Yes it does. My standalone GPS (magellan) on the other hand, doesn't.
Your camera has a horribly small lens and is good only for taking 4x6 photos. Your watch can't be kept with you while doing anything active. Your document scanner is horrible quality. Your portable game console is limited by having touchscreen only and no physical controls.
All of these features are better (read: PRESENT) in the phone and not in the GPS. Also, all of the devices I have which individually do those other things do everything else much worse.
And I usually don't bring all those things with me wherever I go.
From what I've seen, the iphone won't reroute you in transit unless you tell it to get new directions. It does show traffic, one would hope it calculates that.
My standalone magellan does not have traffic reports at all. It could have, for extra dollars a year. It also doesn't get updated without more fees, and after a few years that becomes annoying. Granted, the iphone data plan is not exactly free, the fees for the magellan's subscription and a dumbphone would probably be less.
I don't get this rush to put everything in a phone.
For me at least, I never remembered to bring the magellan, wheras I never forget my phone.
One major limitation of the phone GPS vs a standalone is of course coverage. Driving through rural colorado, the map on the phone was useless. Then again, I HAD the phone, while I forgot the magellan.
Right of free speech + right of association = right of groups, as corporations, to speak freely.
Why SHOULD the rights combine like that?
I think you as an individual have a right to assemble, and the individuals of that assembly have the individual right to speak freely. Why would we say the assembly has a right to free speech rather than the individuals who make up that assembly have a right to free speech?
If we define "giving money to political campaigns" as free speech, then the individuals of the assembly can do that, from their own wealth. If comcast convinces all their employees that net neutrality is a bad thing and they should give campaign contributions to canidates who don't support it, that's free speech by individuals of an assembly that I have no problem with. If comcast's vast wealth were owned by one dude who really didn't like net neutrality, that's okay too I guess, he as an individual can give money as free speech.
I see no reason the assembly, a corporation, should have free speech though, and should be able to give as much money as they want from their corporate bank accounts.
Moreover, individual people having a right to say whatever they want tends to safeguard against tyrany. Citizens tend to speak out to the benefit of themselves, the citizenry. Corporations having a right to free speech, especially with reguards to campaign contributions I would expect to work AGAINST individual citizens, in favor of corporations. We didn't break away from tyranny of the state in favor of tyranny of corporations, we broke away for the rights of individuals*.
(Since I'm a product of american high schools though, I realize I'm probably severely misinformed/deluded about that last part, so let's take that more of a -should have been- statement rather than a factual one.)
I don't think Avatar applies in this case because only the aliens were CG. All the significant shots of humans were flesh-and-blood people.
And I think importantly the aliens were far enough from humans that the uncanny valley wasn't triggered. Their eyes were semi human, but were different enough that they looked cute, not wierdly almost human. Their skin was blue, so there wasn't any "Something isn't quite right with their skin...OMG THEY'RE DISEASED" response from your brain.
The movements and expressions looked natural because if I've heard correctly, those were basically real movements and expressions, not artificially made. If there were humans who were CGed in Avatar, I'm guessing they required far, far more work and money than the alien sequences.
Maybe if there were a real pandorean and they were to see it, they'd be creeped out as hell by the CG aliens.
Basically, I think Avatar cheated out of the uncanny valley, or at least got off on a technicality.
I remember in the matrix there were a few CG shots of people. There was a reason they were wearing sunglasses at night while kung fu fighting, it wasn't just to try to look cool or make me think of the song, it was also so they wouldn't have to spend a lot of money making the eyes look right.
I'm sure you didn't mean to say that. There have been quite a number of political parties in the history of the USA, Republicans, Democrats, Wobblies, American Independance Party (remember George Wallace? I didn't much care for his politics, but his party was legal.)
No I did. There have been a number of third and fourth etc parties, but they have never been more than two serious contenders, except the few times when one party was becoming extinct and a new one was springing up to take it's place.
It's not mandated specifically in the constitution that we have two parties, but the way we vote, "Majority takes it all" means there will always be two real parties, otherwise you split the vote and lose. If 40% of people voted for Bush, 30% for Gore, and 30% for Nader, with a different system, Gore and Nader may have been able to form a coalition and the left would have won. Under our system though, Bush would win.
