I'm sorry, Apple isn't special. Apple is no better than anyone else
Both of those statements are demonstrably false.
Then please demonstrate how Apple is different than any other large producer of hardware and software? I've used my fair share of Apple products over the years and really can't say I see that large of a difference between them and anyone else. Since the Intel switch, they use pretty much the same hardware as every other manufacture. Their software is pretty good, but not really much better than any other polished software from a large dev. I have about as many complaints (and compliments) about their products as I do anyone else's. At the moment a bit of their software is on the top of my "most complained about" list; iTunes.
Actually, on a technological basis, Apple isn't demonstrably better than most other large manufactures. You might prefer them, and that is fine, but it is ultimately just a meaningless personal preference. They might work better for your partiuclar purposes than the competition, but this doesn't make it a universal statement, just a matter of individual preference.
For awhile in college I loved Apple, I liked the simplicity and lack of power I had (no temptation to ditch class to rip apart my computer, yet again, or throw in another relatively frivolous upgrade). Later I realized that commodity, throw-away, computers didn't appeal to me anymore, so I stopped using them. I still use an iPod, because I liked the fact that it was a simple music player that did one thing well without much work from me. They are moving past this idea now so they no longer really work for me (outside of the Classic, but I'm sure its days are numbered).
This is preference.
Yes, Apple has a distinct style (with a few bad decisions). Thats fine. But much of it is fashion. Apple has a somewhat unified look now. That l ook is fashion, since people desire the look for the look. People want to own something because it looks like an Apple. Design is having a single button on the iPhone or iPad, fashion is everything else. The iPhone doesn't survive only on technological, or functional, merits, since it can be argued that it isn't better than some of its competition. When the iPod came out, it drove the market for white headphone cables, not because white headphone cables are designed better (actually the original iPod headphones sucked), but because it was desirable to be seen with white headphone cables. The same thing goes for the current mobile styling (zomg! a black slab with rounded corners!). Making something with a black face, silver back, and rounded corners isn't a design thing anymore, its a thing letting people know you have an Apple mobile product.
I don't even find it particularly aesthetic, personally. I liked the old iBooks and MacBooks. But the iPhone style doesn't tickle me, I actually like \how my DroidX looks more, since it looks like a phone, and not an overgrown iPod.
Apple is not a fashion company. This is so obvious, it shouldn't even have to be stated.
Never stated that they were. They are just another hardware and software company pushing out hardware and software that does pretty much exactly what their competitors do, based on much the same technology. You have to admit, though, that fashion plays a roll too. Having an iPhone is "sexier" than having a Droid, it is more socially desirable. That is fashion. I'm not saying thats all Apple products have going for them, but it plays a roll. I'm not saying Apple products suck, or that your a moron for preferring them, either. Its all just mere personal preference at this time.
Who? How do you know it is the exact same group of people? Why are these people hoping Apple dies? Who benefits?
Hey, I hope Apple sticks around. I like some of their products, and have had fond experiences with others. I own an iPod, and think its the best MP3 player on the market. I like it! I have a Mac Mini sitting around the house, I enjoy that as well! I've have 2-3 Apple laptops, and my girlfriend grew up using them, and is/was somewhat a "fan girl".
I'm not going to buy an iPhone. I do own an Android device, though. I don't like the iPhone, and I, personally, don't like how they do business with it. I will never purchase an iPad either, since I, personally, can't actually see a use for it. I think Apple will eventually be in the same place in the phone market that they are in the PC market, a decent second place serving a niche market. There is no harm in that, they've done fine for a long time, and will continue to do so. Android is cheaper, more robust, and more open, it should win based on that. That isn't an attack on iOS devices, just a fact. Apple will still make tons of money, they won't go bankrupt (at least while Jobs is still around). I will still buy a new iPod every once in awhile. I might even replace my aging Mini now that I'm out of painful-hacky self-upgrades. I still won't buy an iPhone, and will still try to talk people out of getting them.
Also, there was no reason to copy Prada (it wasn't a successful product), but plenty of reason to copy the iPhone. Lastly, Apple has their own design team which is both extremely capable (considered the best in the world) and would take too much pride in their work to copy others.
Looking at the Prada's WIkipedia entry, it looks like the Prada won a fair share of design awards, and has a bit of recognition for this fact. It also got decent reviews at the time.
Awards
International Forum Design—Product Design Award for 2007 [1] Red dot design award—LG Prada Wins "Best of the Best" red dot Design Award, 2007 [2][3] Fashion phone of the year—Mobile Choice (2007) [4] Best fashion phone—What Mobile Awards (2007) [5] Gold for best looking phone—CNET Asia Readers' Choice Award (2007/08)
I'm sorry, Apple isn't special. Apple is no better than anyone else. Most companies who produce a product has large design teams, and most of these teams are good at what they do as well. As a person who doesn't care one way or another about Apple (I have an old Mac Mini, and has a couple laptops, I also have Windows and Linux machines, and like them all equally for their suited purposes); their design isn't really that special. They have squeezed their fair share of exceedingly ugly products. A large part of Apple's design is, and I'm going to be modded down for this, fashion and not good design. There is a difference.
I saw it as a closed verses open thing, and not a company versus company thing. Apple and Microsoft make closed software for computers and phones, thus the competition would be open operating systems (Linux for Android), and not Google, per se. Google doesn't own what Android is based on, Linux. Google didn't invent Linux. Google doesn't even get to claim doing most of the work on Linux. Google is just using Linux as a base.
Why the hell does someone have to make sure to mention everything connected to something now? Who cares if he also includes Google or not, it doesn't change the critique on Apple and Microsoft? He could be fawning with deep endless love for Google, and his points again Apple or Microsoft would still remain, and, on their own merit, be valid or not.
I think, hardware wise, the PS2 and the Dreamcast were about on equal footing. But the the best of the Dreamcast was better than the near end of life titles for the PS2. Think Shenmue, which was one of the prettiest games released until the current gen, really.
I used to play those Gamecube games where you connected GBAs to the controller ports so each player had his own screen...
So... like a Dreamcast?
