Either way, a -huge- amount of taxpayer's money would be lost in the process. How much was spent between the finalized design of the shuttles and today on possible new launch vehicles? I'd imagine quite a bit, yet now all of that is lost. What makes sense is the either NASA A) continues like it has been or B) gives all of its assets to the collective whole of the USA. B is not going to happen because of so much classified data (after all, build a rocket, attack a nuke and you have an ICBM) and due to the games Obama is playing with our finances A apparently isn't going to happen. So in the end we are going to pay more for companies with more failures than successes for our future in space...
This is equally true whether we've spent nothing or spent a trillion dollars...
Not really. Lets take the space shuttle for instance, if, after Challenger we figured that it was an unreliable means of transport (and as Columbia proved it was unreliable) and then we decided to scrap the entire thing, that would be a bad idea. Sometimes, even with a flawed design it costs less to do something 95% of the way, than it does to do it 100% of the way.
Chances are though, a -lot- of taxpayer funded research is now going to be either A) unneeded (private space companies are going to use a totally different design) B) unaccessable (classified to the companies) C) unfinished or D) going to be redundant (private companies are now going to use taxpayer money to do the same exact thing)
How has this notion that somehow the iPad can't play music while doing other things become such a common myth? The iPhone has been able to do this since day one.
I listen to music from external sources (Pandora, YouTube, Last.FM) far more often than my media collection. I'd expect most other people do too.
...And does anyone ever get internet connections even -close- to the 54 MB/Sec of wireless G? If you are streaming media throughout a home its nice, but most people don't use their wi-fi for that, they use it for internet where the primary bottleneck is the internet service, not the wireless router.
I already showed you how it can multitask. And developers can use multiple threads. The phrase "no multitasking" is simply wrong, since it supports it at all. What you are looking for is "limited multitasking".
I don't really call letting other apps sending notifications in the background to be multitasking. I'd call it hardly any multitasking. If it supported even limited multitasking I should be able to listen to Last.FM/Pandora/Shoutcast while doing something else.
As for censorship, basically - no porn (in an app).
I have not found developer communications to be that bad. If I had a question they answered.
Then how do you explain the thousands of rejected apps where people can resubmit the app and get it approved with -no change- and then the others that never have a clear reason for it being blocked. If communication was there, it would be really easy to find out what was the "problem" and change it. Not true.
As for "who knows when it will be on the market" - try seven to fourteen days. You don't get 140k apps IN the market without a ton being accepted, most rather quickly.
And seven to fourteen days to patch a severe exploitable flaw or to fix some bugs is a really long time.
Since I do this all the time it's not hard to imagine, and it's not as bad as you make it out to be.
So you mean to tell me at this point in time you have a single browser window open, no tabs nothing else, no music, no IM, no compiler running in the background and to say check your facebook you have your browser save your session, close it, open up a different browser check your Facebook, close it, then resume your other work? Because basically that is what the iPhone OS forces you do to.
But not on a netbook compared to the iPad. It's really not that much slower.
On my first generation netbook (EEE PC 4G Surf, Intel Celeron M underclocked to 633 mhz, 512 MB of RAM running Xubuntu) its still a lot faster than my second generation iPod touch.
The problems you list are all true of flash games too. The next time you play one you might want to look around, as there are plenty of ads to be had
There are a few ads, but usually after the first 10 seconds they go away never to be seen again. With iPod games they are perpetually below the screen in many games.
"Vital Part" is bullshit. I've been browsing for a year with click to flash enabled, and as I said I've only needed to enable flash for videos. I've almost never seen it used for nav, since dhtml is so much more flexible...
Perhaps for the sites you visit that is true, for a lot of other people, Flash is really needed to actually do much on the web.
What "Advanced Functions" are you talking about here? You can buy anything right on the device. You can use applications to send files to and from other systems. You could easily never attach it to a computer.