If you're really interested in your half of the political spectrum winning, it's in your best interest to form a coalition BEFORE the ballot.
Those who voted for Nader in the 2000 election didn't like Gore much, but they probably liked Bush even less. I'm not trying to assign blame here (the electoral college was a bigger factor and I'm not going to say those -should have been- Gore's votes), but by the numbers, had they voted for Gore instead of Nader, they would have prevented the greater of two evils (in their book) from taking it all, which he did.
That's always the case. The framers didn't predict that would be how it would shake out, but it is, and only a massive constitutional change to how we vote is going to make more than two parties viable.
Or how about we hold the government to their obligation to work within the law?
It's not their fault! No one wrote what they should be limited to on a post-it note! The stupid framers of the constitution used lame non-sticky parchment or some crap like that. Their fault for making it not self-adhesive and concise.
Another acceptable alternative would have been to make the constitution some type of transforming robot which would beat us up when we got complacent about our rights and proper limits for law enforcement.
No, it's actually being skeptical that there is a magic bullet solution to greedy companies using the law as a weapon against consumers.
Lets just keep in mind that the two party system has been with us since the very beginning and is a result of how we vote. Changing that lacks much serious public drive, would require a constitutional amendment, and therefore would have to be approved by not just one but both of the existing political parties it would weaken.
In other words, it's slightly more likely that prohibition of alchohol will be reinstated than the two party system being changed.
On top of the completely impossible nature of that solution, it wouldn't solve anything. Political parties, whether numbering one, two, three, or any number this side of 1000, will have their elites. These elites will like money. The RIAA and the MPAA have loads of money.
We can see this same thing in basically any country that -doesn't- have a two party system.
It's not defeatism, it's being realistic. I realize though I didn't actually suggest any alternatives. If we're going to propose impossible solutions to real problems, lets at least make them effective. I propose we use a magical genie lamp. That at least is only impossible, not impossible and ineffective.
If anyone is wondering why the newsboy said "...to read try to get..." it's because he's too busy selling newspapers on a street corner to get a proper education or bother with proofreading his posts.
Slashdotter hears scientific finding loosely related to previously known scientific finding, can't think of immediate practical use for this knowledge, cynically implies said finding is trivial!
Slashdotter then likely returns to reloading the slashdot main page to read try to get another first post after skimming summary!
If you are considering volunteer work in disaster areas, please.. please, do not do it. There are professionals trained in those types of things, the last thing they need is for a group of volunteers who went to help out, suddenly requiring rescuing of their own.
Anyway, if he's asking slashdot, he really doesn't seem to be the type to buy a plane ticket on his own, fly down there, get in a tight situation and need rescuing himself, so I think your warning is unwarranted. I would assume he'd be contacting Red Cross or Peacecorps or something similar, which I would also assume would be run by competent people who would give "professional" advice.
I'd also assume the whole "Sure, we'll hold some of your nukes within spitting distance of the US mainland, Soviet Russia" didn't really help things. And, you know, it was the same guy who was still president until very recently.
I think our policy towards China might be a little different if Hu Jintao (the president) had almost nuked us.
if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place.
I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.
Why do journalists go along with it? Because they'll be blackballed if they don't. They won't get the exclusive (p)reviews, they won't get the all expenses paid jollies, or the backstage passes to trade shows, or the marketing junk, or the free games.
Or just outright fired, like Jeff Gersham, but I think you've hit the major thing that's wrong with game journalism: not many people seem to get into it to expose the truth, they seem to get into it mainly to do their hobby as a career, get free stuff, etc. When the goal of "journalists" is only to get a paycheck and get free handouts, there is never going to be anything resembling integrity.
I mean, that's no big deal since we're talking about video game reviews, just saying it's interesting to me how really screwed up that industry is.
Incidentally, Activision called us with the MW2 review offer, and we turned it down flat. Sort of ironic, because on the whole I've found it a pretty good game (though I can't say anything about the game at review time).