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Nintendo is making a new console. It'll probably be awesome and keep the rest of the industry on its feet. But I won't be buying it until they prove that they broke the curse that started with the Gamecube (or arguably the N64), and actually get decent 3rd party support. 3rd party support and stop being so damn "kid centered". I currently have a Wii. I loved it, until the amusement of mini-games and party games wore off, and I realized that there is no "meat". There isn't really anything that makes me want to just veg out in front of the TV and play games like I used to. Sure, there is a handful. Twilight Princess rocked, the No More Heroes games were VERY enjoyable. But beyond that... Nothing, really. Yeah, some of the Nintendo developed games were fun... but they just don't compare to the library on the other consoles (or PC). Hell, it doesn't even compare to their library on the DS.
When I go to a game store, and stand in front of the displays, I can sit around saying "damn I want to play that" in front of the PS3 and 360 racks, in front of the Wii rack I just blindly stare, scratching my head...
This next generation I'll probably get Microsoft's console. They're more evil than Nintendo, but less evil than Sony. Though, truth be told, I probably won't get it for the same reason I abstained from getting a 360; all the games I want are also on the PC with better graphics and features. I can't see myself spending $500 for a console which does less that my computer already does. Though judging from the last generation, the next one will cost around $800, with Nintendo being the "modest" $500. At that rate you REALLY have to excite me to get me to part with my money. The price of the big end of the last generation was high enough to make me ponder what better uses I could put $500 to, if it gets closer to a grand, I can find almost infinite things I would rather spend my cash on.
I'm not arguing that life wouldn't be easier if things were unified and the U.S. switched over to metric, it would be. But the fact of the matter the cost of keeping our outmoded measurements doesn't really matter to much to the average American, the cost isn't worth the benefit. The average American may be misguided here, but that doesn't change the perception. Imperial measurement works good enough to get the job done... sure you might cuss a couple time a year while reaching for wrenches, but it just doesn't enter into our lives enough to really matter.
As for people publishing both sets of measurements... thats just silly on their part. I haven't read anything serious that doesn't use metric. Pretty much everything high school through college was in metric (though I got sick of 100 level classes spending to much time on conversions... and re-teaching a simplified, dumbed down, version of the scientific method, pet peeves there). People who are going to read something where units count, are going to grasp metric, if your providing conversion you don't understand your audience.
As long as a manufacture picks a system and sticks with it, it doesn't annoy me too much. I could save some room in my tool box, sure, but it doesn't really affect me (the average American) in a way that drives me to want to switch our whole way of doing things.
You as a fan realize this, but don't put any weight on the cost? How can you question if it "effects(sic) anyone's life" or ask "who cares"?
Does it affect anyones life enough for them to really care? Thats the question. Yes, having two forms of measurement is disruptive and inefficient, but we're dealing with fuzzy human reality here, it only matters when it gets REALLY disruptive. Hell, we've been coping with using both systems very well for quite awhile now, with minimal real ill effects. Basically; it isn't the end of the world.
Also, sadly, metric does garner some contempt for less science-y and nerdy folk. I know a fair amount of people who went to, or go to, "certificate mills", schools for basic nursing, vetrinary sciences, various medical "tech" positions. They generally spent a large amount of time complaining about learning metric. This always confuses me, if anything, metric is about as simple as something can get once you get a frame of reference down (1ml is about such and such). Some of my less academic friends still rant about how much the metric system sucks based on some basic training in at non-university training programs. Welcome to human psychology, where metric (the new thing) is strange, counterintuitive, and invasive because it isn't what we're trained from youth to understand. This is probably the largest bar to adoption.
If I hadn't posted, I would also mod you as a troll.
Faith and patriotism has nothing to do with it. Imperial works fine, people who need SI use SI just fine and no one keeps them from it. Most Americans use some SI units to fill gaps in imperial. A lot of (non faithful or patriotic... wait.. I kind of doubt that America is unique in either of these vices) Europeans use old imperial units to fill in gaps in SI.
Really, when it comes down to it both imperial and SI are completely arbitrary. Who really cares? How would switching to metric make my life any better?
Stubbornness and American Exceptionalism are the reasons we don't switch. It's the same reason our politics are so screwed up.
I'm sad I already posted something, or I would have modded you as a troll.
Exceptionalism is moronic, I agree, but it has very little to do with why we don't switch to metric. We don't switch because there isn't a real reason to. By real, I mean that effects anyone's life. Scientists have been coping rather well, and that doesn't effect the general public. We're raised using imperial, so they seem commonsensical, metric won't improve anyone's life here. It would be a big hassle just to make some small subset of people happy. Changing would cost a rather large sum of money, and wouldn't really get much benefit. Sure, we'd be more "international", but who cares?
Being "international" for the sake of being "international" is just as dumb as exceptionalism.
That said, I'm a fan of SI. I use it, I can understand it, and often think its superior to most imperial units. Though imperial fills the gaps in SI very nicely (and looking at how most SI countries use SI, old imperial fills its gaps well too).
As a sciencey American I mixed units constantly. I measure things of a certain size in inches, and beyond that I move to centimeters. Every unit of length smaller than an inch is metric in my mind. I measure bigger scales in feet, then in meters, then in miles, etc...
In cooking I generally try to stick to metric, since a couple of my favorite cookbooks are European and its easier to scale. But I can instinctively measure out a cup of flour, but stick with metric measures of weight/mass.
When I read a scientific paper, I have no issues with metric measurements, and generally don't bother converting them since I can grasp them.
I think a lot of Americans manage to have a hodgepodge of different measurement systems juggling around, using them to fill gaps in other systems. How many metric pre-fixes are never, ever, used? Why do most the Europeans I know still talk about pints, drams and hectares (which isn't officially SI)? Hell, I still have some British friends who measure themselves in stone.
That said, I'd love it for the U.S. to switch over, or at least only teach SI in school.
I remember being very happy to be out of high school when Columbine happened. I was also very happy that our school had a very high nerd ratio, so we were never really bullied much or ostracized to the point where the less balanced of us were tempted to act out. Hell, in a certain sense we were even respected... which is very odd from all I've heard from other peoples experience of high school
Most of our tastes were pretty benign, we were more likely messing with computers than messing with potential explosives (there was some of that, obviously).
Sorry for being nostalgic, its the tail end of a birthday, after a fair bit of beer.
What are some of the rest of you guys (and gals) opinions?
I think most of the West is trending towards being overly protective of our children, while being overly fearful of them at the same time. Your best bet is in more rural areas, I'd think.
