Text Messages, phone calls, facebook 'status', blogs, etc. Many things solve the problems you propose twitter is solving.
Companies like NASA and conferences like TED don't need to instantly update over mobile devices. Someone from those organizations should have access to a real computer and they can create a real post to a website/blog.
Get a professional website and use modern technology to make it easy to update. But the current service is nothing new, nothing innovative, nothing anyone should care about. Now it is around and popular enough to be able to re-brand before everyone realizes the idea is nothing more than a facebook status.
Text messages, phone calls, etc - do not update the entire world in real time. A Single Text message does not reach millions of people, neither does a phone call. Some big Organizations don't use facebook because the Company entity itself has no need to socially network. Blogs are only updated by someone AT a computer, FOR a specific website. Hey, you need to hire an out of highschool web developer for 25k a year to update your website? Why bother updating a website when you can post an RSS feed, once setup (which has easy to use instructions) its easy enough that anyone who understands email can update an RSS feed. But you want to reach more people, link your news postings to a twitter account.
Of course, no one NEEDS instant updates, but they are nice. Its like saying Email is not needed. Todays day and age, you'd argue, but big companies were around long before the internet. Is it innovative? Absolutely not. Is it new? Not really. Should people care about it? Yes. Because its ALREADY a big thing and if you choose to ignore it, you'll be left in the dust. It IS nothing more than a facebook status update, but lets face it, (pun intended) - facebook while great for social networking does NOT handle news broadcasts as well as Twitter does. I don't want to have to filter my news posts to keep out events, photo uploads, new notes, just to look at status updates of people on my friends list, who have to be confirmed in the first place.
NASA discovers an asteroid heading to earth few hours to live - I want to know about that in the middle of my Monday Morning meeting rather then waiting till I get back to my desk to find an opportune moment to look at a browser.
You can send an email, and that person can take all day to read it and get back to you. You can send an email to Your favourite band for an update and hope they respond back to you. You can send an email to your favourite Physicist and hope he doesn't toss it in the trash. You can send an email to EVERYONE on your friends list and hope they all care enough to read it.
-OR-
You can buck up, use twitter for its USEFUL purposes and stop bashing its downsides. Subscribe to a feed you want to know about, and those who want to know about you can subscribe to you.
You don't HAVE to tweet if you have nothing interesting to say. You don't have to subscribe to someone who you don't find interesting. I don't know why people who are otherwise on the cutting edge of technological updates seem to have this notion that Twitter is bad because its popular for social networking - when its popularity is what makes it better than RSS feeds and other such technologies. INTERESTING individuals use twitter as much as the uninteresting ones. You decide who you listen to.
Instantaneous updates about whatever you want whenever you want -
Even if you don't Tweet yourself, you can follow your favourite Bands, Companies like NASA, conferences like TED, etc etc... To recieve the latest and greatest updates as fast as possible without having to look it up on a site like Slashdot, or potentially missing it if it passes the front page.
Also, if you're of the socially active teenager age, its easy for parents and friends alike to know whats going on when. One of your friends comes down with the flu, they tweet about it, you know they won't be at the party. Etc etc.
Essentially what you're asking is "Why are quick updates so popular? Back in my day we had to WAIT for the MAIL" and I hope that after reading my comment you realize how ridiculous it is to bash Twitter so much. I agree alot of people tweet about nothing, and their lives are uninteresting, such devices like the TV Tweeting remote are marketted to these people. However, that is NOT the "Draw" of twitter.
My Mouse Tweets anytime I click on anything, if its inside the web browser it tweets the URL I'm at, if its inside a game it tweets my headshots, and if I'm working it tweets how much I'm NOT on/.
You can't have cross-platform online interoperation unless EA uses an entirely custom online framework that is identical among platforms.
Not exactly. There are work arounds. Alot of places on the internet are starting to "merge" their profiles or linking them amongst different sites. The basic example I'll give you is this.
I want to register for the RedvsBlue forums. I hate registering. Filling out my info? Boring. Guess what? You got a facebook account? I got a facebook account. I can use THAT to create a RedvsBlue account. Bam, I log into RedvsBlue, THROUGH facebook, and I didn't have to enter anything but an email address and a password I already created at another site. They also hooked up Twitter, Myspace, and other social networking sites.