You mean I can add my Amazon/Wal-Mart-purchased MP3 files onto the device and have them show up in music without having to sync them via iTunes?
You mean I can save YouTube videos in memory and have them show up in videos without having to sync it to iTunes?
You mean I can take the device out of the box and start using it when I walk out of the store without having to sync it to iTunes?
You mean I can download OS patches and download them over wi-fi or 3G and install them without havi
I *know* that I'm going to be burning some karma here but to me, "the shareholders made them do it" isn't an excuse for violating human rights.
So what do you do? Do you leave yourself open to being sued into oblivion by angry shareholders? Do you allow yourself to be fired and a head appointed who will violate those human rights? Or do you save your own skin and hope to make a difference later on down the line?
They were just hacked and at the time, it was believed to be the work of Chinese hackers. This I suspect had a lot to do with why Google threatened to pull out of China and stop cooperating with the Chinese govt. In any case, I believe that my original point still stands; Google may have not broken any laws by participating in censorship in China but that does not mean they aren't evil. Willingly abiding by evil laws is evil in of its self.
Not only were they hacked, but Google has in a few short years grown to have a huge presence in China. Before establishing a presence in China, most Chinese wouldn't care if Google didn't deliver search results, now if Google steps out of China they know that something has been disrupted, eventually they will find out it is because the government made them censor things, with this information finding what was censored is simple curiosity, leading to more understanding of it and its evils. People don't like to be knowingly oppressed, but if people don't know they are oppressed, they won't do a thing to stop it.
And I know how we all think we are great idealists and we'd never do anything like this but what would you tell your family? Its not like there are companies having a shortage of labor....
I guess all 140K applications do the same exact thing? Since Apple "doesn't et you do much".
Just because you can build a lot of things with wooden building blocks doesn't mean you can build everything with them. While it is true that there are a lot of applications you simply can't -do- much. Lets see here, no multi-tasking, no "competing" with Apple's own offerings, creative freedoms are stiffed with censorship, little developer-Apple communications, etc. Even when you make an application who knows when it will be on the market or if it will ever be.
The reality is that Apple has a few areas they don't let you go, but everything else is wide open.
...and a lot of those "few areas" are things that are basic. Like running multiple applications, alternate media players, etc.
Imagine if Microsoft exerted as much control over Windows as Apple does over iPhone OS. We wouldn't have: Firefox, VLC, Cygwin, OpenOffice, any sort of "vulgar" content, and a lot less applications. Oh and to add in a bugfix you have to wait who knows how long to get it "approved".
And on an iPad (or iPhone) you can play music while you type a document
You can play music stored on there, but you can't play internet radio in the background, you can't listen to YouTube in the background, etc.
and get a stream of notifications when there's some new twitter or facebook post you really care about.
Which is a terribly poor imitation of true multitasking. Imagine this, all of your tabs refresh automatically yet in order to switch to them you have to close out your current window and reopen it rather than just changing tabs or minimising a window.
Or you can write and jump quickly into a twitter/facebook app to see what is going on and jump back - because the device has been optimized for that use, unlike a traditional PC where application startup is more expensive and lengthy.
Um... On a traditional PC I can guarantee you that switching from one tab to another is a heck of a lot faster than going from the facebook app and back. Same thing with windows, I can switch between a document and my browser in an instant, much quicker than on an iPhone.
Just because you have a terrible way of doing things compared to the rest of the world doesn't mean its "optimized" for it.
What? Where is is major use?
Video, gaming, navigation, etc. While its use has diminished some, its still a vital part of most systems. I don't see it suddenly becoming obsolete anytime soon.
are you really arguing the iPhone/iPad platform is hurting for free casual games?
The problems with "free" iPod games
A) Ad-supported
B) Demo versions
C) Cash influenced (you can complete some of the game normally but you need to use real money to get decent items)
D) Buggy
There are a lot of decent-quality Flash games free of these limitations and they also don't take up space on your iPhone.