It looks dauntingly complex from a distance... a bit closer it is so elegant and simple anyone can understand it. A bit closer still it becomes even more dauntingly complex.
Fact is a pretty big word, I'd say it's more of a "well understood mathematical principle"...
Nah, it is an observable fact, all the stuff behind it is "well understood mathematical principles". Its place in a theory, the explanations, the (sorry) philosophizing, the weight we hold behind the word, are not facts. I can, with a bit of work, do a dual slit experiment in my living room.
Further more, taken out of context, and the authors actual wishes, Schrodinger's fun little gedankenexperiment borders on religion. Before you raise your hackles, hear me out. Taken as reality, there is no possible way for said observer to ever say whether, or whether not, "spooky" quantum effects killed (or not) the cat. It isn't a falsifiable point, therefore it is a (scientific and epistomologically) meaningless statement.
...but that's entirely beside the point, which is that superposition does not apply to the macroscopic world.
Annoying semantic moment: Theoretically it does apply to the macroscopic world, but in such a small way as to be unobservable. Or, at least, so I understand. IANAQP, but I did specialize in philosophy of science and thus had to dig a bit into it. I only understand a small fraction of the math, and only poked around in sources just beyond popular lay level. If I am wrong, please correct me. Hows that for a disclaimer?
"they" - meaning law enforcement, preferred you blow yourself up and draw attention to yourself instead of having to hunt down every PFY that downloaded the book off the local BBS at 1200 (or 300!) bps.
Many of the books called by the name "Anarchist's Cookbook" on old BBSs weren't the same as the print edition. Actually in the early-mid 90's I don't think I ever actually found a text version of the print edition on any local BBS (or Fido, or, later, telnet BBSs). If anything, most of the BBS versions were more dubious than the original. I remember reading how to make a "contact explosive" from iodine and ammonia, and pondering how the hell someone would do that without blowing themselves up or inhaling particularly nasty fumes. Some of them devoted tens of pages on stuffing match heads into tennis balls and calling it a "grenade"...
The 90's were a much simpler time. I supported myself through high school by selling print, and disk, copies of the BBS versions of the Anarchist Cookbook, and other "counterculture" literature to my fellow students. I think I charged like $10 for a print copy, and $5 for a floppy. These days I would have been expelled, arrested, and probably permanently black marked from ever having a successful life.
I also sold compilations of ways to extract drugs from ethnographic plants for awhile (most of which were probably completely innacurate and potentially harmful, in retrospect)...
I feel sorry for kids there days... Half the stuff I did in my youth would get someone into very deep water now.
and I really think this is quite intuitive - that cats can't be both dead and alive at the same - why is this so hard for people (and especially popular science writers)?
Which brings up a converse point; why should physics be intuitive? We evolved to understand a certain scale, this outside this scale are going to be very strange. Relativity isn't really that intuitive, try to explain all the strange side-effects of that theory to lay people. On smaller scales, quantum mechanics are just as intuitive has relativity... meaning, completely nonsensical to our normal existence. Time does not dilate, objects don't elongate or contract based on relative speed per frame of reference, mass doesn't change... etc... Superposition is a demonstrated fact, just like most of the effects of relativity.
Common sense only applies to the world we evolved to understand. Beyond that, it is completely useless.
- essentially your only chance of success is if everything we know about physics is wrong.
It wouldn't be the first time.
That said, I truly doubt that most of the fundamentals are wrong at this point, but they may be. I wouldn't be terribly shocked if something we held as a law was completely demolished in my lifetime, I would be shocked if this didn't happen actually.
Socom XII: Shootin' Things, new: $60 Socom XII: Shootin' Things, Certified(tm) used: $50 (with a 10 day return for same product policy) Socom XII: Shootin' Things, non-certified used from Sleezy Johns Used Game Emporium: $30 (with a 30 day return policy).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of paying $50-60 for new games.
$60 isn't that bad. Considering that a new NES or SNES game cost around $60 back in the 90s, adjusting for inflation games are damn cheap. The price remains the same, while inflation continues.
I'm guessing here, I don't feel like doing the math, but a new PS3/360 game would cost around $35-40 in 1990 dollars.
A game that plays well is worth more than any semi-interactive movie.
Good games were always rare. If good gameplay was easy, EVERYTHING would be brilliant. Also, right now the trend is towards casual games on tablets and phones (and the Wii), where graphics are secondary. The "simple" game market is booming... Go see the app store, the android market, xbox live arcade, etc... Either that or just replay old classics, I'm sure you missed quite a few over the years.
Keep in mind that the media is scratched in at least 80% of cases, so it does lose value.
Say what you may about Gamestop, but 90% of the used games I've bought from them were in very good condition. I've gotten one or two bad things from them over the years (the worst being a copy of FFIX with a buggy bootleg copy 2nd disk), but generally the actual disks are in good condition. The cases may be damaged, their damn sticker drive me completely insane, but the games are playable.
As for shirts, maps, and manuals... I could care less. I'd buy a full retail game that had none of these for full price. Actually, I do this all the time, since my primary source for new games is Steam these days. All of this, sans t-shirt, is available online. I've never actually worn a t-shirt I got from a game box, if anything screamed "unfashionable nerd" it would be that.
I buy around 6, new, full-priced, games a year. Most of those are PC games, with no practical resale value in the first place. For the console games... I pretty much never sell them back, I'm a fan of collecting media for the future (I still have my C64, NES, Dreamcast, PS1 and 2, and Atari 2600 and 5600, with full libraries of games). But I generally only buy games a bit after release when there are decent (non-shill) reviews and game play videos. I generally also only buy games from publishers/developers I trust (Blizzard, Bioware, etc...).
Sometimes I just buy old games for the sake of collections, and not necessarily to play at this moment. I recently got every remake Final Fantasy game for the GBA and DS, just so I can play through them on the patio while drinking coffee and smoking. I'll probably play through them all once in the course of a couple years, and then they'll end up on a rack in my, work-in-progress, retro-gaming closet. I might dust them all off in 5-10 years, when their unavailable to purchase anymore, for another round. I see gaming as somewhat an investment.
But then again I'm not a fan of most AAA games. I could give two shits about SOCOM, or Halo... I'm not a teen anymore, so I don't need to be partaking in the most popular of popular culture to fit in. A game has to be brilliant to compete with the vast back catalog of games sitting around.
