Actually, it's not the manufacturers that are pushing over-featured phones, it's the carriers. My cousin designs phone software for Siemens in Germany and he says that they are basically Vodaphone's bitch.
Remember, almost everyone gets their phone from their carrier, not direct from the manufacturer or whatnot. Thus it is the carriers who are really the customers for the manufacturers, not the end users.
The carriers want to push over-featured phones, because they charge for the extras. They charge for ringtones, wallpaper, games, text and video messaging etc. So the carriers tell the manufacturers "we will only buy phones that support these features" and the manufacturers have to comply, or be out of business. The carriers then have a complete lineup of colour video-java-ringtone phones, and the end user has no choice but to accept that.
So don't blame Motorola, Nokia, Siemens etc for the overly-full-featured phones. Blame Rogers, Telus, AT&T, Vodaphone, T-Mobile and the others!
Yeah, but if it was a first-generation, 5GB iPod with a battery that won't take a charge, or a broken screen/hard drive etc, then getting $20-$30 is a decent deal. These types of situations would usually result in the iPod going into the garbage.
A side note: I actually had an iPod run over by a bus. It got pulled off my hip as I was getting off the bus, and it was pulled under the back wheels. Not only is the screen destroyed, but so is the hard drive (it sounds like-and probably is-just a bunch of sand rattling around inside the case). The odd thing is that the battery looks to be in good shape (I've been too scared that it might actually be broken to try transplanting it into the replacement iPod I bought) and the motherboard seems to be fine. I contemplated selling the seemingly non-destroyed bits on eBay, but it just seemed like too much hassle for what I'd get for them.
Except that a lot of businesses still install Win2K on their machines. And many of them lock out installs of other programs, including FireFox. Many of the bigger companies are a little reticent about free/open-source technology in general, so they stick with MS software (Windows Server, IE etc) because it's perceived as "safe". So, all of these users will still be running IE6, forcing the web-devs to ensure compatibility with an obsolete rendering engine.
My guess is that the PC gaming market will eventually become more and more of a niche market, until it's at the point where Mac gaming is today; we get some of the bigger-name games, usually a little late, often with a price premium.
Others have pointed out that some game types (notably strategy, MMORPGs and arguably FPS games) play better on a PC. This is true, although with the higher-res afforded by HD video reading text-based readouts is much easier. And it's not hard to add a mouse and keyboard (or other input device) to a console, so that edge may disappear.
No, PC gaming will never disappear entirely, but console games already outsell PC games by a factor of ten or so. As console games move online even more, and the market expands, PC games will become a niche market. Mac games might dwindle away entirely (sigh).
The main advantage (IMHO) of console games, aside from the cheap hardware, is that of consistency. I can buy any XBox game, and know that it will run on an XBox. For PC games, I'd have to make sure my system software, graphics card, hard drive and RAM etc were all enough. Console gaming removes that guesswork and gives a consistent experience.
The article says that Netscape was founded by Jim Clark and Jim Andresson (" The product was created by NCSA refugees, Jim Clark and Jim Andresson. Together, they revolutionized the internet, making it synonymous with the world wide web.").
I could be horribly mistaken, but wasn't it Mark Andreesen? Are was there both a Jim Andresson and a Mark Andreesen?
Slashdot should change it's slogan from "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Slashdot: smart people defending bad ideas". Never before have I seen a more apropos description of this very sight than the article linked herein.
I think Linux still has some major hurdles to overcome before it could ever see commonplace, widespread adoption. IMHO, they are:
1) Laziness. Quite simply, most people are lazy. They use Windows at work, they've used it at home/school, it just seems easier.
2) Too many variants. Each Linux distro is different in some or many ways, but it's not always clear how. There's just one "home" version of Windows, one "Pro" and one "Server", and the differences are easily found and most people just go for the "home" version because it's easily labelled. If there were ever a version of Linux called "Linux Home" sold at Best Buy, that would probably outsell all the others.
3) Commission. Most average home users buy from retail stores. Most retail stores pay on commission. There's not a lot of commission on $0, or even $20, so it's worth their time to hype up the $200 Windows, and most consumers won't look any further to find the free options.
4) Games. As a Mac user, this obviously isn't a big selling point for me, but lots of people still play PC games, and Linux supports far fewer big-name titles.
5) Ease of support. Every technophobe has a nephew, or cousin, or whatever that can "fix" Windows when it breaks. Fewer people know somebody knowledgeable enough in Linux to do proper troubleshooting, and most consumers are reticent to rely solely on net-based trouble-shotting (forums et al.)