There is no Flash based game so compelling it would make people choose a platform,
Ok, lets compare the "iPad" and a typical netbook
iPad: iPhone OS, access to about 150K apps, wi-fi, 16 GB flash memory, must be tethered to a computer to do advanced functions, keyboard sold separately, large captive touchscreen, no multiple app support, partial media support, closed development $599
Netbook: Windows XP/7/Linux, access to millions of programs, wi-fi, 160 GB HDD, can stand on its own, keyboard included, no touchscreen, can run many apps at the same time, full media support, open development $350
Other than the form factor and the touchscreen, the iPad simply loses in comparison to a cheaper netbook. If I'm spending as much as I would on a normal laptop with all the features I need, it should have basic features found in a computer $200 cheaper.
Google is a publicly traded company. They have to answer to their shareholders, lets see here, they could either ignore 1/6th of the earths population or be like every other company and censor. Google has a legal duty to do not what is morally right, but what is in their shareholder's interest. Completely ignoring a billion people is not what shareholders want. Google figured that now would be their best time to speak out against it and have the maximum impact.
It would be one thing if Microsoft, Yahoo, and every other search engine stood up against the Chinese government but they didn't.
It may be described as easy to use, but is it really any easier to use? For example, Chrome may be "easier to use" than Firefox, but is so limited in its options there are a lot of people still using Firefox which is inferior in many features, but has more features that Chrome lacks.
Hulu has been saying that they are going to release an app for the iPhone since April of last year with now no progress. Apple is not the main opponent to HTML5, webGL and advanced Javascript features, Microsoft and IE are. And yes, even when IE doesn't have a majority marketshare it still will be a problem. No one wants to lock out 30% of potential users, and Flash will still be supported on every major desktop platform for the near future and Apple mobile devices make up a tiny amount of marketshare in the grand scheme of things.
And about your other post about Homestar Runner offering stuff via iTunes, that is great, but it still takes up space, isn't fast downloading and may require you to sync your iPad with the computer which, if my iPod is any indication will take longer to "process" the file than it does to actually download it.
Flash would open up a -lot- of content. Things like Hulu, Homestar Runner and many, many Flash games. How many times have you run into sites that are Flash only? There are still a lot of them out there, or sites with HTML, but Flash navigation.
But really why the hell should most people care about flash? So I can't play Bloons Tower Defender 4, or some other stupid game. Give me a real reason to need flash. My guess is whatever your reason, there's already an app for that.
Not yet, but you have to realize that the iPhone was ahead of its time. When it was introduced you couldn't find a captive touch screen phone with Wi-Fi and a decent browser. It didn't exist. Today? There are dozens of them. The iPhone though has an installed user-base, many, many, many applications at this point. Android is getting closer and closer but the number of apps just isn't close to the same and a lot of games are iPhone exclusives from large game studios. Mix this in with no Android phones on AT&T yet, and restrictive contracts and you have a bunch of people who can't jump ship quite yet.
and while there are setups in which it's a pretty big plus to have multiple apps open at the same time, it's an open question whether it's important to have multiple applications open at the same time in the market netbooks are filling into right now.
Has removing features ever been a good feature? There are very, very few setups where it -wouldnt- be a good thing to have multiple applications running the only time I can think of is with a phone or an underpowered machine. The iPad is neither a phone, nor an underpowered machine.
I'm not seeing the iPad displacing the netbook even with.net. The problem isn't that developers can't develop well, the problem is that Apple doesn't let developers do much with iPhone OS. The nice thing about a netbook or a cheap laptop is I can run multiple things. I can keep my Facebook open, my IM open, play music on YouTube and type on a document all at the same time. These are basic things that people do daily, the lack of a major component of today's web (Flash) and the lack of an ability to multi-task is going to kill any chance the iPad had to survive much faster than anything else other than the steep price.