The last new game I bought was Fallout: New Vegas on Steam.
Exactly, but these days if you criticize someone's culture you're branded a "racist" by the liberals, many of whom hypocritically bash western European and American culture at every opportunity
Hey, hey, I consider myself to be mostly a liberal, or at least much of my ideology falls somewhere in the camp. To every label there are many colors. Well, I suppose, most of my ideas fall into the "lowercase 'L' libertarian" camp... but that would still somewhat paint me as a liberal.
People with strong ideologies and agendas always use words to destroy conversation. If you question the state of Israel your an anti-semite, if you question illegal immigration your racist, if you have one view on abortion your a murderer, if you have another your a religious loon (even "pro-life" and "pro-choice" limit conversation since the opposite is "pro-death", and "anti-choice"). This is pretty much true of everyone these days, notice how quickly the political right flings about the term "socialist" every time someone talks about something against their ideals.
Why is it "untenable and silly"? That's exactly my idea of foreign policy, and I'm sticking to it.
In the Mexico case, the guns would probably end up with the Narcos instead of the people who actually need a revolution. Also, being that there isn't any unified attempt at resisting the Mexican government most of the guns would probably just be used to kill other, relatively innocent, people. Mexico lacks the framework, atm, to do anything. The immigrants we get still love their country, they just want to work for a living.
I agree, we should help the revolutions in the middle east, even if they birth governments that aren't exactly friendly to us. But if we were to help to much radicalized parties would paint the revolutionaries as U.S. tools, which, in that climate, would completely sap popular support. Too much help would be very counter productive. What we're doing in Libya sounds about right, since we have an international force, supported by Arab nations and the UN; its much harder to just say that the US is over throwing poor Muslim governments for oil (or somesuch),
I don't think there's anything genetically inferior about them or anyone else, and many of them are great people, but as a society I think they are inferior, as can be seen by how they run their society.
I agree... But this is tricky territory, since often we confuse race (innate, biological) with culture (optional, environmental). I've always pondered what exactly went wrong with Mexico. There are aspects of the culture that are wonderful, and that I'm actually envious of. The importance of family, while your criticism is valid, is enviable. I'm German/Irish and come from the mid-west, the only actual family I have any attachment to is my immediate one, I don't know my cousins, I barely know my uncles. We live almost 3,000 miles way, and I might talk to one of them once a year, perhaps. When my parents pass, I will probably never talk to any of these people, since I have nothing in common bar a shared surname and a snippet of DNA.
I think part of the problem is poverty. Large parts of rich Mexico are doing fine. Also racism. The "white" (more Spanish) Mexicans don't like the "brown" (more Indian) Mexicans. The US's own foreign policy, and drug war, has played a decent roll in the current chaos as well.
One of my pet theories, when I was young and niave, was to hand every incoming illegal immigrant an assault rifle and a box of ammo then turn them back to go fix their own problems. Obviously untenable and silly, but there is some deeper merit in the idea. The US acts very much as a pressure valve for Mexico's broken government and culture.
Not me. I'm sick of the heat (which is worse now than when I moved here 11 years ago, probably due to the "heat island" effect of too many people moving here and too much concrete and asphalt being built), and hoping to move to the Pacific Northwest, and maybe British Columbia if this country keeps going in a downward spiral. As soon as my wife accomplishes some certain career goals, we're outta here.
Eventually I might join you, still. The last time my girlfriend had an offer to transfer there it was to inland (I think it was Richland or thereabouts) Washington, it wasn't very attractive to our tastes. If she got an competitive offer to Portland or the SeaTac area, we'd probably jump ship with a minimum of thought. That was if the US ever did spin off its territories I could pretend that I'm in a game of Shadowrun.
I understand, however, I never made a biological basis to prove that I am better than anyone else. I made an education-level basis.
Then I apologize, I read; "The laborer, however, will most likely NEVER be able to conduct academic research." as as an advocacy of some biological standard of intelligence/worth. If it wasn't meant that way, please ignore my venom and ire.
, but I do not bother myself with the underlying reasons WHY somebody is less developed than others, only that they are (and what kind of training to design in order to fulfill their training needs).
Outside of the, probably, job specific way you phrase that; I think we should focus more on how to elevate the "low skilled" to the top of their innate ability than on how special us "intellectual types" are. I have a feeling that giving a bit of time and encouragement most of these people COULD write an academic paper, if they wanted to. Why they would want to, is a completely different question.
think; Pigasus, or the various anti-vegetable-slander laws that were passed to show how flawed the process was (not to be confused with the modern ones that prop up agribusiness' profits).
I won't re-watch around 90% of movies I watch... But 10% of them are so awesome that I have to own them and watch them annually. I will never part with the Godfather, the original StarWars trilogy, Apocalypse Now!, or my full, complete, collection of David Lynch or Romero's "x of the dead" movies.
Also, even if a movie is so-so, I'll probably pick it up for $5.00 in a discount bin. I'm not going to pay 30 for the BluRay, or 17 for the DVD. I will pay $5.00, since its well into the "impulse buy" range.
Either that or they don't want to waste their money on something that may well be crap. They'd rather get it free, see if its crap, and then shell out cash for it on DVD.
I do this all the time to games without demos. I'll get the full game, I'll play it for an hour-day, and if I like it I will be the full copy, if I don't it is deleted and no money is spent. I suppose this might be a lost sale, since I could have bought a game that was crap since I couldn't find out before hand and thus the publishers would have gotten money for being crappy. Which is good for them, but not for me. And when it comes down to legal fictions or me, I will pick me every single time.
Remember being young? Remember buying a CD, realizing that it was absolute crap (but that one song on the radio was "bitchin'"), and then just being stuck with Queensryche's Greatest Hits (or whatever) sitting in a box in your closet, shaming you for years until you finally unload it for 5% of the purchase price at a used store? The internet fixed this, but letting me download the album, realize it sucks, and then NOT give money to anyone for the privilege of sampling something I hated.
I'm depriving Queensryche's record label of profit they would have gotten otherwise in the previous, technologically limited, model, I guess. But I'm perfectly okay with that in this scenario. It might be illegal, but it is completely ethical.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, Apple isn't special. Apple is no better than anyone else
Both of those statements are demonstrably false.
