The small 2nd battery gets swapped and charged more slowly. I also don't mean to imply the idea can only be in charging stations. Maybe you want a little extra, and don't want to spend more than 16min at a diner. Any restaurant that can provide a charger can make space for a few batteries. And, it doesn't have to be only one battery. Why not 2?
I guess the important number is the amount of time you save by going through the trouble. I'm too tired to plug in numbers right now, but welcome any:)
The lack of take up probably has several reasons; 1. Different battery specifications for different vehicles. 2. The need to conform the battery to the dimensions of the vehicle. 3. The additional hardware required to make a large heavy battery swappable. 4. The reluctance of some people to give up their batter for an unknown battery.
We can not even get standard cell phone batteries let alone standard electric car batteries.
All excellent points. And one reason should go above the ones you mention: 0. Huge initial investment of charging stations. What is the cost to retrofit a gas station, or worse build a new changing station ala A Better Place?
However, I've always imagined something similar: Why don't all PHEV's have a 2nd battery - the size of your standard 12volt? You're in a hurry & out of gas. You stop at a gas station, plug your car in. Pop the hood and use a key to unlock 2nd battery. Pull it out and take it to the counter. Your battery gets promptly scanned and plugged in, on a shelf in the back. The battery your given might be in better or worse shape than yours was, but with a little diagnostics, it's all transparent and you might get a credit, or pay extra. Go back to your car and plug it in. You've now wasted 8min of your life, just long enough for the rapid charge to go from 05% to 37% on your main battery. The 2nd one you plug in bumps it up to 47%, and that's plenty to get you home, peace of mind included. What? You're too lazy/weak/rich to do the manual labor? A $5 charge ($15 rush hr) gets the gas station attendant to do it for you.
The key here is that gas stations need to see a profit, with minimal initial expense. We're talking about a shelf that requires almost 0 change in infrastructure, and just one startup replacement battery (if they see profit with it, they can buy more). The spec would have to be agreed upon or mandated, but this fractional implementation of the Better Place idea would (practically) solve #0, #1, #2, and help with #3 and #4. The down side is that the upside is slashed, but I believe there is a market of people who are in too much of a hurry to wait for the fast-charge to complete.
Who cares where your hands are? There is one rule of safe driving that should always be mentioned b/c it sums everything up:
You must pay enough attention.
That's it. If you drive with with your pinky toe and avoid all accidents, then that's safer than 10/pi and accident-prone. And yes, you can avoid almost all accidents by paying attention. I've twice gotten out of the way when stopped and the car behind me almost plowed through me because I was watching the rear-view mirror. I've avoided a drunk(?) driver running through the light when I had the green arrow b/c I was watching him. 23 years of driving more 'dangerously' than 99% of you, and just one $600 accident. Why? I stopped paying attention (rule #2: don't get bored & start programming your radio when it's icey).
While I'm up here, I have a message to you bottleneckers: quit it! In fact, do the opposite. If the accident is on the other side of the freeway, quit looking and freakin gun it! If everyone were to gun it AT the bottleneck, guess what, there would no longer be a bottleneck!
One reason not mentioned is that waves happen because stopping/slowing down is faster than speeding up, if you're lazy. I like to drive through the waves without touching the brakes, but flooring it when I'm at the front of the wave or bottleneck, and I save gas (net) doing it. If everyone (or even a % of us) were to leave space before the wave, then gun it at the front, the wave goes away! The 'gun it' part isn't mentioned in the article, but it makes sense to me. And don't get me wrong, don't gun it so much that you have to hit the brake to not hit the car in front of you, but gun it as much as possible. Also, keep an eye on the traffic colors of your GPS, so you know when your at the front of the wave, if it's that big.
Hrm, there ought to be a 'kill the waves' day to spread awareness.
pre-2008 polls say: 95% said that it is a serious problem that many Americans do not have health insurance 64% said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans 60% would pay higher taxes to do so. But only 43% said that it would be fair for the government in Washington to require all Americans to participate in a national health care plan funded by taxpayers, compared to 48% who said it would be unfair.
