Beyond the fact there's a typo in my original quote, your statement hardly changes my point, and in fact reaffirms it. It makes perfect business sense to cancel services that the market is showing people do not need or want, and that's why said products would be cancelled. Beyond the fact that we're talking about free services, I'd hardly call Knol, Wave or even Gears "basic services".When they cancel GMail arbitrarily, let me know. Until then, my argument remains valid.
You're not making a point at all, and i'm not re-affirming you're point, you're missing the point entirely. Just because you personally don't care, or because the majority don't care, that doesn't make it okay for those people who use those services to become reliant on them. They are not stupid for refusing to use Google services.
There is also a major paradox in what you are saying since a service such as Gmail can't become popular unless people adopt it in the first place. Therefore you are basically saying all the early adopters - the ones that actually DRIVE the market - don't matter because when they adopt, the service is not "basic". But hey if it was profitable overall to Google to shut down Gmail you can bet they'd do it in a heartbeat - they might try to add spin to minimise bad PR, but they would care about you or any other user not one bit.
Finally who's to say what a basic service is? I can argue that Gmail is not a basic service either, since there are alternatives. The term "basic services" is not at all objective as you seem to believe. Again you are pushing your own ideas and point of view, while completely ignoring or dismissing those of others.
I hate to break it to you, but every vendor has its own agenda.
That's my freaking point, isn't it. Cloud means they get to pull the rug from under you. Most moderate to large companies and savvy individuals shoudl keep their own data in their own hands and keep at least binaries of what they want to run out of the control of the vendor. Yes it is more work and more money. Yes you can get it wrong so you have to make an effort not to. But software as a service and your apps and data on the cloud is a cancer to your ability to do anything with your own data.
Google Bookmarks Lists—Date was December 19, 2011. All your bookmarks are belong to recycle bin. Google Friend Connect— On March 1, 2012 you will face the fact that you have no friends. Google Gears—To be jammed December 1, 2011 Google Search Timeline—Now history! Google Wave—Wave goodbye on January 31, 2012 Knol—Stop seeking the Oracle on April 30, 2012 Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (REC)—Redirecting enviro-bullshit, capt'n.
"I will not use other successfully products by company X because they cancel support for products that I don't use and others don't either." Intelligent.
Let me fix that for you. "I refuse to become reliant for basic service on a vendor that clearly has their own agenda and will happily cancel those services without regard to what I want or need".
You can make anything sound unintelligent with careful paraphrasing to reductio ad absurdum, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it actually is unintelligent.
For sufficiently imprecise definition of "no one". What you means is no one you personally care about.
Welcome to the cloud, where abandonware is truly dead and nostalgia is a thing of the past. This is what happens when you hand the keys to the kingdom to a service provider with their own motivations and that do not care about you.
And thanks for re-affirming the lesson Google. I now try to use Google for nothing except search and perhaps Google Earth on rare occassions. They've even managed to turn me off Picasa with glaring bugs like losing face data you spend hours entering.
Fuck the walled garden approach. It is secure because someone else decides what you're allowed to run. It's not the OS that's in the sandbox, it's you back in pre-school back in the sand pit having your hand held.
I will second the AC's point - why is Android a "clear winner" while iOS is "more intrusive"?
For starters you don't have to jailbreak/root the phone to install an app that isn't Google approved. And you can do so with just the phone - you do not need something like iTunes. Secondly while rooting will supposedly void your warranty there are apps to do so that are right there on the android market.
Android is possible to be configured from the beginning only to use any exchange server as well. You do not need to use any Google services or applications if you do not want to do so.
I'm afraid you're the one, that inadvertantly or otherwise, is spreading false information. Some models of Android phone will not let you even use the calendar or contacts unless you sign up with Google. One my Acer AOD255 I could not get anywhere without signing up with Google, but at least that doesn't have contacts from my SIM card to share. On my Acer Liquid Metal I found that the 2.3.5 image did indeed turn on sharing by default. It gives you the option not to sync contacts with Google but they're shared by default and there are a bunch of different options that will easily trip up even an experienced user. Background data, auto sync, then sync on each of Phone SIM and Google account.