Well what one do you work for?!? I'll start reading!
Anyway, sorry if you feel I was painting the entire field with the same brush, I didn't mean to. Same way that whenever anyone points out what's wrong with CNN, Fox, and lazy journalism, they say "journalists" when in fact there's plenty of independent, healthy investigative journalism going on, just not at the big american corporate news sources.
That much has got to be pretty obvious to the whole industry already. Game journalism is corrupt and/or done by complete idiots.
Obligatory penny arcade reference. There's more unquestioning repeating of press releases than there is in political journalism. In that case, there seemed to be more controversy that reporters were doing more than advertising.
Look in any gaming magazine and you'll be hard pressed to find anything below 7/10, even for games that are terrible. The whole numbering scheme itself is absurd to begin with, there's not a universal set of criteria by which to judge how good a game is, and you can't quantify game quality. Some reviews even go down to decimal points. This game is a 9.25? Where did that 0.25 come from? Partial credit for something? It seems to me that the only reason for a number is that video game publishers have noticed a strong correlation between a number from a review and the number on their profits, and have also noticed that magically reviews don't actually go down even halfway down the scale when they pay for advertising on those game journalism websites or magazines.
Where every kid who displays an ounce ingenuity, exceptional achievement, or even exceptional interest in a particular topic of field is labeled as a potential threat.
I think that's a dramatic overstatement. Had the kid written a brilliant essay, been interested in chemical engineering, or made working TV out of household parts, he would not have been labeled a threat, it hasn't gotten that absurd yet.
Wires in plastic bottle is, yes, a ridiculous thing to get upset about, but it's a far cry from labeling everything exceptional a threat.
How likely is this kid after this experience to want to participate in a science fair again? How likely is he to share is projects with teachers who might be able to mentor him? Now even if teachers would be willing to put the extra time in the kid is going to be afraid to ask.
Pretty likely, at least he's getting some excitement and attention from it. That's better than most primary school science education. Stephen Jay Gould said about his primary and high school science education something along the lines of "the best thing I can say about it is that it didn't completely kill my interest in science." I feel that too, science is exciting and it's taught all too often like a list of things to memorize. It really turns a lot of kids off of science in the end. A little excitement like this might be the wind that strengthens the tree.
The radioactive boyscout, the teenager who tried to build a breeder reactor in his basement seems to have not been deterred by the attention, FBI investigation, extreme levels of radiation he exposed himself too, or apparently his own mother whose property got designated a superfund site.
The guy apperantly is still trying to become a nuclear scientist and was arrested in 2007 for stealing smoke detectors for the radioactive materials.
Can you find a good reason why someone shouldn't be able to defend themselves and their families from people who threaten their lives with lethal force if necessary?
In their own home? No, which is why I didn't say anything of the sort. In public places there are law enforcement and innocent bystanders, which are good reasons why private citizens should not be bringing guns there.
The school's statement does make sense, I'm sure it was to calm parents.
"Don't worry, we have rules and guidelines, and a system in place that would have caught this had it been real. We're like all over that. He broke the rules, had it been a real thing we would have stopped him before he did anything"
It's lies obviously, since the kid did nothing wrong, but that's what the purpose of that was, to cover their own asses and make sure at the next PTA they don't get "They're NOT THINKING OF THE CHILDREN! This could have been a terrorist attack! This shouldn't happen!"
Slashdot Mirror
Your GPS doesn't get traffic data.
Yes it does. My standalone GPS (magellan) on the other hand, doesn't.
Your camera has a horribly small lens and is good only for taking 4x6 photos.
Your watch can't be kept with you while doing anything active.
Your document scanner is horrible quality.
Your portable game console is limited by having touchscreen only and no physical controls.
All of these features are better (read: PRESENT) in the phone and not in the GPS. Also, all of the devices I have which individually do those other things do everything else much worse.
And I usually don't bring all those things with me wherever I go.
From what I've seen, the iphone won't reroute you in transit unless you tell it to get new directions. It does show traffic, one would hope it calculates that.
