. About a month before we got ours, we hear that the incoming semester received Macbooks. I've no idea what kind, but they were the same price as the Compaqs, so that may give you a ballpark.
And let me tell you, my friends, were all sorts of pissed. I asked them why, because logicaly, if the whole school uses Windows PCs, having macs would only complicate matters. Their responce, and I'm not making this up.
"Macs are pretty. I don't care how good they are, but they look nice. I feel like a REAL college student if I have a Mac on my desk."
Shocked me, and nothing I said could convince them that they wanted a Mac because they were pretty. IF they wanted it because of ANY other reason, i'd been fine. But just because it's shiny...it was just beyond me. Apple sells image, which is why they have whole stores set up to show it off.
That is an excellent point, but as they say, negative news sells. Do you really think we'd be having this discussion if the article was about how great it was that E-mail has become part of society so quickly, 80% in 12 years!
Of course not. But turn that same stat negative, and now you've got a story. No one cares that 95% of homes fail to burn down.
But can't you make more places to build them? I realize that you may need specific hardware to forge this stuff out of one piece of steel, but seems to me that if you really needed them, you could make more than one factory.
One thing that is worthy of note is that China has a history of stealing tech, so they really don't NEED to make huge leaps, they just need to find the other tech and work on improving it from there. After all, which is harder, to design a car from scratch, or steal plans for a car and improve those plans?
It seems to me that Microsoft has missed the point a little bit. The whole reason for the OLPC is to get as many laptops out there as possible. A redesign would take a long time, cost money, and have no real benefit. If they REALLLY wanted Windows on the OLPC they could redesign it do it would work on less than 1 gb of memory, but that's Logical.
There's a few reasons why people want to design a humanoid robot. First, there's no need for translation. For Boxy Robot, how's it going to get up stairs? The walker one can do that no problem. Secondly, a robot on wheels isn't as able to deal with changes in terrain as a walker would be. Adaptability is much higher when you have legs than when you have wheels.
I think my main problem with this is what you just said, "Allow Apple's customers to legal and easily (Applely) get content on to Apple's devices." What if i don't have a iPod, I have a Zune. Or a Zen player. Or any other type of portable media player. Am I going to be able to play these files on those devices? I'd be worried that It would be something like, "Transfer the movie to your iPod! Just your iPod though. Got a different kind of player? Too bad."
True, once you get past a certan point, streaming or downloading will beat having a hard copy. It works now for games, I have a bunch of games on Steam that I've never owned a hard copy for. What I'm worried about though, is them going the way of Divx. So long as they don't try to screw over the customers, which I know, will be very difficult, then I think it could work. Heh, It'd save space for sure.
It also doesn't make much logical sense. Bay claims that MS is prolonging the format war until they can get downloadable video working right, then swoop in and be declared "A winner is you!" Seems to me that Bay as been watching too many of his own movies.
True, Downloadable video is nice, as is stuff like Video on demand. I can picture telling my kids that "In my day, if you wanted to watch a show? You just had to wait until it was on." However, I don't think that downloadable movies will ever overtake actually having the disk in hand. If I want to watch Army Of Darkness, I don't want to wait 20 minutes for it to stream, then hope that my connection stays steady enough to prevent it from freezing. Just pop in the disk, no problem. The more steps you take from wanting to watch a movie, and pressing play, the worse off it is, in my opinion.
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I got one, and frankly, I loves it. First some background. I'm a medical student, who's abroad for school, so I can't take a ton of books. And I love to read, so I had a bit of a problem, re-reading the same books over and over again.
The Kindle has been great. It's small enough to fit in one of the pockets of my bag, so I take it everywhere, and it always gets people looking at it, saying how cool it is.
It's not without problems though, since I'm overseas, I can't use the coolest part, which is the FREE internet. And that makes me sad, but it's ok, i can buy books and transfer them to my Kindle.
Oh, and to all the people who say it's ugly...Yes. Yes it is. But it's ugly like a stealth fighter, or a Tank. It's not a shiny plastic and steel thing, but it looks like it means bisness. It's there to do one thing, and it does it very very well.
Well, of course! Apple is the underdog. Never mind the fact that is has the number one selling music player, and the market share is increasing, and that iTunes is extremely popular, and people are killing others for a iPhone...
Oh wait. Maybe Apple ISN'T the underdog. Maybe its practices are just the same as any other large company that wants to make a profit. It's no different from any others in that respect, in fact, it may be worse, as people excuse Apple for a lot, as they still think of it as the underdog.
True enough :) I'd eat there :-D
Well, the problem is that 90% of the photos are crap. And by that, I mean, overexposed, not centered in the shot, cut of or what have you. I've heard that National Geographic photographers consider it a good day when one out of 100 photos they've taken is good enough for NG.
Also, from a far more cynical point of view, do you really think NASA is going to give out the crappy out of focus pictures, or the crystal clear ones that inspire people to give them more money?
Remember, NASA has a budget of something like 1% of the Military budget. They can't afford to have public opinion go against them one inch.
it just chooses its friends wisely.
And this is the problem Linux has, the attitude that, "It's not too complex, you're too stupid."
I remember I had a huge argument with my sister over which was more, a few or a couple. She insisted that a few is more, as a couple is two. I sad a few is less, as in if you were offered a few bags of gold and a couple bags of gold, I'd think that a few was 2-3, and couple was 3-5.