What is worse is that import and export to SD card are broken - they put all numbers in US number format with dashes hard coded, which makes Australian numbers look wrong and is confusing for an Australian user use to dashes in different location. The stupid thing is import from SIM is not broken and does not do any such hard coding. The easiest way around it is to sync with Google and correct it there since trying to correct it in phone is awkward. When you try to delete a dash it also deletes the preceding number, so you have to delete it and re-enter that number (which is error prone and slow on a small touch screen - in fact if you have more than a handful of contacts it is unworkable). The only other way is to write an app to fix the number format. I found one that did just that but only to US number format. I also found the source but I don't have weeks to spend on a hobby project modifying someone else's code to fix a bug in the OS. So I caved and shared my data begrudgingly.
I accidentally shared my wife's data because I set her phone up while I was tired and picked the wrong option at setup (default is ticked to share data). Once done it was too late.
So yeah, please follow your own advice and stop spreading falsehood.
I predict a strong showing of reactionary "what's wrong with people today?" comments. I have to wonder if getting an ultrasound was originally greeted with as much crankiness as I often see from articles like this.
Myself, I'm a relentless progressive. So much so, I thought Gattaca looked kind of nifty.
Of course, sometimes I say that just see the horrified expressions on people's faces.
Yep. You have the asshole Gene. That'll be $324.99 thanks.
Only trouble is you gave away that you're doing it for a reaction aka trolling. Do you tell people how nifty Hitler was and that you thought gas chambers were "nifty"? Godwin be damned.
Re:Why so much disbelief in aliens among scientist
on
Exoplanet Count Tops 700
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Gas giants can't form close to stars, they have to migrate towards them.
That too is in question. To understand why we see so many Jupiter-sized planets you really need to understand the techniques we use to detect them.
For some methods fully confirming a planet requires more than one orbit. Their orbit may be measured in years, decades or centuries. For other methods it's a one off event and we can't confirm the existence of the planet. The first confirmed planets were detected around a pulsar (a kind of dead star) only in 1992. And the method used only worked for pulsars. It took until 1995 to detect a planet around a main sequence star.
Then it took years to get dedicated space instruments up. Effectively we've been at this only for 17 years. Given the difficulty that's nothing. Give it time! Perhaps your grandkids will grow up with earth sized planets confirmed.
Because its Pakistan I can't tell if they meant loser or if they were serious, it makes it even more difficult since they also seem to deem athlete's foot offensive.
Reminds me of some very bad porn a work colleague at a former employer I won't name showed me. Hint: Feet don't belong there, you're doing it wrong!
I'm not in "IT". I don't answer pagers, I don't know how to set up Exchange, and I don't wash windows.
Ever hear of second level support? Or combining operations with development? I don't earn obscene amounts of money but I do better than an average senior developer.
I'm proud to say I change nappies, clean up after my puppy when it messes, clean toilets at home, take the garbage out on a regular basis. Refusing to do your share and looking down on people that keep the world running because it's beneath you is the worst and stupidiest form of snobbery.
It's a great show. IS it how to do profession science in a lab? o. It's it about writing a paper? know.
This grammar, punctuation and spelling (and misuse of 'know' instead of 'no') says it all. Real science has been so exciting that people have risked and even given up their life to get further. It really does not need to be boring or have explosions.
You should fill it full of stuff from PortableApps. Tons of great programs there. Plus they don't have to install anything. No worry about messing up their computer.
Why the hell your comment is not being modded up I don't know. I already run PortableApps where practical. Saves me time when setting up a new machine. All I do to put them on a USB stick is copy the directory. Done.
First off, your relatives suck for not even having the common decency of feigning appreciation. Second, this was a learning experience. I was planning on doing this same thing this year for Christmas. Now it's off to buy giftcards: something I hate doing.
