Verizon hasn't published an uncapped data plan in at least two years. So if you have a $23 a month unlimited plan, you're grandfathered into it and it's impossible for anyone to take your advise, or you know some secret handshake that gives you access to a data plan.
If you know of a plan that Verizon is still offering, could you tell me how to get it, please?
I'd defect to Verizon in a heartbeat if they offered an uncapped data plan at that price. I know of at least two people who would happily urinate on their iPhones in public if it meant going to an unlimited data plan on any half-decent handset. But Verizon's data plans are basically modeled after AT&T's and vice versa, so the prices and caps aren't very different.
They complain that the data plan is too expensive and the battery dies too fast. If you want to innovate, go after those two problems!
The beauty of the Android marketspace is that, if someone tries to dismiss a dying battery because "you're holding it wrong", they would be committing a very fast suicide because there are other Android makers out there, so I can just return the thing and get a nearly-identical replacement made by someone else who WILL fix the problem.
But I'm still convinced that we are going to get a phone maker who wants to draw iPhone loyalists with an "iPhone-like experience" at a lower cost. Build a phone that's feature-equivalent to an iPhone, add a few extra gewgaws, and use some of the money you didn't have to spend developing a phone OS from scratch on a nice UI over Android, you've got a potential iPhone direct competitor (note I didn't say "killer" because Apple still makes a nice phone and a nice computer and there will always be people who prefer it).
Hell, the smart ones are going to sell their UI as an Android overlay, so you buy your Android then buy this new UI as an add-on that replaces the current UI, and the app comes with its own pre-vetted App Store if you want applications consistent with the new UI.
Android licensing allows this. It's not hard to do, and could be a HUGE moneymaker. You could even make the new UI look relatively close to iOS if you have someone struggling with the iOS-to-Android conversion.
The same argument could be made for the world-crushing domination of Apple computers, except it can't. Variety and price basically won. There is a dizzying variety of PC vendors, each with its own reputation for price and/or quality, all based around largely a single operating system. That operating system is not Apple's. It's not Linux either, for those following along at home. Apple maintains its dedicated but small following based on predictable levels of quality and the rest of the world chooses from a continuum of quality and price in a marketplace. Linux is still struggling to catch up to Microsoft's head start, and I don't think the "year of the Linux desktop" will be very soon, but I think it's inevitable in my lifetime, and I'm solidly past 40.
Remember - Apple was first with a good concept of the userful "Personal Computer" - that's how they got started. But they always (at least after the very early beginnings) insisted on building their own hardware for their software and not allowing their own product to grow and adapt in the overall marketplace. Result? They remained a niche product for years. And will remain so. Still a recipe for success within their own market, and they do make nice stuff, but they'll never dominate any market they are in as long as they insist on absolute control over their share of it.
Fast forward 20+ years, and the same cycle is happening again. Apple crashed into a market with a revolutionary new type of product, they had the shiniest shiny on the block, everyone wanted one, and they started shooting up in popularity as a result. But the design team of one company cannot possibly keep pace with a competitive market, and the competitors are just about caught up now.
This is in no way implying that the iPhone is somehow inferior - it is certainly not, it's a very nice smartphone. This is in no way implying that Apple is somehow inferior, they certainly are not, they're a clever company that builds nice stuff. But this is a battle they need allies to win, and they are playing the isolationism game. They'll hold on to a niche because they build good stuff. But Android can also be used by people who want to build good stuff, and great stuff, and trashy cheap stuff. Apple will basically hold on to people who want their new phone to be the same as their old phone, just evolutionarily better.
Apple has, thanks to their great design teams, had three revolutionary opportunities to become the market leader.
1. Their inception, where they had little competition and a very cool OS. 2. The introduction of OSX over their BSD variant (Linux-like OS stability with Apple's design team building the UI over it? Bill Gates would have died of an aneurysm if Apple had ever even hinted about licensing that to other hardware builders). 3. The introduction of the iPhone.
In all three cases, Apple themselves stunted the growth of their own product by insisting on owning the entire user experience. They are brilliant engineers who assume that no one in the market could possibly be smarter than they are, so of course no one else could possibly improve on their product. So they don't allow it to happen. And others, if they see something Apple is doing right, just imitate them then improve on that until they outpace Apple.
How did Gates win? He watched what Xerox and Apple and IBM did, did similar things, then did it faster by creating a larger market and collaborating.
How did Palm lose? By creating really great devices then insisting on being the only people allowed to make them.
This actually represents the first time there is a viable and easily-licensed operating system for smartphones that anyone can make. It's rough around the edges, just like the Apple I was. This is like the personal computer space could have been had Apple continued pursuing the Apple I line and allowed licensing of its progressive improvements to other builders. If Apple had done that, it could have been the dominant operating syste
True, but on the other hand, someone will probably eventually come out with an Apple-like Android device. They'll hire a rockstar UI team, that UI team will work on the Android UI and pre-select a bunch of applications that meet their criteria. They'll put together their own App Store that limits selection or makes suggestions based on the apps they have chosen as being well-written and consistent, and discourage you from choosing other apps to keep you away from the UI chaos. They will keep a narrow selection of devices with a predictable feature set at a slightly higher price, but and you'll know that an Android device from them has the same predictability that Apple has today and people will respond to that.
Apple's saving grace is that the iOS also runs on the iPod Touch & iPad.
