Not that your bad penmanship is the cause of bad spelling, but if the pen can't discern what letters you're writing, it probably presumes you're just spelling the word wrong. It's more of a limitation on the device than a bug or a feature, but they've chosen to market it as the latter.
Every damned time you turn around the iPhone is asking you to enter your password for iTunes. And with the on screen keyboard it's torture to actually enter a password with mixed case, numbers and (heaven forbid) symbols.
I, for one, do not look forward to our excessively long password overlords.
So, it's all the personnel and legal stuff that surrounds the real engineering that has to go on. But as a BS and without the background of the actual hard engineering that goes on in aerospace and without the life experience that someone going back for a second degree after ten or twenty years would bring with them.
It's like an admission that we don't need more engineers and scientists, what we really need is more people who can process paperwork. On the bright side, at least it looks like there's job demand for the stupid people in the world of the future.
Woah, there, buckaroo. That's the kind of thing that will be rolled out over the next decade. Everyone else will have it first, but I promise you that when Apple releases (ahem, allows) it, it will be like a breath of fresh air and TV will not just be TV - it will be wonderful again.
You'll have to excuse me. I need to go watch some youtube videos which are nothing but a fake staticy screen with the message that the content owner hasn't approved the viewing of the material on my device.
IPS with a very wide color gamut. Rumored to be wider than the iPad (I have one) with better contrast. The Transformer Infinity has a very poor gamut range (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infinity-tf700t-review/2), though it has good contrast. Now, it appears that nobody has been allowed to measure the screen - it's all anecdotal. I'll admit to being (maybe too) hopeful. Of course, neither of the other two have a pixel accurate, pressure sensitive stylus.
As for PPI, beyond a certain level, is useless. I've worked on everything from 100 to 260 ppi, and - with 20/15 | 20/12 vision - anything beyond about 180-200ppi is wasted for as close as I can focus which, even with my middle aged eyes, is about 10 inches.
I should have qualified that with something in this class (i.e. ultrabook sized - under 3-3.5 lbs). I say that because I gave up toting my (nearly) 6 pound Precision 5 years ago and swore I'd never go back to a brick like that again. All of the HP and Dell models are all 5+ (and in some cases 6+) pound mobile workstations. The Sony models are 4.2 to 5+ lbs as well. I'd complain about the Macs, as they're not Windows (and hence can't run about 80% of the software I use for my core business), but they're heavier than the Sony models, so even throwing OS-X in the trash and reinstalling - giving up most of the power efficiency in the deal - is a non-starter.
I'll give you the Lenovo as one (4 variations on the same design, 2 of which are essentially EOL anyway), and Zenbooks as well (which I looked at seriously last year) as they slide in at under 3lbs as well. I was actually hoping the X1 Carbon was going to come out with an IPS screen, but no joy.
And, in fact, there aren't a lot more. Screens on laptops just aren't what people drool over when they look at the spec sheets, which seems how laptops get sold. IPS also is harder on battery life, so on top of adding cost it hurts the machine in run time. Last year I was thinking I'd replace my Acer Timeline (11.6) with something that had a really nice screen. It was a rather frustrating search.
Oh, don't think I didn't drool a bit over the possibility of a Note 10.1. Of course, my attention wandered when it took them nearly 8 months to actually put it on the market.
What I've found, though, is that getting things from a tablet back into the "real world" takes effort and time. Different formats and ecosystems means everything has to be translated, moved, re-cataloged. It's the draw of the Surface...I can work directly in Lightroom, or Bluebeam, or AutoCAD and it works just like my laptop. Plus I get a passable tablet - though it may be a while for the apps under Metro to catch up.
It's a tablet. A tablet with a screen that bests every single tablet out there in quality, and nearly every single laptop on the market. And has a pressure sensitive stylus input like an expensive Wacom Cintiq. And you can ditch the keyboard and go full tablet mode on the Metro (when the apps store catches up) Remember that the Android app market sucked donkey balls 3 years ago, which is why I have iOS gear - because iOS was the only place to get certain useful apps. Now it doesn't matter.
