That's like saying your laptop fails at being a calculator. It uses way more energy, it's 100x bigger, it doesn't fit in your pocket, and doesn't have a dedicated keypad. Smartwatches are watches only in how they are generally shaped and worn on the body. In all other respects they are mobile devices, like your phone or a tablet. They are marketed as "watches" because that's a familiar concept to people but functionally they are not similar.
Except having a clock on your wrist has proven to be very useful for over a hundred years, so there's a reason that people would prioritize that function. Knowing when your neighbor's cousin liked your Instagram post... well, I think most of us don't recognize the same utility.
Tried it, hated it. What I wanted was a RSS reader that was smart enough to use regular expressions / follow the damn links to the content, but instead got something which was half-email / half-webbrowser.
For instance, there are, perhaps, several dozen webcomics that use RSS; Dilbert might publish the actual image inside the RSS feed, while Slightly Damned might include a link to their latest webcomic; in either case, it's annoying -> I want to be able to tell the RSS reader to grab ONLY the images (from wherever), and to display it all like on the cartoon pages of a newspaper (back when we had those; use a grid layout or something).
Same things with major stories: I want paragraphs...the reader I was using would give it to you in a line, like email -> I want the headline + a customizable amount of text following that, ala a newspaper.
Instead it just became unnecessary work. Reuter's homepage had things more properly organized than I could make them in the reader. As for the comics, I hate having to read a post, to find a link, that says that you have the latest up on your website (so take me there)...it's an unnecessary amount of clicking.
If you know regular expressions, you can probably just write your own reader in your language of choice that has easy XML parsing. Unfortunately--and I'm not sure which--either RSS is a super loose standard, or very few content providers adhere to the standard.
Although it is true that the moderators are somewhat randomized, all of the moderators are "slashdotters". In other words, posts that are positive towards Apple will get downvotes and positive for Android will get upvotes, regardless of the content. Same is true for Trump/Republicans/FBI/FCC/etc. Definitely a bias here.
And yet I am still surprised by the occasional outspoken, yet thoughtful, +5 post around here. Reddit et al hold no such surprises.
Except that on slashdot the comment moderators are at least somewhat randomized. They're not a fixed cadre of ideologues.
Yep, as was repeatedly brought up during the anniversary celebrations, Slashdot still has an elegant, well-conceived, and (in light of other sites' abject failures) surprisingly effective modding system. The reason Reddit doesn't fix theirs is because mob rule gives you a nice mob to advertise to.
Contrary ideas get downmodded into oblivion and it stifles the discussion of controversial topics.
A bad thing to do.
The problem is the people who are the most motivated to "detoxify" the internet want this to happen. It's just a matter of what is considered "controversial." Not coincidentally, this is why I have yet to kick the Slashdot habit, no matter how annoying the crusading has become.
While you are of course welcome to come up with a counter-argument what you just produced is something completely different - misdirection.
It's possible to be praising something while still arguing something negative for the same thing. Your post would only be relevant if the engineer retracted the earlier statement in praising the driving experience.
One of the charms of a Harley-Davidson is that it is primitive mechanically (or was: have not seen one or read about them in 20 years) but being a joy to ride and work with. Fun - primitive: not mutually exclusive.
How is the post not relevant? The engineer had not done a teardown yet, and was previously only commenting on the fit and finish of the car. His opinion of the ride, handling, and performance was much higher. So supposing some fantasy world where the fit and finish is equal in importance to the performance of a vehicle, that still makes the car suddenly seem to be 50% better than was suggested by
An engineering firm did a tear down of the latest model and said it was like a "1990s era Kia" in terms of quality.
No, I was mentioning it as an option for PEOPLE who don't want either LA or SF. A bit more livable, and sharing a border with a foreign country for day trips is also nice,
Yeah, it's nice down there. A little too nice. I would be perpetually afraid of it becoming the new hotness and getting expensive and crowded. Best weather in the state, best park in the state with (arguably) the best zoo in the world, interesting geography, lots to do, very good public transit for its size. No more NFL team but I'm not a sports guy and, anyway, at least you have the Padres.