The problem is, iPhone OS. Sure, an iPad might be able to do a lot of the things that a regular tablet can, but can it, say, play a YouTube video in the background while working on something in the foreground? Nope. What about Flash? Nope. Yeah, perhaps Apple will release a breakthrough version that makes it usable, but Apple is going into netbook territory with neither the most user-friendly, innovative, feature complete or robust software library. On paper, the iPad is doomed to fail. Perhaps in person it might be different, but I tend to side with the people who think its going to fail to appeal to the masses.
You realize the insurance companies are making about a hundred bucks a year per subscriber, right?
If you are trying to prove a point, the first step is choosing a neutral source not "politics and culture from a Catholic perspective". Without a valid source you prove nothing. Otherwise I can "prove" that Jews were to blame for 9/11 ( http://encyclopediadramatica.com/JEWS_DID_WTC ) (link is NSFW really), the holocaust didn't happen ( http://www.666ismoney.com/HolocaustAds.html ), oh and the "contrails" you see in the sky are really chemicals ( http://educate-yourself.org/ct/ ).
Whenever some site has an agenda, it usually isn't a valid source.
Its a lot better for the world as a whole if we keep doing small improvements to the internet rather than a total overhaul. For one, it will create a -huge- amount of waste in a short period of time, for another, it will not be entirely global, corporations, governments, etc will aim to reduce global communication, global trade and such. If we do create a "new internet" it should be decentralized as much as possible, nearly untraceable and fully global (no Geolocation-IP address based discrimination), however, governments do not like us to exercise any freedoms they have on paper and corporations want to maximize profits, so this will never happen.
Um, you don't need a government sponsored program. If you look, nearly every abusive monopoly starts by misusing public funds given to them. I highly, highly, highly doubt that Rogers uses no public funds for their network. Government regulation is only needed after the government screws something up, that is the case in almost every single monopoly.
Compare how many times you have to repeat yourself and such and you will see that texting is much more efficient and quicker. Its a whole lot easier to tell someone Help-About Firefox-Credits to view the Firefox credits than walk someone through it.
More expensive
Depends. Its usually a lot cheaper to get an unlimited texting plan than an unlimited voice plan. Its expensive at small levels, but if you do nearly all your communication via text, and a lot of communication, its cheaper.
Not interactive
Interactivity really isn't needed for most communciation though, at least for me, the majority of my communication is best done via text because I generally tell people specific directions, the ability to refer back to them is much more valuable than any benefit via interactivity.
Not real time.
That is many times a good thing. If it isn't real time, you can get replies a lot better than playing "phone tag" via answering machines. Think of all the times that you are "available" but can't talk on a phone but could type? During boring lectures, in a crowded car/bus/train, in the bathroom, while eating, etc.
How about everyone text? Its generally more efficient (no miscommunication), easier to be safer (when you text you still have the message hours down the line and can respond instantly), and in all honesty a lot less rude to the other person. With a phone call, you expect the other person to drop everything and devote at least 75% of their attention to you, with texting it requires a lot less attention.
even in the USA under Medicare, Medicaid, military and veteran health care,
Lul wut? Have you ever -used- or know people who have used those services? They are terrible. Its much worse than any insurance provider and you are basically taken to bottom-barrel care centers where sometimes you wonder if you know more than the doctor... Not to mention the mess of paperwork, etc.
Obviously if your a fortune 500 company, there must be a way to meld a happy work environment with a profitable one? Why isn't this more the rule than the exception?
The problem is, people are desperate for jobs. Fortune 500 companies are pretty well known, one or two employees who might actually do something aren't going to hurt the company. In short, its easier and cheaper to screw entry-level employees than it is to find and make lasting ones.