Apple's saving grace is that they'e worked most of the major kinks out of iOS and made it a predictable and consistent consumer OS, and that The Turtlenecked One's absolute control means you know exactly what you are buying when you buy it and you aren't overwhelmed with choice. Consumers tend to like that, and the majority will tolerate a certain level of external restriction and additional cost in order to get that "I plug it in, I turn it on, it works" experience that Apple does pretty damned well. iOS is a mature market, and a very small one in terms of item selection.
Android is very different. There are plenty of tablets available for Android in addition to the phones, and given that Android is a Linux variant and is open source and that Apple has brought tablets back into the mainstream for the moment, the selection of Android tablets is about to explode with a resounding kaboom.
The problem is that there is no Turtlenecked One in Android tablet development, and that is both good and bad.
Good in that different vendors can develop products with innovative features and compete in a relatively free market for who makes the best, and different vendors will allow different amounts of freedom versus "always works" and features versus cost. Someone's going to make an inexpensive low-resolution plastic piece of crap one for Wal Mart to sell for $50 marked down to $47.83 with a big yellow smiley face and "AA batteries not included". Someone's going to make a diamond-studded one with inlaid mahogany highlights and a high-resolution display for the Nieman Marcus catalogue. Someone's going to make a superthin one, someone's going to make a ruggedized one. Other companies will make pretty much anything else you can imagine in between, and more.
Bad in that the market will be supersaturated by many competing products, and comparing them is going to require work and you'll make mistakes. Features, price, build quality, and vendor openness are all going to be competitive factors, and you'll never inform yourself about all of them. If you choose something that's not open enough you can't do what you wanted with it. If you choose something that has more customization options than you can figure out you can't do what you wanted with it. If you choose a vendor that few others choose, your vendor goes out of business and you are on your own in terms of new Android releases.
iOS and Android are both multiplatform operating systems, but a direct comparison is like comparing apples and all other foodstuff except apples.
Only Apple can make an iOS device, and there is a very limited selection to choose from (a few basic feature variations on the current model plus maybe one model back). If they've got one you like, you'll always know what to order, and you'll always know exactly what you are going to get. Your only choice is "how much memory do I want?" and maybe "do I want 3G?" and the only difference is price. They need one display model to give you an idea of what it looks like.
Anyone can make Android tablets any way they want. In a year, you're going to go into a cell phone or tablet store and there's probably going to be a wall full of them. You're going to have a "Moscow on the Hudson" moment standing in front of the wall completely blown away by the variety of choices.
Apple's biggest saving grace is that they have an iron-fisted monopoly on everything they make. No one else can make and sell OSX or iOS devices. When you buy one, you know exactly what you are buying, and you don't have to invest much time in deciding which one you want. There will be a significant portion who looks at the mass chaos of hundreds of Android devices and say "fuck it, I trust Steve to build something that I like" and choose from the 6 models of iPad or the three current iPhone models.
There will be plenty of people who buy an Android and discover later that, for $20
I'm going to assume your "biG" is a Google reference.
So you're saying that Google, a company that makes almost every penny of its income in the form of advertising revenue, should buy Wikipedia and offer it as a free service to everyone, denying themselves the only possible reason they'd ever want to buy it?
Don't get me wrong, having Google support Wikipedia is a great idea given their drive and desire to make information available to all (Google Maps/Earth, Google Books, etc), but there would have to be ads.
If Google did it, it would probably be AdWords, so it wouldn't be terribly intrusive and the ads would be useful, but there would be ads. And google-analytics, which wouldn't be even less desirable.
Right, I didn't say such people understand how that works (I certainly didn't, and thanks to you and several others I now do, thanks!).
Someone pulled over in an inebriated state (and unaware of how the blood tests can be extrapolated back) might hope that a delay gives them a lower reading.
I suspect people refuse the breath test to buy time. It'll take a half hour to drag you to the police station, and maybe longer to get the blood test arranged, and by then your blood alcohol level might be lower?
Dunno. Never had to worry about it. I have enough money to afford a cab if it ever came down to it, and I stay home on drinking occasions like New Years to avoid the drunks.
I disagree, but I see your point and I think it's a fine line we disagree over.
iOS makes it slightly harder (not impossible) to do stupid things like loading apps from Chinese "warez" sites. The risk of those apps and sites exists for iOS users, but there's just a little extra effort (jailbreaking) involved.
If you buy an Android and want to take security seriously, you stick to known websites to get your apps from, preferably just the Android Store. You simply don't go to warez.r.us.cn and load pirated/cracked apps. Stick to known good sites, and you're as secure as iOS.
If you buy an iOS device and want to load cracked apps, jailbreak it. Jailbreak it, and you're as insecure as everyone else.
The most dangerous insecurity is the illusion of security, which is why one-liners like "or you can buy an iOS device" are dangerously misleading, because it implies that iOS is somehow invulnerable.
One of the things this country seriously needs is a move to eliminate primaries altogether, and the electoral system. Anyone who wants to run can run, on any platform they choose. No parties, no primaries, no checkboxes on the ballot. Write in the name of your preferred candidate (obviously we'd probably have to issue each Presidential candidate a "candidate number" to prevent duplicate name confusion, or something).
The one who gets the most individual votes at the national level is the President. The ones who gets the second-most and third-most votes become co-Vice Presidents. The roles change a little so the VPs have some input if they can agree on anything, and can override certain Presidential decisions if they cooperate.
It may not make government more effective, but given what the last few administrations have done to us, do you really want a MORE effective government?
I think you'll find both can be true simultaneously.
