So, this is an excuse for *them*, but not for Apple ? I mean, who had heard of this obscure VOIP company before now ? That VOIP company that never trademarked anything or held the domain name...
But if you do want to assert the right of a trademark, you have to defend it. Why, in that case, did they not defend their name against he previous owners of the cloud domain ? Again, I think they're just out to make some quick cash at Apple's expense.
Reading fortune's coverage, it seems there was no record of cloud communications having a trademark. Is this another instance of suing someone just because they have cash, I wonder...
And maybe it's just my innate cynicism showing through, but when anyone introduces criticism of anything by saying "I can honestly say...", it leads me to believe they are inherently biased against the thing they're complaining about, and whatever they say ought to be treated appropriately. What they're really saying is "even though I in fact loath the thought of (insert XXX), I would still be criticizing them if I were neutral on the matter". Bias, like truth, will out.
The point that is being made is that creating great products is a skill that has to mesh technology with design. I don't mean the "design" that figures out how rounded the corners on a widget ought to be, I mean the "design" that starts from the ground up. How are we going to interact with this thing? What is the metaphor we're trying to sell to the user so they can become familiar with it easier? How can we make it more pleasant to use ?
Engineering is all about compromises, trading off X for Y, and what Apple does is engineering. It may not be solely software- or hardware-engineering (though they do a lot that you are failing to give them credit for), but it's still work, it's still hard, and it's still innovative. That's why 'harperska' was expressing surprise, and that's the point you missed, either accidentally or deliberately.
Surely the act of "doing X well" is different from the act of "doing X crappily". And if Apple are the first to "do X well" (as evidenced by their entrance into and subsequent dominance in various markets), then by your own definition, Apple are innovative. Actually, by your own definition, Apple are innovative at being successful (where success is defined as doing something well as opposed to doing it crappily). I think you just gave them the best compliment they could ever have hoped for.
Well, if you're going to bring in the retailer (to somewhat strain the analogy), you get to choose between:
AppleWorld: Apple kick you up the arse.
GoogleWorld: Both Google and the publisher kick you up the arse.
Google's kick is an especially hard one (they've been watching mythbusters, and have a specially-designed hydraulic arse-kicking machine) because of how far and wide they track you.Both Apple and the publisher are relatively small-potatoes compared to the stratosphere-reaching implications of being kicked up the arse by Google.
Yes, yes, it's obvious that the old-fashioned way was just as egregious. That's not really the point.
Let me try and put it using a different allegory...
In olden-days, in order to subscribe to XYZ weekly, you had to present your backside to the publisher, who took a run-up, and then kicked your arse as hard as he could with his hob-nail boots. You'd go flying through the air to land in the cold, wet slush outside Ye Olde Publisher Shoppe. Dripping wet, soaked to the skin, you'd go home and nurse yourself through the resultant pneumonia whilst reading your periodical.
On Googleworld, this still applies, even for virtual periodicals. You still get the whopping big kick up the arse, and you can then read your periodical.
On Appleworld, you get to choose whether the publisher kicks you up the arse. Some people will choose 'Yes, please. Kick me up the arse', presumably for some suitable trade-off in kind. Most people will not.
Just because it was always thus is no justification for it to remain so. Apple are looking after the customer here; Google are selling the customer out to the publisher in the name of Mammon (as well as using the personal details themselves, of course).
The big difference for me between Apple's and Google's approach isn't the 30% / 10% - that can be changed by either party in either direction at any time. The freakin' huge difference is in the user-privacy settings.
Apple make the user specifically opt-in on a case-by-case basis for letting the publisher grab hold of your name & zip-code
Google by default send your name, zip-code, email address to the publisher.
In Google's eyes, you are the product they are selling to the customer (the publisher). In Apple's eyes, you are the customer. I know which I prefer.
Does anyone want to be taught by someone who feels nothing but contempt for them?
I had teachers who regularly called students (me included) "stupid bastard", and that wasn't by any means the worst of it. Never did me any harm - in fact the teacher who was polite and formal all the time was the universally despised one - nicknamed "Timmy!". His kid went to the same school, and was thrown out of a second-storey window because his father was such a pratt. Not defending that, I think it's reprehensible, but it happened.