That last one is worded differently from what happened, so actually doesn't disprove my point. If they worded it, "require Americans who can afford cheaper insurance from private companies to purchase it", then the numbers would have been more favorable.
> free condom cover I'm guessing you meant women's contraception. Big difference, although both save this country a lot of money and stress.
So you own 0 mutual funds I guess. The experts say the US dollar will be around for a long time, but they've been wrong before, so I'm sure you have all your savings in guns and canned food.
It's not just this industry. You can see similar things happen all the time. Food, with partially hydrogenated oils. In medicine you see a lot of treatments that are accepted one day, and then later they decide they are doing a lot of harm. Leaded gasoline was once lauded for it's ability to improve gas mileage by increasing the octane rating of fuels. So you've never taken any medicine or gone to the doctor I presume.
My point is, it can happen everywhere, and experts are as susceptible to it as anybody.
You do make a rational point in that sometimes experts are wrong. But usually, they're more right than non-experts. And if you don't have the time or resources for giant wold wide studies over decades, then why would you trust your evaluation over the scientists? Really, even if you did have the resources, we as people don't have decades to make a decision. The data is in, the scientists agree. Of course we'll continue to measure and evaluate, but we need to at least do some simple steps to curb this. And what happens if the scientists are wrong? OMG we'll have cleaned up the planet a little, and have technology that makes us less dependent on fossil fuels, what a nightmare. Wait, that is a nightmare for oil companies.
So this sounds like your guessing what he would do. I guess the opposite, seeing as how he's always had more small contributions from non-corporations than his competitors, and also I'd guess he actually does care about the public interest.
Now, if we switch to facts, then I'd like to point out that H.R.3261 was put forward by a Republican, and seems to be backed more from that party than Obama's: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money Interests that support this bill: Republican/Conservative, Christian Conservative Interests that oppose this bill: Democratic/Liberal
Don't get me wrong, I consider all politicians manipulative jerks, but I try to keep track of which are behaving in the least evil way.
Since it never made sense, I always thought E85 might have been a political red herring, distracting laws and investments from real solutions, as the hydrogen cell was depicted in a documentary:
Last post, so I know there will be no mods. But, I have my opinion, and then, to help answer the question asked, I wondered what Slashdot thought, combined with looking for bills that support/disprove my opinion.
> Consider the candidates (all of them, of any party) as a set. What > issue can I use to divide them into two groups, such that one group is > 'for' something and the other is 'against'?"
I'm going to list the Slashdot articles I found - emphasis on actual bills put forward, mostly more recent stuff.
Here is my take on what/. thinks: (1) Slashdot is vehemently for Net Neutrality, and it seems D's are for, R's against. This looks like by far the biggest issue for slashdotters, and easiest issue to see who falls where. (2) Given the corruption of the current system, OS textbooks is a geeky, cheap solution. Not a high priority issue. (3) Slashdot really doesn't like big companies following their location.
No, when your Google Voice gets a reply text message, you can have it set to automatically send a real text message to your non-data plan phone.
More advantages: - One phone number for the rest of your life (probably) - Keep contacts in one place (and it shares this same contact list with other services you might use - gmail, google+, picasa, etc.) - Add/remove contacts and send/recieve text messages from the computer (hello fast/easy typing)
[Googlefanboi] There are other features you could benefit from. One phone number for the rest of your life (probably), keep contacts in one place for same time span (and it shares the same contacts with other services you might use - gmail, google+, picasa, etc.), add/remove contacts and send/recieve text message from the computer (hello fast/easy typing). I think there's an option for when you receive a text message or call to GV, it can forward that message/call to your cell phone that has no data plan. Ya, it makes things a little more complicated, but if you ever move to using Google services in the future, starting now will allow you to start entering your contacts and getting used to the service with no penalty. Try to honestly make the statement "Oh, I will never own a smartphone." Then get back to us in 10, or even 3 years and let us know how it worked out. [/Googlefanboi]
Until consumers realize how cheap text messages really are, I'm perfectly happy watching other people subsidize my bill while I text away on the Google Voice app. I want to guess this will finally make the app more popular, but the average consumer has been this slow for so long about it, this will be interesting to watch.
