Our phones are technical MONSTERS with functions that the iPhone can't even begin to dream of. PLUS total freedom. Hell, Nokia's N900 smartphone even offers you Linux with full root access right from the factory!
What do we really know about history, anyway? You get different accounts of the same event by people who were actually there. Then, as the stories are propagated by those who weren't there, you get even more different stories. Eventually, things may be written down, and you may find evidence that fits with some stories but not others, but, in the end, what do we really know?
This question isn't really constricted to history, but to reality in general. Consider that were you an excellent world-reknown magician and decided to visit an extremely poor and superstitious 3rd world country with your act. Of course, even if the audience would be completely truthful in their accounts, they only saw what you let them see, and for all intents and purposes, you could become the next biblical-like figure.
The truthful accounts would be wrong. Then you have to add on the liars, bullshitters, and contrarians. Even your staff may not have a full picture of what went on or how, they fill in some of the details with speculation that later gets debunked because some of it just isn't doable as they envisioned, as the only one who knows the trick inside and out is the magician. That would make it seem the believers in the crowd are more accurate than the staff and their account is then passed on. The magician himself stays silent.
Where you don't have to pay royalties for the ideas. In that sense, in video games, it plays the same role as a franchises such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. Just as with history, with them you get major characters, direction of story (a plot), costumes, backdrop, and "feel".
Now, I know with anime, most games don't get 'canon' exactly correct. Why should we expect they get history correct? In the end, it's just attribute it to artistic license.
Moreover, the important part about the study of history isn't specific facts about narrow things, but the recognition of repeatable patterns due to human nature, and avoiding the same mistakes twice. For some reason, most history classes ignores this part, and zooms in on meaningless facts (such as dates) and the teachers almost never are concerned context, or the greater lessons learned, etc. The interpretation of most lessons is almost always left with the students, many of whom won't consider anything but memorizing the basic facts to pass the test.
I had one excellent history professor, he lambasted the history channel for their distortions and mistakes. Why should we expect anything more out of a purely entertainment medium such video games than an (entertainment) TV channel supposedly dedicated to history? The best lesson to learn here is simply not to believe everything you read, see, or what someone tells you to without verification.
Assign a lot of value and you won't be wrong. Apple's iPhone is a shining example of a computer that doesn't allow execution of anything that is not approved by authorities. China, with all its oppression, is not there yet. Now look at Apple's profits.
That is the problem with geeks. They see the iPhone, they step back, and they compare it's features to that of a netbook, notebook, or a full-blown desktop computer and start bitching about what they can't do with the device.
The general public does no such thing. For most people, the iPhone is their introduction to a smartphone, and they compare it to their previous phone, something like a Razr. Which also can be called a computer, except for its thinness, was pretty retarded in capabilities. When they compare the iPhone to the Razr, there is no contest. This device suddenly does what 90% everything they do on the computer, but fits in their pocket and is actually more capable at somethings and their are apps they never even thought of because it's just doesn't make sense on a PC. The App Store is perfect for them, because they'll likely get no malware through it, and it overall "just works". If not, they can take it to a friendly "genius" at the Apple store that will fix it for them.
The geek, otoh, wonders if it can run linux, compares it to a computer, and inevitably complains about the restrictions that the PC doesn't present. The geeks are necessary and oftentimes beneficial for greater humanity, but their viewpoint on what is good vs what is bad does not necessarily translate into the viewpoint of the masses, and therefore what will be and what won't be market success.
Now, if the future iPhone is on the way to becoming a Star Trek like computer and capabilities, with perfect voice recognitions and the capability to project big-enough holograms in lieu of screens, where-upon most people won't have a notebook/desktop anymore, the particular criticism of the closed eco-system becomes more biting.
Really? I thought both were inferior to digikam. Digikam seems more built around sorting pics while iPhoto/picas seemed to be built around the camera roll theme,where pics were taken together and near the same time. I admit my experience with them isn't vast and it has been a while.
Google players will obviously be the android based phones. And the record companies have been hoping for a while to break the dominance of iTunes so they can pit distributors against each other and gain the upper hand in that dynamic again. Either way it doesn't matter as artists will eventally be able to deal with the marketplaces directly rather than through an expensive middle man once physical media is completely out.
A few racks of those on the roof, when coupled with a passive haus, which can be built with 5% cost of a normal house, would probably cover a 95% of normal household's heating/hot_water needs with no major electric/natural_gas/oil backup required, even in the mild climates such as the north-east states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
Even in Canada, there seem to be projects revolving around that type of thing: http://www.dlsc.ca/how.htm
Photovoltaic is what, 15-30% at best? Solar Thermal can be up to 90% and evacuated tubes are pretty cheap now.