How hard would it be for Microsoft to implement a feature to allow an Xbox Live Gamertag creation based on a Wii Online profile or PS3 online Profile, and anytime a Wii player logs in online they're logged into their gamertag as well?
If they all got together for 10 minutes and said: Here, lets all write a method that creates profiles for each others networks to create interoperable gameplay amongst our systems - they COULD.
But like people have said, A) They don't want to work together, and B) Its just more load on their servers.
No. The flaw in the helmet is described as a gap between the helmet and the head. That IS a flaw. If an explosion goes off overhead, assuming no debris or shrapnel or whatever is going to hit the soldier, he'll survive it anyways. Now if he's wearing a helmet, that shockwave will push the helmet (similar to a baseball bat hitting a baseball) and that gap will give it momentum to physically hit the head.
shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head
Either Jarhead isn't wearing his helmet properly or there IS a major flaw in the design. This kind of thing is mentioned everywhere.
Have you ever worn a bike helmet that was 3 sizes too large? How effective was it? Heres an experiment, place a ball on the ground and smack it with your hand. Notice how much it bounces, moves, etc etc. Now take that ball and hold it 2 feet off the ground. Now hit it, and see how much more it bounces.
If the helmet has an inch of gap, its no surprise that helmets are hitting troops with more effective damage then if they were wearing nothing at all.
Otherwise they wouldn't be -THE- largest game developer out there in North America. If you haven't heard of EA, you either never left Nintendo, or live without video games.
If they were doing things wrong, they wouldn't be doing so well.
In my eyes, its not that they should cut back from marketting, but spend more on developing! I'd be more inclined to jump into game development commercially if they got paid more decently.
There's also an algorithm that will rank things by relevance to your search, what the tags are on the link, such and such.
For example, if you search "NEWS" the word News is the only tag it searches for, thus whoever has the most page hits gets it. You'll notice, Google news is not #1. So they aren't cheating.
If you type, "Canada News" Now it searches for something with Canada as a High Relevance point, with slightly less on the News Point, but both. Those Web sites whose tags are "Canada, News,..." in that order will come up first.
If you type "News Canada" It reverses their relevancy, and some different results come up, mostly just different orders.
How Relevancy is derived for both the Search String and the Tags is unreleased - thus News Sites don't know how to Tag their sites for maximum relevancy.
The problem with Nationalizing the Infrastructure from Private companies is that both those Companies and the Government are on the same side all ready.
Considering the influence of huge corps in the States, it doesn't matter who has control of this -
But if its the Government in the interest of National security, who will argue?
It sounds like they'd only shut off their access to the outside world in the hopes to cut off cyberthreats like North Korean hackers trying to access nukes.
LoL. Well I live in Canada. The US Government can do whatever they want with their internets. It'll suck because the Halo servers will be down, along with Steam, WoW, Battlefield............
I worked at Laptop shop with in-house technical support.
Guess what two pieces AREN'T covered for in the Warranty? Battery and power supply. Even the Manufacturers warranty for the battery is shorter than the manufacturers warranty for the laptop. This is simply because they are succeptable to ALOT of failure. Now the great thing about laptop batteries is that they are usually completely encased in plastic, and if one "explodes" - its pretty difficult to tell. These explosions aren't like the ones you see on TV, they're small, probably no bigger than your thumbnail.
You see how slim the Apple Devices are? That pinhead explosion is enough to break the screen, just because the battery is RIGHT next to the screen.
Well. Yes. I didn't mean "Easy" as in we've mastered it, I meant it as in, since they're so small, I don't need an Alternator the size of a head to recharge it. My mistake for poor word usage. Should've said because of their size AND the ability to be recharged.
I mean, it appears to me as though Apple found a couple of cases where it wasn't the battery and they're trying to promote the idea that their product is safe before admitting that there is a defect.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the batteries went through alot of QA before they were shipped, and they were much safer then previous batteries used. But its still the same technology, and there will be rare cases where users will put strain on their devices that weren't tested. And by that I don't mean excessive pressure to the screen, I mean having the iPhone in a dusty environment, things start overheating, lots of stuff like that.