Then please demonstrate how Apple is different than any other large producer of hardware and software? I've used my fair share of Apple products over the years and really can't say I see that large of a difference between them and anyone else. Since the Intel switch, they use pretty much the same hardware as every other manufacture. Their software is pretty good, but not really much better than any other polished software from a large dev. I have about as many complaints (and compliments) about their products as I do anyone else's. At the moment a bit of their software is on the top of my "most complained about" list; iTunes.
Actually, on a technological basis, Apple isn't demonstrably better than most other large manufactures. You might prefer them, and that is fine, but it is ultimately just a meaningless personal preference. They might work better for your partiuclar purposes than the competition, but this doesn't make it a universal statement, just a matter of individual preference.
For awhile in college I loved Apple, I liked the simplicity and lack of power I had (no temptation to ditch class to rip apart my computer, yet again, or throw in another relatively frivolous upgrade). Later I realized that commodity, throw-away, computers didn't appeal to me anymore, so I stopped using them. I still use an iPod, because I liked the fact that it was a simple music player that did one thing well without much work from me. They are moving past this idea now so they no longer really work for me (outside of the Classic, but I'm sure its days are numbered).
This is preference.
Yes, Apple has a distinct style (with a few bad decisions). Thats fine. But much of it is fashion. Apple has a somewhat unified look now. That l
ook is fashion, since people desire the look for the look. People want to own something because it looks like an Apple. Design is having a single button on the iPhone or iPad, fashion is everything else. The iPhone doesn't survive only on technological, or functional, merits, since it can be argued that it isn't better than some of its competition. When the iPod came out, it drove the market for white headphone cables, not because white headphone cables are designed better (actually the original iPod headphones sucked), but because it was desirable to be seen with white headphone cables. The same thing goes for the current mobile styling (zomg! a black slab with rounded corners!). Making something with a black face, silver back, and rounded corners isn't a design thing anymore, its a thing letting people know you have an Apple mobile product.
I don't even find it particularly aesthetic, personally. I liked the old iBooks and MacBooks. But the iPhone style doesn't tickle me, I actually like \how my DroidX looks more, since it looks like a phone, and not an overgrown iPod.
Apple is not a fashion company. This is so obvious, it shouldn't even have to be stated.
Never stated that they were. They are just another hardware and software company pushing out hardware and software that does pretty much exactly what their competitors do, based on much the same technology. You have to admit, though, that fashion plays a roll too. Having an iPhone is "sexier" than having a Droid, it is more socially desirable. That is fashion. I'm not saying thats all Apple products have going for them, but it plays a roll. I'm not saying Apple products suck, or that your a moron for preferring them, either. Its all just mere personal preference at this time.
You people...
Who? How do you know it is the exact same group of people? Why are these people hoping Apple dies? Who benefits?
Hey, I hope Apple sticks around. I like some of their products, and have had fond experiences with others. I own an iPod, and think its the best MP3 player on the market. I like it! I have a Mac Mini sitting around the house, I enjoy that as well! I've have 2-3 Apple laptops, and my girlfriend grew up using them, and is/was somewhat a "fan girl".
I'm not going to buy an iPhone. I do own an Android device, though. I don't like the iPhone, and I, personally, don't like how they do business with it. I will never purchase an iPad either, since I, personally, can't actually see a use for it. I think Apple will eventually be in the same place in the phone market that they are in the PC market, a decent second place serving a niche market. There is no harm in that, they've done fine for a long time, and will continue to do so. Android is cheaper, more robust, and more open, it should win based on that. That isn't an attack on iOS devices, just a fact. Apple will still make tons of money, they won't go bankrupt (at least while Jobs is still around). I will still buy a new iPod every once in awhile. I might even replace my aging Mini now that I'm out of painful-hacky self-upgrades. I still won't buy an iPhone, and will still try to talk people out of getting them.
Also, there was no reason to copy Prada (it wasn't a successful product), but plenty of reason to copy the iPhone. Lastly, Apple has their own design team which is both extremely capable (considered the best in the world) and would take too much pride in their work to copy others.
Looking at the Prada's WIkipedia entry, it looks like the Prada won a fair share of design awards, and has a bit of recognition for this fact. It also got decent reviews at the time.
Awards
International Forum Design—Product Design Award for 2007 [1]
Red dot design award—LG Prada Wins "Best of the Best" red dot Design Award, 2007 [2][3]
Fashion phone of the year—Mobile Choice (2007) [4]
Best fashion phone—What Mobile Awards (2007) [5]
Gold for best looking phone—CNET Asia Readers' Choice Award (2007/08)
I'm sorry, Apple isn't special. Apple is no better than anyone else. Most companies who produce a product has large design teams, and most of these teams are good at what they do as well. As a person who doesn't care one way or another about Apple (I have an old Mac Mini, and has a couple laptops, I also have Windows and Linux machines, and like them all equally for their suited purposes); their design isn't really that special. They have squeezed their fair share of exceedingly ugly products. A large part of Apple's design is, and I'm going to be modded down for this, fashion and not good design. There is a difference.
I saw it as a closed verses open thing, and not a company versus company thing. Apple and Microsoft make closed software for computers and phones, thus the competition would be open operating systems (Linux for Android), and not Google, per se. Google doesn't own what Android is based on, Linux. Google didn't invent Linux. Google doesn't even get to claim doing most of the work on Linux. Google is just using Linux as a base.
Why the hell does someone have to make sure to mention everything connected to something now? Who cares if he also includes Google or not, it doesn't change the critique on Apple and Microsoft? He could be fawning with deep endless love for Google, and his points again Apple or Microsoft would still remain, and, on their own merit, be valid or not.
I think, hardware wise, the PS2 and the Dreamcast were about on equal footing. But the the best of the Dreamcast was better than the near end of life titles for the PS2. Think Shenmue, which was one of the prettiest games released until the current gen, really.
I used to play those Gamecube games where you connected GBAs to the controller ports so each player had his own screen...
So... like a Dreamcast?