Or, you can clip on a "real" keyboard and touch pad and do actual, real work - like AutoCAD or Lightroom or Office or, well, anything that runs under windows...because it has the guts to be a full blown computer.
Is the OS really ready? Well, considering that everybody seems to gush over the 1080HD panels that are on 11-13" ultrabooks and nobody seems to have a problem with the scaling there, it's hard to complain that it's a unique problem for the Surface.
Will I get one? I don't know...I'll probably skip v1, either so see a lower power processor (my current laptop is a 1.3GHz single core, and runs all my Apps fine), a larger SSD (256 please), maybe an LTE option (not necessary, but convenient)...or to see what Panasonic really does with their 20" version. Still, for a grand I might get one to try it out - it's half of what I paid for the 8086 IBM I bought when I was a freshman in college.
Actually, you'll be hard pressed to find more than one or two other laptops on the entire market which have an IPS screen, even if you ignore the fact that this has both a capacitive and a Wacom stylus screen. You'll also have a difficult time finding a similarly sized (i5, 4GB RAM) laptop with more than 6 hours of actual battery life (not "rated") that is still under 2 lbs. Realize also that for $40 you can get an external battery pack that has enough juice to take this device past 8 hours total runtime (though the connector market hasn't caught up yet).
This is actually very close to the perfect device for someone who works occassionally on a netbook or small ultrabook, but also carries a tablet (because reading or watching entertainment on a netbook is a non-starter).
I found the reviews funny. If I'm lounging on the sofa, I'm probably consuming content and I much prefer the tablet form factor. If I'm doing work, I'm almost certainly sitting at a table, in which case the built in stand kicks the shit out of all the lousy, bulky cases needed for a tablet to stand up. To complain that it doesn't work as well as a laptop computer when you're in a location where a tablet is a better form factor is just laughable.
You should go get an iPad and a capacitive stylus. It's practically as good, with inexpensive apps that can do all your creating and editing just like a styles!
**BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH**
Yeah, I couldn't stop laughing at that either. It is, imho, the most massive failure of the iPad line not to have pressure sensitive, pixel accurate input from the company that made its mark wooing creative types. I've been hoping that the Surface Pro would be enough to take over the duties of both my tablet and my netbook-sized laptop. Of course, then Panasonic showed their 20" version (A3 baby!), but they won't have pressure sensitivity, and that's a hella-fat pen they need to use.
Haven't had anything but the MSSE loaded for, well, years. And I haven't bothered with real time monitoring of email since I moved to google apps and run from a dedicated chrome session. Am I shirking my responsibility by relying on the "cloud" and MS to do the checking for me? Well, yes, I am. And it's working exceptionally well. I'm sorry if I don't have a dozen scanners running in the background at all times. I do a point check with malwarebytes on occasion, but that's about it.
And now you've got someone out there marketing your services for you for free to boot. Because your name will inevitably come up when someone is talking about anything even remotely related, and he'll gush about how helpful you were and that you're an honest businessperson.
It's a good road to travel. I'll have been in private consulting for 10 years this April. I have so much work I'm turning stuff down. I don't advertise, I don't market, and my phone number isn't even in the white pages (google voice...it has it's advantages and drawbacks). If I closed my shop today, locked the door, and turned off the phone (or put on a message that I was no longer in business), I'd have people calling my home number to see if I could help them out. Kinda nice, really, to know that it's almost impossible to be without a job.
It was just to find out about a project and give them a quote. It turns out that I solved their issue in about 30 minutes, including chit chat, and told them everything they needed to know to fix their problem. I even made notes on their materials for them.
You know what I charged them? Nothing. I told them if they had to come back and have me do everything, it would be about $X, but that I thought that they had enough information to do it with the people they already had on board. They're a client I'm unlikely to ever see again because this is an unusual problem for them. They're not going to be repeat freeloaders, and doing this work full-up won't get me a bigger job with them later.
I figure that if I can solve your entire problem in 30 minutes, it's not something that requires my skill or justifies my fees. I'd rather have a happy non-client telling their friends that I was extremely helpful (yes, I made them promise not let people know I just gave them the info for free), than clients who just spent a healthy dime because they felt they had no other option. I do have "regulars" who have stupid issues like this on a recurring basis. I charge them full rack rate every time.
