Isn't it possible that one of the reasons for the starvation and war is that so many people are sick of or die from malaria that they can't produce the food necessary to support the population? In other words, isn't it possible that addressing one part of the problem can at least lessen the severity of the other two parts?
Or—and now here's another interesting dilemma—if you give the malaria vaccine to one side of the war, so the war ends soon with that side clearly victorious, is that better to do than to give the vaccine to both sides?
As far as hardware issues, any idiot can replace a product, which is the "solution" for 99% of technical problems. Note that it's not actually a solution; it's just more economical than diagnosing the real problem.
That's not the whole story. If something Apple made is breaking in a way they haven't yet seen, they often want to have it so they can get really in-depth with the debugging and figure out exactly what the problem is. This isn't limited to Apple, either; I've heard of it happening at Dell and a couple of other places, too.
I'm not saying that was the case in this particular instance, just that replacement isn't purely to avoid having to diagnose the issue: it's also be able to diagnose the issue without depriving their customer of the product he bought.
The question wasn't, "What should we all do once Firefox tops 50% marketshare?"
The question was, "What should Mozilla do once Firefox tops 50% marketshare?"
Your response, while it makes a reasonable argument and brings up an important cautionary point, is totally useless in light of the question that was asked.
Do you actually have any opinion on what Mozilla should do with Firefox once it reaches 50% marketshare, or do you just like to stand on the sidelines and say, "Whoever's most popular is bad! Use one of the less popular browsers, or face CERTAIN DOOOOOM!"?
My wife has been using the 21" Cintiq for five years now for her graphics work for her job. She uses it all day, every day, and not only finds it the perfect tool for art, but also finds it vastly more intuitive for regular use than a mouse or trackpad.
Even I, who have no artistic talent whatsoever, find it easier to draw on a Cintiq than on either paper or a separate drawing tablet.
Yes, DOCSIS 3 allows speeds of hundreds of megabits per second, and DSL technology allows speeds of 20 megabits.
But a) almost no one is rolling out DOCSIS 3, so far as I can tell, b) DSL speeds tend to be around 8-15Mbps for consumer connections, and c) fiber-to-the-home is only happening in some parts of some major metropolitan areas.
Basically, there's no incentive for the ISPs to make even the bare minimum investment required to get the most out of the infrastructure they already have in place, because their competitors aren't offering anything better.
So...your assertion that we shouldn't "accept" the ridiculously small 10Mbit connections is nothing short of preposterous, given that we don't have the least bit of choice in the matter.
They actually can work rather well at times, even over edge.
Sure, they can at times, but Mozilla's claim is (essentially) that they can not only do everything that native iPhone apps can do, they can do it enough better that they will "kill the App Store."
I think that is, at the very least, an extremely premature claim.
Third: Ads work, they work for google. They work for facebook. They'll work for other things.
Yes. Google, and Facebook. Which are very popular desktop applications, written from scratch in C++.
Oh, wait, no they're not; they're websites.
No one is disputing that websites can make money from ads in a meaningful way. But please show me some significant desktop applications—or native iPhone apps—that have no current webapp equivalent, that are making their money from ads. Immersive first-person games are the only example of this I can think of offhand, but I'm sure there are others.
Fourth: You can't access them from web apps yet. So that is a problem. But multiple input features aren't going to be a problem as if an app makes use of it, it's often specialized and thus requires that hardware in the first palce.
...So...it's fine to just ignore the features of the iPhone that make it cool when you're developing a cross-platform app. OK, sure, that's fine. Let's just change Super Monkey Ball to have a little on-screen set of arrow keys to control the tilt of the world, then, shall we?
Look. Mozilla isn't just talking about expanding the kinds of web apps that are viable on smartphones. If they were, I'd be agreeing with them 100%: that's not only a very good thing, it's almost certain to happen. But they're talking about killing the App Store. That means being able to do everything the App Store does...and do it better.
I really, really don't see that happening for a web browser any time soon.
1: You're missing the point. The point is that developers will move to browser independent webapps rather than writing an iPhone+blackberry app+htc touch app, etc.
You think they're going to do this now, just because Firefox Mobile has come out? When people railed ceaselessly against Apple for even suggesting that this was a good way to do iPhone apps?