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Nintendo is making a new console. It'll probably be awesome and keep the rest of the industry on its feet. But I won't be buying it until they prove that they broke the curse that started with the Gamecube (or arguably the N64), and actually get decent 3rd party support. 3rd party support and stop being so damn "kid centered". I currently have a Wii. I loved it, until the amusement of mini-games and party games wore off, and I realized that there is no "meat". There isn't really anything that makes me want to just veg out in front of the TV and play games like I used to. Sure, there is a handful. Twilight Princess rocked, the No More Heroes games were VERY enjoyable. But beyond that... Nothing, really. Yeah, some of the Nintendo developed games were fun... but they just don't compare to the library on the other consoles (or PC). Hell, it doesn't even compare to their library on the DS.
When I go to a game store, and stand in front of the displays, I can sit around saying "damn I want to play that" in front of the PS3 and 360 racks, in front of the Wii rack I just blindly stare, scratching my head...
This next generation I'll probably get Microsoft's console. They're more evil than Nintendo, but less evil than Sony. Though, truth be told, I probably won't get it for the same reason I abstained from getting a 360; all the games I want are also on the PC with better graphics and features. I can't see myself spending $500 for a console which does less that my computer already does. Though judging from the last generation, the next one will cost around $800, with Nintendo being the "modest" $500. At that rate you REALLY have to excite me to get me to part with my money. The price of the big end of the last generation was high enough to make me ponder what better uses I could put $500 to, if it gets closer to a grand, I can find almost infinite things I would rather spend my cash on.
You are in denial
I'm not arguing that life wouldn't be easier if things were unified and the U.S. switched over to metric, it would be. But the fact of the matter the cost of keeping our outmoded measurements doesn't really matter to much to the average American, the cost isn't worth the benefit. The average American may be misguided here, but that doesn't change the perception. Imperial measurement works good enough to get the job done... sure you might cuss a couple time a year while reaching for wrenches, but it just doesn't enter into our lives enough to really matter.
As for people publishing both sets of measurements... thats just silly on their part. I haven't read anything serious that doesn't use metric. Pretty much everything high school through college was in metric (though I got sick of 100 level classes spending to much time on conversions... and re-teaching a simplified, dumbed down, version of the scientific method, pet peeves there). People who are going to read something where units count, are going to grasp metric, if your providing conversion you don't understand your audience.
As long as a manufacture picks a system and sticks with it, it doesn't annoy me too much. I could save some room in my tool box, sure, but it doesn't really affect me (the average American) in a way that drives me to want to switch our whole way of doing things.
You as a fan realize this, but don't put any weight on the cost? How can you question if it "effects(sic) anyone's life" or ask "who cares"?
Does it affect anyones life enough for them to really care? Thats the question. Yes, having two forms of measurement is disruptive and inefficient, but we're dealing with fuzzy human reality here, it only matters when it gets REALLY disruptive. Hell, we've been coping with using both systems very well for quite awhile now, with minimal real ill effects. Basically; it isn't the end of the world.
Also, sadly, metric does garner some contempt for less science-y and nerdy folk. I know a fair amount of people who went to, or go to, "certificate mills", schools for basic nursing, vetrinary sciences, various medical "tech" positions. They generally spent a large amount of time complaining about learning metric. This always confuses me, if anything, metric is about as simple as something can get once you get a frame of reference down (1ml is about such and such). Some of my less academic friends still rant about how much the metric system sucks based on some basic training in at non-university training programs. Welcome to human psychology, where metric (the new thing) is strange, counterintuitive, and invasive because it isn't what we're trained from youth to understand. This is probably the largest bar to adoption.
If I hadn't posted, I would also mod you as a troll.
Faith and patriotism has nothing to do with it. Imperial works fine, people who need SI use SI just fine and no one keeps them from it. Most Americans use some SI units to fill gaps in imperial. A lot of (non faithful or patriotic... wait.. I kind of doubt that America is unique in either of these vices) Europeans use old imperial units to fill in gaps in SI.
Really, when it comes down to it both imperial and SI are completely arbitrary. Who really cares? How would switching to metric make my life any better?
Stubbornness and American Exceptionalism are the reasons we don't switch. It's the same reason our politics are so screwed up.
I'm sad I already posted something, or I would have modded you as a troll.
Exceptionalism is moronic, I agree, but it has very little to do with why we don't switch to metric. We don't switch because there isn't a real reason to. By real, I mean that effects anyone's life. Scientists have been coping rather well, and that doesn't effect the general public. We're raised using imperial, so they seem commonsensical, metric won't improve anyone's life here. It would be a big hassle just to make some small subset of people happy. Changing would cost a rather large sum of money, and wouldn't really get much benefit. Sure, we'd be more "international", but who cares?
Being "international" for the sake of being "international" is just as dumb as exceptionalism.
That said, I'm a fan of SI. I use it, I can understand it, and often think its superior to most imperial units. Though imperial fills the gaps in SI very nicely (and looking at how most SI countries use SI, old imperial fills its gaps well too).
As a sciencey American I mixed units constantly. I measure things of a certain size in inches, and beyond that I move to centimeters. Every unit of length smaller than an inch is metric in my mind. I measure bigger scales in feet, then in meters, then in miles, etc...
In cooking I generally try to stick to metric, since a couple of my favorite cookbooks are European and its easier to scale. But I can instinctively measure out a cup of flour, but stick with metric measures of weight/mass.
When I read a scientific paper, I have no issues with metric measurements, and generally don't bother converting them since I can grasp them.
I think a lot of Americans manage to have a hodgepodge of different measurement systems juggling around, using them to fill gaps in other systems. How many metric pre-fixes are never, ever, used? Why do most the Europeans I know still talk about pints, drams and hectares (which isn't officially SI)? Hell, I still have some British friends who measure themselves in stone.
That said, I'd love it for the U.S. to switch over, or at least only teach SI in school.
I remember being very happy to be out of high school when Columbine happened. I was also very happy that our school had a very high nerd ratio, so we were never really bullied much or ostracized to the point where the less balanced of us were tempted to act out. Hell, in a certain sense we were even respected... which is very odd from all I've heard from other peoples experience of high school
Most of our tastes were pretty benign, we were more likely messing with computers than messing with potential explosives (there was some of that, obviously).
Sorry for being nostalgic, its the tail end of a birthday, after a fair bit of beer.
What are some of the rest of you guys (and gals) opinions?
I think most of the West is trending towards being overly protective of our children, while being overly fearful of them at the same time. Your best bet is in more rural areas, I'd think.