I had a Spanish teacher (Geoffrey Park) who used to throw a padlock at kids who weren't paying attention, a maths teacher who threw chalk (he was far more accurate...) and it was all fine. I remember getting my own back at the kids-v-teachers football match by starting a chant "Geoffrey Park, super-star!, walks like a woman and he wears a bra". All in fun, and I didn't expect (or get) any comeback in class later.
Of course, I went to school in the UK, in a northern town, and it was far-and-away rougher than the US (at least in CA where I live). No guns or knives (considered the tools of cowards, where I'm from), but it was easy to come home bruised every single day for a year or so, with occasional visits to hospital.
Sometimes the comparison between my school-life and the "issues" and "problems" facing todays youth seems very amusing...
Of course, it wasn't all bad. I had teachers who shot down thrown paper airplanes with the fire-extinguisher, or who came out to the pub with us for a drink after driving us to 'Bridge night' (I was in the school bridge team, and yes, we were under-age:). We dissected things (bulls eye, frog,...) from age-11 onwards; I took an explosives option in Chemistry, used woodworking and metalworking power tools from age 12, etc. etc. Basically they treated us as young adults, and expected us to behave the same. Part of that is coping with being told you're a stupid bastard. Because, sometimes, everyone is (the stupid part - the bastard part is just to drive home the stupid part...)
The iPhone unlock is a 4-digit PIN. I think you can use more digits, but 4 is enough, given that you only get 5 tries.
As I said, I found it annoying at first, but after a day or so, I don't really notice it. You don't need to unlock the phone to answer calls, so it's about 2 seconds to unlock then use the phone. Well worth it IMHO.
The risk appears to only be for Android phones, because the swipe-to-unlock leaves smudges that can be visually decoded to tell the thief the "password". I can't see how this security vulnerability affects iPhones with their tap-based passcode.
And yes, I have a passcode on my phone. It takes about a day for the annoyance factor to dissipate, and IMHO you're nuts not to have one.
There is a reason why battery technology hasn't developed as fast as the technologies that use them; packing more and more energy into a given volume is a dangerous thing to do. When we pack a lot of energy in a (at least temporarily:-) stable state into a given volume, we tend to call those things "explosives". There's a fine line to tread here, and the more-efficient thing to do is reduce wastage than try to push battery abilities.
We could always use a different form of energy storage, of course, but nuclear powered cellphones don't have customer appeal:)
On my PCB isolation milling machine, the spindle takes about 20 secs (including home-position time) to change - in fact I've just done it this very second [grin], I happen to be routing out an RJ45 module.
The machine tracks to a known position and slowly lowers the drill down to the PCB, stopping when the drill just touches the copper - it uses an electrical connection (copper plate is ground) to figure out when it touches. That gives me the resolution of the stepper driver (0.005mm, or approximately.0002").
It uses a similar technique to measure the imperfections of the copper-clad FR4 board before actually doing the isolation, building up a 3d map of the surface, which it takes into account while milling - that really helps when you're milling out a 6-mil gap between two 6-mil traces, and you have to take into account the angle of the cut of the drill-blade (60 degrees, or 90 degrees) and the depth of the corresponding cut into the copper, so you don't mill away too much. You also need a *really* fast RPM spindle (mine runs at 60,000 RPM) to only cut away what is necessary under those exacting conditions.
The machine is an EverPrecision EP2002. Fantastic machine. Lousy customer service - they won't upgrade my software because I bought it from the *previous* dealer (!). Luckily, it just takes G-code over a serial port, so on my list of things to write is a gerber-to-gcode translator that calculates which tools to use and what the tool-tracks are. Oughtn't be too hard. Just need to get around to it...
Hmm. And just recently I got a request to purchase kaligraphy.com from me.
Thinking that it might have been Microsoft or Apple or similar about to release a new product, I replied with an outrageously high price. I wonder if it was the KDE team:)
If it is indeed the KDE team, get in touch:) Email is in the whois data...
You know what, in the UK for about 20 years the Liberal Democrats were a joke party. It was inconceivable that they'd actually be in power, they were in the middle between a hard-right (Tory, about the same level as your Democrats) and a left-wing party (Labour, the US doesn't have an equivalent - these people claimed they wanted more for the common-man, believe it or not).
Today, the Liberals are sharing power with a Tory government, after Labour reneged on so many promises that the voters got rid of them in disgust.
It can happen. It takes time. Saying "don't give me any crap about independents" is giving up, the Lib-Dems started off as a tiny insignificant party too.