As a voting populace, Democrats outnumber Republicans in the US. So Democrats certainly have the oomph to force Palin into the primary if they chose to, especially in Democratic states. Republicans may be able to counter that if they vote as a single party, but if there are two viable Republican candidates who share the Republican vote, Democrats could easily use that to overwhelm them with a majority override.
By then, the economy will continue to suck and some centrists are going to be looking to the right, because there's this myth that the President absolutely controls the economy. So it's almost certain that Republicans are going to want Palin rather than Obama, simply because "she's not Obama". At the same time, you might find enough centrist Democrats falling for the myth, seeing Obama as a failure, and voting against him.
More importantly, the introduction of Palin as an candidate will make the entire election emotional.
And it's not outside the realm of possibility that Democrats would do this. There have already been movements at a local level, especially in states where party membership is fluid, to either vote in BOTH primaries or vote in the opposing party's primary to moderate that party's candidate to either be more centrist, or so completely batshit whacko that no one would want them. It's going to happen at the national level, it's going to happen soon, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen in the next election.
It's sad, but it's a reflection of how politics are working. We don't vote for anyone any more. We only vote against them.
I wouldn't be so sure. If this works, there are going to be a whole lot of Republicans at the ballot box having to decide between someone they came very goddamned close to voting in as a Vice President of a Presidential candidate they weren't really thrilled with in the first place (but they voted for McCain because he was NOT a Democrat), and a Democrat.
If Palin wins the Republican primary, I think you'll see a decent amount of interest in a third party, but it might be a moderate third party candidate that some Democrats could get behind as well.
You'll also see a good number of people who use the word "socialist" in conversation frequently who would gladly vote for Anyone But A Democrat. They'd probably line up to vote for Satan himself, as long as there was an (R) at the end of the name on the voting card. I'm sure there are a number of electoral votes that any Republican could count on no matter how radical they were, and it's a fairly significant number.
(to be fair, the same basic thing is also true of many Democrats).
Even if you want to take on the work to maintain it, it's usually a "blacklist" protection at best. In other words, unless you start spending a lot of time finding all the possible domains that could be a threat to you, you'll only know to use a HOSTS entry *after* you've already been exposed to the threat (or ad).
It's vaguely useful enough for ads, in that having an ad sneak in is pretty harmless. AdBlock does a far better job, and take a lot less work to configure.
But for malware protection? No. Not a chance. There's no way in hell you're going to keep up with all of the possible malware vectors, and HOSTS only protects you outbound. If you're concerned about that, get yourself a free firewall that offers per-program outbound filtering, not per-DNS entry.
HOSTS was useful back in the days before we had the horsepower to run actual stateful firewalls with filtering and intelligence. I remember them fondly, but they stopped being honestly useful sometime last century.
Unless, of course, you jailbreak your iOS device. Or someone gets a virus inside the walled garden and you install it as an app. Or a vulnerability in its web browser allows a properly-crafted website to execute code.
iOS is not invulnerable. It just doesn't allow you, by default, to be stupid enough to load cracked warez from Chinese websites. So it does offer you a level of protection against this specific vulnerability, that's very true. But that doesn't even come close to making you immune.
Note that, although many of the vulnerabilities listed above are pretty innocuous, some of them are pretty severe, and not a single one of them had anything to do with loading a specific application from an external site. These are all vulnerabilities in actual Apple-provided apps or the core iOS itself.
The only device that is immune to viruses is called a rock. And even it can get moss and lichen and dirt and stuff on it.
The average doofus who bought one of those smartphones might be dumb enough to use HOSTS files to try and protect from threats, if they could figure out how.
The rest of us (a) don't have the time, and (b) know how the Internet works and why a HOSTS file is about the most useless line of defense you could possibly want to use. It's locally-administered DNS poisoning.
Top tip: A lot of malware uses IP addresses directly, and are immune to DNS poisoning. No need to do DNS inquiries, harder to trace, and bypasses the hosts file for those people who still use them for the teeny modicum of protection they could possibly provide.
For those bits of malware that do use DNS, each one will use between one and very many DNS entries that you have to block individually, and if the malware detects it cannot get a connection it probably has a fallback to IP to get a new list of DNS addresses to try. Any update to the base application (if you are unaware it is infected) will probably load a new list of DNS entries.
Plus, of course, the malware may not have an outbound data connection using IP at all. It might instead use your phone to make calls to random 900 numbers, or send SMS texts, or use your email client to send your contacts list to the author, or any one of dozens of things that don't require a DNS lookup.
If you want to avoid this one very specific threat, you could:
1. Only use reliable app stores for downloading (since this specific threat only appeared on Chinese "warez" app stores, "where all apps are free! Free virus with almost every copyright violation!"
2. Edit your hosts file.
If you want to avoid most possible future threats, you could.
1. Continue to only use reliable app stores.
2. Spend hours each day researching every possible threat out there, determine what DNS entries they use, and manually enter a new entry for each possibly bad host, or subscribe to a hosts file subscription service and pray to FSM that your subscription service is honest. Start also praying to FSM that that all malware writers are kind enough to use DNS and not IP addresses!
If you want to avoid ALL possible future threats, you could:
1. Return the smartphone and get something with wires and a rotary dialler, then crawl under a rock somewhere, stick your fingers in your ear, and yell LA LA LA LA LA!!!
2. Above, except you yell BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA instead. (it's good to have choices)
The POTS analogy for host table protection is manually maintaining a block list on your local telephone for every telemarketer who could possibly call you on a phone that's not capable of blocking "anonymous" calls (analogous to using direct IP address).