I cannot fathom--for the life of me--how people can convince themselves to spend a grand on something that sends text messages and snaps selfies. You can buy a fucking 4K TV >65" for a grand. I should know, I bought a Samsung 55" for ~$800.
Tell me you're joking.
My current smartphone is used for backcountry, road and marine navigation, photography and video recording, voice and text communication, web lookups, portable storage, as a TV remote (ie. Chromecast), a music hub in my car, weather station (barometer, hygrometer and thermometer), alarm clock, on-call pager, voice recorder, mobile hotspot, guitar tuner, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Your TV does what? Entertain you a few hours a day?
You don't need to spend $1k for a phone that does all that, and if you really care about the photo/video, buy a $200 phone and an $800 camera. Or buy a $200 phone, a $500 camera, and a... I don't know.. $10 thumb drive? What does using your phone for "portable storage" mean?
> I am sure this could had been done nearly as well with some sort of Android phone too.
LOL, no. Android has basically zero credibility here. Shitty phones, shitty cameras that take even shittier videos, and absolutely NO software that could even come close to what has been available for years on iPhone.
There's nothing that suggests he did any processing or editing on the phone. For the matter, what you really want is a raw or nearly raw format. No added contrast, sharpness, color correction, or digital stabilization (well, maybe moderate color correction if the output isn't raw). All that can be done much better and more easily in post.
The main advantage isn't the Camera, but the fact that you have a device that you use for a bunch of other stuff with a Camera good enough for quality video work if needed.
Often with technology the generic consumer device gets to a point where getting a specialized device just isn't worth it, because the difference is much more minute. While the convenience of a general purpose is quite handy.
I am sure this could had been done nearly as well with some sort of Android phone too. There is no Magic Apple feature, but it may be the fact it was the phone he had.
I can't think of any advantages other than the nice built-in monitor or perhaps the different mood it creates on set. I suspect it's an artistic statement, or even a gesture to encourage budding filmmakers to get shooting with what they have. You could very easily produce a better looking film with the same time and money constraints using cheap still cameras instead. An iPhone has a phenomenal camera for the size, but nothing beats a bigger sensor and bigger sensors aren't expensive.
That's the whole point, they'll get paid off by EA Origin and tell Steam to get bent or whatever. If they were only mucking with stuff no one cared about there's nothing for them to gain from it.
Is this going to change how anyone votes? Will you be voting against a candidate because of this? Will you vote in a party primary? Will you vote in other elections you otherwise wouldn't (like mid terms) or be voting for the first time in years?
No, because even if you do buy into the rhetoric that the sky is falling, this has to be one of the least consequential reasons to suddenly become a single-issue voter.
And of course it's the same with gun control, with the NRA; with climate change, with the fossil fuel industries; and with food safety, with big agriculture.
Since Republicans are wrong on all major issues, it's a wonder it hasn't happened already.
But still nothing has changed their "build the whole widget" approach and most likely nothing ever will.
Good summary, but this bit is shortsighted. It's a publicly traded company, not a force of nature. There are lots of factors that can bring about changes currently deemed unthinkable.
Think bigger. Suppose all your apps' data was stored in a blockchain, or STORJ or Maidsafe or some other encrypted distributed digital storage mechanism. Suppose the data formats were as open as SMTP/POP/IMAP/RADIUS/FTP. Suppose you could switch apps just by downloading a new one and popping in the necessary credentials?
This is what I'm thinking about these days. It's going to be a game changer.
Yeah... so who vets these apps? Who removes them if they're found to be nefarious? As soon as you think you have the perfect decentralized system worked out, the Average Joe will complain that it's too hard to grok and then some entity rises to the position of One True Gatekeeper. At least, that's why Google is what it is.
