Which by the way, Microsoft's justification for spending lots on this to the bean counters was that their goal was to be the third platform, which most economists (and Wall Street investors) understand. Problem is Microsoft didn't even learn from their own history: There is no room for a third platform.
As much as people like to dump on Windows Phone, or Blackberry, the shrinking of the smartphone market to only 2 major players is a bad thing.
Whether it's a bad thing or not, it's been that way for about 7 years now, and it's pretty much inevitable when it comes to consumer technology platforms.
For reference, there's what's called the rule of three:
Except, historically this doesn't end up that way in mature consumer technology platform markets, in which case there's always a rule of two. Think about the desktop/laptop market, which has been just Microsoft and Apple. For another example, think about the video game console wars; first it was Atari and Nintendo, then Nintendo and Sega, then Sony and Nintendo, and now Sony and Microsoft. A third shows up now and then, but they don't last more than a few years (i.e. Nintendo Wii.)
When these markets weren't mature, there were LOTS of competitors (remember Commodore, Sinclair, Acorn, IBM, Apple, etc.) Of course, immature markets don't have many customers either (part of which comes from customer confusion about which one is "best" for them and thus are hesitant to buy, in addition to them not being sure how it benefits their life.)
I think the explanation for this is that in order for a technology platform to be viable, you need two things: Consumer adoption, and third party developer support. Consumers, as demonstrated by the wikipedia article, are willing to support three competitors in a mature market. However third party developers are not; most of them will only have the resources to maintain their apps/games for two separate platforms, slightly fewer will only do one platform (usually the biggest, although sometimes the second biggest) and even fewer will support all three.
Anyways when the developer support just isn't there for the third platform, then the consumers eventually stop buying it, hence we end up with a rule of two.
And no, the PC doesn't count as an alternative platform to game consoles because the politics are WAY different (i.e. there's no entity dictating the terms of publishing to the platform, and the customer tastes are dramatically different.) Comparing the two is akin to comparing smartphones with personal computers.
The most valuable company thing I'm not sure about, I guess it depends how you measure it. Market cap does tend to be what the media and others are talking about when they say "the most valuable company in the world," but we all know there is a lot more to it than that. For example, market cap only represents outstanding stocks and is really all over the place.
The other thing typically used (and measured) by the media is brand value.
Android UI is generally better and it provides more flexibility, although I wish it were more flexible out-of-the-box and didn't require rooting to do some of the truly nice things.
If you're using a newer version of Android, you don't need root to do most of those things anymore. Pretty much the only reason I root these days is because Nexus devices, for whatever reason, have the ability to record calls via API disabled, even though AOSP has that capability, so you need root for apps like Boldbeast to use ALSA.
For adblocking, I just use firefox with adblock installed. Other things (like removing built in apps) is better with Marshmallow, which now moves non-core apps that don't make or break the OS (such as Play Services) to the data partition after setup, where the user can then delete it if desired. Of course, OEMs can probably change this functionality, which is why you should buy a Nexus.
The Verge may be right, but they are totally apple fanboys who jump at any opportunity to make fun of the competition.
I would agree, but Windows Phone is not now nor ever was competition for Apple. The company that is competition for Apple's bread and butter market however, is a totally different story:
TL;DR: Apple has a lot of cash overseas, and can't bring it here or else it will get taxed HARD. Meanwhile, over here, they have a huge pile of debt that is growing faster than their foreign cash reserves.
Between that, combined with the slowing smartphone market, and an overall slowing US economy (we're probably going to see a recession soonish) they *may* be in for some rough times. Microsoft seems to be doing well on the other hand, with their cloud division bringing in huge profits.
Translation: I cannot answer you in full and complete
No, it's not that at all, it's just that talking to you is like talking to insert any choice of anti-vaxer, moonlanding hoaxer, 9/11 truther, etc. You blather a lot of falsehoods that are nothing more than your assumption about how reality, but you can't tell the difference so you just keep spouting off a big load of nonsense.
Communism died off and nobody takes it seriously anymore. It was just one among many political ideologies like Fascism whose followers thought was awesome but anybody with sanity saw through the bullshit, and now that communist revolutions have come and gone, EVERYBODY sees through the bullshit, including its former followers. But as a basement dweller with your own little political bubble you haven't realized it yet. Until you do, don't bother replying to me.