It looks dauntingly complex from a distance... a bit closer it is so elegant and simple anyone can understand it. A bit closer still it becomes even more dauntingly complex.
I suppose this is true of all things, though.
Fact is a pretty big word, I'd say it's more of a "well understood mathematical principle"...
Nah, it is an observable fact, all the stuff behind it is "well understood mathematical principles". Its place in a theory, the explanations, the (sorry) philosophizing, the weight we hold behind the word, are not facts. I can, with a bit of work, do a dual slit experiment in my living room.
Further more, taken out of context, and the authors actual wishes, Schrodinger's fun little gedankenexperiment borders on religion. Before you raise your hackles, hear me out. Taken as reality, there is no possible way for said observer to ever say whether, or whether not, "spooky" quantum effects killed (or not) the cat. It isn't a falsifiable point, therefore it is a (scientific and epistomologically) meaningless statement.
...but that's entirely beside the point, which is that superposition does not apply to the macroscopic world.
Annoying semantic moment: Theoretically it does apply to the macroscopic world, but in such a small way as to be unobservable. Or, at least, so I understand. IANAQP, but I did specialize in philosophy of science and thus had to dig a bit into it. I only understand a small fraction of the math, and only poked around in sources just beyond popular lay level. If I am wrong, please correct me. Hows that for a disclaimer?
"they" - meaning law enforcement, preferred you blow yourself up and draw attention to yourself instead of having to hunt down every PFY that downloaded the book off the local BBS at 1200 (or 300!) bps.
Many of the books called by the name "Anarchist's Cookbook" on old BBSs weren't the same as the print edition. Actually in the early-mid 90's I don't think I ever actually found a text version of the print edition on any local BBS (or Fido, or, later, telnet BBSs). If anything, most of the BBS versions were more dubious than the original. I remember reading how to make a "contact explosive" from iodine and ammonia, and pondering how the hell someone would do that without blowing themselves up or inhaling particularly nasty fumes. Some of them devoted tens of pages on stuffing match heads into tennis balls and calling it a "grenade"...
The 90's were a much simpler time. I supported myself through high school by selling print, and disk, copies of the BBS versions of the Anarchist Cookbook, and other "counterculture" literature to my fellow students. I think I charged like $10 for a print copy, and $5 for a floppy. These days I would have been expelled, arrested, and probably permanently black marked from ever having a successful life.
I also sold compilations of ways to extract drugs from ethnographic plants for awhile (most of which were probably completely innacurate and potentially harmful, in retrospect)...
I feel sorry for kids there days... Half the stuff I did in my youth would get someone into very deep water now.
and I really think this is quite intuitive - that cats can't be both dead and alive at the same - why is this so hard for people (and especially popular science writers)?
Which brings up a converse point; why should physics be intuitive? We evolved to understand a certain scale, this outside this scale are going to be very strange. Relativity isn't really that intuitive, try to explain all the strange side-effects of that theory to lay people. On smaller scales, quantum mechanics are just as intuitive has relativity... meaning, completely nonsensical to our normal existence. Time does not dilate, objects don't elongate or contract based on relative speed per frame of reference, mass doesn't change... etc... Superposition is a demonstrated fact, just like most of the effects of relativity.
Common sense only applies to the world we evolved to understand. Beyond that, it is completely useless.
- essentially your only chance of success is if everything we know about physics is wrong.
It wouldn't be the first time.
That said, I truly doubt that most of the fundamentals are wrong at this point, but they may be. I wouldn't be terribly shocked if something we held as a law was completely demolished in my lifetime, I would be shocked if this didn't happen actually.
Sony Certified Used Games.
Socom XII: Shootin' Things, new: $60
Socom XII: Shootin' Things, Certified(tm) used: $50 (with a 10 day return for same product policy)
Socom XII: Shootin' Things, non-certified used from Sleezy Johns Used Game Emporium: $30 (with a 30 day return policy).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of paying $50-60 for new games.
$60 isn't that bad. Considering that a new NES or SNES game cost around $60 back in the 90s, adjusting for inflation games are damn cheap. The price remains the same, while inflation continues.
I'm guessing here, I don't feel like doing the math, but a new PS3/360 game would cost around $35-40 in 1990 dollars.
A game that plays well is worth more than any semi-interactive movie.
Good games were always rare. If good gameplay was easy, EVERYTHING would be brilliant. Also, right now the trend is towards casual games on tablets and phones (and the Wii), where graphics are secondary. The "simple" game market is booming... Go see the app store, the android market, xbox live arcade, etc... Either that or just replay old classics, I'm sure you missed quite a few over the years.
Keep in mind that the media is scratched in at least 80% of cases, so it does lose value.
Say what you may about Gamestop, but 90% of the used games I've bought from them were in very good condition. I've gotten one or two bad things from them over the years (the worst being a copy of FFIX with a buggy bootleg copy 2nd disk), but generally the actual disks are in good condition. The cases may be damaged, their damn sticker drive me completely insane, but the games are playable.
As for shirts, maps, and manuals... I could care less. I'd buy a full retail game that had none of these for full price. Actually, I do this all the time, since my primary source for new games is Steam these days. All of this, sans t-shirt, is available online. I've never actually worn a t-shirt I got from a game box, if anything screamed "unfashionable nerd" it would be that.
I buy around 6, new, full-priced, games a year. Most of those are PC games, with no practical resale value in the first place. For the console games... I pretty much never sell them back, I'm a fan of collecting media for the future (I still have my C64, NES, Dreamcast, PS1 and 2, and Atari 2600 and 5600, with full libraries of games). But I generally only buy games a bit after release when there are decent (non-shill) reviews and game play videos. I generally also only buy games from publishers/developers I trust (Blizzard, Bioware, etc...).
Sometimes I just buy old games for the sake of collections, and not necessarily to play at this moment. I recently got every remake Final Fantasy game for the GBA and DS, just so I can play through them on the patio while drinking coffee and smoking. I'll probably play through them all once in the course of a couple years, and then they'll end up on a rack in my, work-in-progress, retro-gaming closet. I might dust them all off in 5-10 years, when their unavailable to purchase anymore, for another round. I see gaming as somewhat an investment.
But then again I'm not a fan of most AAA games. I could give two shits about SOCOM, or Halo... I'm not a teen anymore, so I don't need to be partaking in the most popular of popular culture to fit in. A game has to be brilliant to compete with the vast back catalog of games sitting around.