If something happens (alternator, dead battery), I can get a stalled (or stalling) vehicle to the side of the road. With all these electronic subsystems, if something happens which knocks out the vehicle's electric power, it not just becomes harder to steer and brake (due to lack of assist), but harder to move to the shoulder, with no mirrors present.
I don't mind stuff as augments, but not as replacements, especially with safety devices like mirrors that can mean the difference versus a safe pass versus being a long criminal negligence prison sentence for hitting a motorcycle.
Let's be honest, at that point you're driving an electric car anyway.
I'm not understanding how this works better than a $0.50 mirror.
I'm not understanding how it can be as reliable as a $0.50 mirror. Also, if one of my mirrors breaks, the remaining two can partially cover the deficiency. If the electronics goes down, I'm blind to what's behind me without looking over my shoulder.
Then there's the whole hackability aspect. I can see the headlines right now.
You wouldn't think that the current drive-by-wire control systems would be as reliable as the old rods and cables, but here we are. I think you're missing the point anyway. What's more likely? That the camera system malfunctions, or that a driver misses or misinterprets what is in his side view mirror? The system is not aimed at being more reliable than an optical mirror, but at bringing the overall reliability up by making the driver more reliable. Suddenly that motorcyclist in your blind spot is glowing red.
Does using software to monitor your children's activity warrant a vigilante destroying a private company's data? The article reads a bit click-baity to me.
For that matter, maybe the parents told their kids they put the software on their devices.
Warning: Should a future vulnerability be discovered in this technology--which is almost certainly incomprehensible to you anyway and may as well be considered "magic"--corrective updates may impact advertised performance.
Slashdot Mirror
They generally fail at being a watch.
That's like saying your laptop fails at being a calculator. It uses way more energy, it's 100x bigger, it doesn't fit in your pocket, and doesn't have a dedicated keypad. Smartwatches are watches only in how they are generally shaped and worn on the body. In all other respects they are mobile devices, like your phone or a tablet. They are marketed as "watches" because that's a familiar concept to people but functionally they are not similar.
Except having a clock on your wrist has proven to be very useful for over a hundred years, so there's a reason that people would prioritize that function. Knowing when your neighbor's cousin liked your Instagram post... well, I think most of us don't recognize the same utility.
Tried it, hated it. What I wanted was a RSS reader that was smart enough to use regular expressions / follow the damn links to the content, but instead got something which was half-email / half-webbrowser.
For instance, there are, perhaps, several dozen webcomics that use RSS; Dilbert might publish the actual image inside the RSS feed, while Slightly Damned might include a link to their latest webcomic; in either case, it's annoying -> I want to be able to tell the RSS reader to grab ONLY the images (from wherever), and to display it all like on the cartoon pages of a newspaper (back when we had those; use a grid layout or something).
Same things with major stories: I want paragraphs...the reader I was using would give it to you in a line, like email -> I want the headline + a customizable amount of text following that, ala a newspaper.
Instead it just became unnecessary work. Reuter's homepage had things more properly organized than I could make them in the reader. As for the comics, I hate having to read a post, to find a link, that says that you have the latest up on your website (so take me there)...it's an unnecessary amount of clicking.
If you know regular expressions, you can probably just write your own reader in your language of choice that has easy XML parsing. Unfortunately--and I'm not sure which--either RSS is a super loose standard, or very few content providers adhere to the standard.
the protocol did not catch on, you're a geek using a niche tech that is dying.
move on, the rest of us have
What did you move on to, exactly? RSS is still everywhere, by the way.
Although it is true that the moderators are somewhat randomized, all of the moderators are "slashdotters". In other words, posts that are positive towards Apple will get downvotes and positive for Android will get upvotes, regardless of the content. Same is true for Trump/Republicans/FBI/FCC/etc. Definitely a bias here.
And yet I am still surprised by the occasional outspoken, yet thoughtful, +5 post around here. Reddit et al hold no such surprises.
Except that on slashdot the comment moderators are at least somewhat randomized. They're not a fixed cadre of ideologues.
