Backgrounder. I don't use it (anymore), but it works. And battery life suffers accordingly. Honestly the problem is that Apple refuse(s/d) to allow quick-swap of the battery, which is a feature common to almost every other phone that supports multitasking. It's the only thing I envy about the Palm Pre. Design simplicity is one thing, but it shouldn't come at the cost of removing features that would be beneficial to large segments of the customer base.
Regardless of the motivation, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to essentially add value to the black market for security exploits while simultaneously providing an inventive for contributors to add security bugs. They're really just raising the floor value of any given exploit to $500. Now if they were to offer a reward in excess of the level required to remain profitable through the exploitation of security holes (and it's anyone's guess what that value might be) then that might have some effect, but of course it would also increase the incentive for insider shenanigans.
You know, I heard that before.. If true, I would have expected it to be raised during the "Map ad" lawsuit, yet the only thing they argued (to my knowledge) was that the map implied "no coverage" in the white areas. Additionally, the counter-campaign has been squarely focused on coverage, not speed.
FWIW, I'm in Denver in 3G coverage right now, and my SpeedTest app shows 1.5Mbit down on my 3GS. While I fully believe that you've pulled three times that (wherever you are), I suspect the speed isn't quite universal or consistent enough for them to try to play that card yet.
Probablynot. Even if you assume that some portion unlocked their baseband (which was still impossible on new phones last I checked) and went with an alternative carrier, these are all bandwidth-heavy 3G phones being sold, while the people leaving are most likely older Edge users. So at best you're increasing network load with faster connections replacing slower ones, and at worst you're adding more users AND faster connections.
Exactly. The whole point of lugging around something the size of a laptop is that you get the *functionality* of a laptop. Why the fsck anyone would buy one of these is beyond me, and I'm a happy iPhone owner. If I want tablet functionality, I'll put it on my list of things to look for in a laptop, since flip/touch screens already exist.
I suppose the RDF may end up selling some of these, but I really don't see a future for the tablet-only market in the long term. Like netbooks, they're too expensive to be disposable and too feature-poor to be a justifiable purchase for most people.
Of course, I was also 100% onboard the "less space than a Nomad.. lame" bandwagon 10 years ago, and we all know how that turned out.
Eh, I tried the autocorrect feature, but ended up turning it off after a few months. It was proving to be more of a hindrance than a help; always slowing me down with "corrections," particularly for acronyms. I'd prefer to just have on-the-fly spellchecking where if it doesn't recognize a word, it just underlines the word in red and lets me decide what to do. As it is, the built-in autocorrect dictionary is so small that it's basically worthless for all but the most common mistakes -- the ones you learn to avoid. It also doesn't seem to have been re-optimized for the landscape keyboard, where the keys are much closer vertically than horizontally.
It might be the plan, but it's certainly untenable. Regardless of what method they use for counting (IP address, logins, cookies), it will be trivial to bypass. Well, trivial for anyone who understands that a monitor is not a CPU (iMac users excluded.. sort of).
To be fair, news has been advertiser funded for a long, long time. The price that subscribers pay is nothing close to the cost of actually writing, printing, and distributing the papers. Nowhere *close*. It's essentially a token price to prevent overburdening the printing and distribution divisions, because if it were actually free, everybody would subscribe, nobody would cancel, and the whole thing would quickly get out of hand. Take a look at something like a New Scientist subscription for a business model where the subscriber actually pays for the content.
The problem now is that circulation is so low that they can't demand the same rates from advertisers as in the past, and even slashing prices for the print edition would be unlikely to change that. At the same time, the value of online advertising is being publicly questioned, especially with the widespread adoption of ad blocking software.
What we are seeing is a completely new business model for the NYT -- not a replication of the cost-containment methods for print editions, but a method by which the subscriber would actually be directly funding the creation of content. The problem, I think, is that unlike creative content, which ironically is worth less and costs more, there is no monopoly on facts. Anyone who can communicate can disseminate information; no creativity required. Yes, it's nice to have literate authors and insightful commentary, but we have plenty of that on Slashdot for example, and none of us are getting paid. (Either that or I'm not getting my checks!)