Are the cause I hear. Lots of devices use these kinds of batteries, simply because they are easily rechargable. It's said that if one gets too hot, and is under a certain amount of pressure on the inside, the battery can explode. I didn't RTFA I'm sure its mentioned somewhere in there. Things that use L I batteries have exploded before in the past, it's just become common that everyone owns either an iPod or an iPhone, so when 13 or more stories arise of exploding Apple devices people take notice.
But, like the summary says, Apple hasn't received the broken equipment yet, so the battery is not the CONFIRMED cause of the explosion.
I remember the iPod Coming out, and I remember owning an MP3 Player before it came out. I remember owning a CD... Player thing... I want to call it a "CD-man" because its a walkman that plays CD's but... whatever.
Point is, Everything that changes Pop Culture today isn't really a breakthrough. Its some technology that existed, was compiled together, and marketted with a flashy appeal.
If you look at the internet as a breakthrough for computers, then you could almost look at Cloud computing as a breakthrough for the internet. If The Cloud really takes off, I think it'll be the closest thing to a revolution I've seen in my lifetime. (Microblogging is NOT a revolution until EVERYONE is doing it, which I hope I do not fall prey to)
Well The industrial revolution and electricity were barely within a lifetime of each other, and computers were another few generations later - wheras technology sort of creeped along at that stage, I mean if you consider the lightbulb a piece of technology (Basically just applied electricity).
Though with the same sense of thinking the Internet is just applied computer technology, and its definately world changing.
I can't think of anything to have come out IN MY LIFETIME (Last 20 years) that's really been WORLD changing for me, though you would say I'm numbed to it. Aside from the internet blowing up into what it is, what revolutions have taken place?
I tend to think of it as - its not a continuous revolution, just the current one hasn't ended yet. The industrial revoltion didn't occur overnight. I think the Dawn of computer technology has just barely started.
Eventually we'll break it down into Quantum computers, and we probably won't be able to get computers any stronger (except by brute force methods like larger chips). And then there won't be much advancements in computer technology. But Biotechnics are exciting, and there are advancements that I'm hearing about but haven't directly affected me. And Like XKCD says, this may be the root to immortality, but it won't happen within my lifetime.
I mean, maybe if we wait long enough, far enough into the future - they'll release IPv6!
I agree, its all business strategy really. And it'd be alot of extra work. While 360 and PS3 Are quite similar, they DO run differently, hence why I can't run a 360 game in a PS3, it has enough minor differences for it not to be "Compatible". (It COULD be compatible if the developers worked on making it so, but they aren't paid to do that.)
Also, a Console == PC. I booted a Linux Distro on my Original Xbox!
Useless attachment to plug onto my Wiimote for a single game that will cease to be fun after a couple of months, thus becoming a complete waste.
Seriously, The Wii was a great idea when you filled in the blanks with your wii-mote. When all you had was the nunchuck to add on and you could turn that into a rifle. Or turning that combo into a fishing rod.
It started with the Racing wheel, which I could ALMOST understand. It does make it a little easier to drive, though its not like it was difficult. But then Nintendo realized... Hey... We made alot of money selling this attachment, because everyone wants at least 2 steering wheels... and then BAM, theres an attachment for everything, even games that worked fine before without attachments *cough*Tennis*cough*. And no one wants to have to switch the attachments after each minigame, you spend as much time prepping for the game as you do playing the game.
Don't get me wrong, I like Nintendo, this all just seems like a Cash Grab, and they've discovered they've got enough fanbase for it to work. The only things I ever want to see with a Wii are a Nun-chuck and the wii-fit board.
I went to go see it too, and thats what they say, but its very difficult to tell where a body comes from. Theres no more evidence to suggest that they were donated to science then there is to suggest they were grave robbed or to suggest he purchased them.
Slashdot Mirror
Text Messages, phone calls, facebook 'status', blogs, etc. Many things solve the problems you propose twitter is solving.
Companies like NASA and conferences like TED don't need to instantly update over mobile devices. Someone from those organizations should have access to a real computer and they can create a real post to a website/blog.
