I really can’t get my head around the fact that manufacturers are copying the notch. It’s an ugly workaround, and as someone who develops apps every once in a while, it’s a really annoying exception to have to take into account.
If you have to have a bezel-less phone, do what one Chinese did in their flagship phone: make the front facing camera pop up out of the top of the screen. This has the added benefit that you know when the thing is watching you. Of course that means no Face ID but they could have added a fingerprint scanner on the back or whatever.
Few people probably know about Ampex anyway. The sign is hardly a landmark of cultural significance like the Hollywood sign... and even that almost fell victim to neglect.
That was a common fear when our supermarkets started home delivery: you'll get all the crap produce, dairy that's near the end of its sell-by date, and the poorer cuts of meat. Fortunately that fear turned out to be unfounded: the stufff they deliver to your home is just as good as the best you can select yourself from their shelves. Which, in case of meat and produce, isn't very good to begin with. Oh well... it's great for the other household staples such as booze and kitty litter.
Another reason might be increasing immigration. Here in the Netherlands we've had several cases of children of refugees drowning; unlike those born & bred here who learn to swim at a young age, these kids haven't received much in the way of swimming lessons. Nevertheless they get into the pool when they see all their friends jump in.
Young immigrant kids will generally receive swimming lessons at school, but older kids and adults have to arrange lessons themselves, and it's not all that cheap. Maybe that's something to invest in...
Is a text message designed or expected to secure $xx million? Is it the right tool for the job?
+1 but out of mod points. That is exactly the right question. And I'm hoping banks are taking notice: over here there seems to be a shift away from air-gapped 2FA (PIN protected challenge/response through a chip on bank cards) because people find it "inconvenient" having to carry the pocket card reader. SMS based 2FA is all the rage now.
Speaking of protection: if you're protecting customers' bank accounts with a password only, you're doing it wrong. SMS confirmation isn't good enough either; for banking it should be air-gapped 2FA.
Exactly. Which is why I am not necessarily opposed to a little positive action in cases like this. But let's not pretend that it's anything else besides solving the chicken- and-egg problem. For instance, the idea that:
Gender diversity brings a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas
... is bollocks. In my experience at least, fresh perspectives and innovative ideas are fostered by - surprise, surprise - intellectual and cultural diversity. You get that in a multicultural environment (which you don't necessarily get by hiring the Officially Sanctioned number of each color of person), but cultural diversity between men and women from a similar cultural background is minimal. And the higher up you get, the smaller the difference seems to get.
Help me out on the flip side: what phone apps are compelling enough to buy?
For me personally:
- WhatsApp: free, but I'd pay for it and might even be willing to pay a small subscription fee for use of the service.
- Air Video: converts and downloads video files for offline viewing. Nice to have when I travel
- I'd pay for a good universal remote control app, though haven't found one yet. (Harmony One is crap)
- Same for a good Smart Home control app. I ended up writing one myself and put it up for sale in the app store
- Offline navigation app.
- I paid for an excellent train schedule app. These days you get that from Google Maps but back then the only options were that app and the official app from the public transport company, which was utter rubbish.
There's more, but this is typically the kind of stuff for which I wouldn't get out my laptop. Sometimes there are free options, but they are not as good... or they are, in which case I'd pay up if the authors actually charged money for their app. In your case, if someone offered a rather good network troubleshooting tool, wouldn't you pay a buck for it?
Reminds me of that Oatmeal cartoon: guy happily spends hundred of $ on an iPad without thinking, then agonises over the purchase of an app that costs less than a cup of shitty coffee. Why won’t you pay for apps, is it a matter of principle? If you feel there are no apps worth even a cent, you’re probably not looking hard enough. Or at all.
It depends a bit on the sales of the app. If you have recovered the initial development costs from the sales so far (including a good profit margin), and the app continues to sell, you can fund the cost of the update from those new sales. That’s how I see it anyway. But even though I’ve developed a d published apps, I tend to look at it from the client’s perspective: personally I wouldn’t want to pay a subscription fee or pay for major upgrades. So I’m not going to go that way with my own apps.