> the long term value of money is not the result of psychology, rather a simple division of the economic output of the country by the outstanding monetary base Agreed
> Yup, we should stick to what we know works: spending money that will be paid by the future generation. I can't see any reason why this can't go on for ever. True we can't spend forever, but we also need to weigh in the problem of good and bad economies. It's most effective if the government softens the blow of bad economies, while saving money during the good times. This has been proven time and again from Hoover to 90's Japan. Now that we didn't save, the arguing goes into high gear, and nothing productive gets done. Seems prudent to slowly and surely, but not drastically and immediately, cut the deficit (unless you feel that we are in good times with a great economy - then by all means lets cut like crazy).
Everyone's original offer focused on the 4 trillion number S&P has been asking for a while. The only way the negotiations fail and the problem wouldn't get solved is if one side takes the position of not negotiating.
I'm not in front of Vista, 7, and have never used KDE, but those task managers have a button to monitor hard drive usage, and since Gnome doesn't offer something similar, I'm wondering if your Activity Monitor does. If not, that's my suggestion. Its so annoying to be looking at a bunch of processes not taking any CPU, but the HDD light is solid on. Throwing darts can resolve the issue, but it's just annoying.
I second the Mini. I've found it much better (faster, bookmark syncing, not taking huge chunks of memory) than Chrome on Android. I'm surprised they didn't compare them, even if they say they're waiting for Opera Mobile for the robot.
+1 on mobile. It's where I keep the master copy, sync it to Linux PC with a script and programmable hotkey (not to mention quick usb mount from the Android desktop widget), where Dropbox syncs it to my other computers.
"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield..." So I say, you can try to manage the flow instead of stopping it altogether.
I say make a law such that when plugged in to the car port or charger, cellphones are given bluetooth-like functionality (mp3s & calls through the car speakers, etc), while not allowing texting (or a yearly changing list of functions that dont restrict the user *too* much). I hear the Verizon Droid seems to have the right idea of some kind of "driving mode" vs standard. With the coming wave of smartphone usage, people will really *want* to charge their phones while driving. And if a cop or camera see you not charging your phone, you get a costly ticket. It should change people's behavior like seat belts. Granted, its much harder to see the offense, so it will not be adopted as quickly, depending on how stiffly the laws are enforced, but it will change a percentage of people's behaviors (I'm thinking maybe 5%/yr topping off at 80% when everyone has smartphones). That percentage of change will save a percentage of lives, which is better than nothing, but at the same time not troubling people too much.
I, for example, am a habitual phone user in the car. Even though I know its dangerous, I just can't help myself - the smartphone is too damn useful & fun to use. I haven't been close to an accident yet, but if I were to get in one, I'd probably change, but a law like this would help push me a little harder. And if it forces phone & car companies to add cooperative, standards-forming functionality, it will keep me from getting too pissed off to complain to my congressman against it. And thats exactly what would be required to get any law passed at all.
I thought their changes to java were to optimize it further for efficiency/stability/security, or were those just Google excuses for putting something more proprietary? Would you agree that Android still seems to be the most open & promising phone/pda OS out there currently?
"an incredibly bad Market, with one of the worst search engine ever written"
As a user, I liked one app I saw where, in the description, it begged people to go to 'this website' for feedback, complaints, etc, -before- posting feedback on market. I guess thats more advice than a defense of their market design.
But a defense might be 'they weighted the power to the users, despite their incompetence, to empower users, and evened it out with developers by not charging money'
"Non-homogeneous hardware..." What I can't figure is why they didn't build a hardware tag on all apps, so you can build your app specifically for the G1, or do they do this?
"google is sitting there going, buy my stuff please? pretty please?"
I disagree. I think Google is sitting there, being patient. It always looked like Google was into building something so right, that developers would come, and that would make the product so much better that people would come. Seems like they have always wanted to spend $0 on marketing - let the carriers do that. Google wants to spend 100% of their resources making a good product. I get the feeling they knew it might not take off as quickly as iphone. Maybe it will eventually, or maybe not. Maybe the market just isnt right for Android. Either way, Google is going to be patient and continue updating and making the service more solid, just like Maps, Gmail, Google Apps, etc. Just like those other services, since its practically free, it will never go the way of OS/2, somebody will always be using it. On the other hand, the upside is huge. A ubiquitous OS on the phone guarantees ad money.