"power to kill a US citizen abroad who is ACCUSED OF threatening US lives and cannot be reasonably captured"
FTFY
It is implied also that said citizens will not submit to questioning or interrogation voluntarily, as is also the case with those same "problem" citizens in the US who are accused of a crime.
Actually, I wish I hadn't commented on this thread earlier, as the GP post may be the most insightful of the entire thread.
ALL of human interaction is trust based. Once you realize this, it gets much easier.
Every single construct of humanity is based on trust of the parties. Where trust does not exist, we create additional parties to verify the conditions. And we then must trust that those additional parties are trustworthy, else we set up yet another layer of verification. It's turtles all the way down.
Work is for people without either (a) money or (b) hobbies. It sounds like he has (a) covered, which means he suffers from a lack of hobbies. An young person with a safe financial stream and the desire to work generally starts to invent or innovate on his or her own with the ideal outcome generating lots of income. The risk associated with spending time on a pet project is not a financial concern. It should follow that someone with a great deal of experience would have a better shot, if a more limited career time to develop.
Yes. Thank you for all coming today. I have here, in my hand, a new type of transistor that I have printed on this ORDINARY piece of paper.... What? Of course you cant see them - they're transparent.... Do they work? Of course they do, and Jimmy here has a nice computer simulation of the process.... No, of course we can't demonstrate on the real thing, we still have to work out the interconnects and external interface, but trust me - they're on here.... Yes, I have printed what is essentially invisible transistors on this paper, and it will change the world. I just need a few million dollars in funding to help me work out some of the critical issues.
No - that disincentivizes investment and consumer spending. Good way to tank an economy.
A gross receipts tax is the same thing, but on the supply, rather than the demand side. When you get money, you pay 3% into the kitty. After that, you can do as you please. It's much easier to spend money when there isn't a 17-20% penalty imposed by the government on every sale. It's very hard to avoid a gross receipts tax without avoiding a jurisdiction altogether. Plus, it's still an income tax...which means NOT switching to a sales tax and leaving that income tax seat vacant (and dying to be filled for some noble cause).
3%-6%. If you record an item on the right hand side of the ledger, the government gets 3% (4% for amounts over 10,000,000, 5% over 100,000,000, 6% over 1,000,000,000). You can do whatever you damned well please on the left, provided the shareholders don't lynch you, but the Government won't give a shit. You record (or have recorded) all of your credit transactions and at the end of the (month/quarter/year) you cut the federal government a check.
I like this system for personal income too, btw. Don't give me complaints about medical expenses or how much you donated to charity or how big a mortgage you have on your house. I don't give a flying fuck. You tell me how much money you receive, cut a check for 3% (or 4, 5, 6%).
The rates can be the same for corporations and people. Just levy it based on a TIN basis. Will corporations try and game the system to stay under $x? sure! But that kind of speaks to RMSs point - if you have multiple, independent pieces, then you can't have things come crashing down.
Gross receipts tax is idea for running a country. There are several embedded things is does:
(1) It penalizes those who add little or no value in the supply chain (1a) and those who filter through shell corporations to hide money or sheild liability (2) It rewards local suppliers and short supply chains (3) It levies cost based on volume of goods and services, not on profit (4) If you can keep your God damned hands out of the "exclusions" pot, everybody pays and its much harder to hide the money
Almost nobody in business bases their fee on fee percentage on your profit, which should the defense of your assets (both through law and military) be based on it? It should be a cost of doing business, not some penalty for being efficient. And unlike a tax on profits, which starts out with a whole laundry list of exemptions for "allowable expenses," there's no need to put exclusions in the tax law.
Having a sliding scale would be okay, but it should be no more than a factor of two top to bottom imho.
You're going to have to test it on Italians for gesture rejection. I can't imagine what kind of havoc could be created if the interface over-saw even the most mundane of conversations.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that your bad penmanship is the cause of bad spelling, but if the pen can't discern what letters you're writing, it probably presumes you're just spelling the word wrong. It's more of a limitation on the device than a bug or a feature, but they've chosen to market it as the latter.