The last new game I bought was Fallout: New Vegas on Steam.
Exactly, but these days if you criticize someone's culture you're branded a "racist" by the liberals, many of whom hypocritically bash western European and American culture at every opportunity
Hey, hey, I consider myself to be mostly a liberal, or at least much of my ideology falls somewhere in the camp. To every label there are many colors. Well, I suppose, most of my ideas fall into the "lowercase 'L' libertarian" camp... but that would still somewhat paint me as a liberal.
People with strong ideologies and agendas always use words to destroy conversation. If you question the state of Israel your an anti-semite, if you question illegal immigration your racist, if you have one view on abortion your a murderer, if you have another your a religious loon (even "pro-life" and "pro-choice" limit conversation since the opposite is "pro-death", and "anti-choice"). This is pretty much true of everyone these days, notice how quickly the political right flings about the term "socialist" every time someone talks about something against their ideals.
Why is it "untenable and silly"? That's exactly my idea of foreign policy, and I'm sticking to it.
In the Mexico case, the guns would probably end up with the Narcos instead of the people who actually need a revolution. Also, being that there isn't any unified attempt at resisting the Mexican government most of the guns would probably just be used to kill other, relatively innocent, people. Mexico lacks the framework, atm, to do anything. The immigrants we get still love their country, they just want to work for a living.
I agree, we should help the revolutions in the middle east, even if they birth governments that aren't exactly friendly to us. But if we were to help to much radicalized parties would paint the revolutionaries as U.S. tools, which, in that climate, would completely sap popular support. Too much help would be very counter productive. What we're doing in Libya sounds about right, since we have an international force, supported by Arab nations and the UN; its much harder to just say that the US is over throwing poor Muslim governments for oil (or somesuch),
I don't think there's anything genetically inferior about them or anyone else, and many of them are great people, but as a society I think they are inferior, as can be seen by how they run their society.
I agree... But this is tricky territory, since often we confuse race (innate, biological) with culture (optional, environmental). I've always pondered what exactly went wrong with Mexico. There are aspects of the culture that are wonderful, and that I'm actually envious of. The importance of family, while your criticism is valid, is enviable. I'm German/Irish and come from the mid-west, the only actual family I have any attachment to is my immediate one, I don't know my cousins, I barely know my uncles. We live almost 3,000 miles way, and I might talk to one of them once a year, perhaps. When my parents pass, I will probably never talk to any of these people, since I have nothing in common bar a shared surname and a snippet of DNA.
I think part of the problem is poverty. Large parts of rich Mexico are doing fine. Also racism. The "white" (more Spanish) Mexicans don't like the "brown" (more Indian) Mexicans. The US's own foreign policy, and drug war, has played a decent roll in the current chaos as well.
One of my pet theories, when I was young and niave, was to hand every incoming illegal immigrant an assault rifle and a box of ammo then turn them back to go fix their own problems. Obviously untenable and silly, but there is some deeper merit in the idea. The US acts very much as a pressure valve for Mexico's broken government and culture.
Not me. I'm sick of the heat (which is worse now than when I moved here 11 years ago, probably due to the "heat island" effect of too many people moving here and too much concrete and asphalt being built), and hoping to move to the Pacific Northwest, and maybe British Columbia if this country keeps going in a downward spiral. As soon as my wife accomplishes some certain career goals, we're outta here.
Eventually I might join you, still. The last time my girlfriend had an offer to transfer there it was to inland (I think it was Richland or thereabouts) Washington, it wasn't very attractive to our tastes. If she got an competitive offer to Portland or the SeaTac area, we'd probably jump ship with a minimum of thought. That was if the US ever did spin off its territories I could pretend that I'm in a game of Shadowrun.
I understand, however, I never made a biological basis to prove that I am better than anyone else. I made an education-level basis.
Then I apologize, I read; "The laborer, however, will most likely NEVER be able to conduct academic research." as as an advocacy of some biological standard of intelligence/worth. If it wasn't meant that way, please ignore my venom and ire.
, but I do not bother myself with the underlying reasons WHY somebody is less developed than others, only that they are (and what kind of training to design in order to fulfill their training needs).
Outside of the, probably, job specific way you phrase that; I think we should focus more on how to elevate the "low skilled" to the top of their innate ability than on how special us "intellectual types" are. I have a feeling that giving a bit of time and encouragement most of these people COULD write an academic paper, if they wanted to. Why they would want to, is a completely different question.
think; Pigasus, or the various anti-vegetable-slander laws that were passed to show how flawed the process was (not to be confused with the modern ones that prop up agribusiness' profits).
Still not quite accurate.
I won't re-watch around 90% of movies I watch... But 10% of them are so awesome that I have to own them and watch them annually. I will never part with the Godfather, the original StarWars trilogy, Apocalypse Now!, or my full, complete, collection of David Lynch or Romero's "x of the dead" movies.
Also, even if a movie is so-so, I'll probably pick it up for $5.00 in a discount bin. I'm not going to pay 30 for the BluRay, or 17 for the DVD. I will pay $5.00, since its well into the "impulse buy" range.
Either that or they don't want to waste their money on something that may well be crap. They'd rather get it free, see if its crap, and then shell out cash for it on DVD.
I do this all the time to games without demos. I'll get the full game, I'll play it for an hour-day, and if I like it I will be the full copy, if I don't it is deleted and no money is spent. I suppose this might be a lost sale, since I could have bought a game that was crap since I couldn't find out before hand and thus the publishers would have gotten money for being crappy. Which is good for them, but not for me. And when it comes down to legal fictions or me, I will pick me every single time.
Remember being young? Remember buying a CD, realizing that it was absolute crap (but that one song on the radio was "bitchin'"), and then just being stuck with Queensryche's Greatest Hits (or whatever) sitting in a box in your closet, shaming you for years until you finally unload it for 5% of the purchase price at a used store? The internet fixed this, but letting me download the album, realize it sucks, and then NOT give money to anyone for the privilege of sampling something I hated.
I'm depriving Queensryche's record label of profit they would have gotten otherwise in the previous, technologically limited, model, I guess. But I'm perfectly okay with that in this scenario. It might be illegal, but it is completely ethical.