I refuse to buy gift cards. Fuck that. If they want a gift card I'll give them cash with one I printed myself and a suggestion on where they MIGHT use it if they so choose. Do you have any idea how many of those things end up not being used before they expire!? And how many more because companies file for bankruptcy or get bought out. Fuck that shit. Giving the gift of becoming an unsecured creditor I may as well flush the money.
I blame the trend in the 90's of feeling it was unfair to the stupid children to point out they're stupid.
Now an entire generation thinks their beliefs are facts because their dimwit parents and teachers never pointed out to them that they were idiots.
I'm serious. Shows like Mythbusters dumb down the science, jump to conclusions left right and center, and re-enforce the belief that real science is boring so you need big explosions to keep people interested. Done right it would be brilliant - talking about the limits of their experiments and what other experiments would be needed to more confidently state whether something is a myth or not. Instead they do some limited testing and generalise, jumping to a conclusion as often as possible when there is nothing definite and reserving "plausible" for the rarest of rare cases when they really can't decide what's right or wrong.
Of course people here love Mythbusters and I'll be modded into oblivion, but the truth is when you teach that science is boring when it's not definite and things don't go boom, you get redneck generation.
Wait until you have children. You'll get much better at sleeping.
Not necessarily. I have a 1 year old and a 3 year old. If I get up for the children, I can't go back to sleep. So my wife does it. Call me slack or whatever else you like but while I'm the only one earning the money our family can't afford for me to be comatose at work.
Everyone here is making the same mistake. They are generalising what works for them and their partner to everyone else. People are very different when it comes to sleep.
Doesn't talk about never using statistics. Talks about misusing them by pressing them past their limits. "I know there are many spreadsheets in financial companies that take all night to compute. These are complicated and commonly fail. When such spreadsheets are replaced by code more suited to the task, it is not unusual for the computation time to be cut to a few minutes and the process much easier to understand."
* Cryer, J. (2001). Problems with using Microsoft Excel for StatisticsPDF.
Focuses on poor charting in the Excel 95 era. Title should be problems for using Excel for graphing. The article is a decade old. Excel has had several refreshes.
* Pottel, H. (n.d.). Statistical flaws in Excel. PDF
Another article about Excel 97 and 2000. Decade old software. Many flaws since addressed, and new flaws added. Clearly Excel bashing was popular around 2000.
This one suggests it's just fine for the submitter's purposes.
"Excel’s limitations, and its errors, make this a very questionable practice for scientific applications. For business applications where questions might be simpler and precision not as necessary, Excel may be just fine"
For a more comprehensive and technical discussion, see the papers by Yu (2008); Yalta (2008); and McCullough & Heiser in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 52(10).
Gets very technical, and I bet some of those remarks are valid, but if it's important you become aware of and work around the problem. If it's not, there is no problem. If you don't understand what you're asking Excel to calculate and why it might be wrong, it doesn't matter.
The more you go into this, the more it requires specialist training. The idea that just replacing one software package with flaws and features you don't understand with another geekier more difficult product with flaws and features you don't understand is ridiculous. As is moderation on slashdot. The comments are being moderated by monkeys practicing to type up Shakespeare..
Did you even read the articles you linked? From Pottel:
He would not have been modded informative here if he'd actually read what he linked to. Some days this place really gets me down. If this is the level of quality at a site for geeks, no wonder society is in decline.
Slashdot Mirror
Beyond the fact there's a typo in my original quote, your statement hardly changes my point, and in fact reaffirms it. It makes perfect business sense to cancel services that the market is showing people do not need or want, and that's why said products would be cancelled. Beyond the fact that we're talking about free services, I'd hardly call Knol, Wave or even Gears "basic services".When they cancel GMail arbitrarily, let me know. Until then, my argument remains valid.
You're not making a point at all, and i'm not re-affirming you're point, you're missing the point entirely. Just because you personally don't care, or because the majority don't care, that doesn't make it okay for those people who use those services to become reliant on them. They are not stupid for refusing to use Google services.