Every damned time you turn around the iPhone is asking you to enter your password for iTunes. And with the on screen keyboard it's torture to actually enter a password with mixed case, numbers and (heaven forbid) symbols.
I, for one, do not look forward to our excessively long password overlords.
Move to a gross receipts tax - say 3%. Every transaction triggers it. Manipulations for short term gains become hopelessly mired in overhead.
You can just mail me the check.
So, it's all the personnel and legal stuff that surrounds the real engineering that has to go on. But as a BS and without the background of the actual hard engineering that goes on in aerospace and without the life experience that someone going back for a second degree after ten or twenty years would bring with them.
It's like an admission that we don't need more engineers and scientists, what we really need is more people who can process paperwork. On the bright side, at least it looks like there's job demand for the stupid people in the world of the future.
Woah, there, buckaroo. That's the kind of thing that will be rolled out over the next decade. Everyone else will have it first, but I promise you that when Apple releases (ahem, allows) it, it will be like a breath of fresh air and TV will not just be TV - it will be wonderful again.
You'll have to excuse me. I need to go watch some youtube videos which are nothing but a fake staticy screen with the message that the content owner hasn't approved the viewing of the material on my device.
IPS with a very wide color gamut. Rumored to be wider than the iPad (I have one) with better contrast. The Transformer Infinity has a very poor gamut range (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6036/asus-transformer-pad-infinity-tf700t-review/2), though it has good contrast. Now, it appears that nobody has been allowed to measure the screen - it's all anecdotal. I'll admit to being (maybe too) hopeful. Of course, neither of the other two have a pixel accurate, pressure sensitive stylus.
As for PPI, beyond a certain level, is useless. I've worked on everything from 100 to 260 ppi, and - with 20/15 | 20/12 vision - anything beyond about 180-200ppi is wasted for as close as I can focus which, even with my middle aged eyes, is about 10 inches.
I should have qualified that with something in this class (i.e. ultrabook sized - under 3-3.5 lbs). I say that because I gave up toting my (nearly) 6 pound Precision 5 years ago and swore I'd never go back to a brick like that again. All of the HP and Dell models are all 5+ (and in some cases 6+) pound mobile workstations. The Sony models are 4.2 to 5+ lbs as well. I'd complain about the Macs, as they're not Windows (and hence can't run about 80% of the software I use for my core business), but they're heavier than the Sony models, so even throwing OS-X in the trash and reinstalling - giving up most of the power efficiency in the deal - is a non-starter.
I'll give you the Lenovo as one (4 variations on the same design, 2 of which are essentially EOL anyway), and Zenbooks as well (which I looked at seriously last year) as they slide in at under 3lbs as well. I was actually hoping the X1 Carbon was going to come out with an IPS screen, but no joy.
And, in fact, there aren't a lot more. Screens on laptops just aren't what people drool over when they look at the spec sheets, which seems how laptops get sold. IPS also is harder on battery life, so on top of adding cost it hurts the machine in run time. Last year I was thinking I'd replace my Acer Timeline (11.6) with something that had a really nice screen. It was a rather frustrating search.
C'mon folks, cough 'em up...with several nzb sites down where are the freshest indexing sites now? Couch Potato isn't going to run itself, you know.
Oh, don't think I didn't drool a bit over the possibility of a Note 10.1. Of course, my attention wandered when it took them nearly 8 months to actually put it on the market.
What I've found, though, is that getting things from a tablet back into the "real world" takes effort and time. Different formats and ecosystems means everything has to be translated, moved, re-cataloged. It's the draw of the Surface...I can work directly in Lightroom, or Bluebeam, or AutoCAD and it works just like my laptop. Plus I get a passable tablet - though it may be a while for the apps under Metro to catch up.
It's a tablet. A tablet with a screen that bests every single tablet out there in quality, and nearly every single laptop on the market. And has a pressure sensitive stylus input like an expensive Wacom Cintiq. And you can ditch the keyboard and go full tablet mode on the Metro (when the apps store catches up) Remember that the Android app market sucked donkey balls 3 years ago, which is why I have iOS gear - because iOS was the only place to get certain useful apps. Now it doesn't matter.