6) Consistency. With the exception of a few skins and themes and whatnot, a Windows XP box performs like any other. But different distros act differently, Gnome is different from KDE, etc. For example, my computer has three labs running Linux, each maintained by different techs. In each lab, accessing a floppy disk that's been inserted must be done in a different way. For Windows, it's always "Click on My Computer, Click on A:".
7) Perception. Linux is still seen, accurately or not, as the "hacker OS". Most non-techy people that have even heard of Linux think of it as an inscrutable mess of arcania and technical gibberish. Names like "apt-get" , "vi", "emacs" and "gcc" don't help; "InstallShield", "NotePad"/"Word" and "Visual Studio" are clearer and easier to remember.
8) Microsoft has $60 Billion or so. They spend millions on advertising. Linux has Slashdot, and word-of-mouth advocacy. The latter may prove more effective eventually, but not quickly.
The Internet Movie Database has a really good list, which is lent further validity because it was voted on by thousands and thousands of readers, rather than just two.
The whole point of consent laws, and other age-limited laws (voting, drinking etc) are that there are certain things about which we don't trust kids to be able to make good decisions.
For example, ask an eight-year-old if he'd rather go to school or stay home, watch TV and eat ice cream. I'm guessing most will pick the latter. Regardless of what we might want to do, and regardless of the ephemeral concept of "human nature" and evolution's impact on same, we enact laws to protect the population. Kids need the most protection, and as such often have fewer rights and more restrictions. There are simply certain things for which society can make better choices than the kids themselves. Hence the laws.
Now, whether you think 18 is a reasonable age is a different matter, but you asked why we enact these laws. Well, that's the basis as to why.
And this is why Apple doesn't listen to the average Slashdotter. Think about:
1) Apple has serious time and money invested in H.264. Why would they bundle the XVid codec?
2) Apple has no real interest in going after the "anime fanboys" who (illegally?) want to watch fansubs (I don't even know what that means). Apple sold 10 million+ iPods not by targeting elite niche markets with the iPod, but by making it simple and chic enough for the average person to want to use.
Slashotters tend to hold the belief that their personal interests have a driving impact on the consumer landscape. But preach all you want about XVid-encoded anime fansubs, or FLAC-encoded obscure independant jazz artists; it's the mp3 Britney Spears tracks that move music players. And when Apple comes out with an iTunes TVstore, featuring legal downloads in H.264 format, that's what will push video iPods.
Apple did the niche market thing with the Mac. For the iPod they're going for everyone else. And succeeding.
MIT is obviously one of the biggest engineering schools in North America, but it should be noted that my school has had a Biological Engineering Program for quite some time.
Don't get me wrong, good on MIT for adding this new major, but it should be noted that others have already done so.
Then Earth will form the Coalition of the Willing..... and will send interplanetary missiles on Venus, because Venus provided support to the cometian terrorists...
Small correction: in the movie, there are four so-so friends. Each guys goes for one of them, and ignore the hot blonde. Each guy therefore goes home with a cute girl, and the blonde gets no guy after her (but can always go look elsewhere with ease).
She doesn't feel too scorned, because it's easy for her to find a guy elsewhere. The so-so girls, though, would have a tougher time doing this, so they feel rebuked is someone goes for the hot girl, gets shot down, then goes for the so-so girl as a fallback.
Because THEY can use it to track you! Make sure you never get one of those in-the-pipeline smart-card-equipped credit cards. That's how THEY know your location at all times-the smart card beams your location back to the mind-control satellites.
Yikes! For a second there, I thought you said "I think you might see an increase in sales of those watercooled cpu heatsinks that overcockers love."
Without the l in overclockers, the sentence takes on a whole new, very disturbing, meaning; albeit one not entirely inappropriate to a discussion of fertility.
I don't think there's anything wrong with top-posting. I know that it doesn't follow the English top-to-bottom method of reading in terms of the order in which the emails were written, but it makes it easier to find the newest information. If I've been taking part in a long email-based discussion, I know what the scoop is on the previous emails. All I need is the new info, which (conveniently) is at the top of the email. If I need to reference something older, I can scroll down to find it. But otherwise, I have to scroll down every message, as opposed to having the information right in front of me when I open the email.
I understand that etiquette is important, even (especially) in emails. However, there has to be a valid reason for that etiquette to exist. It seems to me that the attempt to force bottom-posting is an arbitrary decision to adhere to the initial chronology of the emails, rather than presenting the newest (and there, typically the most valid) information first.