No, Bernie just wants a France style economy where the government collects outright burdensome taxes and imposes massive trade barriers. France has perhaps the worst economy of any first world country, so no thanks, you can keep your Bernie propaganda.
Not going to respond to the majority of your ranty, uneducated post. But I will point out two:
Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour.
Yes, it does exactly that. It requires that what you have, anybody is free to take, because there is no such thing as private property. This is why you communists are so dumb, you can't see that it's just a system that enslaves you for the good of everybody else, and the end result is that everybody is miserable. This is why the Icarians gradually started leaving until the commune was no more.
Seriously, communism has become the bogeyman for many
Perhaps in the past, when the USSR was a threat to democracy, but now it's seen as a big joke. Nobody takes it seriously anymore except for a few derps that hang out in internet forums about how great their revolution will be. Only it won't ever happen because all 10 of you would get crushed within minutes if you took up arms.
This message brought to you by incumbent energy cartels that enjoy their power.
I think there's other reasons besides this. Namely, if it's just sharing (instead of selling, as is already done) a few states would take advantage.
Take for example California who refuses to build just about any additional sources of power (practically everything is somehow evil in that state, from nuclear to wind power because it kills birds) and as a result, not only do they have a large amount of coal power there, but they don't even have enough to power their own state, as some 30% of their energy comes from neighboring states.
Two other problems are that boot signing is an optional module in UEFI, in addition to the fact that ME is off in the factory configuration, and in order for it to do anything you have to explicitly enable it and configure a password.
It's actually a wonderful feature to have, by the way. It still works even if the CPU is dead and you have no RAM. You can tell exactly what's wrong with a seemingly dead system through the fault logs on the web interface.
The problem is building a search engine isn't quite as simple as it once was. Nowadays, with SEO being so aggressive, you need the ability to determine what links people actually click on at your search pagen to help you figure out what is relevant. Google initially did this with search toolbars, and now they do it with chrome itself, and now they've added some JavaScript trickery.
Apple just doesn't have the numbers to be able to effectively do any of these. Do their users spend a lot, and generate a lot of profit? Yes, but there just aren't enough of them, and they're going to have to perpetually deal with people who seek greener pastures.
Microsoft is even struggling with this. They began tracking what links people click in IE a few years ago on Bing searches, and as of windows 10 they track you with edge no matter what search engine you use. I've also heard that windows 10 itself may be able to track your clicks even in third party browsers, though I am kind of dubious of that.
I know, right? I figure that if it's so vibrant, their market share (and thus app development) in that region might actually be competitive with Android, but it's not even close. Instead it's only competitive with the running gag of the smartphone industry, windows phone.
I would certainly consider the description in Marx's works to be an attempt at a utopia.
Unfortunately for Marx, the USSR was as genuinely communist as they were democratic.
I think what communists fail to understand is that people of leadership will always take advantage. Even Karl Marx himself did. In the Paris Commune, he literally wanted to cease everybody else's assets for his own little political club. That isn't very different from every other attempt at communism, including groups like the Icarians that ultimately had no governing power (people just volunteered to join the commune, surrendering all of their private possessions to the group in the process, and it all fell apart when people got tired of working at the behest of the leaders with basically no compensation -- exactly what communism asks of them.)
With our current status quo, where large groups of people (which is essentially what a corporation is) can hold enough power to rival the government's own power, they keep one another in check.
Communism doesn't afford that at all: There's the political class, and then there's everybody else, with nothing in between, and if you're not part of the good ol' boy network then you are stuck at the bottom. Communists think that they can achieve a classless society, but they themselves are beholden to the worst kind of class warfare, meanwhile they point the finger at capitalism.
I really doubt it ever would because of the whole SEAndroid architecture built on top of it. An OEM would seriously have to go out of their way to not have it working.
Is that why they keep on trying to make sure women can't control their own bodies?