My standalone magellan does not have traffic reports at all. It could have, for extra dollars a year. It also doesn't get updated without more fees, and after a few years that becomes annoying. Granted, the iphone data plan is not exactly free, the fees for the magellan's subscription and a dumbphone would probably be less.
I don't get this rush to put everything in a phone.
For me at least, I never remembered to bring the magellan, wheras I never forget my phone.
One major limitation of the phone GPS vs a standalone is of course coverage. Driving through rural colorado, the map on the phone was useless. Then again, I HAD the phone, while I forgot the magellan.
You forgot "portable porn viewer"
You can name your camera and hard drive whatever crazy combination of letters and numbers you want.
(He was of course referring to the storage size of the iphone.)
Right of free speech + right of association = right of groups, as corporations, to speak freely.
Why SHOULD the rights combine like that?
I think you as an individual have a right to assemble, and the individuals of that assembly have the individual right to speak freely. Why would we say the assembly has a right to free speech rather than the individuals who make up that assembly have a right to free speech?
If we define "giving money to political campaigns" as free speech, then the individuals of the assembly can do that, from their own wealth. If comcast convinces all their employees that net neutrality is a bad thing and they should give campaign contributions to canidates who don't support it, that's free speech by individuals of an assembly that I have no problem with. If comcast's vast wealth were owned by one dude who really didn't like net neutrality, that's okay too I guess, he as an individual can give money as free speech.
I see no reason the assembly, a corporation, should have free speech though, and should be able to give as much money as they want from their corporate bank accounts.
Moreover, individual people having a right to say whatever they want tends to safeguard against tyrany. Citizens tend to speak out to the benefit of themselves, the citizenry. Corporations having a right to free speech, especially with reguards to campaign contributions I would expect to work AGAINST individual citizens, in favor of corporations. We didn't break away from tyranny of the state in favor of tyranny of corporations, we broke away for the rights of individuals*.
(Since I'm a product of american high schools though, I realize I'm probably severely misinformed/deluded about that last part, so let's take that more of a -should have been- statement rather than a factual one.)
I don't think Avatar applies in this case because only the aliens were CG. All the significant shots of humans were flesh-and-blood people.
And I think importantly the aliens were far enough from humans that the uncanny valley wasn't triggered. Their eyes were semi human, but were different enough that they looked cute, not wierdly almost human. Their skin was blue, so there wasn't any "Something isn't quite right with their skin...OMG THEY'RE DISEASED" response from your brain.
The movements and expressions looked natural because if I've heard correctly, those were basically real movements and expressions, not artificially made. If there were humans who were CGed in Avatar, I'm guessing they required far, far more work and money than the alien sequences.
Maybe if there were a real pandorean and they were to see it, they'd be creeped out as hell by the CG aliens.
Basically, I think Avatar cheated out of the uncanny valley, or at least got off on a technicality.
I remember in the matrix there were a few CG shots of people. There was a reason they were wearing sunglasses at night while kung fu fighting, it wasn't just to try to look cool or make me think of the song, it was also so they wouldn't have to spend a lot of money making the eyes look right.
I'm sure you didn't mean to say that. There have been quite a number of political parties in the history of the USA, Republicans, Democrats, Wobblies, American Independance Party (remember George Wallace? I didn't much care for his politics, but his party was legal.)
No I did. There have been a number of third and fourth etc parties, but they have never been more than two serious contenders, except the few times when one party was becoming extinct and a new one was springing up to take it's place.
It's not mandated specifically in the constitution that we have two parties, but the way we vote, "Majority takes it all" means there will always be two real parties, otherwise you split the vote and lose. If 40% of people voted for Bush, 30% for Gore, and 30% for Nader, with a different system, Gore and Nader may have been able to form a coalition and the left would have won. Under our system though, Bush would win.
If you're really interested in your half of the political spectrum winning, it's in your best interest to form a coalition BEFORE the ballot.
Those who voted for Nader in the 2000 election didn't like Gore much, but they probably liked Bush even less. I'm not trying to assign blame here (the electoral college was a bigger factor and I'm not going to say those -should have been- Gore's votes), but by the numbers, had they voted for Gore instead of Nader, they would have prevented the greater of two evils (in their book) from taking it all, which he did.