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Either way, a -huge- amount of taxpayer's money would be lost in the process. How much was spent between the finalized design of the shuttles and today on possible new launch vehicles? I'd imagine quite a bit, yet now all of that is lost. What makes sense is the either NASA A) continues like it has been or B) gives all of its assets to the collective whole of the USA. B is not going to happen because of so much classified data (after all, build a rocket, attack a nuke and you have an ICBM) and due to the games Obama is playing with our finances A apparently isn't going to happen. So in the end we are going to pay more for companies with more failures than successes for our future in space...
This is equally true whether we've spent nothing or spent a trillion dollars...
Not really. Lets take the space shuttle for instance, if, after Challenger we figured that it was an unreliable means of transport (and as Columbia proved it was unreliable) and then we decided to scrap the entire thing, that would be a bad idea. Sometimes, even with a flawed design it costs less to do something 95% of the way, than it does to do it 100% of the way.
Chances are though, a -lot- of taxpayer funded research is now going to be either A) unneeded (private space companies are going to use a totally different design) B) unaccessable (classified to the companies) C) unfinished or D) going to be redundant (private companies are now going to use taxpayer money to do the same exact thing)
How has this notion that somehow the iPad can't play music while doing other things become such a common myth? The iPhone has been able to do this since day one.
I listen to music from external sources (Pandora, YouTube, Last.FM) far more often than my media collection. I'd expect most other people do too.
...Thats assuming you are audited from the BSA. Home users aren't.
Microsoft planned for the cost of hardware to go down. They wanted their profit margins to stay the same.
...And does anyone ever get internet connections even -close- to the 54 MB/Sec of wireless G? If you are streaming media throughout a home its nice, but most people don't use their wi-fi for that, they use it for internet where the primary bottleneck is the internet service, not the wireless router.
I already showed you how it can multitask. And developers can use multiple threads. The phrase "no multitasking" is simply wrong, since it supports it at all. What you are looking for is "limited multitasking".
I don't really call letting other apps sending notifications in the background to be multitasking. I'd call it hardly any multitasking. If it supported even limited multitasking I should be able to listen to Last.FM/Pandora/Shoutcast while doing something else.
As for censorship, basically - no porn (in an app).
Or "foul" language, or any number of ill-defined things. Apple even blocked a Twitter app because tweets could have foul language ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/10/apple-stupidly-rejects-tweetie-1-3-for-foul-language-in-twitter/ )
I have not found developer communications to be that bad. If I had a question they answered.
Then how do you explain the thousands of rejected apps where people can resubmit the app and get it approved with -no change- and then the others that never have a clear reason for it being blocked. If communication was there, it would be really easy to find out what was the "problem" and change it. Not true.
As for "who knows when it will be on the market" - try seven to fourteen days. You don't get 140k apps IN the market without a ton being accepted, most rather quickly.
And seven to fourteen days to patch a severe exploitable flaw or to fix some bugs is a really long time.
Since I do this all the time it's not hard to imagine, and it's not as bad as you make it out to be.
So you mean to tell me at this point in time you have a single browser window open, no tabs nothing else, no music, no IM, no compiler running in the background and to say check your facebook you have your browser save your session, close it, open up a different browser check your Facebook, close it, then resume your other work? Because basically that is what the iPhone OS forces you do to.
But not on a netbook compared to the iPad. It's really not that much slower.
On my first generation netbook (EEE PC 4G Surf, Intel Celeron M underclocked to 633 mhz, 512 MB of RAM running Xubuntu) its still a lot faster than my second generation iPod touch.
The problems you list are all true of flash games too. The next time you play one you might want to look around, as there are plenty of ads to be had
There are a few ads, but usually after the first 10 seconds they go away never to be seen again. With iPod games they are perpetually below the screen in many games.
"Vital Part" is bullshit. I've been browsing for a year with click to flash enabled, and as I said I've only needed to enable flash for videos. I've almost never seen it used for nav, since dhtml is so much more flexible...
Perhaps for the sites you visit that is true, for a lot of other people, Flash is really needed to actually do much on the web.