Pat on the back for CSIRO. One of the ways government-owned research organizations can expect to survive is by monetizing inventions - when companies like Lucent, Buffalo, Linksys, Apple etc. all make a killing off this stuff and didn't invest in its development it is only fair they are forced to pay up.
All those companies don't pay taxes or their employees don't?
In WW2, the government nullified many radio patents to get the innovation going real fast. They can also don't have to follow patents internally, since patents are a monopoly protection they give to companies - not an inherent right.
But will the same government now copyright everything they do as well (government written stuff is public domain)? And what about various genome projects that are government funded? I fear that sticking it to a company or three will be very expensive in the end.
We already have far too many publicly-funded universities trying to make everything propietary.
that the software industry is hard. Years back, circa 2000, I heard that 90% of games lost money.
Considering that 90% of the Apps in the app store are crap to begin with, 9% are decent, and 1% good, and even less are great - I'm not sure what is expected?
Afterall, he is making some specific charges here. I'd like to see his ass handed to him in court although I know the fine or whatever it is probably will be insignificant.
Being able to save down to iphone app is great, and lowers barrier to entry (who wants to do objective C?) but the larger topic is how iphone was leader of pack and is about to get outpaced by Android (as per many reports predict).
Call me when this becomes reality. I heard the same swooning over Android over it's mediocre release. And the Zune for years.
To me, it's simply amazing that it take a company like amazon even brings this out, and I cheer them for it. Finally something that caters to the world outside the US (sometime companies pretend it doesn't exist) and more importantly for me, international travelers especially without being raped. If this is like the US version, no monthly fees even!
And if you look at the charge list, it's 1st world countries like Great Britain or Germany that start at $1.00 minute and up, others being much more expensive. Once you make more than 20 minutes of calls in any 1st worlder country, it's cheaper to chuck your cell phone and get a prepaid one there.
And the data rates. Somehow Amazon negotiated a good deal around the world but our telecoms can't:/ A $1 per megabyte is the cheapest mass rate at $200/month.
I had an iPhone for a few weeks now. Most of my data goes through the wifi network at work/home and I used 14mb a week (d/l) otherwise but there was a spike of 200mb during a business trip last week (the hotel only had ethernet as well...) and I wasn't being obsessive compulsive with it. So I guess the answer is business travelers?
But the idea of the topic is stupid. People are used to this pseudo "unlimited" and in fact they paid for it. Tiered pricing was long discussed in regular internet connections a lot earlier this decade and it never took off.
While another reply to you pointed that the +358 stuff was an urban legend (although same snopes articles confirms similiar scheme at lower but still exorbinant rates are afoot) - it still points to me how ridiculous the phone industry is that you don't get a price when placing or recieving the call (before I am told it can't be done - the phone company sure has no problem tallying up for millions of people every month).
Actually, the whole scheme where the person recieving the call pays is ridiculous since often you can't tell where a call is coming from, Europe has better with the caller pay scheme. Similiarly, SMS messags, unless a really expensive unlimited plan, does cost the reciever too. So if someone with a script felt like screwing someone else, they could send that person thousands of SMS messages a day and rack up $1000's without even a choice.
A sat nav, on the other hand, is designed so that you don't have to touch it once it's set up. Its voice instructions are designed so you don't usually have to even look at it. If you do have to look at it, it's designed so that a glance is sufficient.
What's more, many people's alternative to a sat nav is to refer to a paper map while driving.
Not only that, but you can concentrate on the road instead of the highway signs looking where you are going, as well as not having to squint for the random road sign, or when you are close to your destination, looking at house numbers. Less miles driven due to being lost as well, as well as a lot less anxiety in a new place - I would say sat navigation makes the road safer overall.
If money isn't an issue and you can rip the book apart, the scansnap series of scanner is nice and fast. Just drop in 50 sheets at a time, and, depending on the settings, a 500 page book will be scanned in under 20 minutes. Pages stay flat, and you'll have an automatic PDF too - no conversion necessary except probably for small devices (iPhone).
I tend to think photographing pages is slow, require either an expensive set-up, or you just get half-assed results that will drive you nuts when you actually sit down and read it.