In app purchases are another matter, I don’t mind paying extra for extra features. And I’ve been asked often enough to implement a certain feature by someone willing to pay for it... I wonder how well voluntary in app donations would work for this sort of stuff.
Our home had this around 25 years ago: the electric water heater (for the shower) was hooked up to a bakelite box with 2 pushbuttons. The box would turn the heater on automatically twice daily, by means of a signal sent on the grid. The electric company did this in periods of low demand, and charged an extra low rate for the power used. (The pushbuttons were there to turn the heater on manually)
This so called little-examined issue with hacked boxes all turning on at once came up later, but not that much later.
Meh. Most people prefer the convenience of online game stores like Steam. There's always the risk of the platform going under leaving you without the ability to play your games, but for many people that risk is small since they tend to play games for a couple of months or years and then move on to other stuff. If those 10 year old games won't run anymore, only a handful of people will notice. I'm well aware of the issues, but I've bought pretty much all of my games in the past few years from online services.
My main issue with Steam is the restrictions they've placed on multiple installations and family sharing: if you log into Steam on one machine, you are logged off at all the others. But I should be able to run 2 or more different games on different computers, whether those games are on my account or in the family sharing scheme (putting Steam in offline mode may get around that in some cases)
Also, MMO's are fun. What's your issue with them? For them amount of time subscribers spend playing them, they provide pretty good value for money even with a monthly subscription.
They'd complain if they open the package and it turns out that the manual is missing and the DVD is scratched and unreadable. And since the buyer bought it as "new", they might well direct their complaint at Bethesda, who have no way of verifying that the seller didn't open, damage and re-seal the contents. That is not an unreasonable objection, even if Bethesda are making a rather big deal out of it.
Addressing IP issues, blockchain, privacy *and* fake news? This sounds like a desparate bid to remain relevant. “organized a special session on blockchain, and then created an ad hoc group to define use cases.” That ought to tell you the whole story right there.
He's making money by buying heavily into a "stable currency" that "doesn't fluctuate". Sounds like a great plan.
By the way, BTC is up 3.5% or so again since yesterday's drop. If you really want a good laugh, head over to TradingView and check the technical analysis comments.
I can afford all the content I want, but some of it simply isnt sold where I live. "We're sorry, but this movie / album / book is not available in your country". The hell it isn't! I'm happy to pay for it, but I am also happy to avail myself of content through "other means"; if you won't sell it to me then you can go pound a rock for all I care.
“Viable”. Not great, not even decent, but viable. I don’t think I have ever seen Sharepoint improve upon software it replaced, in terms of features, usability, reliability, maintenance or administration. I’ve been involved in a few migrations where we had to do a token product selection, so we simply drew up some functional requirements along the lines of “let’s look at what we have now, and write down what of that functionality is essential”. Sharepoint wasn’t even able to meet all of even the most basic requirements... but was selected every time because it was Microsoft and “we already have it for other stuff”. It’s not even cheaper than what it replaced. Users and administrators aren’t using it properly. The workflow stuff is mildly useful in small and medium companies, but other than that I’d be hard pressed to come up with something good to say about it. Even the newer version. The architecture is still the stuff of nightmares.
Leela: Fry, night lasts two weeks on the moon.
Moon Farmer: Yep, drops down to minus-173.
Fry: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Moon Farmer: First one, then the other.
Is that the case? FTS: "They're betting that Audius' token will grow in value, making the stockpile it keeps worth a fortune." Either they misunderstand the concept (which I would not put past them), or the token will indeed have a variable value.
That's the issue I have with a lot of these schemes: they use blockchain for decentralized settlement (and it's a fine technology for that) but instead of simply recording dollar amounts on the blockchain, they use a coin... and of course the founders themselves are sitting on a nice fat pile of premined coins. So it's also a get-rich-quick scheme. Same with Ripple and many other blockchain based services.
Slashdot Mirror
I really can’t get my head around the fact that manufacturers are copying the notch. It’s an ugly workaround, and as someone who develops apps every once in a while, it’s a really annoying exception to have to take into account.