Is this in reference to that Sandra Fluke thing? Because she made it sound as though birth control pills just have way too much of a cost burden, therefore the government MUST give away other people's money NOW, which was stupid considering that even planned parenthood sells them for about $10-$15 for a month supply, which is about a typical copay that most people pay for generic drugs anyways. (Not only that, but Fluke herself was retarded for going for a law degree, because there's some 4 times as many lawyers graduating per year than there is an actual economic demand for new ones. Given that she recently lost a political election I wouldn't be surprised if she's, for the most part, currently unemployed.)
During initial set up, flip on encryption... there you go, you can have that one for free Apple...
Even if they close that loophole (which it looks like the current proposals do) an even simpler way is to just not carry them in stores in those states. So you just take online orders and ship from states without these laws. And if that's not practical, (i.e. they need foot traffic in the stores) just have two separate SKUs: One for NY/CA, and another for everywhere else. If those people want an uncompromised device, they can just order from elsewhere, and electronics stores would operate kind of like Tesla showrooms when it comes to smartphones.
And I was taught that fascism is an economic system very similar in nature to the old feudal system. That is, companies are held and run by private individuals who get to profit from them as long as they also produce the proper results for the government.
Fascism (fascismo in Italian) literally means "bundle of rods" (fasces in Latin) in reference to the concept of national unity; that being, each person is the rod that made up the stronger whole. But anyways, they kind of had both. I don't remember the guy's name, but one of Hitler's top men (he testified against all of Hitler's Lieutenants during the Nuremberg trials) basically ran a slave shop where people were forced to build Germany's war machine and other economic assets. This was part of the whole "National Socialism" concept. (National Socialism, by the way, is where the word Nazi comes from.)
And like you said, private enterprises were ultimately beholden to the government.
The Federal Govt IS becoming too powerful and centralized, the Fed is overtaking the power of the states left and right (where constitutionally power is supposed to reside).
I don't think that's the case. At least, the federal government has been more powerful in the past, and even collected (and spent) more money proportionate to the GDP. This was the post WWII period, and it mostly came to an end in the late 70's with a recession, and ended up where it is today during the Reagan cuts in the 80's.
Unless you're talking about domestic spying, which I'll agree, it's more powerful now than then, but this is largely facilitated by technology rather than spending.
Though if you do it wrong you'll run into problems. The Inuit survived by consuming large amounts of blubber.
In fact, gout is on the rise.
I have gout caused by stage 4 CKD, which itself is from IgA Nephropathy. Or rather, I was stage 4 until a few weeks ago. My albuminuria showed up negative in recent routine blood tests, so my nephrologist had me stop ACEi therapy. As a result, creatinine clearance increased to mid-stage 3 numbers (about 45.) Still though, in order to avoid gout, kidney function needs to be well above 60.
I actually eat very little meat, by the way, which is a stipulation for anybody who is stage 4. The reason why is because a byproduct of protein (any protein, including plant protein) is ammonia, which is otherwise toxic, however your liver converts that into the inert molecule urea. Having more of that in your blood means more work for your kidneys, so you solve that by limiting protein intake. However that still doesn't stop a buildup of blood-urea nitrogen, or uric acid, which causes gout. My last blood work showed my uric acid at 12mg/dl, which is twice the upper normal range, and hence I've begun taking a xanthine oxidase inhibitor.
However now that my filtration is up, I can increase protein intake, and it won't make the medication any less effective.
Somebody who goes into complete renal failure however needs to consume LOTS of meat, far more than the typical person in fact, which itself is the result of dialysis leaching protein from your blood. As I mentioned earlier, it's practically impossible for somebody to be vegan while on dialysis (many try, but ultimately don't succeed.)
While our bodies create D and creative, you can't reliably get enough from plants. As the three white papers noted, vegetarians are more often than not deficient in both.
Anyways, agreed about the cow thing, but a better (also tastier) substitute for beef is ostrich:
Slashdot Mirror
Which by the way, Microsoft's justification for spending lots on this to the bean counters was that their goal was to be the third platform, which most economists (and Wall Street investors) understand. Problem is Microsoft didn't even learn from their own history: There is no room for a third platform.
As much as people like to dump on Windows Phone, or Blackberry, the shrinking of the smartphone market to only 2 major players is a bad thing.
Whether it's a bad thing or not, it's been that way for about 7 years now, and it's pretty much inevitable when it comes to consumer technology platforms.