I've tried both, and the google voice app is a must-have. The website adds a layer of complexity making most of the service just too painful. Tethering actually works better on the iphone 3Gs since it doesn't run as hot, but comparing it with cost makes it worth it IMO - I pay $52/mo including taxes/fees for my own tmobile account & unlmt inet. My sister pays >$60 for her iphone, when she's actually on the family plan with my parents paying $80 for the base phone. What's the cheapest iphone plan out there with unlimited inet?
Slashdot Mirror
I meant the big main battery. This says new (level 3 - 480V?) chargers do 80% charge in 20min. How long does it take to reach 30%?
http://www.plugincars.com/quick-charging-plus-better-batteries-equals-mainstream-electric-cars-107844.html
The small 2nd battery gets swapped and charged more slowly. I also don't mean to imply the idea can only be in charging stations. Maybe you want a little extra, and don't want to spend more than 16min at a diner. Any restaurant that can provide a charger can make space for a few batteries. And, it doesn't have to be only one battery. Why not 2?
I guess the important number is the amount of time you save by going through the trouble. I'm too tired to plug in numbers right now, but welcome any :)
The lack of take up probably has several reasons;
1. Different battery specifications for different vehicles.
2. The need to conform the battery to the dimensions of the vehicle.
3. The additional hardware required to make a large heavy battery swappable.
4. The reluctance of some people to give up their batter for an unknown battery.
We can not even get standard cell phone batteries let alone standard electric car batteries.
All excellent points. And one reason should go above the ones you mention:
0. Huge initial investment of charging stations. What is the cost to retrofit a gas station, or worse build a new changing station ala A Better Place?
However, I've always imagined something similar: Why don't all PHEV's have a 2nd battery - the size of your standard 12volt? You're in a hurry & out of gas. You stop at a gas station, plug your car in. Pop the hood and use a key to unlock 2nd battery. Pull it out and take it to the counter. Your battery gets promptly scanned and plugged in, on a shelf in the back. The battery your given might be in better or worse shape than yours was, but with a little diagnostics, it's all transparent and you might get a credit, or pay extra. Go back to your car and plug it in. You've now wasted 8min of your life, just long enough for the rapid charge to go from 05% to 37% on your main battery. The 2nd one you plug in bumps it up to 47%, and that's plenty to get you home, peace of mind included.
What? You're too lazy/weak/rich to do the manual labor? A $5 charge ($15 rush hr) gets the gas station attendant to do it for you.
The key here is that gas stations need to see a profit, with minimal initial expense. We're talking about a shelf that requires almost 0 change in infrastructure, and just one startup replacement battery (if they see profit with it, they can buy more). The spec would have to be agreed upon or mandated, but this fractional implementation of the Better Place idea would (practically) solve #0, #1, #2, and help with #3 and #4. The down side is that the upside is slashed, but I believe there is a market of people who are in too much of a hurry to wait for the fast-charge to complete.
Oooh, the topic is driving? *steps on soapbox
Who cares where your hands are? There is one rule of safe driving that should always be mentioned b/c it sums everything up:
You must pay enough attention.
That's it. If you drive with with your pinky toe and avoid all accidents, then that's safer than 10/pi and accident-prone. And yes, you can avoid almost all accidents by paying attention. I've twice gotten out of the way when stopped and the car behind me almost plowed through me because I was watching the rear-view mirror. I've avoided a drunk(?) driver running through the light when I had the green arrow b/c I was watching him. 23 years of driving more 'dangerously' than 99% of you, and just one $600 accident. Why? I stopped paying attention (rule #2: don't get bored & start programming your radio when it's icey).
While I'm up here, I have a message to you bottleneckers: quit it! In fact, do the opposite. If the accident is on the other side of the freeway, quit looking and freakin gun it! If everyone were to gun it AT the bottleneck, guess what, there would no longer be a bottleneck!
