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User: Mithent

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  1. Re:Glad to see Microsoft taking this position on Microsoft Pushes For Gay Marriage In Washington State · · Score: 1

    This is exactly what should happen. Marriage should not be mentioned on statute books at all. The state should not know or care who is involved in the partnership or what religious ceremonies they may choose to have when they enter into it.

    The push for "gay marriage" seems slightly misguided to me - it makes the whole issue more difficult as it ensures that religion stays a factor. It's an needlessly emotive term that is always going to provoke a reaction from certain groups. Let them define "marriage" however they want, just as long as there's equality under the law.

  2. Re:My experience differs from yours. on The Headaches of Cross-Platform Mobile Development · · Score: 1

    I don't know PhoneGap myself, but it sounds like the problem being stated here is with the remote server aspect. Normally you're choosing to trust the executable code you're installing, and that's the end of the story. With PhoneGap you might trust the executable code running on your phone, and the intended app running on the remote server, but the remote code could change and a useful program turned into an attack vector without any notification that anything has changed. Third parties can't change the code of an application distributed through Market without having the original developer's certificate, which would make turning a genuine app into malware much more difficult.

    There might be some controls for this in PhoneGap though, I don't know.

  3. Re:Physically challenged genius on How Stephen Hawking Has Defied the Odds For 50 Years · · Score: 1

    I imagine that he wouldn't have been as famous, at any rate. There are plenty of people who make extremely worthwhile contributions to their fields, but don't have the kind of fame that Stephen Hawking has. I'm sure that the fact that he has accomplished so much despite his disability amplifies his achievements.

  4. Let's hope this becomes a trend on HTC Unlocks Bootloader For All of Its Devices · · Score: 2

    Let's hope that other manufacturers also do this. (Right now, I'm looking at you, Asus, though I'm sure my gaze will wander...)

  5. Re:SHOULD "Apps" Cost Something? on Why We Agonize Over Buying $1 Apps · · Score: 1

    I expect it's less of a problem on the iOS app store due to the lack of hardware diversity, but in the Android Market a lot of 1-star reviews are "DIDNT WORK ON MY PHONE IT SUX" which may or may not be useful - perhaps it really doesn't work on that model, but I've encountered apps that "don't work" on the model I have but which work fine on my phone.

    The 5-star system is generally useless, though, with top ratings given to bad products merely because they function (this $10 PSU will probably fail next week and fry everything it's connected to, but it turned on! Five stars!), and bottom ones given out because of supply issues that had nothing to do with the product itself, or because that user happened to get one that was DOA and they had to get it replaced, or because they've never used the product but are biased against that brand.

  6. Re:You know what else store CC numbers in cleartex on Google Wallet Stores Card Data In Plain Text · · Score: 1

    Valid point. This does smell a little of "security flaws" which start with "first, get root access"... ("It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway", as Raymond Chen puts it).

    If you have someone's phone or trick them to run code on it that steal their Wallet database, that can be used to obtain some information which you might be able to use to trick them to revealing their credit card details? It's possible, but rather convoluted, and requires the user to make mistakes more than once; I'm sure there are far easier ways to commit fraud.

  7. Re:Uh... on Goodbye Textbooks, Hello iPad · · Score: 1

    Like I said, if people look at what's available on the market and decide that the iPad is the tablet they want, that's fine. What disappoints me is that, to many people, the iPad is /the/ tablet - they don't go looking for a tablet and decide they prefer the iPad to the competition, they just make a beeline for the iPads and buy one of them without thinking (or, perhaps, even knowing) about anything else available. Sure, it means that Apple's marketing and their favourable press coverage works. But I'd rather that people actually make an informed decision rather than be blind to the alternatives.

  8. Re:Uh... on Goodbye Textbooks, Hello iPad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Exactly. This frustrated me before with the iPod - friends and family wouldn't go out looking for an MP3 player, they'd go out looking for an iPod, because an iPod is what you get to play music on the move. And it's just the same now with the iPad. They didn't look at the available tablets on the market and decide that the iPad was the one that best suited their needs. They wanted a tablet, so they bought the iPad, because the iPad is the tablet.

  9. Re:A new browser interface for a website? on Google, Facebook Upset By Ad-Injecting Apps · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, everyone has now been trained that they need "an app for that". Even if the "app" just contains a browser window. There are a huge number of mobile apps which just duplicate functionality easily available on websites, but users will install the app if it means they get to where they want to go quicker. (I imagine that the majority of people have no idea how to add bookmarks to their home screen, so they'll go looking for a ready-made solution.)

  10. Re:Now for something completely different... on Using a Tablet As Your Primary Computer · · Score: 1

    It's not out yet, but following experience with Softmaker Office on Windows Mobile, I'd definitely keep an eye on that. Here's a comparison chart they put together regarding the word processor: http://www.softmaker.com/english/ofatmcomp_en.htm It looks like they're accepting beta testers here, might be worth a try: http://www.softmaker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=9374

  11. Re:Battery life? on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Outruns Apple's A5 In First Benchmarks · · Score: 1

    That's true. The Verge test isn't an indication of the type of battery life that users will actually see while web browsing; the realistic usage pattern there would be occasional page loads (high power consumption) followed by relatively idle periods where the device would normally drop down to the companion core. This test keeps the CPU on high load at all times, which isn't where Tegra 3 is designed to shine battery-wise; it's meant to have power when you need it but drop down when you don't, and it's not surprising that battery life suffers when it's asked to run four cores on full power non-stop.

  12. Re:I kinda hope not. on Next Apple iPhone To Have a 4 Inch Display? · · Score: 1

    I don't think that making things smaller makes the screen less cramped. In particular, UI elements for a touch device need to be a certain physical size to make them usable, and a higher resolution screen (which I'm all for) means you need to render them at a higher DPI. A larger screen allows for more content room, and I find 3.5" cramped in that respect nowadays too.

  13. Re:Before MMOs there were MUDs on Anne McCaffrey Passes Away At 85 · · Score: 1

    I'm the AC (just got an account, hi!). I was Miteh/M'teh, also a bluerider at Telgar.