The question is whether the standards of journalism at the Times can compete with no-cost competitors, and I don't think they can. Unless they have access to information that cannot be found via other no-cost channels (and they certainly don't at this juncture), then there's little incentive for end users to pay for something that can be had for free. This principle is the foundation of wildly popular sites like Craigslist. Why pay to run a Classified when you can do it for free? (And reach a wider audience and get instant results to boot.)
I do believe that quality journalism provides a value to society separate and distinct from something like a clearinghouse of bloggers, but for better or worse, I don't think this effort to fund it will be successful. As cliched as it sounds, the internet really has lowered the cost of information dissemination, and while that means any Joe Blow can potentially reach billions of people, natural processes are taking effect to sort out issues of credibility. If the Times wants to continue to compete, they need to come up with more than just a way of funding their journalism, they need to come up with something worth paying for.
Spanking a kid for running into the road -- a mistake -- is going a bit overboard, and overuse of corporal punishment is pretty much the definition of abuse, but whatever..
More importantly, we need to put an end to the idea that it's ever okay to have a drink with dinner. FFS, having *a* drink with dinner is like going to a strip club with pasties. Just because there's no "Two Drink Minimum" sign in your dining room doesn't make it okay to be a pussy. So remember, if you're ever in a situation where you're trying to decide whether or not to have *a* drink, the answer is already no. Drink, or drink not. There is no try.
Exactly. Perhaps if you knew this guy, then the threat could have been written off as a joke, but not everybody on the internet knows you personally. If you're going to make public comments that require personal insight to interpret, then be prepared for unintended consequences.
The police did exactly the right thing in this case, and people are blasting them for responding to a joke. Well for fuck sake, that's the whole point of investigating. It's not like they charged him with masterminding a terrorist plot then sent him to Gitmo. They knocked on his door to see WTF he was thinking, and the answer turned out to be that he wasn't thinking at all. Ha ha, stupid police? No, ha ha stupid person who posted a "joke" about blowing an airport in a public forum.
Yes, people make idle threats all the time, and there's no risk to public safety, but people also make active threats all the time, even as jokes. In fact, making jokes about things like violence to self or others is one of the *key* indicators of future action. Even if most threats are idle, most violent acts are still preceded by threats. That doesn't mean you ignore all threats; that means there's a lot of work to sort out the two, which in many cases involves talking to the people who make them.
He said "cafe," not specifically an internet cafe. I'm pretty sure he meant using WiFi on his own laptop, in which case yes, an SSL connection offers robust protection against sniffing, and modern browsers offer protection against cert spoofing (a common MITM attack).
Exactly. Anyone who's traveled outside of our own borders will discover far deeper practical problems than "what should I wear to school?" I think the human mind is wired to deal with problems such that the highest ranking problem always causes the most stress, regardless of its absolute importance. It's only when presented with *more* urgent problems that the mind can put things in perspective.
Since many youth have no real problems, fitting in socially becomes an obsession. Additionally, there is no shared struggle to form real bonds around, so common ground such as fashion or hobbies take on a larger-than-life role.
I think this also explains depression from returning soldiers, in that nothing feels particularly important compared to fighting for your life. Once that struggle is gone, it's hard to feel strongly about the things that are a part of normal life.
You know what would be awesome? If the CIA, NSA, and other TLAs and their foreign equivalents all got together and facilitated the activities of all known active terrorists. Arrange it such that their bookings were all for the same flight, on the same day, and allow their bombs and weapons through security. Fill the whole plane with terrorists, including the sleeper-cell pilot, but none of them know that the other passengers are all terrorists bent on destroying the plane as well. Hilarity ensues.
For bonus points, rig a satellite transmitter so we can all watch them fight over who gets to blow up the plane. *That* would be awesome.
Slashdot Mirror
Backgrounder. I don't use it (anymore), but it works. And battery life suffers accordingly. Honestly the problem is that Apple refuse(s/d) to allow quick-swap of the battery, which is a feature common to almost every other phone that supports multitasking. It's the only thing I envy about the Palm Pre. Design simplicity is one thing, but it shouldn't come at the cost of removing features that would be beneficial to large segments of the customer base.