If you have to have a bezel-less phone, do what one Chinese did in their flagship phone: make the front facing camera pop up out of the top of the screen. This has the added benefit that you know when the thing is watching you. Of course that means no Face ID but they could have added a fingerprint scanner on the back or whatever.
Few people probably know about Ampex anyway. The sign is hardly a landmark of cultural significance like the Hollywood sign... and even that almost fell victim to neglect.
Which is what happened to pretty much every all-you-can-eat kind of deal in the history of mankind.
Can you provide a link please? Google has 76.200 listings for "Upgrayedd"
That was a common fear when our supermarkets started home delivery: you'll get all the crap produce, dairy that's near the end of its sell-by date, and the poorer cuts of meat. Fortunately that fear turned out to be unfounded: the stufff they deliver to your home is just as good as the best you can select yourself from their shelves. Which, in case of meat and produce, isn't very good to begin with. Oh well... it's great for the other household staples such as booze and kitty litter.
Another reason might be increasing immigration. Here in the Netherlands we've had several cases of children of refugees drowning; unlike those born & bred here who learn to swim at a young age, these kids haven't received much in the way of swimming lessons. Nevertheless they get into the pool when they see all their friends jump in.
Young immigrant kids will generally receive swimming lessons at school, but older kids and adults have to arrange lessons themselves, and it's not all that cheap. Maybe that's something to invest in...
Is a text message designed or expected to secure $xx million? Is it the right tool for the job?
+1 but out of mod points. That is exactly the right question. And I'm hoping banks are taking notice: over here there seems to be a shift away from air-gapped 2FA (PIN protected challenge/response through a chip on bank cards) because people find it "inconvenient" having to carry the pocket card reader. SMS based 2FA is all the rage now.
They are working on both. And their space budget is a tiny fraction of the budget for rural development.
Infringing on Sanrio’s IP are we? You’ll be guantanamo’d one of these days for sure.
Speaking of protection: if you're protecting customers' bank accounts with a password only, you're doing it wrong. SMS confirmation isn't good enough either; for banking it should be air-gapped 2FA.
Gender diversity brings a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas
... is bollocks. In my experience at least, fresh perspectives and innovative ideas are fostered by - surprise, surprise - intellectual and cultural diversity. You get that in a multicultural environment (which you don't necessarily get by hiring the Officially Sanctioned number of each color of person), but cultural diversity between men and women from a similar cultural background is minimal. And the higher up you get, the smaller the difference seems to get.
Help me out on the flip side: what phone apps are compelling enough to buy?
For me personally:
- WhatsApp: free, but I'd pay for it and might even be willing to pay a small subscription fee for use of the service.
- Air Video: converts and downloads video files for offline viewing. Nice to have when I travel
- I'd pay for a good universal remote control app, though haven't found one yet. (Harmony One is crap)
- Same for a good Smart Home control app. I ended up writing one myself and put it up for sale in the app store
- Offline navigation app.
- I paid for an excellent train schedule app. These days you get that from Google Maps but back then the only options were that app and the official app from the public transport company, which was utter rubbish.
There's more, but this is typically the kind of stuff for which I wouldn't get out my laptop. Sometimes there are free options, but they are not as good... or they are, in which case I'd pay up if the authors actually charged money for their app.
In your case, if someone offered a rather good network troubleshooting tool, wouldn't you pay a buck for it?
Reminds me of that Oatmeal cartoon: guy happily spends hundred of $ on an iPad without thinking, then agonises over the purchase of an app that costs less than a cup of shitty coffee. Why won’t you pay for apps, is it a matter of principle? If you feel there are no apps worth even a cent, you’re probably not looking hard enough. Or at all.
It depends a bit on the sales of the app. If you have recovered the initial development costs from the sales so far (including a good profit margin), and the app continues to sell, you can fund the cost of the update from those new sales. That’s how I see it anyway. But even though I’ve developed a d published apps, I tend to look at it from the client’s perspective: personally I wouldn’t want to pay a subscription fee or pay for major upgrades. So I’m not going to go that way with my own apps.