Seriously, have any of these people actually played any games on it? They are uniformly quite terrible. The lack of physical buttons is simply too big of an obstacle. Sure you can do some interesting stuff with the accelerometer, but at some point you want to be able to mash some buttons to kill the baddies and the in this regard the iPhone simply sucks ass.
I own a DSi just for a few months. I bought 3 games for it (Knights in a Nightmare, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, and some popular Brain Game with sodoku). What struck me was that none of them used buttons for any of the main action so far even though the DSi has four face buttons, it's all about the touch screen and the stylus.
Since the iPhone will be closest competition to handhelds, something worth noting. I played some good games on the iPhone, but they aren't on the caliber of serious DS games yet, but more like quick entertainment when you're bored for 5 minutes (something like paper toss), however, as the market grows, I'm sure it will catch up.
Also, the lousiest games tend to be.... free. (Some damn good ones too though). I think the DS will be king for a while.... but the iPhone/iPod Touch platform makes a way better gaming machine than the DS will ever make it as a browsing machine (Wii's Opera browser.... I shudder thinking about even having tried it on the normal web.)
Say, for instance, the judge ordered to bank to change the numbers of the 1,300 accounts, resulting in 1,300 people having to change their financial information on all documents relating to those accounts.
This would be more honest - 1,300 customers being made aware of their bank's stupid mistake. Sounds about correct. Instead, for 99.9% of them, they never heard of this, they are led astray as to their bank's competence and keep patronizing it, and the problem gets sweeped under the rug with some random person to pay for it.
I'm not sure if you've ever had to do this, but it can take months for the changes to finally take hold on everything from direct deposit accounts to credit cards and Paypal accounts. Assuming that everything worked out correctly, that is.
So let random person X account be nuked instead, who may have absolutely no hope retrieving any of it?
As far as the person being innocent, if you read the article, the bank sent an email to this account asking the recipient to destroy the file without opening it. The email account holder did not respond at all.
a)person is going to use account details, maybe or other explanations: b)seldom-used account c)on vacation d)already dead e)ignores it like I would have ignored a nigerian 419 letter.
I could pick e, although ignoring the google warnings may have been stupid if it's not a dead account. If some bank I'm not associated with emails me, I would assume scam and toss it. Just like 99.999999999% of banks who snail mail me just want to sign me up for a credit card. Unopened, in the shredder it goes.
But let's ignore the technology angle, what if this was snail mail and the same thing happened? Would you advocate the USPS removing this person's mailbox? Did you know it's pretty much law, if you are sent something in the real world without having ordered it, it's yours (they can't bill you for it?)
So it seem, all that is clouding this case is technology.
So if australia's got a problem with the ISP, let's see them apply that rule evenly and ban hard drives too.
But it's not "Australia" that has a problem with it, just an overly loud special interest group that wants to fuck over the other 99.9% of the population to their insane demands and with the $$$ and lawyers for it too.
Forget about tarring and feathering tax collectors, these groups are even worse and that punishment would be too kind!
Slashdot Mirror
This is pretty much what I'm talking about.
iPhone is/(was? from August) number 1 in Japan:
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/17/apples-iphone-3gs-is-no-1-in-japan/
This is pretty much what I'm talking about.
I doubt it is "ignored." Last I looked, Kevin Rose had an iPhone, but that was a while back.
This question isn't really constricted to history, but to reality in general. Consider that were you an excellent world-reknown magician and decided to visit an extremely poor and superstitious 3rd world country with your act. Of course, even if the audience would be completely truthful in their accounts, they only saw what you let them see, and for all intents and purposes, you could become the next biblical-like figure.
The truthful accounts would be wrong. Then you have to add on the liars, bullshitters, and contrarians. Even your staff may not have a full picture of what went on or how, they fill in some of the details with speculation that later gets debunked because some of it just isn't doable as they envisioned, as the only one who knows the trick inside and out is the magician. That would make it seem the believers in the crowd are more accurate than the staff and their account is then passed on. The magician himself stays silent.
Where you don't have to pay royalties for the ideas. In that sense, in video games, it plays the same role as a franchises such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. Just as with history, with them you get major characters, direction of story (a plot), costumes, backdrop, and "feel".
Now, I know with anime, most games don't get 'canon' exactly correct. Why should we expect they get history correct? In the end, it's just attribute it to artistic license.
Moreover, the important part about the study of history isn't specific facts about narrow things, but the recognition of repeatable patterns due to human nature, and avoiding the same mistakes twice. For some reason, most history classes ignores this part, and zooms in on meaningless facts (such as dates) and the teachers almost never are concerned context, or the greater lessons learned, etc. The interpretation of most lessons is almost always left with the students, many of whom won't consider anything but memorizing the basic facts to pass the test.