Or, you can clip on a "real" keyboard and touch pad and do actual, real work - like AutoCAD or Lightroom or Office or, well, anything that runs under windows...because it has the guts to be a full blown computer.
Is the OS really ready? Well, considering that everybody seems to gush over the 1080HD panels that are on 11-13" ultrabooks and nobody seems to have a problem with the scaling there, it's hard to complain that it's a unique problem for the Surface.
Will I get one? I don't know...I'll probably skip v1, either so see a lower power processor (my current laptop is a 1.3GHz single core, and runs all my Apps fine), a larger SSD (256 please), maybe an LTE option (not necessary, but convenient)...or to see what Panasonic really does with their 20" version. Still, for a grand I might get one to try it out - it's half of what I paid for the 8086 IBM I bought when I was a freshman in college.
Actually, you'll be hard pressed to find more than one or two other laptops on the entire market which have an IPS screen, even if you ignore the fact that this has both a capacitive and a Wacom stylus screen. You'll also have a difficult time finding a similarly sized (i5, 4GB RAM) laptop with more than 6 hours of actual battery life (not "rated") that is still under 2 lbs. Realize also that for $40 you can get an external battery pack that has enough juice to take this device past 8 hours total runtime (though the connector market hasn't caught up yet).
This is actually very close to the perfect device for someone who works occassionally on a netbook or small ultrabook, but also carries a tablet (because reading or watching entertainment on a netbook is a non-starter).
I found the reviews funny. If I'm lounging on the sofa, I'm probably consuming content and I much prefer the tablet form factor. If I'm doing work, I'm almost certainly sitting at a table, in which case the built in stand kicks the shit out of all the lousy, bulky cases needed for a tablet to stand up. To complain that it doesn't work as well as a laptop computer when you're in a location where a tablet is a better form factor is just laughable.
You should go get an iPad and a capacitive stylus. It's practically as good, with inexpensive apps that can do all your creating and editing just like a styles!
**BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH**
Yeah, I couldn't stop laughing at that either. It is, imho, the most massive failure of the iPad line not to have pressure sensitive, pixel accurate input from the company that made its mark wooing creative types. I've been hoping that the Surface Pro would be enough to take over the duties of both my tablet and my netbook-sized laptop. Of course, then Panasonic showed their 20" version (A3 baby!), but they won't have pressure sensitivity, and that's a hella-fat pen they need to use.
Haven't had anything but the MSSE loaded for, well, years. And I haven't bothered with real time monitoring of email since I moved to google apps and run from a dedicated chrome session. Am I shirking my responsibility by relying on the "cloud" and MS to do the checking for me? Well, yes, I am. And it's working exceptionally well. I'm sorry if I don't have a dozen scanners running in the background at all times. I do a point check with malwarebytes on occasion, but that's about it.
And now you've got someone out there marketing your services for you for free to boot. Because your name will inevitably come up when someone is talking about anything even remotely related, and he'll gush about how helpful you were and that you're an honest businessperson.
It's a good road to travel. I'll have been in private consulting for 10 years this April. I have so much work I'm turning stuff down. I don't advertise, I don't market, and my phone number isn't even in the white pages (google voice...it has it's advantages and drawbacks). If I closed my shop today, locked the door, and turned off the phone (or put on a message that I was no longer in business), I'd have people calling my home number to see if I could help them out. Kinda nice, really, to know that it's almost impossible to be without a job.
It was just to find out about a project and give them a quote. It turns out that I solved their issue in about 30 minutes, including chit chat, and told them everything they needed to know to fix their problem. I even made notes on their materials for them.
You know what I charged them? Nothing. I told them if they had to come back and have me do everything, it would be about $X, but that I thought that they had enough information to do it with the people they already had on board. They're a client I'm unlikely to ever see again because this is an unusual problem for them. They're not going to be repeat freeloaders, and doing this work full-up won't get me a bigger job with them later.
I figure that if I can solve your entire problem in 30 minutes, it's not something that requires my skill or justifies my fees. I'd rather have a happy non-client telling their friends that I was extremely helpful (yes, I made them promise not let people know I just gave them the info for free), than clients who just spent a healthy dime because they felt they had no other option. I do have "regulars" who have stupid issues like this on a recurring basis. I charge them full rack rate every time.
