Samsung Galaxy owner here. Upgraded from an S4 to... A Nexus 5X.
I happen to like iPhones. I don't like Apple's walled garden.
Not all of us are so committed. But I think people tend to stick with what they know.
And frankly, any reasonable person will accept that companies make mistakes. One bad product doesn't make all their products bad, and Samsung has more of a track record than a single exploding phone. Just like the iPhone 4 antenna problem didn't prevent the iPhone 5 from being popular. The reasons I went with the Nexus have nothing to do with the exploding Note 7. Next time I change phones I'll look at numerous options, and who knows? Maybe a Samsung phone will fit my needs. Or an iPhone.
You seriously posted a correction and got it wrong?
Or were you just trolling?
GP may be a troll but his spelling, punctuation and grammar were pretty good. Props for getting both a possessive pronoun and a plural possessive correct. Please don't break what doesn't need fixing.
Well, my mom's already dead, so a misdiagnosis wouldn't worry me much anyway.
As for me, it's not the politeness of the receptionist (they haven't got one), but the responsiveness of their service. Their CEO was going to show up at my house on Saturday to try to resolve a modem configuration problem on a new install that we couldn't figure out over the phone. Luckily I stumbled over the incorrect setting and saved him a trip. But that's the level of service they provide.
Their people are polite and helpful and, moreover, respect my own tech abilities enough to work with me and not treat me like an ignorant drone.
This would be Omsoft in Davis, CA in case anybody is curious.
Freedompop has updated since Kitkat but they're complete incompetents; their upgrades fail every time.
I've been playing with Cyanogenmod and AOSP on my Freedompop phone, and when I'm happy with a version of Marshmallow, I'll probably go ahead and do it to my stock Sprint phone as well. Since Sprint can't seem to pull their heads out. Not to mention all the crap they install; at least this way I won't have 20 apps that I never use taking up resources with no way to remove them.
They're not blocking people who use VPN to bypass geo-blockades. They're blocking VPN users, full stop. Without regard to why they're using VPN.
I was rather irritated to find that I could no longer use my VPN to access US content from the US using a US VPN IP address. Guys, I'm right here in Sacramento, and dammit, I'm using VPN for security, not to bypass your pathetic little attempts to screw your customers.
As a result I ended up finding other ways to bypass their restrictions. Which is something I would never have done if they hadn't blocked me in the first place! Morons.
And even "piracy" as originally applied to copyright violations is a deliberately provocative term. I'm pretty sure illicitly copying content doesn't involve capturing ships at sea, raping, pillaging, or killing large numbers of people.
The house we ended up buying in Wyndmoor, PA was on a street like that. Took us half an hour to find it the first time because not only were there two discontinuities, but at one point the street turned and intersected with the main street. I spotted the correct street name while driving around and quite naturally turned onto it... and got completely sidetracked. At least these days a decent GPS will make that less likely to happen.
On a different but related note, the neighborhood I grew up in had the house numbers run up one side and down the other. For years I that was normal... but it drove visitors to the street absolutely insane. I think most of them didn't see the pattern and thought the house numbers were random or something.
What made it even worse was when they extended the street and re-started the house numbers from the next hundred, but I'm not sure what numbering scheme they used. So the house numbers went from 105 on the right side incrementally to about 114, then jumped into the 200s. But start from the left side and it counted from something like 124 backwards to 115, then jumped to the 200s and... I'm not sure how they counted. Second new house on the left was 227.
Eventually they renumbered the entire street odd/even starting at 3 on the right side... my old address was 109 and is now 7. 227 is now 22. Took years for Google Maps to catch up.
"The only people I know still using standalone GPS are over 65 years old. So if by "different client base" you mean, people who bought GPS in their forties and are now retired, then I suppose yes.
I think I know one other person, but it's a hand-held device for geocaching, so not exactly a turn-by-turn navigation system."
And now you know of two. I'm under 60, did not buy the GPS in my forties, and am not retired. Oh, and mine is a turn-by-turn navigation system.
I'll grant you that I bought it a few years ago when smartphones were newer, and I was trying to save money by ridding myself of the data plan. Also I liked the fact that it doesn't depend on having a live connection, which detail has been discussed elsewhere. (Though I'll add that not depending on a live connection also means not using up bits on my data plan. That data plan keeps cropping up.) Losing the data plan didn't work out, but I don't regret the purchase. When I need to navigate, I pull out the Garmin rather than my phone.
I'll also grant you that I'm in my late 50s. So maybe to you I'm just an old guy who never learned how to use one o' dem fancy newfangled "com-pooter" doohickeys.
But I think your statistics are suspect. If ground-based* GPS navigation units are as passe as you seem to think, then why are companies like Garmin and Tomtom and Magellan still in business selling them? And I see at least three more brands I never heard of on Amazon.
Still, could be you're right. Could be just us clueless old farts.