That too, is a flawed analogy. What if the milk was free (as in you don't physically pay for it), but the producer of the milk is compensated by ads in the store? Your copies don't include any ads, so the advertisers don't pay you or the producer of the milk. But people would rather not see ads, so they get your milk instead of the store's. Now the store only has a few people coming in for milk, and they redistribute it to everyone else ad-free. With fewer customers, the store gets less ad revenue and eventually might go out of business.
TV is free in that you don't pay for it (cable/satellite fees aside), but it is not free to create. It requires revenue, and when you redistribute, you deprive the supply chain of that revenue.
I wonder if there will be moderation of blogs. If for example, I create a vehemently anti-Microsoft blog (possibly one that borders on slander), will the block/censor it? How does this work on other blogs?
I think the question is more valid for Microsoft's blog service because there are more anti-Microsoft people than anti-Google people (or whatever). And many of the anti-Microsoft people would find it cute or ironic to post an anti-Microsoft blog on Microsoft's own servers.
I can see HD camcorders catching on only if the memory is removable. That way, you could switch between multiple hard drives (think hot-swappable drive bays on 1" drives or something).
Tape may be a big hassle in many ways, but at least it provides theoretically unlimited storage? A tape fills up? Just pop in a new one! However, if you have a fixed HD, even if it can store many hours of video, eventually you will max out the capacity. There always needs to be room to upgrade the storage.
Think about it: you don't see decent-quality digital still cameras with embedded memory only do you? Even if you embedded 512MB or 1gig into a digital still cam, *somebody* would still eventually hit that limit. Therefore, having a CompactFlash (or whatever) slot allows for future expansion. I can't see a video camera lacking similar capabilities attaining any level of success.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's not the manufacturers that are pushing over-featured phones, it's the carriers. My cousin designs phone software for Siemens in Germany and he says that they are basically Vodaphone's bitch.
Remember, almost everyone gets their phone from their carrier, not direct from the manufacturer or whatnot. Thus it is the carriers who are really the customers for the manufacturers, not the end users.
The carriers want to push over-featured phones, because they charge for the extras. They charge for ringtones, wallpaper, games, text and video messaging etc. So the carriers tell the manufacturers "we will only buy phones that support these features" and the manufacturers have to comply, or be out of business. The carriers then have a complete lineup of colour video-java-ringtone phones, and the end user has no choice but to accept that.
So don't blame Motorola, Nokia, Siemens etc for the overly-full-featured phones. Blame Rogers, Telus, AT&T, Vodaphone, T-Mobile and the others!
Yeah, but if it was a first-generation, 5GB iPod with a battery that won't take a charge, or a broken screen/hard drive etc, then getting $20-$30 is a decent deal. These types of situations would usually result in the iPod going into the garbage.
A side note: I actually had an iPod run over by a bus. It got pulled off my hip as I was getting off the bus, and it was pulled under the back wheels. Not only is the screen destroyed, but so is the hard drive (it sounds like-and probably is-just a bunch of sand rattling around inside the case). The odd thing is that the battery looks to be in good shape (I've been too scared that it might actually be broken to try transplanting it into the replacement iPod I bought) and the motherboard seems to be fine. I contemplated selling the seemingly non-destroyed bits on eBay, but it just seemed like too much hassle for what I'd get for them.
Except that a lot of businesses still install Win2K on their machines. And many of them lock out installs of other programs, including FireFox. Many of the bigger companies are a little reticent about free/open-source technology in general, so they stick with MS software (Windows Server, IE etc) because it's perceived as "safe". So, all of these users will still be running IE6, forcing the web-devs to ensure compatibility with an obsolete rendering engine.
My guess is that the PC gaming market will eventually become more and more of a niche market, until it's at the point where Mac gaming is today; we get some of the bigger-name games, usually a little late, often with a price premium.
Others have pointed out that some game types (notably strategy, MMORPGs and arguably FPS games) play better on a PC. This is true, although with the higher-res afforded by HD video reading text-based readouts is much easier. And it's not hard to add a mouse and keyboard (or other input device) to a console, so that edge may disappear.
No, PC gaming will never disappear entirely, but console games already outsell PC games by a factor of ten or so. As console games move online even more, and the market expands, PC games will become a niche market. Mac games might dwindle away entirely (sigh).
The main advantage (IMHO) of console games, aside from the cheap hardware, is that of consistency. I can buy any XBox game, and know that it will run on an XBox. For PC games, I'd have to make sure my system software, graphics card, hard drive and RAM etc were all enough. Console gaming removes that guesswork and gives a consistent experience.