It's a lot of work, there will always be new telemarketers with new phone numbers, and if they use caller ID blocking, it's ineffective.
HOSTS is, at best, a modest increase to security. But it takes a lot of work to maintain, and gives the people ignorant enough to use it a false sense of security that far outweighs any actual security benefits it could offer you.
I think the Covenant Chronicles is safe, at least for now. There's only one case of rape in it, it's not in any way incestuous, and it's not described in great detail.
Still, doesn't Amazon have an "Erotica" section to keep erotica in, so those who are not interested in it can easily avoid it and those who are can? I have yet to encounter anything on Amazon that would come close to being qualified as erotica, so I'd say their filters work pretty darned well.
So what's the problem? If they think people into non-incestuous erotica would have a problem with incestuous erotica, why not just make new categories called "incestuous erotica" and "homosexual erotica" and move everything objectionable to "heterosexual erotica" fans to their appropriate categories?
Are we so afraid of the written word that we give it the power to create incestuous rapists out of random folks, just because they encountered the title of a book they didn't like?
Probably why, despite the fact that a few of these kids were repeat offenders, they decided to go easy on them and treat them all as a "first offense". Some of these kids were third and fourth offenders (though many were first or second). Everyone was allowed to retest with no penalty except the hassle of having to take a bunch of tests over again.
First offense was you retook a new test, and got a stern lecture. I ran afoul of this by paraphrasing one of my cited references a little too closely when trying to rush a paper in 8th grade (plagiarism is, of course, cheating). I was allowed to replace the 5-page paper with a 10-page paper on a different subject, which was then graded as if nothing had happened.
Second offense was automatic zero grade for that test and any other tests they could show you had cheated on. Some teachers allowed make-up work to dig out of the hole and climb back up to passing, but it was usually hard work.
Third offense was zero grade for that class, and a mention of cheating on your academic record. If your teacher was nice and didn't have a summer job, they might offer you summer school to make up the class.
I've always worked for companies with random drug testing policies, however, so the potential enjoyment has been outweighed by ending a career I've put a large amount of money and effort into.
Until I retire or it gets legalized, whiskey will have to do.
I think a lot of that depends on the school. The company only flags the tests, they aren't involved with the actual academic enforcement.
If used properly, this would probably result in a detailed review of the test, and if it really is odd (student has been getting barely-passing grades in a subject for some time then suddenly gets several 100% scores in a row, for example) an interview with the student to demonstrate the knowledge necessary to pass the test.
So, if the result of your sudden increase in grades is due to actually putting your nose to the grindstone and working hard, that should be pretty evident if the professor/teacher starts asking you questions based on the material covered in the test. If it's not, that'll be pretty evident, too.
True story: When I was a senior in high school, we had a bunch of barely-passing students suddenly getting 100% on all their tests in a specific class about halfway through the year. The teacher had been keeping his answer keys in a locked drawer. The teacher didn't say a word, just quietly put a faked answer sheet where he normally kept his real ones, and 18 of the 22 kids in the class copied the responses verbatim from the faked answer sheet and got a zero on the next test. It didn't take long to figure out who had been selling the answer sheet, and he lost all credit for his senior year and had to retake the entire year, and lost his college placement over it. The rest were issued conditional diplomas and had the opportunity to retake new versions of all of the tests. If they failed them, they could retake the class over the summer if they wanted to earn their diplomas before college started.
This seems like the proper response to weed out any possible false positives. A flag in a system like this is not and should not be considered proof of guilt, it's an indication that the student (or teacher) needs closer scrutiny.
Part of me wants to agree with you, because you are technically correct. However, the other part doesn't want to acknowledge the truth in your assertion because that leads to a risk that Lucas might actually make I, II, and III someday. And that's a horror on a scale too large to contemplate. It took years of therapy to get rid of that bad dream I had a while back that Lucas had actually done such a thing, and I still scream sometimes at night when I think of that nightmarish monstrosity that can only be a figment of my badly twisted imagination saying "meesa thinksa youusa..."
Whoops, it's back. Time to call my therapist again. His name is Jack, and he comes in 750ml sessions.
In a sane world, most of these works would have fallen out of copyright protection years ago anyway, rendering the point moot.
In fact, I'd say that only movies that have fallen out of copyright protection should be eligible for this list, since "cultural significance" takes a while to develop anyway. We just need to go back to the 20-year copyright and we're good.
Well, to be fair to them, the list has been added to since 1989, at the rate of 25 movies a year. Also, the selection has little to do with the quality of the films, but more with their lasting effects on American culture. "Airplane" and "Saturday Night Fever" both introduced of lines and memes that have come into common usage.
As far as flack for "Airplane!", comedy is a matter of taste. Personally, I run the risk of hurting myself laughing each time I see it, and it's one of the fewer than 20 movies in my personal library. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities to it whatsoever, it's a "check your brain at the door and pour a good glass of whiskey" movie. (just don't get out the really good stuff in case you decide to re-enact the drinking problem skit!)
Young Frankenstein was added in 2003, Blazing Saddles in 2006. "The Producers" was added in 1996, as well. I thought "To Be or Not To Be" (also added in 1996) was one of his, but it's the 1942 Ernst Lubitsch version, not Brooks' remake.
So Brooks has at least three movies in the registry.