Higgledy Piggledy Albert A. Michelson Did his experiment, Came away miffed; "Need a more accurate Interferometer. Back to the drawing board; Can't get the drift."
Haven't had any problems with the latest couple versions. I'm sharing files between several Windoze computers, a MacBook and an iPhone. Haven't tried any flavor of Linux yet, though now you have me curious.
Exceptions need to be made for people who have legitimate medical reasons for not being vaccinated ("my parents are fuxxing morons" not being one). But it's not a few outliers that are threatening to kill us off.
My company actually has a quasi-legitimate use for curved screens. We make airplane flight simulators, and some of our larger ones have 180 degree wrap-around vision using 5 screens (ok, well, actually [pulls out a calculator] 225 degrees, being 5 sides of an octagon, but you get the idea). Correctly done, curved screens could make the experience more seamless.
Which is not to say that I don't consider them to be a gimmick intended to drive sales.
Something I wouldn't have thought of, seeing as how I'm living in sunny Northern California these days, and snow is a distant memory. I kind a miss digging it, well, hmm, exactly not at all. Nope. Still don't miss digging out of the snow. Ask again next year.:)
Still, surely there are ways of dealing with ice and snow that don't involve sending people 'round to knock it off with broomsticks. Airplanes deal with it all the time. At least in this case you don't get big hunks of metal falling out of the sky if they fail, and there are fewer issues of extra weight, aerodynamics and current draw that need to be considered.
"Point is that there is no winning here. Everything is a compromise."
I'm not sure "winning" is the goal here, and I'm not sure where to draw a line that shows "winning" on one side and "losing" on the other. But I don't think this is a zero-sum game. A compromise, yes, everything is, but I think an improvement, on balance. If you have to install heaters to melt the ice, you save less than if you didn't, but on balance you should save more than if you heat the lights all the time.
It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but it doesn't completely negate the advantages.
There are ways to recycle that stuff here, too, but mostly we're not as good at making it convenient. And it's variable from place to place. How good it is in any one place depends on the whims of the state and local legislatures.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey morons! "Moron" is a medical term for which none of you qualifies.
This has been your pedantic post for the day. Also I, too, had nothing of value to add and just wanted to get in on the moronic thread.
Samsung Galaxy owner here. Upgraded from an S4 to... A Nexus 5X.
I happen to like iPhones. I don't like Apple's walled garden.
Not all of us are so committed. But I think people tend to stick with what they know.
And frankly, any reasonable person will accept that companies make mistakes. One bad product doesn't make all their products bad, and Samsung has more of a track record than a single exploding phone. Just like the iPhone 4 antenna problem didn't prevent the iPhone 5 from being popular. The reasons I went with the Nexus have nothing to do with the exploding Note 7. Next time I change phones I'll look at numerous options, and who knows? Maybe a Samsung phone will fit my needs. Or an iPhone.
What's your payout from the big labels?
You seriously posted a correction and got it wrong?
Or were you just trolling?
GP may be a troll but his spelling, punctuation and grammar were pretty good. Props for getting both a possessive pronoun and a plural possessive correct. Please don't break what doesn't need fixing.
Well, my mom's already dead, so a misdiagnosis wouldn't worry me much anyway.
As for me, it's not the politeness of the receptionist (they haven't got one), but the responsiveness of their service. Their CEO was going to show up at my house on Saturday to try to resolve a modem configuration problem on a new install that we couldn't figure out over the phone. Luckily I stumbled over the incorrect setting and saved him a trip. But that's the level of service they provide.
Their people are polite and helpful and, moreover, respect my own tech abilities enough to work with me and not treat me like an ignorant drone.
This would be Omsoft in Davis, CA in case anybody is curious.
Sprint hasn't updated my Galaxy S4 since 5.0.1.
Freedompop has updated since Kitkat but they're complete incompetents; their upgrades fail every time.
I've been playing with Cyanogenmod and AOSP on my Freedompop phone, and when I'm happy with a version of Marshmallow, I'll probably go ahead and do it to my stock Sprint phone as well. Since Sprint can't seem to pull their heads out. Not to mention all the crap they install; at least this way I won't have 20 apps that I never use taking up resources with no way to remove them.
They're not blocking people who use VPN to bypass geo-blockades. They're blocking VPN users, full stop. Without regard to why they're using VPN.
I was rather irritated to find that I could no longer use my VPN to access US content from the US using a US VPN IP address. Guys, I'm right here in Sacramento, and dammit, I'm using VPN for security, not to bypass your pathetic little attempts to screw your customers.
As a result I ended up finding other ways to bypass their restrictions. Which is something I would never have done if they hadn't blocked me in the first place! Morons.
And even "piracy" as originally applied to copyright violations is a deliberately provocative term. I'm pretty sure illicitly copying content doesn't involve capturing ships at sea, raping, pillaging, or killing large numbers of people.
Usually. I suppose everybody needs a hobby.