That's always the case. The framers didn't predict that would be how it would shake out, but it is, and only a massive constitutional change to how we vote is going to make more than two parties viable.
Or how about we hold the government to their obligation to work within the law?
It's not their fault! No one wrote what they should be limited to on a post-it note! The stupid framers of the constitution used lame non-sticky parchment or some crap like that. Their fault for making it not self-adhesive and concise.
Another acceptable alternative would have been to make the constitution some type of transforming robot which would beat us up when we got complacent about our rights and proper limits for law enforcement.
That sounds like a good way to learn how to -direct- disaster relief efforts. That doesn't sound necessary to make soup at a Red Cross shelter.
No, it's actually being skeptical that there is a magic bullet solution to greedy companies using the law as a weapon against consumers.
Lets just keep in mind that the two party system has been with us since the very beginning and is a result of how we vote. Changing that lacks much serious public drive, would require a constitutional amendment, and therefore would have to be approved by not just one but both of the existing political parties it would weaken.
In other words, it's slightly more likely that prohibition of alchohol will be reinstated than the two party system being changed.
On top of the completely impossible nature of that solution, it wouldn't solve anything. Political parties, whether numbering one, two, three, or any number this side of 1000, will have their elites. These elites will like money. The RIAA and the MPAA have loads of money.
We can see this same thing in basically any country that -doesn't- have a two party system.
It's not defeatism, it's being realistic. I realize though I didn't actually suggest any alternatives. If we're going to propose impossible solutions to real problems, lets at least make them effective. I propose we use a magical genie lamp. That at least is only impossible, not impossible and ineffective.
If anyone is wondering why the newsboy said "...to read try to get..." it's because he's too busy selling newspapers on a street corner to get a proper education or bother with proofreading his posts.
Extra extra!
Slashdotter hears scientific finding loosely related to previously known scientific finding, can't think of immediate practical use for this knowledge, cynically implies said finding is trivial!
Slashdotter then likely returns to reloading the slashdot main page to read try to get another first post after skimming summary!
If you are considering volunteer work in disaster areas, please.. please, do not do it. There are professionals trained in those types of things, the last thing they need is for a group of volunteers who went to help out, suddenly requiring rescuing of their own.
How exactly does one become a "professional" with helping out after a disaster? Sitting at home NOT getting "field experience"? Taking courses at university of phoneix in disaster recovery? Getting appointed to direct FEMA based on your merit at managing the international Arabian Horse Association and being a lawyer?
Anyway, if he's asking slashdot, he really doesn't seem to be the type to buy a plane ticket on his own, fly down there, get in a tight situation and need rescuing himself, so I think your warning is unwarranted. I would assume he'd be contacting Red Cross or Peacecorps or something similar, which I would also assume would be run by competent people who would give "professional" advice.
And two party system.
Right, because three or more parties is WAY too many parties for the MAFIAA to bribe.
The bigger tragedy about Haze was that it appears to have significantly decreased the chances of Timesplitters 4 being made.
Not enough FPSs allow you to play as monkeys, zombies, sock puppets, zombie monkeys, robots, wood monsters, and robotic monkeys all in the same round.
E.T. nearly killed off an entire industry. Though I'm sure that's just what history remembers as its death blow.
I second that, but TFA is talking specifically about games during the past decade.
I'd also assume the whole "Sure, we'll hold some of your nukes within spitting distance of the US mainland, Soviet Russia" didn't really help things. And, you know, it was the same guy who was still president until very recently.
I think our policy towards China might be a little different if Hu Jintao (the president) had almost nuked us.
Copyright is seriously out of control and I point the finger squarely at the US for creating this greedy flawed system...
That's fair, because after all we did invent greed and abusing outdated laws.
if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place.
I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.
Why do journalists go along with it? Because they'll be blackballed if they don't. They won't get the exclusive (p)reviews, they won't get the all expenses paid jollies, or the backstage passes to trade shows, or the marketing junk, or the free games.