Read about the waves:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/traffic-jams.html
One reason not mentioned is that waves happen because stopping/slowing down is faster than speeding up, if you're lazy. I like to drive through the waves without touching the brakes, but flooring it when I'm at the front of the wave or bottleneck, and I save gas (net) doing it. If everyone (or even a % of us) were to leave space before the wave, then gun it at the front, the wave goes away! The 'gun it' part isn't mentioned in the article, but it makes sense to me. And don't get me wrong, don't gun it so much that you have to hit the brake to not hit the car in front of you, but gun it as much as possible. Also, keep an eye on the traffic colors of your GPS, so you know when your at the front of the wave, if it's that big.
Hrm, there ought to be a 'kill the waves' day to spread awareness.
Just to add: mandatory insurance allowed additional people to be insured that weren't before. That is something on a lot of people's list at the time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_health_care_reform_in_the_United_States#Polling_results_pre-2008
pre-2008 polls say:
95% said that it is a serious problem that many Americans do not have health insurance
64% said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans
60% would pay higher taxes to do so.
But only 43% said that it would be fair for the government in Washington to require all Americans to participate in a national health care plan funded by taxpayers, compared to 48% who said it would be unfair.
That last one is worded differently from what happened, so actually doesn't disprove my point. If they worded it, "require Americans who can afford cheaper insurance from private companies to purchase it", then the numbers would have been more favorable.
> free condom cover
I'm guessing you meant women's contraception. Big difference, although both save this country a lot of money and stress.
Think of the financial industry, for example...
So you own 0 mutual funds I guess. The experts say the US dollar will be around for a long time, but they've been wrong before, so I'm sure you have all your savings in guns and canned food.
It's not just this industry. You can see similar things happen all the time. Food, with partially hydrogenated oils. In medicine you see a lot of treatments that are accepted one day, and then later they decide they are doing a lot of harm. Leaded gasoline was once lauded for it's ability to improve gas mileage by increasing the octane rating of fuels.
So you've never taken any medicine or gone to the doctor I presume.
My point is, it can happen everywhere, and experts are as susceptible to it as anybody.
You do make a rational point in that sometimes experts are wrong. But usually, they're more right than non-experts. And if you don't have the time or resources for giant wold wide studies over decades, then why would you trust your evaluation over the scientists? Really, even if you did have the resources, we as people don't have decades to make a decision. The data is in, the scientists agree. Of course we'll continue to measure and evaluate, but we need to at least do some simple steps to curb this. And what happens if the scientists are wrong? OMG we'll have cleaned up the planet a little, and have technology that makes us less dependent on fossil fuels, what a nightmare. Wait, that is a nightmare for oil companies.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/97_of_active_climatologists_ag.php
So this sounds like your guessing what he would do. I guess the opposite, seeing as how he's always had more small contributions from non-corporations than his competitors, and also I'd guess he actually does care about the public interest.
Now, if we switch to facts, then I'd like to point out that H.R.3261 was put forward by a Republican, and seems to be backed more from that party than Obama's:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money
Interests that support this bill: Republican/Conservative, Christian Conservative
Interests that oppose this bill: Democratic/Liberal
Don't get me wrong, I consider all politicians manipulative jerks, but I try to keep track of which are behaving in the least evil way.
Since it never made sense, I always thought E85 might have been a political red herring, distracting laws and investments from real solutions, as the hydrogen cell was depicted in a documentary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#Hydrogen_fuel_cell
Last post, so I know there will be no mods. But, I have my opinion, and then, to help answer the question asked, I wondered what Slashdot thought, combined with looking for bills that support/disprove my opinion.
> Consider the candidates (all of them, of any party) as a set. What
> issue can I use to divide them into two groups, such that one group is
> 'for' something and the other is 'against'?"
I'm going to list the Slashdot articles I found - emphasis on actual bills put forward, mostly more recent stuff.