What "Advanced Functions" are you talking about here? You can buy anything right on the device. You can use applications to send files to and from other systems. You could easily never attach it to a computer.
You mean I can add my Amazon/Wal-Mart-purchased MP3 files onto the device and have them show up in music without having to sync them via iTunes?
You mean I can save YouTube videos in memory and have them show up in videos without having to sync it to iTunes?
You mean I can take the device out of the box and start using it when I walk out of the store without having to sync it to iTunes?
You mean I can download OS patches and download them over wi-fi or 3G and install them without havi
I *know* that I'm going to be burning some karma here but to me, "the shareholders made them do it" isn't an excuse for violating human rights.
So what do you do? Do you leave yourself open to being sued into oblivion by angry shareholders? Do you allow yourself to be fired and a head appointed who will violate those human rights? Or do you save your own skin and hope to make a difference later on down the line?
They were just hacked and at the time, it was believed to be the work of Chinese hackers. This I suspect had a lot to do with why Google threatened to pull out of China and stop cooperating with the Chinese govt. In any case, I believe that my original point still stands; Google may have not broken any laws by participating in censorship in China but that does not mean they aren't evil. Willingly abiding by evil laws is evil in of its self.
Not only were they hacked, but Google has in a few short years grown to have a huge presence in China. Before establishing a presence in China, most Chinese wouldn't care if Google didn't deliver search results, now if Google steps out of China they know that something has been disrupted, eventually they will find out it is because the government made them censor things, with this information finding what was censored is simple curiosity, leading to more understanding of it and its evils. People don't like to be knowingly oppressed, but if people don't know they are oppressed, they won't do a thing to stop it.
And I know how we all think we are great idealists and we'd never do anything like this but what would you tell your family? Its not like there are companies having a shortage of labor....
I guess all 140K applications do the same exact thing? Since Apple "doesn't et you do much".
Just because you can build a lot of things with wooden building blocks doesn't mean you can build everything with them. While it is true that there are a lot of applications you simply can't -do- much. Lets see here, no multi-tasking, no "competing" with Apple's own offerings, creative freedoms are stiffed with censorship, little developer-Apple communications, etc. Even when you make an application who knows when it will be on the market or if it will ever be.
The reality is that Apple has a few areas they don't let you go, but everything else is wide open.
Imagine if Microsoft exerted as much control over Windows as Apple does over iPhone OS. We wouldn't have: Firefox, VLC, Cygwin, OpenOffice, any sort of "vulgar" content, and a lot less applications. Oh and to add in a bugfix you have to wait who knows how long to get it "approved".
And on an iPad (or iPhone) you can play music while you type a document
You can play music stored on there, but you can't play internet radio in the background, you can't listen to YouTube in the background, etc.
and get a stream of notifications when there's some new twitter or facebook post you really care about.
Which is a terribly poor imitation of true multitasking. Imagine this, all of your tabs refresh automatically yet in order to switch to them you have to close out your current window and reopen it rather than just changing tabs or minimising a window.
Or you can write and jump quickly into a twitter/facebook app to see what is going on and jump back - because the device has been optimized for that use, unlike a traditional PC where application startup is more expensive and lengthy.
Um... On a traditional PC I can guarantee you that switching from one tab to another is a heck of a lot faster than going from the facebook app and back. Same thing with windows, I can switch between a document and my browser in an instant, much quicker than on an iPhone.
Just because you have a terrible way of doing things compared to the rest of the world doesn't mean its "optimized" for it.
What? Where is is major use?
Video, gaming, navigation, etc. While its use has diminished some, its still a vital part of most systems. I don't see it suddenly becoming obsolete anytime soon.
are you really arguing the iPhone/iPad platform is hurting for free casual games?
The problems with "free" iPod games
A) Ad-supported
B) Demo versions
C) Cash influenced (you can complete some of the game normally but you need to use real money to get decent items)
D) Buggy
There are a lot of decent-quality Flash games free of these limitations and they also don't take up space on your iPhone.