Yep, as was repeatedly brought up during the anniversary celebrations, Slashdot still has an elegant, well-conceived, and (in light of other sites' abject failures) surprisingly effective modding system. The reason Reddit doesn't fix theirs is because mob rule gives you a nice mob to advertise to.
Contrary ideas get downmodded into oblivion and it stifles the discussion of controversial topics.
A bad thing to do.
The problem is the people who are the most motivated to "detoxify" the internet want this to happen. It's just a matter of what is considered "controversial." Not coincidentally, this is why I have yet to kick the Slashdot habit, no matter how annoying the crusading has become.
Microsoft is explicitly violating the CFAA, here.
Nobody anywhere near a decision-making or prosecutorial position would buy that. It was a bug. There will be more. Get over it however you wish.
While you are of course welcome to come up with a counter-argument what you just produced is something completely different - misdirection.
It's possible to be praising something while still arguing something negative for the same thing. Your post would only be relevant if the engineer retracted the earlier statement in praising the driving experience.
One of the charms of a Harley-Davidson is that it is primitive mechanically (or was: have not seen one or read about them in 20 years) but being a joy to ride and work with. Fun - primitive: not mutually exclusive.
How is the post not relevant? The engineer had not done a teardown yet, and was previously only commenting on the fit and finish of the car. His opinion of the ride, handling, and performance was much higher. So supposing some fantasy world where the fit and finish is equal in importance to the performance of a vehicle, that still makes the car suddenly seem to be 50% better than was suggested by
An engineering firm did a tear down of the latest model and said it was like a "1990s era Kia" in terms of quality.
No, I was mentioning it as an option for PEOPLE who don't want either LA or SF. A bit more livable, and sharing a border with a foreign country for day trips is also nice,
Yeah, it's nice down there. A little too nice. I would be perpetually afraid of it becoming the new hotness and getting expensive and crowded. Best weather in the state, best park in the state with (arguably) the best zoo in the world, interesting geography, lots to do, very good public transit for its size. No more NFL team but I'm not a sports guy and, anyway, at least you have the Padres.
San Diego is beautiful, not yet overcrowded, and more affordable than the other two major CA cities.
And yet it sounds like you are advocating for high paying companies to locate there, driving up the cost of living for the average San Diegan.
I cannot fathom--for the life of me--how people can convince themselves to spend a grand on something that sends text messages and snaps selfies. You can buy a fucking 4K TV >65" for a grand. I should know, I bought a Samsung 55" for ~$800.
Tell me you're joking.
My current smartphone is used for backcountry, road and marine navigation, photography and video recording, voice and text communication, web lookups, portable storage, as a TV remote (ie. Chromecast), a music hub in my car, weather station (barometer, hygrometer and thermometer), alarm clock, on-call pager, voice recorder, mobile hotspot, guitar tuner, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Your TV does what? Entertain you a few hours a day?
You don't need to spend $1k for a phone that does all that, and if you really care about the photo/video, buy a $200 phone and an $800 camera. Or buy a $200 phone, a $500 camera, and a... I don't know.. $10 thumb drive? What does using your phone for "portable storage" mean?
> I am sure this could had been done nearly as well with some sort of Android phone too.
LOL, no. Android has basically zero credibility here. Shitty phones, shitty cameras that take even shittier videos, and absolutely NO software that could even come close to what has been available for years on iPhone.
There's nothing that suggests he did any processing or editing on the phone. For the matter, what you really want is a raw or nearly raw format. No added contrast, sharpness, color correction, or digital stabilization (well, maybe moderate color correction if the output isn't raw). All that can be done much better and more easily in post.
The main advantage isn't the Camera, but the fact that you have a device that you use for a bunch of other stuff with a Camera good enough for quality video work if needed.
Often with technology the generic consumer device gets to a point where getting a specialized device just isn't worth it, because the difference is much more minute. While the convenience of a general purpose is quite handy.
I am sure this could had been done nearly as well with some sort of Android phone too. There is no Magic Apple feature, but it may be the fact it was the phone he had.