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Verizon hasn't published an uncapped data plan in at least two years. So if you have a $23 a month unlimited plan, you're grandfathered into it and it's impossible for anyone to take your advise, or you know some secret handshake that gives you access to a data plan.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobilebroadband/?page=plans
If you know of a plan that Verizon is still offering, could you tell me how to get it, please?
I'd defect to Verizon in a heartbeat if they offered an uncapped data plan at that price. I know of at least two people who would happily urinate on their iPhones in public if it meant going to an unlimited data plan on any half-decent handset. But Verizon's data plans are basically modeled after AT&T's and vice versa, so the prices and caps aren't very different.
They complain that the data plan is too expensive and the battery dies too fast. If you want to innovate, go after those two problems!
The beauty of the Android marketspace is that, if someone tries to dismiss a dying battery because "you're holding it wrong", they would be committing a very fast suicide because there are other Android makers out there, so I can just return the thing and get a nearly-identical replacement made by someone else who WILL fix the problem.
But I'm still convinced that we are going to get a phone maker who wants to draw iPhone loyalists with an "iPhone-like experience" at a lower cost. Build a phone that's feature-equivalent to an iPhone, add a few extra gewgaws, and use some of the money you didn't have to spend developing a phone OS from scratch on a nice UI over Android, you've got a potential iPhone direct competitor (note I didn't say "killer" because Apple still makes a nice phone and a nice computer and there will always be people who prefer it).
Hell, the smart ones are going to sell their UI as an Android overlay, so you buy your Android then buy this new UI as an add-on that replaces the current UI, and the app comes with its own pre-vetted App Store if you want applications consistent with the new UI.
Android licensing allows this. It's not hard to do, and could be a HUGE moneymaker. You could even make the new UI look relatively close to iOS if you have someone struggling with the iOS-to-Android conversion.
The same argument could be made for the world-crushing domination of Apple computers, except it can't. Variety and price basically won. There is a dizzying variety of PC vendors, each with its own reputation for price and/or quality, all based around largely a single operating system. That operating system is not Apple's. It's not Linux either, for those following along at home. Apple maintains its dedicated but small following based on predictable levels of quality and the rest of the world chooses from a continuum of quality and price in a marketplace. Linux is still struggling to catch up to Microsoft's head start, and I don't think the "year of the Linux desktop" will be very soon, but I think it's inevitable in my lifetime, and I'm solidly past 40.
Remember - Apple was first with a good concept of the userful "Personal Computer" - that's how they got started. But they always (at least after the very early beginnings) insisted on building their own hardware for their software and not allowing their own product to grow and adapt in the overall marketplace. Result? They remained a niche product for years. And will remain so. Still a recipe for success within their own market, and they do make nice stuff, but they'll never dominate any market they are in as long as they insist on absolute control over their share of it.
Fast forward 20+ years, and the same cycle is happening again. Apple crashed into a market with a revolutionary new type of product, they had the shiniest shiny on the block, everyone wanted one, and they started shooting up in popularity as a result. But the design team of one company cannot possibly keep pace with a competitive market, and the competitors are just about caught up now.
This is in no way implying that the iPhone is somehow inferior - it is certainly not, it's a very nice smartphone. This is in no way implying that Apple is somehow inferior, they certainly are not, they're a clever company that builds nice stuff. But this is a battle they need allies to win, and they are playing the isolationism game. They'll hold on to a niche because they build good stuff. But Android can also be used by people who want to build good stuff, and great stuff, and trashy cheap stuff. Apple will basically hold on to people who want their new phone to be the same as their old phone, just evolutionarily better.
Apple has, thanks to their great design teams, had three revolutionary opportunities to become the market leader.
1. Their inception, where they had little competition and a very cool OS.
2. The introduction of OSX over their BSD variant (Linux-like OS stability with Apple's design team building the UI over it? Bill Gates would have died of an aneurysm if Apple had ever even hinted about licensing that to other hardware builders).
3. The introduction of the iPhone.
In all three cases, Apple themselves stunted the growth of their own product by insisting on owning the entire user experience. They are brilliant engineers who assume that no one in the market could possibly be smarter than they are, so of course no one else could possibly improve on their product. So they don't allow it to happen. And others, if they see something Apple is doing right, just imitate them then improve on that until they outpace Apple.
How did Gates win? He watched what Xerox and Apple and IBM did, did similar things, then did it faster by creating a larger market and collaborating.
How did Palm lose? By creating really great devices then insisting on being the only people allowed to make them.
This actually represents the first time there is a viable and easily-licensed operating system for smartphones that anyone can make. It's rough around the edges, just like the Apple I was. This is like the personal computer space could have been had Apple continued pursuing the Apple I line and allowed licensing of its progressive improvements to other builders. If Apple had done that, it could have been the dominant operating syste
True, but on the other hand, someone will probably eventually come out with an Apple-like Android device. They'll hire a rockstar UI team, that UI team will work on the Android UI and pre-select a bunch of applications that meet their criteria. They'll put together their own App Store that limits selection or makes suggestions based on the apps they have chosen as being well-written and consistent, and discourage you from choosing other apps to keep you away from the UI chaos. They will keep a narrow selection of devices with a predictable feature set at a slightly higher price, but and you'll know that an Android device from them has the same predictability that Apple has today and people will respond to that.
Apple's saving grace is that the iOS also runs on the iPod Touch & iPad.
Apple's saving grace is that they'e worked most of the major kinks out of iOS and made it a predictable and consistent consumer OS, and that The Turtlenecked One's absolute control means you know exactly what you are buying when you buy it and you aren't overwhelmed with choice. Consumers tend to like that, and the majority will tolerate a certain level of external restriction and additional cost in order to get that "I plug it in, I turn it on, it works" experience that Apple does pretty damned well. iOS is a mature market, and a very small one in terms of item selection.