Yep. It's more to do with not shipping with crap-ware that they then have to support / maintain because it "came with my Mac". Been running with flash-block for a few years now and the 'net is a much nicer place...
They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.
I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.
Hmm. Thinking about banning *rulers*... In science-class:
When I was 9, we did a survey of the people walking past the school. We stopped people and asked them questions. No teachers were present.
When I was 10, we all melted glass test-tubes in bunsen-burner flames, did some elementary glass-blowing.
When I was 11, we used the lathe in woodwork, the drills and saws in metalwork, the wheel in pottery etc. I recall making a mangonel that could throw a ball-bearing about 50' in metalwork. That was an end-of-year project though, you had to do all the other stuff first.
When I was 12, we were all using mercury-based manometers in physics class. Performed our own blood-type identification in Biology (stabbing your finger with a lancet wasn't fun though)
When I was 13, we dissected a bull's eye, everyone had their own bull's eye, scalpel, etc.
When I was 14, we took turns getting zapped and zapping others with Van de Graaff generators in Physics.More dissection (frogs) in biology.
When I was 15, we detonated a thermite bomb in chemistry class, played with Lithium/Sodium and water
When I was 16, life became boring because it was all about exams
When I was 17, I took the explosives Chemistry specialisation (nothing too extreme, nitrocellulose and the like, but still)
When I was 18, exams took priority again...
They didn't treat us with kid gloves, we were supposed to be midget scientists, not young hooligans. They kept us in order by making anyone who screwed up too much sit out the year (no more practicals, they could just observe). We took liberties, but not *too* many[*].
Of course, this was in the UK, not the USA. I can't vouch for how they treated kids over here - there's probably a whole bunch of stuff we did that's more dangerous than *rulers* too, but that was just off-the-top-of-my-head...
[*] Gun-cotton (basically cotton soaked in Nitric acid to form nitrocellulose) is pretty stable when it's wet, but when it dries out, small amounts of friction can set it off. We took a whole load of it to the pavilion on the yearly school sports-day, and forgot about it (we were playing Runequest in-between competing, I had shot-putt that day:). Eventually it dries, falls off the table, goes 'BANG!' and throws fragments of itself all over the place. Of course, those bits dried faster, and they were all over the floor. Pretty soon, walking anywhere in the pavilion would set off more bangs as the stuff exploded underfoot. Then the headmaster walked in. We made ourselves scarce just in time. He wasn't amused:)
Slashdot Mirror
So, this is an excuse for *them*, but not for Apple ? I mean, who had heard of this obscure VOIP company before now ? That VOIP company that never trademarked anything or held the domain name ...
Simon
Right, because VOIP (them) is identical to syncing devices over the 'net (Apple). Of course it is.
Sheesh!
Simon
But if you do want to assert the right of a trademark, you have to defend it. Why, in that case, did they not defend their name against he previous owners of the cloud domain ? Again, I think they're just out to make some quick cash at Apple's expense.
Simon
Reading fortune's coverage, it seems there was no record of cloud communications having a trademark. Is this another instance of suing someone just because they have cash, I wonder...
And maybe it's just my innate cynicism showing through, but when anyone introduces criticism of anything by saying "I can honestly say...", it leads me to believe they are inherently biased against the thing they're complaining about, and whatever they say ought to be treated appropriately. What they're really saying is "even though I in fact loath the thought of (insert XXX), I would still be criticizing them if I were neutral on the matter". Bias, like truth, will out.
Simon
Or, should I say "linkbait" instead.
The point that is being made is that creating great products is a skill that has to mesh technology with design. I don't mean the "design" that figures out how rounded the corners on a widget ought to be, I mean the "design" that starts from the ground up. How are we going to interact with this thing? What is the metaphor we're trying to sell to the user so they can become familiar with it easier? How can we make it more pleasant to use ?
Engineering is all about compromises, trading off X for Y, and what Apple does is engineering. It may not be solely software- or hardware-engineering (though they do a lot that you are failing to give them credit for), but it's still work, it's still hard, and it's still innovative. That's why 'harperska' was expressing surprise, and that's the point you missed, either accidentally or deliberately.
Simon.