There is also a major paradox in what you are saying since a service such as Gmail can't become popular unless people adopt it in the first place. Therefore you are basically saying all the early adopters - the ones that actually DRIVE the market - don't matter because when they adopt, the service is not "basic". But hey if it was profitable overall to Google to shut down Gmail you can bet they'd do it in a heartbeat - they might try to add spin to minimise bad PR, but they would care about you or any other user not one bit.
Finally who's to say what a basic service is? I can argue that Gmail is not a basic service either, since there are alternatives. The term "basic services" is not at all objective as you seem to believe. Again you are pushing your own ideas and point of view, while completely ignoring or dismissing those of others.
I hate to break it to you, but every vendor has its own agenda.
That's my freaking point, isn't it. Cloud means they get to pull the rug from under you. Most moderate to large companies and savvy individuals shoudl keep their own data in their own hands and keep at least binaries of what they want to run out of the control of the vendor. Yes it is more work and more money. Yes you can get it wrong so you have to make an effort not to. But software as a service and your apps and data on the cloud is a cancer to your ability to do anything with your own data.
Google Bookmarks Lists—Date was December 19, 2011. All your bookmarks are belong to recycle bin.
Google Friend Connect— On March 1, 2012 you will face the fact that you have no friends.
Google Gears—To be jammed December 1, 2011
Google Search Timeline—Now history!
Google Wave—Wave goodbye on January 31, 2012
Knol—Stop seeking the Oracle on April 30, 2012
Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (REC)—Redirecting enviro-bullshit, capt'n.
Google Health too.
So you're saying the prognosis for Google Health is not good?
"I will not use other successfully products by company X because they cancel support for products that I don't use and others don't either." Intelligent.
Let me fix that for you. "I refuse to become reliant for basic service on a vendor that clearly has their own agenda and will happily cancel those services without regard to what I want or need".
You can make anything sound unintelligent with careful paraphrasing to reductio ad absurdum, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it actually is unintelligent.
They cancel them because no one really uses them.
For sufficiently imprecise definition of "no one". What you means is no one you personally care about.
Welcome to the cloud, where abandonware is truly dead and nostalgia is a thing of the past. This is what happens when you hand the keys to the kingdom to a service provider with their own motivations and that do not care about you.
And thanks for re-affirming the lesson Google. I now try to use Google for nothing except search and perhaps Google Earth on rare occassions. They've even managed to turn me off Picasa with glaring bugs like losing face data you spend hours entering.
Fuck the walled garden approach. It is secure because someone else decides what you're allowed to run. It's not the OS that's in the sandbox, it's you back in pre-school back in the sand pit having your hand held.
I will second the AC's point - why is Android a "clear winner" while iOS is "more intrusive"?
For starters you don't have to jailbreak/root the phone to install an app that isn't Google approved. And you can do so with just the phone - you do not need something like iTunes. Secondly while rooting will supposedly void your warranty there are apps to do so that are right there on the android market.
Stop spreading false information.
Android is possible to be configured from the beginning only to use any exchange server as well. You do not need to use any Google services or applications if you do not want to do so.
I'm afraid you're the one, that inadvertantly or otherwise, is spreading false information. Some models of Android phone will not let you even use the calendar or contacts unless you sign up with Google. One my Acer AOD255 I could not get anywhere without signing up with Google, but at least that doesn't have contacts from my SIM card to share. On my Acer Liquid Metal I found that the 2.3.5 image did indeed turn on sharing by default. It gives you the option not to sync contacts with Google but they're shared by default and there are a bunch of different options that will easily trip up even an experienced user. Background data, auto sync, then sync on each of Phone SIM and Google account.
What is worse is that import and export to SD card are broken - they put all numbers in US number format with dashes hard coded, which makes Australian numbers look wrong and is confusing for an Australian user use to dashes in different location. The stupid thing is import from SIM is not broken and does not do any such hard coding. The easiest way around it is to sync with Google and correct it there since trying to correct it in phone is awkward. When you try to delete a dash it also deletes the preceding number, so you have to delete it and re-enter that number (which is error prone and slow on a small touch screen - in fact if you have more than a handful of contacts it is unworkable). The only other way is to write an app to fix the number format. I found one that did just that but only to US number format. I also found the source but I don't have weeks to spend on a hobby project modifying someone else's code to fix a bug in the OS. So I caved and shared my data begrudgingly.