2: Web browsers are not appropriate for everything, but they're becoming increasingly faster, and increasingly more appropriate for more intense tasks.
And yet, there's still a marked lack of (say) FPSes and RTSes written for web browsers. Why do you suppose that might be?
3: There's already lots of subscription websites - Mozilla need not do anything to support this - people can do this on their own.
I wasn't suggesting that Mozilla would have to do anything: I was pointing out that it was something the developers would have to do. And something the users would have to do. And something that is very different from what people expect when going to play a single-player game.
4: The browser already has access to everything you listed: camera, accelerometers, GPS, and multitouch. And yes, the hardware is abstracted away by the platform and made available through a standard API.
Well, that's good that they're available. But are you really certain that every single smartphone manufacturer makes them available through the same standard API?
And even if so, it doesn't account for the phones that don't have one or more of them.
First of all, you can be 100% certain that unless Mozilla's made some kind of specific arrangement with Apple, this will not be allowed on the App Store. It's plainly and obviously against the SDK terms.
Second...how many times have people complained that web apps are totally inadequate substitutes for native apps, for many types of application? I mean, sure, you can make an RSS reader, or a Twitter client, but what about (for instance) Myst? That's now an iPhone app, weighing in at over 500MB, if I recall correctly. Do you really think that's going to be a viable app to distribute as a web app?
Third, unless you're going to have some sort of subscription thingy worked out, how are you going to make money on web apps without intrusive ads? Again, consider Myst. No one is going to accept ads suddenly popping up when they try to link from Myst Island to Channelwood. And I doubt that people will want to pay a monthly fee to access a single-player game, either.
Fourth, if you're writing a plain web app, however fancily mobile-enhanced, how are you going to make use of the cool features of different phones? The iPhone has a camera, accelerometers, GPS, and multitouch. I admit I'm not terribly well-versed in the features of other smartphones, but a) do they all have these? b) can you access them from web apps? and c) can you access them all in the same way from web apps?
I'm betting the answers to these are all, to greater or lesser extent, "no."
Mozilla can dream about "killing the App Store." But if it ever happens, it's not going to be Firefox Mobile that does it.
How long did it take before Apple had to allow non-AAC audio files to play on the first-gen iPods? They only did that because other companies started making players that would play the widely available mp3 files.
Please take the time to actually learn what the hell you're talking about
The iPod came out years before the iTunes Store existed, and played MP3 files as its primary purpose. No one cared about AAC yet (it existed, but it was only the iTunes Store that popularized it).
So...iPods have always been able to play non-AAC audio files. iPods have never been purely repositories for music from the iTunes Store.
Where in the world did you get such a ridiculous idea, anyway?
If done correctly, and without horrible hidden side effects of some sort, this could be huge. Removing the need to have an actual cow born, raised, fed, and kept in order to be able to make hamburger would remove a tremendous amount of damage to the environment, as well as opening up a lot of land to be available for use growing food for humans, rather than growing food for animals or being pasturage for animals.
I'd try and list all the different effects it could have, but I think I'd have to go on for pages...and besides, I'm sure someone else will have done it by the time I post;-)
Oh, you're lucky. My wife has to fly to China 4 times a year. It's 16 hours both ways.
She's been stuck next to extremely fat people more than once, for the entire trip.
I fly at least twice a week. I wouldn't count myself "lucky" given the average size of an American, or the average size of a seat. Except when I'm not flying economy, of course.
Hmm, that is an ugly tradeoff. Twice a week is a lot of flying all told >_<
...The other alternative seems to be to go all the way in the other direction: all our luggage gets checked into an ultra-secure compartment, and we have to turn in our clothes at the security checkpoint and be issued uniform form-fitting clothes that can't be used to conceal anything in.
Spandex?:-\
Yeah, and you just know that you're not going to be in the seat next to the hot, shapely young woman (or man, can't tell from your username;-) )...no, you'll be sitting next to the 300lb mountain of flab bulging out of their largest size and out of his seat...
Yes, I'm serious: Ban everything, and force passengers to maybe, I don't know, read a book perhaps?
Really? You think that would work?