Surely the act of "doing X well" is different from the act of "doing X crappily". And if Apple are the first to "do X well" (as evidenced by their entrance into and subsequent dominance in various markets), then by your own definition, Apple are innovative. Actually, by your own definition, Apple are innovative at being successful (where success is defined as doing something well as opposed to doing it crappily). I think you just gave them the best compliment they could ever have hoped for.
You're welcome.
Simon.
*Glances left*
*Glances right*
Yup, still got 3 (30") monitors going. Have had for a while... [shrug]
Well, if you're going to bring in the retailer (to somewhat strain the analogy), you get to choose between:
AppleWorld: Apple kick you up the arse.
GoogleWorld: Both Google and the publisher kick you up the arse.
Google's kick is an especially hard one (they've been watching mythbusters, and have a specially-designed hydraulic arse-kicking machine) because of how far and wide they track you.Both Apple and the publisher are relatively small-potatoes compared to the stratosphere-reaching implications of being kicked up the arse by Google.
Simon.
Yes, yes, it's obvious that the old-fashioned way was just as egregious. That's not really the point.
Let me try and put it using a different allegory...
In olden-days, in order to subscribe to XYZ weekly, you had to present your backside to the publisher, who took a run-up, and then kicked your arse as hard as he could with his hob-nail boots. You'd go flying through the air to land in the cold, wet slush outside Ye Olde Publisher Shoppe. Dripping wet, soaked to the skin, you'd go home and nurse yourself through the resultant pneumonia whilst reading your periodical.
On Googleworld, this still applies, even for virtual periodicals. You still get the whopping big kick up the arse, and you can then read your periodical.
On Appleworld, you get to choose whether the publisher kicks you up the arse. Some people will choose 'Yes, please. Kick me up the arse', presumably for some suitable trade-off in kind. Most people will not.
Just because it was always thus is no justification for it to remain so. Apple are looking after the customer here; Google are selling the customer out to the publisher in the name of Mammon (as well as using the personal details themselves, of course).
Simon
In Google's eyes, you are the product they are selling to the customer (the publisher). In Apple's eyes, you are the customer. I know which I prefer.
Simon
I had teachers who regularly called students (me included) "stupid bastard", and that wasn't by any means the worst of it. Never did me any harm - in fact the teacher who was polite and formal all the time was the universally despised one - nicknamed "Timmy!". His kid went to the same school, and was thrown out of a second-storey window because his father was such a pratt. Not defending that, I think it's reprehensible, but it happened.
...
:). We dissected things (bulls eye, frog, ...) from age-11 onwards; I took an explosives option in Chemistry, used woodworking and metalworking power tools from age 12, etc. etc. Basically they treated us as young adults, and expected us to behave the same. Part of that is coping with being told you're a stupid bastard. Because, sometimes, everyone is (the stupid part - the bastard part is just to drive home the stupid part...)
I had a Spanish teacher (Geoffrey Park) who used to throw a padlock at kids who weren't paying attention, a maths teacher who threw chalk (he was far more accurate...) and it was all fine. I remember getting my own back at the kids-v-teachers football match by starting a chant "Geoffrey Park, super-star!, walks like a woman and he wears a bra". All in fun, and I didn't expect (or get) any comeback in class later.
Of course, I went to school in the UK, in a northern town, and it was far-and-away rougher than the US (at least in CA where I live). No guns or knives (considered the tools of cowards, where I'm from), but it was easy to come home bruised every single day for a year or so, with occasional visits to hospital.
Sometimes the comparison between my school-life and the "issues" and "problems" facing todays youth seems very amusing
Of course, it wasn't all bad. I had teachers who shot down thrown paper airplanes with the fire-extinguisher, or who came out to the pub with us for a drink after driving us to 'Bridge night' (I was in the school bridge team, and yes, we were under-age
Simon
The iPhone unlock is a 4-digit PIN. I think you can use more digits, but 4 is enough, given that you only get 5 tries.
As I said, I found it annoying at first, but after a day or so, I don't really notice it. You don't need to unlock the phone to answer calls, so it's about 2 seconds to unlock then use the phone. Well worth it IMHO.
Simon
Which is cool, for those phones that are allowed to be able to upgrade to that version...
Simon
The risk appears to only be for Android phones, because the swipe-to-unlock leaves smudges that can be visually decoded to tell the thief the "password". I can't see how this security vulnerability affects iPhones with their tap-based passcode.