I had one excellent history professor, he lambasted the history channel for their distortions and mistakes. Why should we expect anything more out of a purely entertainment medium such video games than an (entertainment) TV channel supposedly dedicated to history? The best lesson to learn here is simply not to believe everything you read, see, or what someone tells you to without verification.
That is the problem with geeks. They see the iPhone, they step back, and they compare it's features to that of a netbook, notebook, or a full-blown desktop computer and start bitching about what they can't do with the device.
The general public does no such thing. For most people, the iPhone is their introduction to a smartphone, and they compare it to their previous phone, something like a Razr. Which also can be called a computer, except for its thinness, was pretty retarded in capabilities. When they compare the iPhone to the Razr, there is no contest. This device suddenly does what 90% everything they do on the computer, but fits in their pocket and is actually more capable at somethings and their are apps they never even thought of because it's just doesn't make sense on a PC. The App Store is perfect for them, because they'll likely get no malware through it, and it overall "just works". If not, they can take it to a friendly "genius" at the Apple store that will fix it for them.
The geek, otoh, wonders if it can run linux, compares it to a computer, and inevitably complains about the restrictions that the PC doesn't present. The geeks are necessary and oftentimes beneficial for greater humanity, but their viewpoint on what is good vs what is bad does not necessarily translate into the viewpoint of the masses, and therefore what will be and what won't be market success.
Now, if the future iPhone is on the way to becoming a Star Trek like computer and capabilities, with perfect voice recognitions and the capability to project big-enough holograms in lieu of screens, where-upon most people won't have a notebook/desktop anymore, the particular criticism of the closed eco-system becomes more biting.
Yes, because screenshots can't be faked, ever.
Really? I thought both were inferior to digikam. Digikam seems more built around sorting pics while iPhoto/picas seemed to be built around the camera roll theme,where pics were taken together and near the same time. I admit my experience with them isn't vast and it has been a while.
Google players will obviously be the android based phones. And the record companies have been hoping for a while to break the dominance of iTunes so they can pit distributors against each other and gain the upper hand in that dynamic again. Either way it doesn't matter as artists will eventally be able to deal with the marketplaces directly rather than through an expensive middle man once physical media is completely out.
Photovoltaic maybe, but solar thermal is wholly ready now and efficient for the average home owner, especially evacuated tubes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_collector#Evacuated_tube
A few racks of those on the roof, when coupled with a passive haus, which can be built with 5% cost of a normal house, would probably cover a 95% of normal household's heating/hot_water needs with no major electric/natural_gas/oil backup required, even in the mild climates such as the north-east states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
Even in Canada, there seem to be projects revolving around that type of thing:
http://www.dlsc.ca/how.htm
Photovoltaic is what, 15-30% at best? Solar Thermal can be up to 90% and evacuated tubes are pretty cheap now.
All those companies don't pay taxes or their employees don't?
In WW2, the government nullified many radio patents to get the innovation going real fast. They can also don't have to follow patents internally, since patents are a monopoly protection they give to companies - not an inherent right.
But will the same government now copyright everything they do as well (government written stuff is public domain)? And what about various genome projects that are government funded? I fear that sticking it to a company or three will be very expensive in the end.
We already have far too many publicly-funded universities trying to make everything propietary.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Hey-NY-Times-Broadband-Coverage-Gaps-Are-Not-Hooey-100382
Unless you talking about expensive satellite.
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
that the software industry is hard. Years back, circa 2000, I heard that 90% of games lost money.
Considering that 90% of the Apps in the app store are crap to begin with, 9% are decent, and 1% good, and even less are great - I'm not sure what is expected?
I wonder whatever happened to this, circa 2002:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-978499.html
No glasses required. I think some other big company did the same thing.
Where did they go?
Afterall, he is making some specific charges here. I'd like to see his ass handed to him in court although I know the fine or whatever it is probably will be insignificant.
Call me when this becomes reality. I heard the same swooning over Android over it's mediocre release. And the Zune for years.
To me, it's simply amazing that it take a company like amazon even brings this out, and I cheer them for it. Finally something that caters to the world outside the US (sometime companies pretend it doesn't exist) and more importantly for me, international travelers especially without being raped. If this is like the US version, no monthly fees even!