For reference, there's what's called the rule of three:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Except, historically this doesn't end up that way in mature consumer technology platform markets, in which case there's always a rule of two. Think about the desktop/laptop market, which has been just Microsoft and Apple. For another example, think about the video game console wars; first it was Atari and Nintendo, then Nintendo and Sega, then Sony and Nintendo, and now Sony and Microsoft. A third shows up now and then, but they don't last more than a few years (i.e. Nintendo Wii.)
When these markets weren't mature, there were LOTS of competitors (remember Commodore, Sinclair, Acorn, IBM, Apple, etc.) Of course, immature markets don't have many customers either (part of which comes from customer confusion about which one is "best" for them and thus are hesitant to buy, in addition to them not being sure how it benefits their life.)
I think the explanation for this is that in order for a technology platform to be viable, you need two things: Consumer adoption, and third party developer support. Consumers, as demonstrated by the wikipedia article, are willing to support three competitors in a mature market. However third party developers are not; most of them will only have the resources to maintain their apps/games for two separate platforms, slightly fewer will only do one platform (usually the biggest, although sometimes the second biggest) and even fewer will support all three.
Anyways when the developer support just isn't there for the third platform, then the consumers eventually stop buying it, hence we end up with a rule of two.
And no, the PC doesn't count as an alternative platform to game consoles because the politics are WAY different (i.e. there's no entity dictating the terms of publishing to the platform, and the customer tastes are dramatically different.) Comparing the two is akin to comparing smartphones with personal computers.
The most valuable company thing I'm not sure about, I guess it depends how you measure it. Market cap does tend to be what the media and others are talking about when they say "the most valuable company in the world," but we all know there is a lot more to it than that. For example, market cap only represents outstanding stocks and is really all over the place.
The other thing typically used (and measured) by the media is brand value.
Android UI is generally better and it provides more flexibility, although I wish it were more flexible out-of-the-box and didn't require rooting to do some of the truly nice things.
If you're using a newer version of Android, you don't need root to do most of those things anymore. Pretty much the only reason I root these days is because Nexus devices, for whatever reason, have the ability to record calls via API disabled, even though AOSP has that capability, so you need root for apps like Boldbeast to use ALSA.
For adblocking, I just use firefox with adblock installed. Other things (like removing built in apps) is better with Marshmallow, which now moves non-core apps that don't make or break the OS (such as Play Services) to the data partition after setup, where the user can then delete it if desired. Of course, OEMs can probably change this functionality, which is why you should buy a Nexus.
The Verge may be right, but they are totally apple fanboys who jump at any opportunity to make fun of the competition.
I would agree, but Windows Phone is not now nor ever was competition for Apple. The company that is competition for Apple's bread and butter market however, is a totally different story:
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-g...
TL;DR: Google (or Alphabet rather) is likely to overtake Apple's overall net worth soon.
Also to add to that, Apple's massive cash supply has a major problem that's going to take a lot of "financial engineering" to solve:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
TL;DR: Apple has a lot of cash overseas, and can't bring it here or else it will get taxed HARD. Meanwhile, over here, they have a huge pile of debt that is growing faster than their foreign cash reserves.
Between that, combined with the slowing smartphone market, and an overall slowing US economy (we're probably going to see a recession soonish) they *may* be in for some rough times. Microsoft seems to be doing well on the other hand, with their cloud division bringing in huge profits.
Usually people use a Swedish Made Penis Enlarger for that.
Translation: I cannot answer you in full and complete
No, it's not that at all, it's just that talking to you is like talking to insert any choice of anti-vaxer, moonlanding hoaxer, 9/11 truther, etc. You blather a lot of falsehoods that are nothing more than your assumption about how reality, but you can't tell the difference so you just keep spouting off a big load of nonsense.
Communism died off and nobody takes it seriously anymore. It was just one among many political ideologies like Fascism whose followers thought was awesome but anybody with sanity saw through the bullshit, and now that communist revolutions have come and gone, EVERYBODY sees through the bullshit, including its former followers. But as a basement dweller with your own little political bubble you haven't realized it yet. Until you do, don't bother replying to me.