Get a professional website and use modern technology to make it easy to update. But the current service is nothing new, nothing innovative, nothing anyone should care about. Now it is around and popular enough to be able to re-brand before everyone realizes the idea is nothing more than a facebook status.
Text messages, phone calls, etc - do not update the entire world in real time. A Single Text message does not reach millions of people, neither does a phone call. Some big Organizations don't use facebook because the Company entity itself has no need to socially network. Blogs are only updated by someone AT a computer, FOR a specific website. Hey, you need to hire an out of highschool web developer for 25k a year to update your website? Why bother updating a website when you can post an RSS feed, once setup (which has easy to use instructions) its easy enough that anyone who understands email can update an RSS feed. But you want to reach more people, link your news postings to a twitter account.
Of course, no one NEEDS instant updates, but they are nice. Its like saying Email is not needed. Todays day and age, you'd argue, but big companies were around long before the internet. Is it innovative? Absolutely not. Is it new? Not really. Should people care about it? Yes. Because its ALREADY a big thing and if you choose to ignore it, you'll be left in the dust. It IS nothing more than a facebook status update, but lets face it, (pun intended) - facebook while great for social networking does NOT handle news broadcasts as well as Twitter does. I don't want to have to filter my news posts to keep out events, photo uploads, new notes, just to look at status updates of people on my friends list, who have to be confirmed in the first place.
NASA discovers an asteroid heading to earth few hours to live - I want to know about that in the middle of my Monday Morning meeting rather then waiting till I get back to my desk to find an opportune moment to look at a browser.
You can send an email, and that person can take all day to read it and get back to you. You can send an email to Your favourite band for an update and hope they respond back to you. You can send an email to your favourite Physicist and hope he doesn't toss it in the trash. You can send an email to EVERYONE on your friends list and hope they all care enough to read it.
-OR-
You can buck up, use twitter for its USEFUL purposes and stop bashing its downsides. Subscribe to a feed you want to know about, and those who want to know about you can subscribe to you.
You don't HAVE to tweet if you have nothing interesting to say. You don't have to subscribe to someone who you don't find interesting. I don't know why people who are otherwise on the cutting edge of technological updates seem to have this notion that Twitter is bad because its popular for social networking - when its popularity is what makes it better than RSS feeds and other such technologies. INTERESTING individuals use twitter as much as the uninteresting ones. You decide who you listen to.
Instantaneous updates about whatever you want whenever you want -
Even if you don't Tweet yourself, you can follow your favourite Bands, Companies like NASA, conferences like TED, etc etc... To recieve the latest and greatest updates as fast as possible without having to look it up on a site like Slashdot, or potentially missing it if it passes the front page.
Also, if you're of the socially active teenager age, its easy for parents and friends alike to know whats going on when. One of your friends comes down with the flu, they tweet about it, you know they won't be at the party. Etc etc.
Essentially what you're asking is "Why are quick updates so popular? Back in my day we had to WAIT for the MAIL" and I hope that after reading my comment you realize how ridiculous it is to bash Twitter so much. I agree alot of people tweet about nothing, and their lives are uninteresting, such devices like the TV Tweeting remote are marketted to these people. However, that is NOT the "Draw" of twitter.
My Mouse Tweets anytime I click on anything, if its inside the web browser it tweets the URL I'm at, if its inside a game it tweets my headshots, and if I'm working it tweets how much I'm NOT on /.
You can't have cross-platform online interoperation unless EA uses an entirely custom online framework that is identical among platforms.
Not exactly. There are work arounds. Alot of places on the internet are starting to "merge" their profiles or linking them amongst different sites. The basic example I'll give you is this.
I want to register for the RedvsBlue forums. I hate registering. Filling out my info? Boring. Guess what? You got a facebook account? I got a facebook account. I can use THAT to create a RedvsBlue account. Bam, I log into RedvsBlue, THROUGH facebook, and I didn't have to enter anything but an email address and a password I already created at another site. They also hooked up Twitter, Myspace, and other social networking sites.
How hard would it be for Microsoft to implement a feature to allow an Xbox Live Gamertag creation based on a Wii Online profile or PS3 online Profile, and anytime a Wii player logs in online they're logged into their gamertag as well?
If they all got together for 10 minutes and said: Here, lets all write a method that creates profiles for each others networks to create interoperable gameplay amongst our systems - they COULD.