You don't think that what it would actually result in is everyone complaining loudly to their neighbours and the flight attendants about how bored they are because they aren't allowed to have any modern conveniences?
This would cause such a backlash, especially among business frequent fliers, that the airlines would lose more money than they did after September 11.
If they start looking into this, they might decide to not only ban laptops, but everything else that might have a lithium battery...
Of course, it might be that banning nearly everything electronic from the cabins is just the kind of ridiculousness we need to get a backlash against all this security theater, and get the people in charge to actually take some time to come up with reasonable restrictions on what we can bring on an airplane.
...The other alternative seems to be to go all the way in the other direction: all our luggage gets checked into an ultra-secure compartment, and we have to turn in our clothes at the security checkpoint and be issued uniform form-fitting clothes that can't be used to conceal anything in.
Martin Luther headed the Protestant Reformation, and thus founded Protestantism.
King Henry VIII wanted a divorce, and thus founded the Church of England, aka the Anglican church, aka the Episcopal church.
The latter is what I happen to have been raised in, and I have no illusions about its foundation. However, its principles have always seemed to me to match much, much more closely with what the Bible says Jesus taught than Rome's do.
Slashdot Mirror
It actually can. I did this very thing some 25+ years ago now. though my highschool was paying for my community college at the time.
And yet you apparently didn't learn how to post online without
putting line
breaks in app
arently random places.
Seriously, dude, what's with that??
Dan Aris
I dunno, I think you're oversimplifying here.
Isn't it possible that one of the reasons for the starvation and war is that so many people are sick of or die from malaria that they can't produce the food necessary to support the population? In other words, isn't it possible that addressing one part of the problem can at least lessen the severity of the other two parts?
Or—and now here's another interesting dilemma—if you give the malaria vaccine to one side of the war, so the war ends soon with that side clearly victorious, is that better to do than to give the vaccine to both sides?
Dan Aris
As far as hardware issues, any idiot can replace a product, which is the "solution" for 99% of technical problems. Note that it's not actually a solution; it's just more economical than diagnosing the real problem.
That's not the whole story. If something Apple made is breaking in a way they haven't yet seen, they often want to have it so they can get really in-depth with the debugging and figure out exactly what the problem is. This isn't limited to Apple, either; I've heard of it happening at Dell and a couple of other places, too.
I'm not saying that was the case in this particular instance, just that replacement isn't purely to avoid having to diagnose the issue: it's also be able to diagnose the issue without depriving their customer of the product he bought.
Dan Aris
The question wasn't, "What should we all do once Firefox tops 50% marketshare?"
The question was, "What should Mozilla do once Firefox tops 50% marketshare?"
Your response, while it makes a reasonable argument and brings up an important cautionary point, is totally useless in light of the question that was asked.
Do you actually have any opinion on what Mozilla should do with Firefox once it reaches 50% marketshare, or do you just like to stand on the sidelines and say, "Whoever's most popular is bad! Use one of the less popular browsers, or face CERTAIN DOOOOOM!"?
Dan Aris
My wife has been using the 21" Cintiq for five years now for her graphics work for her job. She uses it all day, every day, and not only finds it the perfect tool for art, but also finds it vastly more intuitive for regular use than a mouse or trackpad.
Even I, who have no artistic talent whatsoever, find it easier to draw on a Cintiq than on either paper or a separate drawing tablet.
Maybe you just aren't all that good at using it?
Dan Aris
You're very much missing the point.
Yes, DOCSIS 3 allows speeds of hundreds of megabits per second, and DSL technology allows speeds of 20 megabits.
But a) almost no one is rolling out DOCSIS 3, so far as I can tell, b) DSL speeds tend to be around 8-15Mbps for consumer connections, and c) fiber-to-the-home is only happening in some parts of some major metropolitan areas.
Basically, there's no incentive for the ISPs to make even the bare minimum investment required to get the most out of the infrastructure they already have in place, because their competitors aren't offering anything better.
So...your assertion that we shouldn't "accept" the ridiculously small 10Mbit connections is nothing short of preposterous, given that we don't have the least bit of choice in the matter.
Dan Aris
So...where in America do you live??
I don't know of anywhere within 100 miles or more that you can get better than maybe 15Mbps on a consumer line.