"power to kill a US citizen abroad who is ACCUSED OF threatening US lives and cannot be reasonably captured"
FTFY
It is implied also that said citizens will not submit to questioning or interrogation voluntarily, as is also the case with those same "problem" citizens in the US who are accused of a crime.
Actually, I wish I hadn't commented on this thread earlier, as the GP post may be the most insightful of the entire thread.
ALL of human interaction is trust based. Once you realize this, it gets much easier.
Every single construct of humanity is based on trust of the parties. Where trust does not exist, we create additional parties to verify the conditions. And we then must trust that those additional parties are trustworthy, else we set up yet another layer of verification. It's turtles all the way down.
Work is for people without either (a) money or (b) hobbies. It sounds like he has (a) covered, which means he suffers from a lack of hobbies. An young person with a safe financial stream and the desire to work generally starts to invent or innovate on his or her own with the ideal outcome generating lots of income. The risk associated with spending time on a pet project is not a financial concern. It should follow that someone with a great deal of experience would have a better shot, if a more limited career time to develop.
Hmmmm...that's an interesting idea. I generally do use/need credit, except for my current associations, and I don't make changes.
Yes. Thank you for all coming today. I have here, in my hand, a new type of transistor that I have printed on this ORDINARY piece of paper. ... ... ... ...
What?
Of course you cant see them - they're transparent.
Do they work? Of course they do, and Jimmy here has a nice computer simulation of the process.
No, of course we can't demonstrate on the real thing, we still have to work out the interconnects and external interface, but trust me - they're on here.
Yes, I have printed what is essentially invisible transistors on this paper, and it will change the world. I just need a few million dollars in funding to help me work out some of the critical issues.
No - that disincentivizes investment and consumer spending. Good way to tank an economy.
A gross receipts tax is the same thing, but on the supply, rather than the demand side. When you get money, you pay 3% into the kitty. After that, you can do as you please. It's much easier to spend money when there isn't a 17-20% penalty imposed by the government on every sale. It's very hard to avoid a gross receipts tax without avoiding a jurisdiction altogether. Plus, it's still an income tax...which means NOT switching to a sales tax and leaving that income tax seat vacant (and dying to be filled for some noble cause).
3%-6%. If you record an item on the right hand side of the ledger, the government gets 3% (4% for amounts over 10,000,000, 5% over 100,000,000, 6% over 1,000,000,000). You can do whatever you damned well please on the left, provided the shareholders don't lynch you, but the Government won't give a shit. You record (or have recorded) all of your credit transactions and at the end of the (month/quarter/year) you cut the federal government a check.
I like this system for personal income too, btw. Don't give me complaints about medical expenses or how much you donated to charity or how big a mortgage you have on your house. I don't give a flying fuck. You tell me how much money you receive, cut a check for 3% (or 4, 5, 6%).
The rates can be the same for corporations and people. Just levy it based on a TIN basis. Will corporations try and game the system to stay under $x? sure! But that kind of speaks to RMSs point - if you have multiple, independent pieces, then you can't have things come crashing down.
Gross receipts tax is idea for running a country. There are several embedded things is does:
(1) It penalizes those who add little or no value in the supply chain
(1a) and those who filter through shell corporations to hide money or sheild liability
(2) It rewards local suppliers and short supply chains
(3) It levies cost based on volume of goods and services, not on profit
(4) If you can keep your God damned hands out of the "exclusions" pot, everybody pays and its much harder to hide the money
Almost nobody in business bases their fee on fee percentage on your profit, which should the defense of your assets (both through law and military) be based on it? It should be a cost of doing business, not some penalty for being efficient. And unlike a tax on profits, which starts out with a whole laundry list of exemptions for "allowable expenses," there's no need to put exclusions in the tax law.
Having a sliding scale would be okay, but it should be no more than a factor of two top to bottom imho.
You're going to have to test it on Italians for gesture rejection. I can't imagine what kind of havoc could be created if the interface over-saw even the most mundane of conversations.
... is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results.
Do these guys not even read their own prospectus?