But like people have said, A) They don't want to work together, and B) Its just more load on their servers.
No. The flaw in the helmet is described as a gap between the helmet and the head. That IS a flaw. If an explosion goes off overhead, assuming no debris or shrapnel or whatever is going to hit the soldier, he'll survive it anyways. Now if he's wearing a helmet, that shockwave will push the helmet (similar to a baseball bat hitting a baseball) and that gap will give it momentum to physically hit the head.
Sounds pretty flawed to me.
shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head
Either Jarhead isn't wearing his helmet properly or there IS a major flaw in the design. This kind of thing is mentioned everywhere.
Have you ever worn a bike helmet that was 3 sizes too large? How effective was it? Heres an experiment, place a ball on the ground and smack it with your hand. Notice how much it bounces, moves, etc etc. Now take that ball and hold it 2 feet off the ground. Now hit it, and see how much more it bounces.
If the helmet has an inch of gap, its no surprise that helmets are hitting troops with more effective damage then if they were wearing nothing at all.
If everyone else did their job right and didn't need the bolded and capital letters.
If anything, everyone else should have been reprimanded and she should have been told not to warn them anymore.
You ask everyone to name 1 game developer - everyone who plays WoW will say Blizzard. Everyone else will say Electronic Arts.
Otherwise they wouldn't be -THE- largest game developer out there in North America. If you haven't heard of EA, you either never left Nintendo, or live without video games.
If they were doing things wrong, they wouldn't be doing so well.
In my eyes, its not that they should cut back from marketting, but spend more on developing! I'd be more inclined to jump into game development commercially if they got paid more decently.
There's also an algorithm that will rank things by relevance to your search, what the tags are on the link, such and such.
For example, if you search "NEWS"
the word News is the only tag it searches for, thus whoever has the most page hits gets it. You'll notice, Google news is not #1. So they aren't cheating.
If you type, "Canada News" ..." in that order will come up first.
Now it searches for something with Canada as a High Relevance point, with slightly less on the News Point, but both. Those Web sites whose tags are "Canada, News,
If you type "News Canada"
It reverses their relevancy, and some different results come up, mostly just different orders.
How Relevancy is derived for both the Search String and the Tags is unreleased - thus News Sites don't know how to Tag their sites for maximum relevancy.
Battery or not - its defective if its not the user applying too much pressure. Point is that Apple is denying that its their fault.
I just wagered it was the battery because those have been the cause for exploding mini devices in the past.
The problem with Nationalizing the Infrastructure from Private companies is that both those Companies and the Government are on the same side all ready.
Considering the influence of huge corps in the States, it doesn't matter who has control of this -
But if its the Government in the interest of National security, who will argue?
If the UN Didn't have superpowers with Vetos...
and if the UN included every country...
And if the UN... worked....
It sounds like they'd only shut off their access to the outside world in the hopes to cut off cyberthreats like North Korean hackers trying to access nukes.
LoL. Well I live in Canada. The US Government can do whatever they want with their internets. It'll suck because the Halo servers will be down, along with Steam, WoW, Battlefield... ... ... ...
*sigh*
I call it the 1337th Ammendment.
I worked at Laptop shop with in-house technical support.
Guess what two pieces AREN'T covered for in the Warranty? Battery and power supply. Even the Manufacturers warranty for the battery is shorter than the manufacturers warranty for the laptop. This is simply because they are succeptable to ALOT of failure. Now the great thing about laptop batteries is that they are usually completely encased in plastic, and if one "explodes" - its pretty difficult to tell. These explosions aren't like the ones you see on TV, they're small, probably no bigger than your thumbnail.
You see how slim the Apple Devices are? That pinhead explosion is enough to break the screen, just because the battery is RIGHT next to the screen.
Well. Yes. I didn't mean "Easy" as in we've mastered it, I meant it as in, since they're so small, I don't need an Alternator the size of a head to recharge it. My mistake for poor word usage. Should've said because of their size AND the ability to be recharged.
Now THAT -IS- interesting.