Or just outright fired, like Jeff Gersham, but I think you've hit the major thing that's wrong with game journalism: not many people seem to get into it to expose the truth, they seem to get into it mainly to do their hobby as a career, get free stuff, etc. When the goal of "journalists" is only to get a paycheck and get free handouts, there is never going to be anything resembling integrity.
I mean, that's no big deal since we're talking about video game reviews, just saying it's interesting to me how really screwed up that industry is.
Incidentally, Activision called us with the MW2 review offer, and we turned it down flat. Sort of ironic, because on the whole I've found it a pretty good game (though I can't say anything about the game at review time).
Well what one do you work for?!? I'll start reading!
Anyway, sorry if you feel I was painting the entire field with the same brush, I didn't mean to. Same way that whenever anyone points out what's wrong with CNN, Fox, and lazy journalism, they say "journalists" when in fact there's plenty of independent, healthy investigative journalism going on, just not at the big american corporate news sources.
You can shove the gaming press around
That much has got to be pretty obvious to the whole industry already. Game journalism is corrupt and/or done by complete idiots.
Obligatory penny arcade reference. There's more unquestioning repeating of press releases than there is in political journalism. In that case, there seemed to be more controversy that reporters were doing more than advertising.
Look in any gaming magazine and you'll be hard pressed to find anything below 7/10, even for games that are terrible. The whole numbering scheme itself is absurd to begin with, there's not a universal set of criteria by which to judge how good a game is, and you can't quantify game quality. Some reviews even go down to decimal points. This game is a 9.25? Where did that 0.25 come from? Partial credit for something? It seems to me that the only reason for a number is that video game publishers have noticed a strong correlation between a number from a review and the number on their profits, and have also noticed that magically reviews don't actually go down even halfway down the scale when they pay for advertising on those game journalism websites or magazines.
And it's pretty obvious that the reviews are paid for. The reviewers got room and board paid for? Not as bad as Eidos, at least this doesn't appear to be firing reviewers who don't give the score you paid for.
Where every kid who displays an ounce ingenuity, exceptional achievement, or even exceptional interest in a particular topic of field is labeled as a potential threat.
I think that's a dramatic overstatement. Had the kid written a brilliant essay, been interested in chemical engineering, or made working TV out of household parts, he would not have been labeled a threat, it hasn't gotten that absurd yet.
Wires in plastic bottle is, yes, a ridiculous thing to get upset about, but it's a far cry from labeling everything exceptional a threat.
How likely is this kid after this experience to want to participate in a science fair again? How likely is he to share is projects with teachers who might be able to mentor him? Now even if teachers would be willing to put the extra time in the kid is going to be afraid to ask.
Pretty likely, at least he's getting some excitement and attention from it. That's better than most primary school science education. Stephen Jay Gould said about his primary and high school science education something along the lines of "the best thing I can say about it is that it didn't completely kill my interest in science." I feel that too, science is exciting and it's taught all too often like a list of things to memorize. It really turns a lot of kids off of science in the end. A little excitement like this might be the wind that strengthens the tree.
The radioactive boyscout, the teenager who tried to build a breeder reactor in his basement seems to have not been deterred by the attention, FBI investigation, extreme levels of radiation he exposed himself too, or apparently his own mother whose property got designated a superfund site.
The guy apperantly is still trying to become a nuclear scientist and was arrested in 2007 for stealing smoke detectors for the radioactive materials.
So I think this might encourage him actually.
Can you find a good reason why someone shouldn't be able to defend themselves and their families from people who threaten their lives with lethal force if necessary?
In their own home? No, which is why I didn't say anything of the sort. In public places there are law enforcement and innocent bystanders, which are good reasons why private citizens should not be bringing guns there.
The school's statement does make sense, I'm sure it was to calm parents.
"Don't worry, we have rules and guidelines, and a system in place that would have caught this had it been real. We're like all over that. He broke the rules, had it been a real thing we would have stopped him before he did anything"
It's lies obviously, since the kid did nothing wrong, but that's what the purpose of that was, to cover their own asses and make sure at the next PTA they don't get "They're NOT THINKING OF THE CHILDREN! This could have been a terrorist attack! This shouldn't happen!"