My only regret is that I have no mod points to mod you up for the BB reference.
The house we ended up buying in Wyndmoor, PA was on a street like that. Took us half an hour to find it the first time because not only were there two discontinuities, but at one point the street turned and intersected with the main street. I spotted the correct street name while driving around and quite naturally turned onto it... and got completely sidetracked. At least these days a decent GPS will make that less likely to happen.
On a different but related note, the neighborhood I grew up in had the house numbers run up one side and down the other. For years I that was normal... but it drove visitors to the street absolutely insane. I think most of them didn't see the pattern and thought the house numbers were random or something.
What made it even worse was when they extended the street and re-started the house numbers from the next hundred, but I'm not sure what numbering scheme they used. So the house numbers went from 105 on the right side incrementally to about 114, then jumped into the 200s. But start from the left side and it counted from something like 124 backwards to 115, then jumped to the 200s and... I'm not sure how they counted. Second new house on the left was 227.
Eventually they renumbered the entire street odd/even starting at 3 on the right side... my old address was 109 and is now 7. 227 is now 22. Took years for Google Maps to catch up.
"The only people I know still using standalone GPS are over 65 years old. So if by "different client base" you mean, people who bought GPS in their forties and are now retired, then I suppose yes.
I think I know one other person, but it's a hand-held device for geocaching, so not exactly a turn-by-turn navigation system."
And now you know of two. I'm under 60, did not buy the GPS in my forties, and am not retired. Oh, and mine is a turn-by-turn navigation system.
I'll grant you that I bought it a few years ago when smartphones were newer, and I was trying to save money by ridding myself of the data plan. Also I liked the fact that it doesn't depend on having a live connection, which detail has been discussed elsewhere. (Though I'll add that not depending on a live connection also means not using up bits on my data plan. That data plan keeps cropping up.) Losing the data plan didn't work out, but I don't regret the purchase. When I need to navigate, I pull out the Garmin rather than my phone.
I'll also grant you that I'm in my late 50s. So maybe to you I'm just an old guy who never learned how to use one o' dem fancy newfangled "com-pooter" doohickeys.
But I think your statistics are suspect. If ground-based* GPS navigation units are as passe as you seem to think, then why are companies like Garmin and Tomtom and Magellan still in business selling them? And I see at least three more brands I never heard of on Amazon.
Still, could be you're right. Could be just us clueless old farts.
*As opposed to, say, aviation GPS.
...And two different bandwidth allocations?
...because I only ever use passwords while in my office.
Higgledy Piggledy
Albert A. Michelson
Did his experiment,
Came away miffed;
"Need a more accurate
Interferometer.
Back to the drawing board;
Can't get the drift."
You may be thinking of James Burke and his series Connections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
...but it's written for iOS 7 and above. Won't run on my 3Gs.
I feel so left out!
Eh. You non-conformists are all alike.
There are rational explanations for God. There is no rational explanation for Australia.
We're eating our children.
...Assuming they don't degrade.
Haven't had any problems with the latest couple versions. I'm sharing files between several Windoze computers, a MacBook and an iPhone. Haven't tried any flavor of Linux yet, though now you have me curious.
Exceptions need to be made for people who have legitimate medical reasons for not being vaccinated ("my parents are fuxxing morons" not being one). But it's not a few outliers that are threatening to kill us off.
My company actually has a quasi-legitimate use for curved screens. We make airplane flight simulators, and some of our larger ones have 180 degree wrap-around vision using 5 screens (ok, well, actually [pulls out a calculator] 225 degrees, being 5 sides of an octagon, but you get the idea). Correctly done, curved screens could make the experience more seamless.
Which is not to say that I don't consider them to be a gimmick intended to drive sales.
Something I wouldn't have thought of, seeing as how I'm living in sunny Northern California these days, and snow is a distant memory. I kind a miss digging it, well, hmm, exactly not at all. Nope. Still don't miss digging out of the snow. Ask again next year. :)
Still, surely there are ways of dealing with ice and snow that don't involve sending people 'round to knock it off with broomsticks. Airplanes deal with it all the time. At least in this case you don't get big hunks of metal falling out of the sky if they fail, and there are fewer issues of extra weight, aerodynamics and current draw that need to be considered.
"Point is that there is no winning here. Everything is a compromise."
I'm not sure "winning" is the goal here, and I'm not sure where to draw a line that shows "winning" on one side and "losing" on the other. But I don't think this is a zero-sum game. A compromise, yes, everything is, but I think an improvement, on balance. If you have to install heaters to melt the ice, you save less than if you didn't, but on balance you should save more than if you heat the lights all the time.
It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but it doesn't completely negate the advantages.
I like you guys. You do it much better than here.
There are ways to recycle that stuff here, too, but mostly we're not as good at making it convenient. And it's variable from place to place. How good it is in any one place depends on the whims of the state and local legislatures.