H.R.3261: Anti Net Neutrality (1): Stop Online Piracy Act
http://yro.slashdot.org/tag/sopa
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money
Interests that support this bill: Republican/Conservative, Christian Conservative
Interests that oppose this bill: Democratic/Liberal
H.R.96: Anti Net Neutrality (1): End FCC's regulation of internet
http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2163-Republicans-Waste-No-Time-Moving-Against-Net-Neutrality
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h96/money
Interests that support this bill: Republican/Conservative
Open-Source Textbooks (2)
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/05/1615210/california-state-senator-proposes-funding-open-source-textbooks
Darrell Steinberg (D-CA)
Location Privacy (3)
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/06/15/1847256/franken-bill-would-protect-consumers-location-data
Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
Pro Net Neutrality (1): Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/01/26/1820236/senators-bash-isp-and-push-extensive-net-neutrality
Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Al Franken (D-MN)
Here is my take on what /. thinks:
(1) Slashdot is vehemently for Net Neutrality, and it seems D's are for, R's against. This looks like by far the biggest issue for slashdotters, and easiest issue to see who falls where.
(2) Given the corruption of the current system, OS textbooks is a geeky, cheap solution. Not a high priority issue.
(3) Slashdot really doesn't like big companies following their location.
Some other interesting articles/discusions: ./ seems to appreciate his work. Here's a couple:
Al Franken (compared to other representatives) is often discussed and
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/12/20/1835204/al-franken-makes-a-case-for-net-neutrality
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tells Facebook to quit sharing more of its users' data than they signed up for.
joined Schumer's call: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Al Franken (D-MN).
http://search.slashdot.org/story/10/04/27/1824236/senators-tell-facebook-to-quit-sharing-users-info
Interesting:
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/27/1910219/americas-turn-from-science-a-danger-for-democracy
Although they mostly debate religion, it's interesting, and my take is that slashdot seems agnostic with an aversion away from attacki
No, when your Google Voice gets a reply text message, you can have it set to automatically send a real text message to your non-data plan phone.
More advantages:
- One phone number for the rest of your life (probably)
- Keep contacts in one place (and it shares this same contact list with other services you might use - gmail, google+, picasa, etc.)
- Add/remove contacts and send/recieve text messages from the computer (hello fast/easy typing)
[Googlefanboi] There are other features you could benefit from. One phone number for the rest of your life (probably), keep contacts in one place for same time span (and it shares the same contacts with other services you might use - gmail, google+, picasa, etc.), add/remove contacts and send/recieve text message from the computer (hello fast/easy typing). I think there's an option for when you receive a text message or call to GV, it can forward that message/call to your cell phone that has no data plan. Ya, it makes things a little more complicated, but if you ever move to using Google services in the future, starting now will allow you to start entering your contacts and getting used to the service with no penalty. Try to honestly make the statement "Oh, I will never own a smartphone." Then get back to us in 10, or even 3 years and let us know how it worked out. [/Googlefanboi]
Until consumers realize how cheap text messages really are, I'm perfectly happy watching other people subsidize my bill while I text away on the Google Voice app. I want to guess this will finally make the app more popular, but the average consumer has been this slow for so long about it, this will be interesting to watch.
> the long term value of money is not the result of psychology, rather a simple division of the economic output of the country by the outstanding monetary base
Agreed
> Yup, we should stick to what we know works: spending money that will be paid by the future generation. I can't see any reason why this can't go on for ever.
True we can't spend forever, but we also need to weigh in the problem of good and bad economies. It's most effective if the government softens the blow of bad economies, while saving money during the good times. This has been proven time and again from Hoover to 90's Japan. Now that we didn't save, the arguing goes into high gear, and nothing productive gets done. Seems prudent to slowly and surely, but not drastically and immediately, cut the deficit (unless you feel that we are in good times with a great economy - then by all means lets cut like crazy).
Everyone's original offer focused on the 4 trillion number S&P has been asking for a while. The only way the negotiations fail and the problem wouldn't get solved is if one side takes the position of not negotiating.
I'm not in front of Vista, 7, and have never used KDE, but those task managers have a button to monitor hard drive usage, and since Gnome doesn't offer something similar, I'm wondering if your Activity Monitor does. If not, that's my suggestion. Its so annoying to be looking at a bunch of processes not taking any CPU, but the HDD light is solid on. Throwing darts can resolve the issue, but it's just annoying.