There is no Flash based game so compelling it would make people choose a platform,
Ok, lets compare the "iPad" and a typical netbook
iPad: iPhone OS, access to about 150K apps, wi-fi, 16 GB flash memory, must be tethered to a computer to do advanced functions, keyboard sold separately, large captive touchscreen, no multiple app support, partial media support, closed development $599
Netbook: Windows XP/7/Linux, access to millions of programs, wi-fi, 160 GB HDD, can stand on its own, keyboard included, no touchscreen, can run many apps at the same time, full media support, open development $350
Other than the form factor and the touchscreen, the iPad simply loses in comparison to a cheaper netbook. If I'm spending as much as I would on a normal laptop with all the features I need, it should have basic features found in a computer $200 cheaper.
Google is a publicly traded company. They have to answer to their shareholders, lets see here, they could either ignore 1/6th of the earths population or be like every other company and censor. Google has a legal duty to do not what is morally right, but what is in their shareholder's interest. Completely ignoring a billion people is not what shareholders want. Google figured that now would be their best time to speak out against it and have the maximum impact.
It would be one thing if Microsoft, Yahoo, and every other search engine stood up against the Chinese government but they didn't.
It may be described as easy to use, but is it really any easier to use? For example, Chrome may be "easier to use" than Firefox, but is so limited in its options there are a lot of people still using Firefox which is inferior in many features, but has more features that Chrome lacks.
Hulu has been saying that they are going to release an app for the iPhone since April of last year with now no progress. Apple is not the main opponent to HTML5, webGL and advanced Javascript features, Microsoft and IE are. And yes, even when IE doesn't have a majority marketshare it still will be a problem. No one wants to lock out 30% of potential users, and Flash will still be supported on every major desktop platform for the near future and Apple mobile devices make up a tiny amount of marketshare in the grand scheme of things.
And about your other post about Homestar Runner offering stuff via iTunes, that is great, but it still takes up space, isn't fast downloading and may require you to sync your iPad with the computer which, if my iPod is any indication will take longer to "process" the file than it does to actually download it.
The problem is, iPhone OS
I never said anything about the hardware, only the OS powering it.
What the hell is it with you flash boys?
Flash would open up a -lot- of content. Things like Hulu, Homestar Runner and many, many Flash games. How many times have you run into sites that are Flash only? There are still a lot of them out there, or sites with HTML, but Flash navigation.
But really why the hell should most people care about flash? So I can't play Bloons Tower Defender 4, or some other stupid game. Give me a real reason to need flash. My guess is whatever your reason, there's already an app for that.
Hulu.
Missing Flash hasn't killed the iPhone,
Not yet, but you have to realize that the iPhone was ahead of its time. When it was introduced you couldn't find a captive touch screen phone with Wi-Fi and a decent browser. It didn't exist. Today? There are dozens of them. The iPhone though has an installed user-base, many, many, many applications at this point. Android is getting closer and closer but the number of apps just isn't close to the same and a lot of games are iPhone exclusives from large game studios. Mix this in with no Android phones on AT&T yet, and restrictive contracts and you have a bunch of people who can't jump ship quite yet.
and while there are setups in which it's a pretty big plus to have multiple apps open at the same time, it's an open question whether it's important to have multiple applications open at the same time in the market netbooks are filling into right now.
Has removing features ever been a good feature? There are very, very few setups where it -wouldnt- be a good thing to have multiple applications running the only time I can think of is with a phone or an underpowered machine. The iPad is neither a phone, nor an underpowered machine.
I'm not seeing the iPad displacing the netbook even with .net. The problem isn't that developers can't develop well, the problem is that Apple doesn't let developers do much with iPhone OS. The nice thing about a netbook or a cheap laptop is I can run multiple things. I can keep my Facebook open, my IM open, play music on YouTube and type on a document all at the same time. These are basic things that people do daily, the lack of a major component of today's web (Flash) and the lack of an ability to multi-task is going to kill any chance the iPad had to survive much faster than anything else other than the steep price.