OTOH, you can't even take your cell phone with you internationally where some peope would need it most, without being screwed by outrageous voice/data rates:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/affordable-world-packages.jsp#1
And if you look at the charge list, it's 1st world countries like Great Britain or Germany that start at $1.00 minute and up, others being much more expensive. Once you make more than 20 minutes of calls in any 1st worlder country, it's cheaper to chuck your cell phone and get a prepaid one there.
And the data rates. Somehow Amazon negotiated a good deal around the world but our telecoms can't:/ A $1 per megabyte is the cheapest mass rate at $200/month.
I had an iPhone for a few weeks now. Most of my data goes through the wifi network at work/home and I used 14mb a week (d/l) otherwise but there was a spike of 200mb during a business trip last week (the hotel only had ethernet as well...) and I wasn't being obsessive compulsive with it. So I guess the answer is business travelers?
But the idea of the topic is stupid. People are used to this pseudo "unlimited" and in fact they paid for it. Tiered pricing was long discussed in regular internet connections a lot earlier this decade and it never took off.
While another reply to you pointed that the +358 stuff was an urban legend (although same snopes articles confirms similiar scheme at lower but still exorbinant rates are afoot) - it still points to me how ridiculous the phone industry is that you don't get a price when placing or recieving the call (before I am told it can't be done - the phone company sure has no problem tallying up for millions of people every month).
Actually, the whole scheme where the person recieving the call pays is ridiculous since often you can't tell where a call is coming from, Europe has better with the caller pay scheme. Similiarly, SMS messags, unless a really expensive unlimited plan, does cost the reciever too. So if someone with a script felt like screwing someone else, they could send that person thousands of SMS messages a day and rack up $1000's without even a choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
Not only that, but you can concentrate on the road instead of the highway signs looking where you are going, as well as not having to squint for the random road sign, or when you are close to your destination, looking at house numbers. Less miles driven due to being lost as well, as well as a lot less anxiety in a new place - I would say sat navigation makes the road safer overall.
If money isn't an issue and you can rip the book apart, the scansnap series of scanner is nice and fast. Just drop in 50 sheets at a time, and, depending on the settings, a 500 page book will be scanned in under 20 minutes. Pages stay flat, and you'll have an automatic PDF too - no conversion necessary except probably for small devices (iPhone).
I tend to think photographing pages is slow, require either an expensive set-up, or you just get half-assed results that will drive you nuts when you actually sit down and read it.
I own a DSi just for a few months. I bought 3 games for it (Knights in a Nightmare, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, and some popular Brain Game with sodoku). What struck me was that none of them used buttons for any of the main action so far even though the DSi has four face buttons, it's all about the touch screen and the stylus.
Since the iPhone will be closest competition to handhelds, something worth noting. I played some good games on the iPhone, but they aren't on the caliber of serious DS games yet, but more like quick entertainment when you're bored for 5 minutes (something like paper toss), however, as the market grows, I'm sure it will catch up.
Also, the lousiest games tend to be.... free. (Some damn good ones too though). I think the DS will be king for a while.... but the iPhone/iPod Touch platform makes a way better gaming machine than the DS will ever make it as a browsing machine (Wii's Opera browser.... I shudder thinking about even having tried it on the normal web.)
This would be more honest - 1,300 customers being made aware of their bank's stupid mistake. Sounds about correct. Instead, for 99.9% of them, they never heard of this, they are led astray as to their bank's competence and keep patronizing it, and the problem gets sweeped under the rug with some random person to pay for it.
So let random person X account be nuked instead, who may have absolutely no hope retrieving any of it?
a)person is going to use account details, maybe
or other explanations:
b)seldom-used account
c)on vacation
d)already dead
e)ignores it like I would have ignored a nigerian 419 letter.
I could pick e, although ignoring the google warnings may have been stupid if it's not a dead account. If some bank I'm not associated with emails me, I would assume scam and toss it. Just like 99.999999999% of banks who snail mail me just want to sign me up for a credit card. Unopened, in the shredder it goes.
But let's ignore the technology angle, what if this was snail mail and the same thing happened? Would you advocate the USPS removing this person's mailbox? Did you know it's pretty much law, if you are sent something in the real world without having ordered it, it's yours (they can't bill you for it?)
So it seem, all that is clouding this case is technology.
But it's not "Australia" that has a problem with it, just an overly loud special interest group that wants to fuck over the other 99.9% of the population to their insane demands and with the $$$ and lawyers for it too.
Forget about tarring and feathering tax collectors, these groups are even worse and that punishment would be too kind!