I accidentally shared my wife's data because I set her phone up while I was tired and picked the wrong option at setup (default is ticked to share data). Once done it was too late.
So yeah, please follow your own advice and stop spreading falsehood.
.
Pretty soon, we'll be abbreviating entire words to letter+number combinations...
now nt l8r, if ur l33t!
I predict a strong showing of reactionary "what's wrong with people today?" comments. I have to wonder if getting an ultrasound was originally greeted with as much crankiness as I often see from articles like this.
Myself, I'm a relentless progressive. So much so, I thought Gattaca looked kind of nifty.
Of course, sometimes I say that just see the horrified expressions on people's faces.
Yep. You have the asshole Gene. That'll be $324.99 thanks.
Only trouble is you gave away that you're doing it for a reaction aka trolling. Do you tell people how nifty Hitler was and that you thought gas chambers were "nifty"? Godwin be damned.
Gas giants can't form close to stars, they have to migrate towards them.
That too is in question. To understand why we see so many Jupiter-sized planets you really need to understand the techniques we use to detect them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_extrasolar_planets#Established_detection_methods
For some methods fully confirming a planet requires more than one orbit. Their orbit may be measured in years, decades or centuries. For other methods it's a one off event and we can't confirm the existence of the planet. The first confirmed planets were detected around a pulsar (a kind of dead star) only in 1992. And the method used only worked for pulsars. It took until 1995 to detect a planet around a main sequence star.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet
Then it took years to get dedicated space instruments up. Effectively we've been at this only for 17 years. Given the difficulty that's nothing. Give it time! Perhaps your grandkids will grow up with earth sized planets confirmed.
Because its Pakistan I can't tell if they meant loser or if they were serious, it makes it even more difficult since they also seem to deem athlete's foot offensive.
Reminds me of some very bad porn a work colleague at a former employer I won't name showed me. Hint: Feet don't belong there, you're doing it wrong!
to Pakistan government on this one is
g o t o h e l l a n d f o r n i c a t e you l o o s e r i d i o t s
You want them to breed?
Just last month I sent a text to my boss that read...
"Hey, monkey crotch! How's your atheletes foot? Any looser? Damn! Quit beating your meat and call idiot!"
And to my wife...
"Tired of flogging the dolphin? Let's fornicate!"
And she replied
"Go to hell!"
I'm not in "IT". I don't answer pagers, I don't know how to set up Exchange, and I don't wash windows.
Ever hear of second level support? Or combining operations with development? I don't earn obscene amounts of money but I do better than an average senior developer.
I'm proud to say I change nappies, clean up after my puppy when it messes, clean toilets at home, take the garbage out on a regular basis. Refusing to do your share and looking down on people that keep the world running because it's beneath you is the worst and stupidiest form of snobbery.
It's a great show. IS it how to do profession science in a lab? o. It's it about writing a paper? know.
This grammar, punctuation and spelling (and misuse of 'know' instead of 'no') says it all. Real science has been so exciting that people have risked and even given up their life to get further. It really does not need to be boring or have explosions.
You should fill it full of stuff from PortableApps. Tons of great programs there. Plus they don't have to install anything. No worry about messing up their computer.
Why the hell your comment is not being modded up I don't know. I already run PortableApps where practical. Saves me time when setting up a new machine. All I do to put them on a USB stick is copy the directory. Done.
First off, your relatives suck for not even having the common decency of feigning appreciation. Second, this was a learning experience. I was planning on doing this same thing this year for Christmas. Now it's off to buy giftcards: something I hate doing.
I refuse to buy gift cards. Fuck that. If they want a gift card I'll give them cash with one I printed myself and a suggestion on where they MIGHT use it if they so choose. Do you have any idea how many of those things end up not being used before they expire!? And how many more because companies file for bankruptcy or get bought out. Fuck that shit. Giving the gift of becoming an unsecured creditor I may as well flush the money.