The problem is, iPhone OS. Sure, an iPad might be able to do a lot of the things that a regular tablet can, but can it, say, play a YouTube video in the background while working on something in the foreground? Nope. What about Flash? Nope. Yeah, perhaps Apple will release a breakthrough version that makes it usable, but Apple is going into netbook territory with neither the most user-friendly, innovative, feature complete or robust software library. On paper, the iPad is doomed to fail. Perhaps in person it might be different, but I tend to side with the people who think its going to fail to appeal to the masses.
You realize the insurance companies are making about a hundred bucks a year per subscriber, right?
If you are trying to prove a point, the first step is choosing a neutral source not "politics and culture from a Catholic perspective". Without a valid source you prove nothing. Otherwise I can "prove" that Jews were to blame for 9/11 ( http://encyclopediadramatica.com/JEWS_DID_WTC ) (link is NSFW really), the holocaust didn't happen ( http://www.666ismoney.com/HolocaustAds.html ), oh and the "contrails" you see in the sky are really chemicals ( http://educate-yourself.org/ct/ ).
Whenever some site has an agenda, it usually isn't a valid source.
Its a lot better for the world as a whole if we keep doing small improvements to the internet rather than a total overhaul. For one, it will create a -huge- amount of waste in a short period of time, for another, it will not be entirely global, corporations, governments, etc will aim to reduce global communication, global trade and such. If we do create a "new internet" it should be decentralized as much as possible, nearly untraceable and fully global (no Geolocation-IP address based discrimination), however, governments do not like us to exercise any freedoms they have on paper and corporations want to maximize profits, so this will never happen.
Um, you don't need a government sponsored program. If you look, nearly every abusive monopoly starts by misusing public funds given to them. I highly, highly, highly doubt that Rogers uses no public funds for their network. Government regulation is only needed after the government screws something up, that is the case in almost every single monopoly.
Slower to write for most of us
Compare how many times you have to repeat yourself and such and you will see that texting is much more efficient and quicker. Its a whole lot easier to tell someone Help-About Firefox-Credits to view the Firefox credits than walk someone through it.
More expensive
Depends. Its usually a lot cheaper to get an unlimited texting plan than an unlimited voice plan. Its expensive at small levels, but if you do nearly all your communication via text, and a lot of communication, its cheaper.
Not interactive
Interactivity really isn't needed for most communciation though, at least for me, the majority of my communication is best done via text because I generally tell people specific directions, the ability to refer back to them is much more valuable than any benefit via interactivity.
Not real time.
That is many times a good thing. If it isn't real time, you can get replies a lot better than playing "phone tag" via answering machines. Think of all the times that you are "available" but can't talk on a phone but could type? During boring lectures, in a crowded car/bus/train, in the bathroom, while eating, etc.
How about everyone text? Its generally more efficient (no miscommunication), easier to be safer (when you text you still have the message hours down the line and can respond instantly), and in all honesty a lot less rude to the other person. With a phone call, you expect the other person to drop everything and devote at least 75% of their attention to you, with texting it requires a lot less attention.
even in the USA under Medicare, Medicaid, military and veteran health care,
Lul wut? Have you ever -used- or know people who have used those services? They are terrible. Its much worse than any insurance provider and you are basically taken to bottom-barrel care centers where sometimes you wonder if you know more than the doctor... Not to mention the mess of paperwork, etc.
Obviously if your a fortune 500 company, there must be a way to meld a happy work environment with a profitable one? Why isn't this more the rule than the exception?
The problem is, people are desperate for jobs. Fortune 500 companies are pretty well known, one or two employees who might actually do something aren't going to hurt the company. In short, its easier and cheaper to screw entry-level employees than it is to find and make lasting ones.