Seems that what they're calling "Numbers" are the same as our quantity descriptors. Small number, medium number, and large number. Seems reasonable, I'm no anthropologist, but I think that numbers really start when you have a lot of trade going on, when you have to KNOW that 5 ears of corn is worth 1 basket of peas.
In fact, Forget the laptop and the E-paper!
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
A large group kills a big monster. Then, in a shocking twist, goes back to do it again! As their leader said, "He's got a 10% Rare drop rate. Gotta get that full set."
Next week, watch as people complain about the latest changes, and kill 10 of the local wildlife for a trader!
To be honest, I don't see why people are against having chips implanted. People always are howling about Big Brother when you talk about stuff like that, but think about it this way.
As far as I know, Passive RFID chips, the kind that are implanted in pets and, most likely, people, have a "Range" of 10 cm to a few meters. Unless the goverment is going to place readers every 10 feet, you're not going to be tracked. I'm not saying that they won't register every time you enter a building, but they do that now in many places.
I think it's like Credit Cards in a way. I personaly would like to buy stuff and have the store just push a button, it reads my RFID, pops up a photo of me, the store hits "OK" and I walk out. Of course there would be ID theft, but there's that now.
Not sure when it will happen, but I personaly don't see it as the end of all privacy and goodness in the world.
Well, you're missing the point. Lock in is a very bad thing. Unless it's Apple doing it. Then it's very very good.
I blame myself.
A kind of similar tale for me. My college has a program where it "gives" the new students a laptop. It's a basic model, HP Compaq 6515b. Does it's job, not high end, but it does what it's supposed to. About a month before we got ours, we hear that the incoming semester received Macbooks. I've no idea what kind, but they were the same price as the Compaqs, so that may give you a ballpark.
And let me tell you, my friends, were all sorts of pissed. I asked them why, because logicaly, if the whole school uses Windows PCs, having macs would only complicate matters. Their responce, and I'm not making this up.
"Macs are pretty. I don't care how good they are, but they look nice. I feel like a REAL college student if I have a Mac on my desk."
Shocked me, and nothing I said could convince them that they wanted a Mac because they were pretty. IF they wanted it because of ANY other reason, i'd been fine. But just because it's shiny...it was just beyond me. Apple sells image, which is why they have whole stores set up to show it off.
That is an excellent point, but as they say, negative news sells. Do you really think we'd be having this discussion if the article was about how great it was that E-mail has become part of society so quickly, 80% in 12 years! Of course not. But turn that same stat negative, and now you've got a story. No one cares that 95% of homes fail to burn down.
Umm...say...what WAS the cause of the flood of traffic? Did they get some particularly juicy bit of a leak? Why the huge spike now?
But can't you make more places to build them? I realize that you may need specific hardware to forge this stuff out of one piece of steel, but seems to me that if you really needed them, you could make more than one factory.
One thing that is worthy of note is that China has a history of stealing tech, so they really don't NEED to make huge leaps, they just need to find the other tech and work on improving it from there. After all, which is harder, to design a car from scratch, or steal plans for a car and improve those plans?
Oh yah? I enjoy the taste of fresh grilled burgers. Also, Coke is a tasty beverage.
It seems to me that Microsoft has missed the point a little bit. The whole reason for the OLPC is to get as many laptops out there as possible. A redesign would take a long time, cost money, and have no real benefit. If they REALLLY wanted Windows on the OLPC they could redesign it do it would work on less than 1 gb of memory, but that's Logical.
There's a few reasons why people want to design a humanoid robot. First, there's no need for translation. For Boxy Robot, how's it going to get up stairs? The walker one can do that no problem. Secondly, a robot on wheels isn't as able to deal with changes in terrain as a walker would be. Adaptability is much higher when you have legs than when you have wheels.
I think my main problem with this is what you just said, "Allow Apple's customers to legal and easily (Applely) get content on to Apple's devices." What if i don't have a iPod, I have a Zune. Or a Zen player. Or any other type of portable media player. Am I going to be able to play these files on those devices? I'd be worried that It would be something like, "Transfer the movie to your iPod! Just your iPod though. Got a different kind of player? Too bad."
True, once you get past a certan point, streaming or downloading will beat having a hard copy. It works now for games, I have a bunch of games on Steam that I've never owned a hard copy for. What I'm worried about though, is them going the way of Divx. So long as they don't try to screw over the customers, which I know, will be very difficult, then I think it could work. Heh, It'd save space for sure.
Heh, what I find funny is that if, say, Apple, did the exact same thing, people would be happy.
It also doesn't make much logical sense. Bay claims that MS is prolonging the format war until they can get downloadable video working right, then swoop in and be declared "A winner is you!" Seems to me that Bay as been watching too many of his own movies.
True, Downloadable video is nice, as is stuff like Video on demand. I can picture telling my kids that "In my day, if you wanted to watch a show? You just had to wait until it was on." However, I don't think that downloadable movies will ever overtake actually having the disk in hand. If I want to watch Army Of Darkness, I don't want to wait 20 minutes for it to stream, then hope that my connection stays steady enough to prevent it from freezing. Just pop in the disk, no problem. The more steps you take from wanting to watch a movie, and pressing play, the worse off it is, in my opinion.