The article says that Netscape was founded by Jim Clark and Jim Andresson (" The product was created by NCSA refugees, Jim Clark and Jim Andresson. Together, they revolutionized the internet, making it synonymous with the world wide web.").
I could be horribly mistaken, but wasn't it Mark Andreesen? Are was there both a Jim Andresson and a Mark Andreesen?
Slashdot should change it's slogan from "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Slashdot: smart people defending bad ideas". Never before have I seen a more apropos description of this very sight than the article linked herein.
I think Linux still has some major hurdles to overcome before it could ever see commonplace, widespread adoption. IMHO, they are:
1) Laziness. Quite simply, most people are lazy. They use Windows at work, they've used it at home/school, it just seems easier.
2) Too many variants. Each Linux distro is different in some or many ways, but it's not always clear how. There's just one "home" version of Windows, one "Pro" and one "Server", and the differences are easily found and most people just go for the "home" version because it's easily labelled. If there were ever a version of Linux called "Linux Home" sold at Best Buy, that would probably outsell all the others.
3) Commission. Most average home users buy from retail stores. Most retail stores pay on commission. There's not a lot of commission on $0, or even $20, so it's worth their time to hype up the $200 Windows, and most consumers won't look any further to find the free options.
4) Games. As a Mac user, this obviously isn't a big selling point for me, but lots of people still play PC games, and Linux supports far fewer big-name titles.
5) Ease of support. Every technophobe has a nephew, or cousin, or whatever that can "fix" Windows when it breaks. Fewer people know somebody knowledgeable enough in Linux to do proper troubleshooting, and most consumers are reticent to rely solely on net-based trouble-shotting (forums et al.)
6) Consistency. With the exception of a few skins and themes and whatnot, a Windows XP box performs like any other. But different distros act differently, Gnome is different from KDE, etc. For example, my computer has three labs running Linux, each maintained by different techs. In each lab, accessing a floppy disk that's been inserted must be done in a different way. For Windows, it's always "Click on My Computer, Click on A:".
7) Perception. Linux is still seen, accurately or not, as the "hacker OS". Most non-techy people that have even heard of Linux think of it as an inscrutable mess of arcania and technical gibberish. Names like "apt-get" , "vi", "emacs" and "gcc" don't help; "InstallShield", "NotePad"/"Word" and "Visual Studio" are clearer and easier to remember.
8) Microsoft has $60 Billion or so. They spend millions on advertising. Linux has Slashdot, and word-of-mouth advocacy. The latter may prove more effective eventually, but not quickly.
Just my thoughts.
The Internet Movie Database has a really good list, which is lent further validity because it was voted on by thousands and thousands of readers, rather than just two.
The whole point of consent laws, and other age-limited laws (voting, drinking etc) are that there are certain things about which we don't trust kids to be able to make good decisions.
For example, ask an eight-year-old if he'd rather go to school or stay home, watch TV and eat ice cream. I'm guessing most will pick the latter. Regardless of what we might want to do, and regardless of the ephemeral concept of "human nature" and evolution's impact on same, we enact laws to protect the population. Kids need the most protection, and as such often have fewer rights and more restrictions. There are simply certain things for which society can make better choices than the kids themselves. Hence the laws.
Now, whether you think 18 is a reasonable age is a different matter, but you asked why we enact these laws. Well, that's the basis as to why.
Had the passports been required, it would have cost: 87 + 87 + 37 + 37, plust GST, which is a total of 265.36$
That's about the cost of what, a cheesburger meal at a Disneyland food court?
And this is why Apple doesn't listen to the average Slashdotter. Think about:
1) Apple has serious time and money invested in H.264. Why would they bundle the XVid codec?
2) Apple has no real interest in going after the "anime fanboys" who (illegally?) want to watch fansubs (I don't even know what that means). Apple sold 10 million+ iPods not by targeting elite niche markets with the iPod, but by making it simple and chic enough for the average person to want to use.
Slashotters tend to hold the belief that their personal interests have a driving impact on the consumer landscape. But preach all you want about XVid-encoded anime fansubs, or FLAC-encoded obscure independant jazz artists; it's the mp3 Britney Spears tracks that move music players. And when Apple comes out with an iTunes TVstore, featuring legal downloads in H.264 format, that's what will push video iPods.
Apple did the niche market thing with the Mac. For the iPod they're going for everyone else. And succeeding.