Regardless of the motivation, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to essentially add value to the black market for security exploits while simultaneously providing an inventive for contributors to add security bugs. They're really just raising the floor value of any given exploit to $500. Now if they were to offer a reward in excess of the level required to remain profitable through the exploitation of security holes (and it's anyone's guess what that value might be) then that might have some effect, but of course it would also increase the incentive for insider shenanigans.
You know, I heard that before.. If true, I would have expected it to be raised during the "Map ad" lawsuit, yet the only thing they argued (to my knowledge) was that the map implied "no coverage" in the white areas. Additionally, the counter-campaign has been squarely focused on coverage, not speed.
FWIW, I'm in Denver in 3G coverage right now, and my SpeedTest app shows 1.5Mbit down on my 3GS. While I fully believe that you've pulled three times that (wherever you are), I suspect the speed isn't quite universal or consistent enough for them to try to play that card yet.
Probably not. Even if you assume that some portion unlocked their baseband (which was still impossible on new phones last I checked) and went with an alternative carrier, these are all bandwidth-heavy 3G phones being sold, while the people leaving are most likely older Edge users. So at best you're increasing network load with faster connections replacing slower ones, and at worst you're adding more users AND faster connections.
Exactly. The whole point of lugging around something the size of a laptop is that you get the *functionality* of a laptop. Why the fsck anyone would buy one of these is beyond me, and I'm a happy iPhone owner. If I want tablet functionality, I'll put it on my list of things to look for in a laptop, since flip/touch screens already exist.
I suppose the RDF may end up selling some of these, but I really don't see a future for the tablet-only market in the long term. Like netbooks, they're too expensive to be disposable and too feature-poor to be a justifiable purchase for most people.
Of course, I was also 100% onboard the "less space than a Nomad.. lame" bandwagon 10 years ago, and we all know how that turned out.
Hell, if I'd have known that buying props was all it took to get SG off the air, I'd have done it years ago.
What is the exact value of PI?
C/d
What?
Eh, I tried the autocorrect feature, but ended up turning it off after a few months. It was proving to be more of a hindrance than a help; always slowing me down with "corrections," particularly for acronyms. I'd prefer to just have on-the-fly spellchecking where if it doesn't recognize a word, it just underlines the word in red and lets me decide what to do. As it is, the built-in autocorrect dictionary is so small that it's basically worthless for all but the most common mistakes -- the ones you learn to avoid. It also doesn't seem to have been re-optimized for the landscape keyboard, where the keys are much closer vertically than horizontally.
It might be the plan, but it's certainly untenable. Regardless of what method they use for counting (IP address, logins, cookies), it will be trivial to bypass. Well, trivial for anyone who understands that a monitor is not a CPU (iMac users excluded.. sort of).
To be fair, news has been advertiser funded for a long, long time. The price that subscribers pay is nothing close to the cost of actually writing, printing, and distributing the papers. Nowhere *close*. It's essentially a token price to prevent overburdening the printing and distribution divisions, because if it were actually free, everybody would subscribe, nobody would cancel, and the whole thing would quickly get out of hand. Take a look at something like a New Scientist subscription for a business model where the subscriber actually pays for the content.
The problem now is that circulation is so low that they can't demand the same rates from advertisers as in the past, and even slashing prices for the print edition would be unlikely to change that. At the same time, the value of online advertising is being publicly questioned, especially with the widespread adoption of ad blocking software.
What we are seeing is a completely new business model for the NYT -- not a replication of the cost-containment methods for print editions, but a method by which the subscriber would actually be directly funding the creation of content. The problem, I think, is that unlike creative content, which ironically is worth less and costs more, there is no monopoly on facts. Anyone who can communicate can disseminate information; no creativity required. Yes, it's nice to have literate authors and insightful commentary, but we have plenty of that on Slashdot for example, and none of us are getting paid. (Either that or I'm not getting my checks!)
The question is whether the standards of journalism at the Times can compete with no-cost competitors, and I don't think they can. Unless they have access to information that cannot be found via other no-cost channels (and they certainly don't at this juncture), then there's little incentive for end users to pay for something that can be had for free. This principle is the foundation of wildly popular sites like Craigslist. Why pay to run a Classified when you can do it for free? (And reach a wider audience and get instant results to boot.)