Android is very different. There are plenty of tablets available for Android in addition to the phones, and given that Android is a Linux variant and is open source and that Apple has brought tablets back into the mainstream for the moment, the selection of Android tablets is about to explode with a resounding kaboom.
The problem is that there is no Turtlenecked One in Android tablet development, and that is both good and bad.
Good in that different vendors can develop products with innovative features and compete in a relatively free market for who makes the best, and different vendors will allow different amounts of freedom versus "always works" and features versus cost. Someone's going to make an inexpensive low-resolution plastic piece of crap one for Wal Mart to sell for $50 marked down to $47.83 with a big yellow smiley face and "AA batteries not included". Someone's going to make a diamond-studded one with inlaid mahogany highlights and a high-resolution display for the Nieman Marcus catalogue. Someone's going to make a superthin one, someone's going to make a ruggedized one. Other companies will make pretty much anything else you can imagine in between, and more.
Bad in that the market will be supersaturated by many competing products, and comparing them is going to require work and you'll make mistakes. Features, price, build quality, and vendor openness are all going to be competitive factors, and you'll never inform yourself about all of them. If you choose something that's not open enough you can't do what you wanted with it. If you choose something that has more customization options than you can figure out you can't do what you wanted with it. If you choose a vendor that few others choose, your vendor goes out of business and you are on your own in terms of new Android releases.
iOS and Android are both multiplatform operating systems, but a direct comparison is like comparing apples and all other foodstuff except apples.
Only Apple can make an iOS device, and there is a very limited selection to choose from (a few basic feature variations on the current model plus maybe one model back). If they've got one you like, you'll always know what to order, and you'll always know exactly what you are going to get. Your only choice is "how much memory do I want?" and maybe "do I want 3G?" and the only difference is price. They need one display model to give you an idea of what it looks like.
Anyone can make Android tablets any way they want. In a year, you're going to go into a cell phone or tablet store and there's probably going to be a wall full of them. You're going to have a "Moscow on the Hudson" moment standing in front of the wall completely blown away by the variety of choices.
Apple's biggest saving grace is that they have an iron-fisted monopoly on everything they make. No one else can make and sell OSX or iOS devices. When you buy one, you know exactly what you are buying, and you don't have to invest much time in deciding which one you want. There will be a significant portion who looks at the mass chaos of hundreds of Android devices and say "fuck it, I trust Steve to build something that I like" and choose from the 6 models of iPad or the three current iPhone models.
There will be plenty of people who buy an Android and discover later that, for $20
I'm going to assume your "biG" is a Google reference.
So you're saying that Google, a company that makes almost every penny of its income in the form of advertising revenue, should buy Wikipedia and offer it as a free service to everyone, denying themselves the only possible reason they'd ever want to buy it?
Don't get me wrong, having Google support Wikipedia is a great idea given their drive and desire to make information available to all (Google Maps/Earth, Google Books, etc), but there would have to be ads.
If Google did it, it would probably be AdWords, so it wouldn't be terribly intrusive and the ads would be useful, but there would be ads. And google-analytics, which wouldn't be even less desirable.
Right, I didn't say such people understand how that works (I certainly didn't, and thanks to you and several others I now do, thanks!).
Someone pulled over in an inebriated state (and unaware of how the blood tests can be extrapolated back) might hope that a delay gives them a lower reading.
I suspect people refuse the breath test to buy time. It'll take a half hour to drag you to the police station, and maybe longer to get the blood test arranged, and by then your blood alcohol level might be lower?
Dunno. Never had to worry about it. I have enough money to afford a cab if it ever came down to it, and I stay home on drinking occasions like New Years to avoid the drunks.
I disagree, but I see your point and I think it's a fine line we disagree over.
iOS makes it slightly harder (not impossible) to do stupid things like loading apps from Chinese "warez" sites. The risk of those apps and sites exists for iOS users, but there's just a little extra effort (jailbreaking) involved.
If you buy an Android and want to take security seriously, you stick to known websites to get your apps from, preferably just the Android Store. You simply don't go to warez.r.us.cn and load pirated/cracked apps. Stick to known good sites, and you're as secure as iOS.
If you buy an iOS device and want to load cracked apps, jailbreak it. Jailbreak it, and you're as insecure as everyone else.
The most dangerous insecurity is the illusion of security, which is why one-liners like "or you can buy an iOS device" are dangerously misleading, because it implies that iOS is somehow invulnerable.
One of the things this country seriously needs is a move to eliminate primaries altogether, and the electoral system. Anyone who wants to run can run, on any platform they choose. No parties, no primaries, no checkboxes on the ballot. Write in the name of your preferred candidate (obviously we'd probably have to issue each Presidential candidate a "candidate number" to prevent duplicate name confusion, or something).
The one who gets the most individual votes at the national level is the President. The ones who gets the second-most and third-most votes become co-Vice Presidents. The roles change a little so the VPs have some input if they can agree on anything, and can override certain Presidential decisions if they cooperate.
It may not make government more effective, but given what the last few administrations have done to us, do you really want a MORE effective government?
I think you'll find both can be true simultaneously.
As a voting populace, Democrats outnumber Republicans in the US. So Democrats certainly have the oomph to force Palin into the primary if they chose to, especially in Democratic states. Republicans may be able to counter that if they vote as a single party, but if there are two viable Republican candidates who share the Republican vote, Democrats could easily use that to overwhelm them with a majority override.