A 17-year-old girl has bested three robot arm wrestlers
Been there. Welcome to the club, robots
Tomorrow we'll find out that they've made the internet obsolete, and in doing so, they've skewered a number of kittens on spikes. Oh the horror!
But wait a minute! Making the internet obsolete isn't evil!
I have heard YMCA an inordinate amount of times on my ipod shuffle. I wonder what that means.
Well, let's just say my response is likely to end with "not that there's anything wrong with that"
MIT is obviously one of the biggest engineering schools in North America, but it should be noted that my school has had a Biological Engineering Program for quite some time.
Don't get me wrong, good on MIT for adding this new major, but it should be noted that others have already done so.
Then Earth will form the Coalition of the Willing..... and will send interplanetary missiles on Venus, because Venus provided support to the cometian terrorists...
So, you're saying there's oil in the comets?
Small correction: in the movie, there are four so-so friends. Each guys goes for one of them, and ignore the hot blonde. Each guy therefore goes home with a cute girl, and the blonde gets no guy after her (but can always go look elsewhere with ease).
She doesn't feel too scorned, because it's easy for her to find a guy elsewhere. The so-so girls, though, would have a tougher time doing this, so they feel rebuked is someone goes for the hot girl, gets shot down, then goes for the so-so girl as a fallback.
From TFA: I recently met one of the industrial light and magic guys who worked on Star Wars: Episode II.
So, is it true they really have cloven hooves, horns and a tail?
So why wouldn't I want to use a credit card?
Because THEY can use it to track you! Make sure you never get one of those in-the-pipeline smart-card-equipped credit cards. That's how THEY know your location at all times-the smart card beams your location back to the mind-control satellites.
Yikes! For a second there, I thought you said "I think you might see an increase in sales of those watercooled cpu heatsinks that overcockers love."
Without the l in overclockers, the sentence takes on a whole new, very disturbing, meaning; albeit one not entirely inappropriate to a discussion of fertility.
I don't think there's anything wrong with top-posting. I know that it doesn't follow the English top-to-bottom method of reading in terms of the order in which the emails were written, but it makes it easier to find the newest information. If I've been taking part in a long email-based discussion, I know what the scoop is on the previous emails. All I need is the new info, which (conveniently) is at the top of the email. If I need to reference something older, I can scroll down to find it. But otherwise, I have to scroll down every message, as opposed to having the information right in front of me when I open the email.
I understand that etiquette is important, even (especially) in emails. However, there has to be a valid reason for that etiquette to exist. It seems to me that the attempt to force bottom-posting is an arbitrary decision to adhere to the initial chronology of the emails, rather than presenting the newest (and there, typically the most valid) information first.
That too, is a flawed analogy. What if the milk was free (as in you don't physically pay for it), but the producer of the milk is compensated by ads in the store? Your copies don't include any ads, so the advertisers don't pay you or the producer of the milk. But people would rather not see ads, so they get your milk instead of the store's. Now the store only has a few people coming in for milk, and they redistribute it to everyone else ad-free. With fewer customers, the store gets less ad revenue and eventually might go out of business.
TV is free in that you don't pay for it (cable/satellite fees aside), but it is not free to create. It requires revenue, and when you redistribute, you deprive the supply chain of that revenue.
I wonder if there will be moderation of blogs. If for example, I create a vehemently anti-Microsoft blog (possibly one that borders on slander), will the block/censor it? How does this work on other blogs?
I think the question is more valid for Microsoft's blog service because there are more anti-Microsoft people than anti-Google people (or whatever). And many of the anti-Microsoft people would find it cute or ironic to post an anti-Microsoft blog on Microsoft's own servers.
I can see HD camcorders catching on only if the memory is removable. That way, you could switch between multiple hard drives (think hot-swappable drive bays on 1" drives or something).
Tape may be a big hassle in many ways, but at least it provides theoretically unlimited storage? A tape fills up? Just pop in a new one! However, if you have a fixed HD, even if it can store many hours of video, eventually you will max out the capacity. There always needs to be room to upgrade the storage.
Think about it: you don't see decent-quality digital still cameras with embedded memory only do you? Even if you embedded 512MB or 1gig into a digital still cam, *somebody* would still eventually hit that limit. Therefore, having a CompactFlash (or whatever) slot allows for future expansion. I can't see a video camera lacking similar capabilities attaining any level of success.
Holy shit! With this they can probably track every move you make at 600 dpi or more! When will they stop???
They'll probably stop once they hit 2400dpi. Beyond that, you're just tracking individual neurons!