Lets hope she's naked in this one ... it'll be worth the money then.
Where in the FUCK is Carmen Sandiego?
I blame the trend in the 90's of feeling it was unfair to the stupid children to point out they're stupid.
Now an entire generation thinks their beliefs are facts because their dimwit parents and teachers never pointed out to them that they were idiots.
I'm serious. Shows like Mythbusters dumb down the science, jump to conclusions left right and center, and re-enforce the belief that real science is boring so you need big explosions to keep people interested. Done right it would be brilliant - talking about the limits of their experiments and what other experiments would be needed to more confidently state whether something is a myth or not. Instead they do some limited testing and generalise, jumping to a conclusion as often as possible when there is nothing definite and reserving "plausible" for the rarest of rare cases when they really can't decide what's right or wrong.
Of course people here love Mythbusters and I'll be modded into oblivion, but the truth is when you teach that science is boring when it's not definite and things don't go boom, you get redneck generation.
Wait until you have children. You'll get much better at sleeping.
Not necessarily. I have a 1 year old and a 3 year old. If I get up for the children, I can't go back to sleep. So my wife does it. Call me slack or whatever else you like but while I'm the only one earning the money our family can't afford for me to be comatose at work.
Everyone here is making the same mistake. They are generalising what works for them and their partner to everyone else. People are very different when it comes to sleep.
PLEASE ACTUALLY READ WHAT YOU LINK TO.
MODERATORS: LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE CALLING INFORMATIVE.
YEP, I'M YELLING. DEALING WITH STUIPIDITY IS FRUSTRATING.
Excel and other spreadsheets suck at stats:
That is one camp of thought. There are others. Every package has it's limitations
* Burns, P. (2005). Spreadsheet Addiction.
Doesn't talk about never using statistics. Talks about misusing them by pressing them past their limits. "I know there are many spreadsheets in financial companies that take all night to compute. These are complicated and commonly fail. When such spreadsheets are replaced by code more suited to the task, it is not unusual for the computation time to be cut to a few minutes and the process much easier to understand."
* Cryer, J. (2001). Problems with using Microsoft Excel for StatisticsPDF.
Focuses on poor charting in the Excel 95 era. Title should be problems for using Excel for graphing. The article is a decade old. Excel has had several refreshes.
* Pottel, H. (n.d.). Statistical flaws in Excel. PDF
Another article about Excel 97 and 2000. Decade old software. Many flaws since addressed, and new flaws added. Clearly Excel bashing was popular around 2000.
* Practical Stats (n.d.), Is Microsoft Excel an Adequate Statistics Package?
This one suggests it's just fine for the submitter's purposes.
"Excel’s limitations, and its errors, make this a very questionable practice for scientific applications. For business applications where questions might be simpler and precision not as necessary, Excel may be just fine"
* Heiser, D. (2008). Errors, faults and fixes for Excel statistical functions and routines
For a more comprehensive and technical discussion, see the papers by Yu (2008); Yalta (2008); and McCullough & Heiser in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 52(10).
Gets very technical, and I bet some of those remarks are valid, but if it's important you become aware of and work around the problem. If it's not, there is no problem. If you don't understand what you're asking Excel to calculate and why it might be wrong, it doesn't matter.
The more you go into this, the more it requires specialist training. The idea that just replacing one software package with flaws and features you don't understand with another geekier more difficult product with flaws and features you don't understand is ridiculous. As is moderation on slashdot. The comments are being moderated by monkeys practicing to type up Shakespeare..
This is an awful advice which ignores everything the submitter asked for.
http://www.practicalstats.com/xlsstats/excelstats.html
READ THE DAMN ARTICLE BEFORE YOU LINK TO IT. YES I AM YELLING AT YOU!!!
"For business applications where questions might be simpler and precision not as necessary, Excel may be just fine."
Did you even read the articles you linked? From Pottel:
He would not have been modded informative here if he'd actually read what he linked to. Some days this place really gets me down. If this is the level of quality at a site for geeks, no wonder society is in decline.