By then, the economy will continue to suck and some centrists are going to be looking to the right, because there's this myth that the President absolutely controls the economy. So it's almost certain that Republicans are going to want Palin rather than Obama, simply because "she's not Obama". At the same time, you might find enough centrist Democrats falling for the myth, seeing Obama as a failure, and voting against him.
More importantly, the introduction of Palin as an candidate will make the entire election emotional.
And it's not outside the realm of possibility that Democrats would do this. There have already been movements at a local level, especially in states where party membership is fluid, to either vote in BOTH primaries or vote in the opposing party's primary to moderate that party's candidate to either be more centrist, or so completely batshit whacko that no one would want them. It's going to happen at the national level, it's going to happen soon, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen in the next election.
It's sad, but it's a reflection of how politics are working. We don't vote for anyone any more. We only vote against them.
I wouldn't be so sure. If this works, there are going to be a whole lot of Republicans at the ballot box having to decide between someone they came very goddamned close to voting in as a Vice President of a Presidential candidate they weren't really thrilled with in the first place (but they voted for McCain because he was NOT a Democrat), and a Democrat.
If Palin wins the Republican primary, I think you'll see a decent amount of interest in a third party, but it might be a moderate third party candidate that some Democrats could get behind as well.
You'll also see a good number of people who use the word "socialist" in conversation frequently who would gladly vote for Anyone But A Democrat. They'd probably line up to vote for Satan himself, as long as there was an (R) at the end of the name on the voting card. I'm sure there are a number of electoral votes that any Republican could count on no matter how radical they were, and it's a fairly significant number.
(to be fair, the same basic thing is also true of many Democrats).
Even if you want to take on the work to maintain it, it's usually a "blacklist" protection at best. In other words, unless you start spending a lot of time finding all the possible domains that could be a threat to you, you'll only know to use a HOSTS entry *after* you've already been exposed to the threat (or ad).
It's vaguely useful enough for ads, in that having an ad sneak in is pretty harmless. AdBlock does a far better job, and take a lot less work to configure.
But for malware protection? No. Not a chance. There's no way in hell you're going to keep up with all of the possible malware vectors, and HOSTS only protects you outbound. If you're concerned about that, get yourself a free firewall that offers per-program outbound filtering, not per-DNS entry.
HOSTS was useful back in the days before we had the horsepower to run actual stateful firewalls with filtering and intelligence. I remember them fondly, but they stopped being honestly useful sometime last century.
Use the Party's official applications only? Isn't that the only way not to be killed as a dissident anyway?
Unless, of course, you jailbreak your iOS device. Or someone gets a virus inside the walled garden and you install it as an app. Or a vulnerability in its web browser allows a properly-crafted website to execute code.
iOS is not invulnerable. It just doesn't allow you, by default, to be stupid enough to load cracked warez from Chinese websites. So it does offer you a level of protection against this specific vulnerability, that's very true. But that doesn't even come close to making you immune.
But it's not exactly invulnerable to attack: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/iOS_Security_Updates_20100908.htm
Note that, although many of the vulnerabilities listed above are pretty innocuous, some of them are pretty severe, and not a single one of them had anything to do with loading a specific application from an external site. These are all vulnerabilities in actual Apple-provided apps or the core iOS itself.
The only device that is immune to viruses is called a rock. And even it can get moss and lichen and dirt and stuff on it.
The average doofus who bought one of those smartphones might be dumb enough to use HOSTS files to try and protect from threats, if they could figure out how.
The rest of us (a) don't have the time, and (b) know how the Internet works and why a HOSTS file is about the most useless line of defense you could possibly want to use. It's locally-administered DNS poisoning.
Top tip: A lot of malware uses IP addresses directly, and are immune to DNS poisoning. No need to do DNS inquiries, harder to trace, and bypasses the hosts file for those people who still use them for the teeny modicum of protection they could possibly provide.
For those bits of malware that do use DNS, each one will use between one and very many DNS entries that you have to block individually, and if the malware detects it cannot get a connection it probably has a fallback to IP to get a new list of DNS addresses to try. Any update to the base application (if you are unaware it is infected) will probably load a new list of DNS entries.
Plus, of course, the malware may not have an outbound data connection using IP at all. It might instead use your phone to make calls to random 900 numbers, or send SMS texts, or use your email client to send your contacts list to the author, or any one of dozens of things that don't require a DNS lookup.
If you want to avoid this one very specific threat, you could:
1. Only use reliable app stores for downloading (since this specific threat only appeared on Chinese "warez" app stores, "where all apps are free! Free virus with almost every copyright violation!"
2. Edit your hosts file.
If you want to avoid most possible future threats, you could.
1. Continue to only use reliable app stores.
2. Spend hours each day researching every possible threat out there, determine what DNS entries they use, and manually enter a new entry for each possibly bad host, or subscribe to a hosts file subscription service and pray to FSM that your subscription service is honest. Start also praying to FSM that that all malware writers are kind enough to use DNS and not IP addresses!
If you want to avoid ALL possible future threats, you could:
1. Return the smartphone and get something with wires and a rotary dialler, then crawl under a rock somewhere, stick your fingers in your ear, and yell LA LA LA LA LA!!!
2. Above, except you yell BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA instead. (it's good to have choices)
The POTS analogy for host table protection is manually maintaining a block list on your local telephone for every telemarketer who could possibly call you on a phone that's not capable of blocking "anonymous" calls (analogous to using direct IP address).