Dan Aris
They actually can work rather well at times, even over edge.
Sure, they can at times, but Mozilla's claim is (essentially) that they can not only do everything that native iPhone apps can do, they can do it enough better that they will "kill the App Store."
I think that is, at the very least, an extremely premature claim.
Dan Aris
Third: Ads work, they work for google. They work for facebook. They'll work for other things.
Yes. Google, and Facebook. Which are very popular desktop applications, written from scratch in C++.
Oh, wait, no they're not; they're websites .
No one is disputing that websites can make money from ads in a meaningful way. But please show me some significant desktop applications—or native iPhone apps—that have no current webapp equivalent, that are making their money from ads. Immersive first-person games are the only example of this I can think of offhand, but I'm sure there are others.
Fourth: You can't access them from web apps yet. So that is a problem. But multiple input features aren't going to be a problem as if an app makes use of it, it's often specialized and thus requires that hardware in the first palce.
...So...it's fine to just ignore the features of the iPhone that make it cool when you're developing a cross-platform app. OK, sure, that's fine. Let's just change Super Monkey Ball to have a little on-screen set of arrow keys to control the tilt of the world, then, shall we?
Look. Mozilla isn't just talking about expanding the kinds of web apps that are viable on smartphones. If they were, I'd be agreeing with them 100%: that's not only a very good thing, it's almost certain to happen. But they're talking about killing the App Store. That means being able to do everything the App Store does...and do it better.
I really, really don't see that happening for a web browser any time soon.
Dan Aris
1: You're missing the point. The point is that developers will move to browser independent webapps rather than writing an iPhone+blackberry app+htc touch app, etc.
You think they're going to do this now, just because Firefox Mobile has come out? When people railed ceaselessly against Apple for even suggesting that this was a good way to do iPhone apps?
2: Web browsers are not appropriate for everything, but they're becoming increasingly faster, and increasingly more appropriate for more intense tasks.
And yet, there's still a marked lack of (say) FPSes and RTSes written for web browsers. Why do you suppose that might be?
3: There's already lots of subscription websites - Mozilla need not do anything to support this - people can do this on their own.
I wasn't suggesting that Mozilla would have to do anything: I was pointing out that it was something the developers would have to do. And something the users would have to do. And something that is very different from what people expect when going to play a single-player game.
4: The browser already has access to everything you listed: camera, accelerometers, GPS, and multitouch. And yes, the hardware is abstracted away by the platform and made available through a standard API.
Well, that's good that they're available. But are you really certain that every single smartphone manufacturer makes them available through the same standard API?
And even if so, it doesn't account for the phones that don't have one or more of them.
Dan Aris
PhoneGap?
...is a parked domain with a standardized GoDaddy link farm.
What was it supposed to be?
Dan Aris
First of all, you can be 100% certain that unless Mozilla's made some kind of specific arrangement with Apple, this will not be allowed on the App Store. It's plainly and obviously against the SDK terms.
Second...how many times have people complained that web apps are totally inadequate substitutes for native apps, for many types of application? I mean, sure, you can make an RSS reader, or a Twitter client, but what about (for instance) Myst? That's now an iPhone app, weighing in at over 500MB, if I recall correctly. Do you really think that's going to be a viable app to distribute as a web app?
Third, unless you're going to have some sort of subscription thingy worked out, how are you going to make money on web apps without intrusive ads? Again, consider Myst. No one is going to accept ads suddenly popping up when they try to link from Myst Island to Channelwood. And I doubt that people will want to pay a monthly fee to access a single-player game, either.
Fourth, if you're writing a plain web app, however fancily mobile-enhanced, how are you going to make use of the cool features of different phones? The iPhone has a camera, accelerometers, GPS, and multitouch. I admit I'm not terribly well-versed in the features of other smartphones, but a) do they all have these? b) can you access them from web apps? and c) can you access them all in the same way from web apps?
I'm betting the answers to these are all, to greater or lesser extent, "no."
Mozilla can dream about "killing the App Store." But if it ever happens, it's not going to be Firefox Mobile that does it.
Dan Aris
How long did it take before Apple had to allow non-AAC audio files to play on the first-gen iPods? They only did that because other companies started making players that would play the widely available mp3 files.