In app purchases are another matter, I don’t mind paying extra for extra features. And I’ve been asked often enough to implement a certain feature by someone willing to pay for it... I wonder how well voluntary in app donations would work for this sort of stuff.
Our home had this around 25 years ago: the electric water heater (for the shower) was hooked up to a bakelite box with 2 pushbuttons. The box would turn the heater on automatically twice daily, by means of a signal sent on the grid. The electric company did this in periods of low demand, and charged an extra low rate for the power used. (The pushbuttons were there to turn the heater on manually)
This so called little-examined issue with hacked boxes all turning on at once came up later, but not that much later.
Meh. Most people prefer the convenience of online game stores like Steam. There's always the risk of the platform going under leaving you without the ability to play your games, but for many people that risk is small since they tend to play games for a couple of months or years and then move on to other stuff. If those 10 year old games won't run anymore, only a handful of people will notice. I'm well aware of the issues, but I've bought pretty much all of my games in the past few years from online services.
My main issue with Steam is the restrictions they've placed on multiple installations and family sharing: if you log into Steam on one machine, you are logged off at all the others. But I should be able to run 2 or more different games on different computers, whether those games are on my account or in the family sharing scheme (putting Steam in offline mode may get around that in some cases)
Also, MMO's are fun. What's your issue with them? For them amount of time subscribers spend playing them, they provide pretty good value for money even with a monthly subscription.
They'd complain if they open the package and it turns out that the manual is missing and the DVD is scratched and unreadable. And since the buyer bought it as "new", they might well direct their complaint at Bethesda, who have no way of verifying that the seller didn't open, damage and re-seal the contents. That is not an unreasonable objection, even if Bethesda are making a rather big deal out of it.
Vaping will make your neckbeard grow out of control
Addressing IP issues, blockchain, privacy *and* fake news? This sounds like a desparate bid to remain relevant. “organized a special session on blockchain, and then created an ad hoc group to define use cases.” That ought to tell you the whole story right there.
He's making money by buying heavily into a "stable currency" that "doesn't fluctuate". Sounds like a great plan.
By the way, BTC is up 3.5% or so again since yesterday's drop. If you really want a good laugh, head over to TradingView and check the technical analysis comments.
Speaking of the Philae mission, I hope the Japanese have the dress code for their mission sorted out. Wouldn’t want a repeat of that failure.
I can afford all the content I want, but some of it simply isnt sold where I live. "We're sorry, but this movie / album / book is not available in your country". The hell it isn't! I'm happy to pay for it, but I am also happy to avail myself of content through "other means"; if you won't sell it to me then you can go pound a rock for all I care.
“Viable”. Not great, not even decent, but viable. I don’t think I have ever seen Sharepoint improve upon software it replaced, in terms of features, usability, reliability, maintenance or administration. I’ve been involved in a few migrations where we had to do a token product selection, so we simply drew up some functional requirements along the lines of “let’s look at what we have now, and write down what of that functionality is essential”. Sharepoint wasn’t even able to meet all of even the most basic requirements... but was selected every time because it was Microsoft and “we already have it for other stuff”. It’s not even cheaper than what it replaced. Users and administrators aren’t using it properly. The workflow stuff is mildly useful in small and medium companies, but other than that I’d be hard pressed to come up with something good to say about it. Even the newer version. The architecture is still the stuff of nightmares.
Leela: Fry, night lasts two weeks on the moon.
Moon Farmer: Yep, drops down to minus-173.
Fry: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Moon Farmer: First one, then the other.
Is that the case? FTS: "They're betting that Audius' token will grow in value, making the stockpile it keeps worth a fortune." Either they misunderstand the concept (which I would not put past them), or the token will indeed have a variable value.
That's the issue I have with a lot of these schemes: they use blockchain for decentralized settlement (and it's a fine technology for that) but instead of simply recording dollar amounts on the blockchain, they use a coin... and of course the founders themselves are sitting on a nice fat pile of premined coins. So it's also a get-rich-quick scheme. Same with Ripple and many other blockchain based services.