I second the Mini. I've found it much better (faster, bookmark syncing, not taking huge chunks of memory) than Chrome on Android. I'm surprised they didn't compare them, even if they say they're waiting for Opera Mobile for the robot.
+1 on mobile. It's where I keep the master copy, sync it to Linux PC with a script and programmable hotkey (not to mention quick usb mount from the Android desktop widget), where Dropbox syncs it to my other computers.
I 2nd your 2nd, but don't forget Android!
"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield..." So I say, you can try to manage the flow instead of stopping it altogether.
I say make a law such that when plugged in to the car port or charger, cellphones are given bluetooth-like functionality (mp3s & calls through the car speakers, etc), while not allowing texting (or a yearly changing list of functions that dont restrict the user *too* much). I hear the Verizon Droid seems to have the right idea of some kind of "driving mode" vs standard. With the coming wave of smartphone usage, people will really *want* to charge their phones while driving. And if a cop or camera see you not charging your phone, you get a costly ticket. It should change people's behavior like seat belts. Granted, its much harder to see the offense, so it will not be adopted as quickly, depending on how stiffly the laws are enforced, but it will change a percentage of people's behaviors (I'm thinking maybe 5%/yr topping off at 80% when everyone has smartphones). That percentage of change will save a percentage of lives, which is better than nothing, but at the same time not troubling people too much.
I, for example, am a habitual phone user in the car. Even though I know its dangerous, I just can't help myself - the smartphone is too damn useful & fun to use. I haven't been close to an accident yet, but if I were to get in one, I'd probably change, but a law like this would help push me a little harder. And if it forces phone & car companies to add cooperative, standards-forming functionality, it will keep me from getting too pissed off to complain to my congressman against it. And thats exactly what would be required to get any law passed at all.
I thought their changes to java were to optimize it further for efficiency/stability/security, or were those just Google excuses for putting something more proprietary? Would you agree that Android still seems to be the most open & promising phone/pda OS out there currently?
Are you trying to say that objective-c is just as common as java? I would guess Java is twice as popular as even regular C programming.
"an incredibly bad Market, with one of the worst search engine ever written"
As a user, I liked one app I saw where, in the description, it begged people to go to 'this website' for feedback, complaints, etc, -before- posting feedback on market. I guess thats more advice than a defense of their market design.
But a defense might be 'they weighted the power to the users, despite their incompetence, to empower users, and evened it out with developers by not charging money'
"Non-homogeneous hardware..."
What I can't figure is why they didn't build a hardware tag on all apps, so you can build your app specifically for the G1, or do they do this?
"google is sitting there going, buy my stuff please? pretty please?"
I disagree. I think Google is sitting there, being patient. It always looked like Google was into building something so right, that developers would come, and that would make the product so much better that people would come. Seems like they have always wanted to spend $0 on marketing - let the carriers do that. Google wants to spend 100% of their resources making a good product. I get the feeling they knew it might not take off as quickly as iphone. Maybe it will eventually, or maybe not. Maybe the market just isnt right for Android. Either way, Google is going to be patient and continue updating and making the service more solid, just like Maps, Gmail, Google Apps, etc. Just like those other services, since its practically free, it will never go the way of OS/2, somebody will always be using it. On the other hand, the upside is huge. A ubiquitous OS on the phone guarantees ad money.
I've designed websites before, and can't find anything wrong with your homepage from my G1. Is that the website you're referring to?
I've tried both, and the google voice app is a must-have. The website adds a layer of complexity making most of the service just too painful. Tethering actually works better on the iphone 3Gs since it doesn't run as hot, but comparing it with cost makes it worth it IMO - I pay $52/mo including taxes/fees for my own tmobile account & unlmt inet. My sister pays >$60 for her iphone, when she's actually on the family plan with my parents paying $80 for the base phone. What's the cheapest iphone plan out there with unlimited inet?
And you need to learn a new language (usually). Anyone that knows java pretty much can write for Android. Thats why its developer - friendly.
Human life doesn't have equivalent value everywhere.
Is that sarcasm? Are you serious? I thought it was self-evident that all men were created equal.