No, Bernie just wants a France style economy where the government collects outright burdensome taxes and imposes massive trade barriers. France has perhaps the worst economy of any first world country, so no thanks, you can keep your Bernie propaganda.
Not going to respond to the majority of your ranty, uneducated post. But I will point out two:
Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour.
Yes, it does exactly that. It requires that what you have, anybody is free to take, because there is no such thing as private property. This is why you communists are so dumb, you can't see that it's just a system that enslaves you for the good of everybody else, and the end result is that everybody is miserable. This is why the Icarians gradually started leaving until the commune was no more.
Seriously, communism has become the bogeyman for many
Perhaps in the past, when the USSR was a threat to democracy, but now it's seen as a big joke. Nobody takes it seriously anymore except for a few derps that hang out in internet forums about how great their revolution will be. Only it won't ever happen because all 10 of you would get crushed within minutes if you took up arms.
This message brought to you by incumbent energy cartels that enjoy their power.
I think there's other reasons besides this. Namely, if it's just sharing (instead of selling, as is already done) a few states would take advantage.
Take for example California who refuses to build just about any additional sources of power (practically everything is somehow evil in that state, from nuclear to wind power because it kills birds) and as a result, not only do they have a large amount of coal power there, but they don't even have enough to power their own state, as some 30% of their energy comes from neighboring states.
I think GP just hates anybody who is part of the 1%. Not the 1.01%, or the 3.14159%, because they're part of the 99%. He just hates the 1%.
Two other problems are that boot signing is an optional module in UEFI, in addition to the fact that ME is off in the factory configuration, and in order for it to do anything you have to explicitly enable it and configure a password.
It's actually a wonderful feature to have, by the way. It still works even if the CPU is dead and you have no RAM. You can tell exactly what's wrong with a seemingly dead system through the fault logs on the web interface.
The problem is building a search engine isn't quite as simple as it once was. Nowadays, with SEO being so aggressive, you need the ability to determine what links people actually click on at your search pagen to help you figure out what is relevant. Google initially did this with search toolbars, and now they do it with chrome itself, and now they've added some JavaScript trickery.
Apple just doesn't have the numbers to be able to effectively do any of these. Do their users spend a lot, and generate a lot of profit? Yes, but there just aren't enough of them, and they're going to have to perpetually deal with people who seek greener pastures.
Microsoft is even struggling with this. They began tracking what links people click in IE a few years ago on Bing searches, and as of windows 10 they track you with edge no matter what search engine you use. I've also heard that windows 10 itself may be able to track your clicks even in third party browsers, though I am kind of dubious of that.
I know, right? I figure that if it's so vibrant, their market share (and thus app development) in that region might actually be competitive with Android, but it's not even close. Instead it's only competitive with the running gag of the smartphone industry, windows phone.
sorry, seize*
I would certainly consider the description in Marx's works to be an attempt at a utopia.
Unfortunately for Marx, the USSR was as genuinely communist as they were democratic.
I think what communists fail to understand is that people of leadership will always take advantage. Even Karl Marx himself did. In the Paris Commune, he literally wanted to cease everybody else's assets for his own little political club. That isn't very different from every other attempt at communism, including groups like the Icarians that ultimately had no governing power (people just volunteered to join the commune, surrendering all of their private possessions to the group in the process, and it all fell apart when people got tired of working at the behest of the leaders with basically no compensation -- exactly what communism asks of them.)
With our current status quo, where large groups of people (which is essentially what a corporation is) can hold enough power to rival the government's own power, they keep one another in check.
Communism doesn't afford that at all: There's the political class, and then there's everybody else, with nothing in between, and if you're not part of the good ol' boy network then you are stuck at the bottom. Communists think that they can achieve a classless society, but they themselves are beholden to the worst kind of class warfare, meanwhile they point the finger at capitalism.
That hasn't happened on any relevant device.
I really doubt it ever would because of the whole SEAndroid architecture built on top of it. An OEM would seriously have to go out of their way to not have it working.
Is that why they keep on trying to make sure women can't control their own bodies?