I do believe that quality journalism provides a value to society separate and distinct from something like a clearinghouse of bloggers, but for better or worse, I don't think this effort to fund it will be successful. As cliched as it sounds, the internet really has lowered the cost of information dissemination, and while that means any Joe Blow can potentially reach billions of people, natural processes are taking effect to sort out issues of credibility. If the Times wants to continue to compete, they need to come up with more than just a way of funding their journalism, they need to come up with something worth paying for.
Spanking a kid for running into the road -- a mistake -- is going a bit overboard, and overuse of corporal punishment is pretty much the definition of abuse, but whatever..
More importantly, we need to put an end to the idea that it's ever okay to have a drink with dinner. FFS, having *a* drink with dinner is like going to a strip club with pasties. Just because there's no "Two Drink Minimum" sign in your dining room doesn't make it okay to be a pussy. So remember, if you're ever in a situation where you're trying to decide whether or not to have *a* drink, the answer is already no. Drink, or drink not. There is no try.
And, oh yeah.. Don't be a PedoBear.
Exactly. Perhaps if you knew this guy, then the threat could have been written off as a joke, but not everybody on the internet knows you personally. If you're going to make public comments that require personal insight to interpret, then be prepared for unintended consequences.
The police did exactly the right thing in this case, and people are blasting them for responding to a joke. Well for fuck sake, that's the whole point of investigating. It's not like they charged him with masterminding a terrorist plot then sent him to Gitmo. They knocked on his door to see WTF he was thinking, and the answer turned out to be that he wasn't thinking at all. Ha ha, stupid police? No, ha ha stupid person who posted a "joke" about blowing an airport in a public forum.
Yes, people make idle threats all the time, and there's no risk to public safety, but people also make active threats all the time, even as jokes. In fact, making jokes about things like violence to self or others is one of the *key* indicators of future action. Even if most threats are idle, most violent acts are still preceded by threats. That doesn't mean you ignore all threats; that means there's a lot of work to sort out the two, which in many cases involves talking to the people who make them.
To say that you couldn't verify the source without trying to decrypt the files?!?
he doesn't know jack about the engines and also has no idea what tools to use.
When all you have is a chair, all your problems look like developers.
He said "cafe," not specifically an internet cafe. I'm pretty sure he meant using WiFi on his own laptop, in which case yes, an SSL connection offers robust protection against sniffing, and modern browsers offer protection against cert spoofing (a common MITM attack).
Same reason you bzip your bronze...
the female of the species (an increasingly large demographic)
They're not fat, they're just big boned.
Get it? Boned?
If publishers allowed Text-To-Speech, the Kindle would, in fact, aid the blind in its current incarnation.
:::cricket, cricket, cricket:::
man bear pig?
Exactly. Anyone who's traveled outside of our own borders will discover far deeper practical problems than "what should I wear to school?" I think the human mind is wired to deal with problems such that the highest ranking problem always causes the most stress, regardless of its absolute importance. It's only when presented with *more* urgent problems that the mind can put things in perspective.
Since many youth have no real problems, fitting in socially becomes an obsession. Additionally, there is no shared struggle to form real bonds around, so common ground such as fashion or hobbies take on a larger-than-life role.
I think this also explains depression from returning soldiers, in that nothing feels particularly important compared to fighting for your life. Once that struggle is gone, it's hard to feel strongly about the things that are a part of normal life.
At least, that's my theory...
Movies are now pretty much episodic content.
Which is pretty much how they started out.
Kids...
Too bad it's already been cracked.
You know what would be awesome? If the CIA, NSA, and other TLAs and their foreign equivalents all got together and facilitated the activities of all known active terrorists. Arrange it such that their bookings were all for the same flight, on the same day, and allow their bombs and weapons through security. Fill the whole plane with terrorists, including the sleeper-cell pilot, but none of them know that the other passengers are all terrorists bent on destroying the plane as well. Hilarity ensues.
For bonus points, rig a satellite transmitter so we can all watch them fight over who gets to blow up the plane. *That* would be awesome.