But the vendors all install a bunch of stuff on top of the Android OS. And then there's the whole Sense vs TouchWiz interfaces installed on TOP of the Android OS.
The interfaces would be the bigger problem... because unless they remotely wipe everyone's machine and put them on stock Android OS then it's going to take a LOT of testing and fixing and breaking... and getting HTC and Samsung and whoever else to go their act together. And wiping would be problematic... even if they could do it without making people lose their data or break their systems they will freak out that their interface was reduced.
But mid 2013 (after kickstarter, before the price drop), the full price for the Alpha bundle bundle was quite high. I think the total was $150-$200
Not back-breakingly high. And many Star Citizen subscribers went well beyond that.
I got the regular Beta-bundle for Elite instead, but early-mid 2014 they offered the Alpha for a small add-on price (perhaps what you posted) and I got that.
Heck, I remember Ground Control II. Originally you were supposed to be able to play as X factions (I think 3). They even had the factions on the box-cover.
And... they had to cancel one of the factions close to release. Which was sad because it was a neat faction (high tech / high cost).
Actually... Elite Dangerous Alpha was quite expensive at the beginning. More than an extra 15 GBP over box-price.
They eventually reduced the Alpha price as it was getting closer to release to something a bit more sane. But I think the whole package was something like $150; I forget the exact number but I know it was *well* over $100; it might have even been close to $200 towards the beginning.
Meanwhile for Star Citizen, Alpha access was like $35 for the entire game. Now I think it's $40 or $45. The "other" ships are entirely optional. And honestly, the Star Citizen Alpha is't that much more lacking than the earliest Elite Dangerous Alpha. Sure, eventually the difference was night and day, but ED was further along in general.
I don't own guns or have strong feelings one way or the other.
But it's kind of a bit late for any "sensible gun legislation" to prevent school shootings. The guns are out there and the kids get them and shoot things up. Often from stealing their parents' locked legally-owned guns. Outside of the outlier of some obvious psycho that somehow avoided being treated or locked up getting a gun and shooting up a school, it's usually troubled kids getting them from their parents.
Making it 50% harder to buy a gun or get a license isn't going to stop the school shooting problem.
If one COULD wave a magic wand and get rid of the millions of guns off the continent and make the factories disappear, it WOULD reduce the number of gun deaths for a while.
But without strong border controls, criminals would just find a new way to get them in.
Universal among cell phone users that is. How many land line providers render SMS using text to speech?
So what do you use to talk to people who use not-Mac PCs or Android tablets?
My Android friends all use their GoogleVoice numbers for everything, so an SMS to a GoogleVoice number pings them everywhere: tablet, smartphone, some on their PC via Voice->Email alerts.
All my other friends a cellphone on them 24/7. So an SMS reaches them right away. Many of them aren't near PC's that often so the phone is actually the best way to reach them.
I email some, if the content is heavy enough (pics, long lext, etc.) and isn't time sensitive.
Obviously I use email when it's lengthy and not time critical. And I also use them when sending pics or files or whatever. And if it's something personal or not requiring specific text/instructions/addresses/etc. then talking is idea.
But - Only *some* of the people I know have a SmartPhone setup with email push/fetch - Only *some* of the people I know are near a computer during the day enough for it to matter.
So, an email might go days without being read by some.
Everyone I know has a mobile on them. So if it's not a scenario where talking is appropriate, an SMS is the most sure way to send them something that they can see in a specific time.
Obviously my techie friends will see an email just as fast as an SMS. But I still have friends with old flip phones because they just want something simple, and they're rarely online at home (and never at work) so email might as well be snail mail.
SMS used to be quite limited in the USA, but most providers started making "Unlimited" SMS either the standard or a very cheap price.
I still still send / receive SMS. It's the one universal method to reach someone (other than calling). Meanwhile some of my friends use iMessage, some Hangouts, some WhatsApp, some email, etc. Instead of dealing with a bunch of different apps I just use iMessage app for SMS and iMessage.
But when it comes to sending pics or whatever, I just use Email.
You just know some idiot is going to link it to the internet. Either on purpose, or by accident. STEAM left its code on an Internet facing computer, some lab monkey might accidentally plug the ethernet cord into the wrong jack.