It's a lot of work, there will always be new telemarketers with new phone numbers, and if they use caller ID blocking, it's ineffective.
HOSTS is, at best, a modest increase to security. But it takes a lot of work to maintain, and gives the people ignorant enough to use it a false sense of security that far outweighs any actual security benefits it could offer you.
I think the Covenant Chronicles is safe, at least for now. There's only one case of rape in it, it's not in any way incestuous, and it's not described in great detail.
Still, doesn't Amazon have an "Erotica" section to keep erotica in, so those who are not interested in it can easily avoid it and those who are can? I have yet to encounter anything on Amazon that would come close to being qualified as erotica, so I'd say their filters work pretty darned well.
So what's the problem? If they think people into non-incestuous erotica would have a problem with incestuous erotica, why not just make new categories called "incestuous erotica" and "homosexual erotica" and move everything objectionable to "heterosexual erotica" fans to their appropriate categories?
Are we so afraid of the written word that we give it the power to create incestuous rapists out of random folks, just because they encountered the title of a book they didn't like?
Probably why, despite the fact that a few of these kids were repeat offenders, they decided to go easy on them and treat them all as a "first offense". Some of these kids were third and fourth offenders (though many were first or second). Everyone was allowed to retest with no penalty except the hassle of having to take a bunch of tests over again.
First offense was you retook a new test, and got a stern lecture. I ran afoul of this by paraphrasing one of my cited references a little too closely when trying to rush a paper in 8th grade (plagiarism is, of course, cheating). I was allowed to replace the 5-page paper with a 10-page paper on a different subject, which was then graded as if nothing had happened.
Second offense was automatic zero grade for that test and any other tests they could show you had cheated on. Some teachers allowed make-up work to dig out of the hole and climb back up to passing, but it was usually hard work.
Third offense was zero grade for that class, and a mention of cheating on your academic record. If your teacher was nice and didn't have a summer job, they might offer you summer school to make up the class.
Probably true.
I've always worked for companies with random drug testing policies, however, so the potential enjoyment has been outweighed by ending a career I've put a large amount of money and effort into.
Until I retire or it gets legalized, whiskey will have to do.
I think a lot of that depends on the school. The company only flags the tests, they aren't involved with the actual academic enforcement.
If used properly, this would probably result in a detailed review of the test, and if it really is odd (student has been getting barely-passing grades in a subject for some time then suddenly gets several 100% scores in a row, for example) an interview with the student to demonstrate the knowledge necessary to pass the test.
So, if the result of your sudden increase in grades is due to actually putting your nose to the grindstone and working hard, that should be pretty evident if the professor/teacher starts asking you questions based on the material covered in the test. If it's not, that'll be pretty evident, too.
True story: When I was a senior in high school, we had a bunch of barely-passing students suddenly getting 100% on all their tests in a specific class about halfway through the year. The teacher had been keeping his answer keys in a locked drawer. The teacher didn't say a word, just quietly put a faked answer sheet where he normally kept his real ones, and 18 of the 22 kids in the class copied the responses verbatim from the faked answer sheet and got a zero on the next test. It didn't take long to figure out who had been selling the answer sheet, and he lost all credit for his senior year and had to retake the entire year, and lost his college placement over it. The rest were issued conditional diplomas and had the opportunity to retake new versions of all of the tests. If they failed them, they could retake the class over the summer if they wanted to earn their diplomas before college started.
This seems like the proper response to weed out any possible false positives. A flag in a system like this is not and should not be considered proof of guilt, it's an indication that the student (or teacher) needs closer scrutiny.
Part of me wants to agree with you, because you are technically correct. However, the other part doesn't want to acknowledge the truth in your assertion because that leads to a risk that Lucas might actually make I, II, and III someday. And that's a horror on a scale too large to contemplate. It took years of therapy to get rid of that bad dream I had a while back that Lucas had actually done such a thing, and I still scream sometimes at night when I think of that nightmarish monstrosity that can only be a figment of my badly twisted imagination saying "meesa thinksa youusa..."
Whoops, it's back. Time to call my therapist again. His name is Jack, and he comes in 750ml sessions.
In a sane world, most of these works would have fallen out of copyright protection years ago anyway, rendering the point moot.
In fact, I'd say that only movies that have fallen out of copyright protection should be eligible for this list, since "cultural significance" takes a while to develop anyway. We just need to go back to the 20-year copyright and we're good.
Well, to be fair to them, the list has been added to since 1989, at the rate of 25 movies a year. Also, the selection has little to do with the quality of the films, but more with their lasting effects on American culture. "Airplane" and "Saturday Night Fever" both introduced of lines and memes that have come into common usage.
As far as flack for "Airplane!", comedy is a matter of taste. Personally, I run the risk of hurting myself laughing each time I see it, and it's one of the fewer than 20 movies in my personal library. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities to it whatsoever, it's a "check your brain at the door and pour a good glass of whiskey" movie. (just don't get out the really good stuff in case you decide to re-enact the drinking problem skit!)
Young Frankenstein was added in 2003, Blazing Saddles in 2006. "The Producers" was added in 1996, as well. I thought "To Be or Not To Be" (also added in 1996) was one of his, but it's the 1942 Ernst Lubitsch version, not Brooks' remake.
So Brooks has at least three movies in the registry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Registry
They probably thought about it in 2002, but had to make room for "Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and His Singing Duck" :)