Is this in reference to that Sandra Fluke thing? Because she made it sound as though birth control pills just have way too much of a cost burden, therefore the government MUST give away other people's money NOW, which was stupid considering that even planned parenthood sells them for about $10-$15 for a month supply, which is about a typical copay that most people pay for generic drugs anyways. (Not only that, but Fluke herself was retarded for going for a law degree, because there's some 4 times as many lawyers graduating per year than there is an actual economic demand for new ones. Given that she recently lost a political election I wouldn't be surprised if she's, for the most part, currently unemployed.)
During initial set up, flip on encryption... there you go, you can have that one for free Apple...
Even if they close that loophole (which it looks like the current proposals do) an even simpler way is to just not carry them in stores in those states. So you just take online orders and ship from states without these laws. And if that's not practical, (i.e. they need foot traffic in the stores) just have two separate SKUs: One for NY/CA, and another for everywhere else. If those people want an uncompromised device, they can just order from elsewhere, and electronics stores would operate kind of like Tesla showrooms when it comes to smartphones.
And I was taught that fascism is an economic system very similar in nature to the old feudal system. That is, companies are held and run by private individuals who get to profit from them as long as they also produce the proper results for the government.
Fascism (fascismo in Italian) literally means "bundle of rods" (fasces in Latin) in reference to the concept of national unity; that being, each person is the rod that made up the stronger whole. But anyways, they kind of had both. I don't remember the guy's name, but one of Hitler's top men (he testified against all of Hitler's Lieutenants during the Nuremberg trials) basically ran a slave shop where people were forced to build Germany's war machine and other economic assets. This was part of the whole "National Socialism" concept. (National Socialism, by the way, is where the word Nazi comes from.)
And like you said, private enterprises were ultimately beholden to the government.
Lastly, you talk about American reluctance for a strong central government -- but that is exactly what we have. And it is only getting stronger.
I think the government was relatively larger and more feared during this period:
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/...
The Federal Govt IS becoming too powerful and centralized, the Fed is overtaking the power of the states left and right (where constitutionally power is supposed to reside).
I don't think that's the case. At least, the federal government has been more powerful in the past, and even collected (and spent) more money proportionate to the GDP. This was the post WWII period, and it mostly came to an end in the late 70's with a recession, and ended up where it is today during the Reagan cuts in the 80's.
Unless you're talking about domestic spying, which I'll agree, it's more powerful now than then, but this is largely facilitated by technology rather than spending.
And people who don't eat enough vegetables often suffer from malnutrition in other ways.
Actually that's not true:
http://inhumanexperiment.blogs...
Though if you do it wrong you'll run into problems. The Inuit survived by consuming large amounts of blubber.
In fact, gout is on the rise.
I have gout caused by stage 4 CKD, which itself is from IgA Nephropathy. Or rather, I was stage 4 until a few weeks ago. My albuminuria showed up negative in recent routine blood tests, so my nephrologist had me stop ACEi therapy. As a result, creatinine clearance increased to mid-stage 3 numbers (about 45.) Still though, in order to avoid gout, kidney function needs to be well above 60.
I actually eat very little meat, by the way, which is a stipulation for anybody who is stage 4. The reason why is because a byproduct of protein (any protein, including plant protein) is ammonia, which is otherwise toxic, however your liver converts that into the inert molecule urea. Having more of that in your blood means more work for your kidneys, so you solve that by limiting protein intake. However that still doesn't stop a buildup of blood-urea nitrogen, or uric acid, which causes gout. My last blood work showed my uric acid at 12mg/dl, which is twice the upper normal range, and hence I've begun taking a xanthine oxidase inhibitor.
However now that my filtration is up, I can increase protein intake, and it won't make the medication any less effective.
Somebody who goes into complete renal failure however needs to consume LOTS of meat, far more than the typical person in fact, which itself is the result of dialysis leaching protein from your blood. As I mentioned earlier, it's practically impossible for somebody to be vegan while on dialysis (many try, but ultimately don't succeed.)
Bleh stupid autocorrect, meant creatine.
While our bodies create D and creative, you can't reliably get enough from plants. As the three white papers noted, vegetarians are more often than not deficient in both.
Anyways, agreed about the cow thing, but a better (also tastier) substitute for beef is ostrich:
http://cronkitezine.asu.edu/fa...