And yes, I have a passcode on my phone. It takes about a day for the annoyance factor to dissipate, and IMHO you're nuts not to have one.
Simon
All the parts for mine are sitting on the floor right next to me - waiting for me to get off work for the holidays...
Simon
There is a reason why battery technology hasn't developed as fast as the technologies that use them; packing more and more energy into a given volume is a dangerous thing to do. When we pack a lot of energy in a (at least temporarily :-) stable state into a given volume, we tend to call those things "explosives". There's a fine line to tread here, and the more-efficient thing to do is reduce wastage than try to push battery abilities.
:)
We could always use a different form of energy storage, of course, but nuclear powered cellphones don't have customer appeal
Simon
On my PCB isolation milling machine, the spindle takes about 20 secs (including home-position time) to change - in fact I've just done it this very second [grin], I happen to be routing out an RJ45 module.
.0002").
The machine tracks to a known position and slowly lowers the drill down to the PCB, stopping when the drill just touches the copper - it uses an electrical connection (copper plate is ground) to figure out when it touches. That gives me the resolution of the stepper driver (0.005mm, or approximately
It uses a similar technique to measure the imperfections of the copper-clad FR4 board before actually doing the isolation, building up a 3d map of the surface, which it takes into account while milling - that really helps when you're milling out a 6-mil gap between two 6-mil traces, and you have to take into account the angle of the cut of the drill-blade (60 degrees, or 90 degrees) and the depth of the corresponding cut into the copper, so you don't mill away too much. You also need a *really* fast RPM spindle (mine runs at 60,000 RPM) to only cut away what is necessary under those exacting conditions.
The machine is an EverPrecision EP2002. Fantastic machine. Lousy customer service - they won't upgrade my software because I bought it from the *previous* dealer (!). Luckily, it just takes G-code over a serial port, so on my list of things to write is a gerber-to-gcode translator that calculates which tools to use and what the tool-tracks are. Oughtn't be too hard. Just need to get around to it...
Simon
Hmm. And just recently I got a request to purchase kaligraphy.com from me.
:)
:) Email is in the whois data ...
Thinking that it might have been Microsoft or Apple or similar about to release a new product, I replied with an outrageously high price. I wonder if it was the KDE team
If it is indeed the KDE team, get in touch
Simon
You know what, in the UK for about 20 years the Liberal Democrats were a joke party. It was inconceivable that they'd actually be in power, they were in the middle between a hard-right (Tory, about the same level as your Democrats) and a left-wing party (Labour, the US doesn't have an equivalent - these people claimed they wanted more for the common-man, believe it or not).
Today, the Liberals are sharing power with a Tory government, after Labour reneged on so many promises that the voters got rid of them in disgust.
It can happen. It takes time. Saying "don't give me any crap about independents" is giving up, the Lib-Dems started off as a tiny insignificant party too.
Simon
Anyone would think he had an agenda, maybe trying to drum up some publicity for a book or something. Oh, wait...
Yep. It's more to do with not shipping with crap-ware that they then have to support / maintain because it "came with my Mac". Been running with flash-block for a few years now and the 'net is a much nicer place...
Simon
They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.
I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.
Simon
The civilization of yesteryear. Oh nukes, how do I love thee ;-)
... I lost so much time to that game...
playing across the Internet between colleges of London University
Simon
They didn't treat us with kid gloves, we were supposed to be midget scientists, not young hooligans. They kept us in order by making anyone who screwed up too much sit out the year (no more practicals, they could just observe). We took liberties, but not *too* many[*].
:). Eventually it dries, falls off the table, goes 'BANG!' and throws fragments of itself all over the place. Of course, those bits dried faster, and they were all over the floor. Pretty soon, walking anywhere in the pavilion would set off more bangs as the stuff exploded underfoot. Then the headmaster walked in. We made ourselves scarce just in time. He wasn't amused :)
Of course, this was in the UK, not the USA. I can't vouch for how they treated kids over here - there's probably a whole bunch of stuff we did that's more dangerous than *rulers* too, but that was just off-the-top-of-my-head...
[*] Gun-cotton (basically cotton soaked in Nitric acid to form nitrocellulose) is pretty stable when it's wet, but when it dries out, small amounts of friction can set it off. We took a whole load of it to the pavilion on the yearly school sports-day, and forgot about it (we were playing Runequest in-between competing, I had shot-putt that day
Simon