I can't think of any advantages other than the nice built-in monitor or perhaps the different mood it creates on set. I suspect it's an artistic statement, or even a gesture to encourage budding filmmakers to get shooting with what they have. You could very easily produce a better looking film with the same time and money constraints using cheap still cameras instead. An iPhone has a phenomenal camera for the size, but nothing beats a bigger sensor and bigger sensors aren't expensive.
That's the whole point, they'll get paid off by EA Origin and tell Steam to get bent or whatever. If they were only mucking with stuff no one cared about there's nothing for them to gain from it.
I think Steam is all direct download.
Is this going to change how anyone votes? Will you be voting against a candidate because of this? Will you vote in a party primary? Will you vote in other elections you otherwise wouldn't (like mid terms) or be voting for the first time in years?
No, because even if you do buy into the rhetoric that the sky is falling, this has to be one of the least consequential reasons to suddenly become a single-issue voter.
And of course it's the same with gun control, with the NRA; with climate change, with the fossil fuel industries; and with food safety, with big agriculture.
Since Republicans are wrong on all major issues, it's a wonder it hasn't happened already.
If you start seeing nginx errors on your favorite websites, you will know you have been affected.
Bravo.
But still nothing has changed their "build the whole widget" approach and most likely nothing ever will.
Good summary, but this bit is shortsighted. It's a publicly traded company, not a force of nature. There are lots of factors that can bring about changes currently deemed unthinkable.
Think bigger. Suppose all your apps' data was stored in a blockchain, or STORJ or Maidsafe or some other encrypted distributed digital storage mechanism. Suppose the data formats were as open as SMTP/POP/IMAP/RADIUS/FTP. Suppose you could switch apps just by downloading a new one and popping in the necessary credentials?
This is what I'm thinking about these days. It's going to be a game changer.
Yeah... so who vets these apps? Who removes them if they're found to be nefarious? As soon as you think you have the perfect decentralized system worked out, the Average Joe will complain that it's too hard to grok and then some entity rises to the position of One True Gatekeeper. At least, that's why Google is what it is.
I'm not understanding how this works better than a $0.50 mirror.
Well if it makes that Vespa in your blind spot glow bright red, that's a start.
If something happens (alternator, dead battery), I can get a stalled (or stalling) vehicle to the side of the road. With all these electronic subsystems, if something happens which knocks out the vehicle's electric power, it not just becomes harder to steer and brake (due to lack of assist), but harder to move to the shoulder, with no mirrors present.
I don't mind stuff as augments, but not as replacements, especially with safety devices like mirrors that can mean the difference versus a safe pass versus being a long criminal negligence prison sentence for hitting a motorcycle.
Let's be honest, at that point you're driving an electric car anyway.
I'm not understanding how this works better than a $0.50 mirror.
I'm not understanding how it can be as reliable as a $0.50 mirror. Also, if one of my mirrors breaks, the remaining two can partially cover the deficiency. If the electronics goes down, I'm blind to what's behind me without looking over my shoulder.
Then there's the whole hackability aspect. I can see the headlines right now.
You wouldn't think that the current drive-by-wire control systems would be as reliable as the old rods and cables, but here we are. I think you're missing the point anyway. What's more likely? That the camera system malfunctions, or that a driver misses or misinterprets what is in his side view mirror? The system is not aimed at being more reliable than an optical mirror, but at bringing the overall reliability up by making the driver more reliable. Suddenly that motorcyclist in your blind spot is glowing red.
Personally, I would favor a code of conduct that just reads "Be excellent to each other, dude!" You must be new to the Internet.
Or else he would have added "party on?"
Does using software to monitor your children's activity warrant a vigilante destroying a private company's data? The article reads a bit click-baity to me.
For that matter, maybe the parents told their kids they put the software on their devices.
Warning: Should a future vulnerability be discovered in this technology--which is almost certainly incomprehensible to you anyway and may as well be considered "magic"--corrective updates may impact advertised performance.