Please take the time to actually learn what the hell you're talking about
The iPod came out years before the iTunes Store existed, and played MP3 files as its primary purpose. No one cared about AAC yet (it existed, but it was only the iTunes Store that popularized it).
So...iPods have always been able to play non-AAC audio files. iPods have never been purely repositories for music from the iTunes Store.
Where in the world did you get such a ridiculous idea, anyway?
Dan Aris
If done correctly, and without horrible hidden side effects of some sort, this could be huge. Removing the need to have an actual cow born, raised, fed, and kept in order to be able to make hamburger would remove a tremendous amount of damage to the environment, as well as opening up a lot of land to be available for use growing food for humans, rather than growing food for animals or being pasturage for animals.
I'd try and list all the different effects it could have, but I think I'd have to go on for pages...and besides, I'm sure someone else will have done it by the time I post ;-)
Dan Aris
A trade-off implies getting something in return... ;)
I just meant between flying 16 hours each way 4 times a year, and flying 4 hours each way twice a week...
Dan Aris
I fly at least twice a week. I wouldn't count myself "lucky" given the average size of an American, or the average size of a seat. Except when I'm not flying economy, of course.
Hmm, that is an ugly tradeoff. Twice a week is a lot of flying all told >_<
Dan Aris
Trust me, I know. I had to sit next to a rather large "blob-like" man just yesterday on a 4+ hour flight.
Oh, you're lucky. My wife has to fly to China 4 times a year. It's 16 hours both ways.
She's been stuck next to extremely fat people more than once, for the entire trip.
Dan Aris
Really? You think that would work?
Well, it seemed to work fine during the first 60-70 years of commercial aviation...
...During which time, the iPod, cell phone, and laptop were incredibly popular among those most likely to fly airplanes frequently.
No, wait, that's not true at all. In fact, until the 1990s there were very few practical handheld electronics of any kind.
Suggesting that we return to an earlier era when all these devices didn't even exist is not the kind of solution that's likely to, er, fly.
Dan Aris
Spandex? :-\
Yeah, and you just know that you're not going to be in the seat next to the hot, shapely young woman (or man, can't tell from your username ;-) )...no, you'll be sitting next to the 300lb mountain of flab bulging out of their largest size and out of his seat...
Dan Aris
Yes, I'm serious: Ban everything, and force passengers to maybe, I don't know, read a book perhaps?
Really? You think that would work?
You don't think that what it would actually result in is everyone complaining loudly to their neighbours and the flight attendants about how bored they are because they aren't allowed to have any modern conveniences?
This would cause such a backlash, especially among business frequent fliers, that the airlines would lose more money than they did after September 11.
Dan Aris
If they start looking into this, they might decide to not only ban laptops, but everything else that might have a lithium battery...
Of course, it might be that banning nearly everything electronic from the cabins is just the kind of ridiculousness we need to get a backlash against all this security theater, and get the people in charge to actually take some time to come up with reasonable restrictions on what we can bring on an airplane.
...The other alternative seems to be to go all the way in the other direction: all our luggage gets checked into an ultra-secure compartment, and we have to turn in our clothes at the security checkpoint and be issued uniform form-fitting clothes that can't be used to conceal anything in.
Dan Aris
Martin Luther headed the Protestant Reformation, and thus founded Protestantism.
King Henry VIII wanted a divorce, and thus founded the Church of England, aka the Anglican church, aka the Episcopal church.
The latter is what I happen to have been raised in, and I have no illusions about its foundation. However, its principles have always seemed to me to match much, much more closely with what the Bible says Jesus taught than Rome's do.
Dan Aris
Catholicism has a belief in purgatory though, which most Protestant denominations do not believe in.
That's because the Pope made it up some time in the Middle Ages as a fundraising tool.
Dan Aris
If they truly believed that, then they would allow music owners to replace FairPlay DRM tracks.
I'm sorry; are you, again, advocating that Apple go into your computer, delete some of your music, and replace it with something else?
Dan Aris
He? That would be you you mean. No one else would be reading a thread this deep so long after the original story.
I am. And I agree with the AC.
Dan Aris