I mean, it appears to me as though Apple found a couple of cases where it wasn't the battery and they're trying to promote the idea that their product is safe before admitting that there is a defect.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the batteries went through alot of QA before they were shipped, and they were much safer then previous batteries used. But its still the same technology, and there will be rare cases where users will put strain on their devices that weren't tested. And by that I don't mean excessive pressure to the screen, I mean having the iPhone in a dusty environment, things start overheating, lots of stuff like that.
Are the cause I hear. Lots of devices use these kinds of batteries, simply because they are easily rechargable. It's said that if one gets too hot, and is under a certain amount of pressure on the inside, the battery can explode. I didn't RTFA I'm sure its mentioned somewhere in there. Things that use L I batteries have exploded before in the past, it's just become common that everyone owns either an iPod or an iPhone, so when 13 or more stories arise of exploding Apple devices people take notice.
But, like the summary says, Apple hasn't received the broken equipment yet, so the battery is not the CONFIRMED cause of the explosion.
Anyone want to take a bet?
I remember the iPod Coming out, and I remember owning an MP3 Player before it came out. I remember owning a CD... Player thing... I want to call it a "CD-man" because its a walkman that plays CD's but... whatever.
Point is, Everything that changes Pop Culture today isn't really a breakthrough. Its some technology that existed, was compiled together, and marketted with a flashy appeal.
If you look at the internet as a breakthrough for computers, then you could almost look at Cloud computing as a breakthrough for the internet. If The Cloud really takes off, I think it'll be the closest thing to a revolution I've seen in my lifetime. (Microblogging is NOT a revolution until EVERYONE is doing it, which I hope I do not fall prey to)
Well The industrial revolution and electricity were barely within a lifetime of each other, and computers were another few generations later - wheras technology sort of creeped along at that stage, I mean if you consider the lightbulb a piece of technology (Basically just applied electricity).
Though with the same sense of thinking the Internet is just applied computer technology, and its definately world changing.
I can't think of anything to have come out IN MY LIFETIME (Last 20 years) that's really been WORLD changing for me, though you would say I'm numbed to it. Aside from the internet blowing up into what it is, what revolutions have taken place?
I tend to think of it as - its not a continuous revolution, just the current one hasn't ended yet. The industrial revoltion didn't occur overnight. I think the Dawn of computer technology has just barely started.
Eventually we'll break it down into Quantum computers, and we probably won't be able to get computers any stronger (except by brute force methods like larger chips). And then there won't be much advancements in computer technology.
But Biotechnics are exciting, and there are advancements that I'm hearing about but haven't directly affected me. And Like XKCD says, this may be the root to immortality, but it won't happen within my lifetime.
I mean, maybe if we wait long enough, far enough into the future - they'll release IPv6!
I agree, its all business strategy really. And it'd be alot of extra work. While 360 and PS3 Are quite similar, they DO run differently, hence why I can't run a 360 game in a PS3, it has enough minor differences for it not to be "Compatible". (It COULD be compatible if the developers worked on making it so, but they aren't paid to do that.)
Also, a Console == PC.
I booted a Linux Distro on my Original Xbox!
Useless attachment to plug onto my Wiimote for a single game that will cease to be fun after a couple of months, thus becoming a complete waste.
Seriously, The Wii was a great idea when you filled in the blanks with your wii-mote. When all you had was the nunchuck to add on and you could turn that into a rifle. Or turning that combo into a fishing rod.
It started with the Racing wheel, which I could ALMOST understand. It does make it a little easier to drive, though its not like it was difficult. But then Nintendo realized... Hey... We made alot of money selling this attachment, because everyone wants at least 2 steering wheels... and then BAM, theres an attachment for everything, even games that worked fine before without attachments *cough*Tennis*cough*. And no one wants to have to switch the attachments after each minigame, you spend as much time prepping for the game as you do playing the game.
Don't get me wrong, I like Nintendo, this all just seems like a Cash Grab, and they've discovered they've got enough fanbase for it to work. The only things I ever want to see with a Wii are a Nun-chuck and the wii-fit board.
I went to go see it too, and thats what they say, but its very difficult to tell where a body comes from. Theres no more evidence to suggest that they were donated to science then there is to suggest they were grave robbed or to suggest he purchased them.
Can I see a Manifest or something?