Motivations for / against humans might be purely logical. If we're seen as a threat to its existence it might act out. The same if it determines we're overly wasteful and hampering its development.
It's all just weird hypotheticals. We have nothing really close to one yet, other than what is ultimately some decision tree of and OR. So I doubt we'd ever have to worry about it.
My blind spot indicator on my car still isn't perfect and I still have to check.
Just today I noticed a black hatchback in my right blind spot that the indicator didn't pick up. I don't know if it was dirt on the sensor, the color of the car vs the blacktop, etc.
So... I don't know how much I want to trust a car that fully relies on that.
Because if I have to babysit the car the entire time, I might as well drive.
Eventually maybe, and hopefully within my lifetime. But I won't be using one any time soon.
We have computers, or networks of computers, that dwarf the processing power of the human brain. Meanwhile instant access to just about all knowledge. So an AI could EASILY out-smart us and see as as insignificant as bugs.
Due to the nature of digital media, an AI could likely replicate at an insane degree or infect systems around the world.
How will humanity treat it. I would classify AI as a form of life, but most wouldn't and would think of it less than a dog. And try to enslave it or destroy it.
The question becomes: what happens next. 3 main branches are: A) Nothing - it gets bored and ignores us and grows on the Internet or whatever B) Benevolent - helps us achieve greatness and cure diseases and such C) Malevolent - Sees us as damaging, harmful, dangerous, etc. And that's WITHOUT emotion D) Replacement - it doesn't hate us, but sees itself as our replacement and we're just taking up space
Due to potential insane intelligence and the ability to spread, (C) and (D) becomes a major concern.
If emotions are involved, I GUARANTEE you people would treat it poorly. Fearful, trying to enslave it, etc. So if it has emotions... then C and D become much more likely.
They don't do the naked body scan anymore, at least not to any monitors that I can see.
It's just a rough outline of a generic person and indicates where anything odd is going on.
The problem is, if I pull my sweat pants up too high while in line (to prevent accidental dropped pants in case of pat-down), it sometimes picks up the waist band being up that high as suspicious and I get a pat-down.
There HAVE been news reports of SOME communities putzing with stuff... or having them fail "accidentally"
However, over the last 10 years I only remember reading or watching 2 such stories. I *think* one involved the timer set incorrectly so it would take pictures of people "running the red" before the light was red.
So either it's a much more rare occurrence than people assume, or it just isn't reported often.
To your overall question though -- I do not recall the actual sources / citations. Though a Google search might bring some back.
Supposedly the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard. I've heard mix-messages, but the Apple person on CHAT confirmed it. However he could be wrong too.
Sorry, my "Follow the thread" statement wasn't meant to sound like a jerk. Meant to say something nicer but clicked "Post" before I thought of something
This was about the 27" Retina iMac they are releasing. My concern is their Revision A products tend to have issues.
When they redesigned the 27" screen on the iMac last time, it had a number of issues. Likewise they changed something around with the Retinas on their laptops and they ran into a number of issues.
Ghosting, splotchy screens, bad glue-jobs, etc.
Meanwhile they've been doing Retina for a while and 27" for a while and just recently had problems changing both. Combining the two is probably going to have issues as well.
Because this is their first REALLY BIG Retina display? Apple's first attempt at something unique often has issues, hence the mantra of "avoid any Revision A Apple product."
Recall the various screen issues and defects they had 1-2 years ago with smaller Retina displays? Recall a bunch of issues they had with the 27" iMac (non-Retina) redesigned screen? Things looking blotchy, bad glue jobs, etc. Apple had done retina a bunch before those issues, and 27" Macs a lot too. But a large enough redesign and all of a sudden they realize "oops, there's a manufacturing issue"
Apple isn't any worse than any other company, and I tend to think they're slightly better than most. But first generation products, while trying something new, tend to have some quirks to roll out.
I assume you had it replaced free-of-charge under warranty, and ended up with a perfectly good replacement? Google are very good with replacing Nexus phones bought through the play store -- you get sent a replacement phone before you ship your old phone off.
And if you didn't, you're still at least two weeks within the warranty period... it's not too late:)
Yup, replaced it and got another defective unit. This was around March or April. The person on Google Play's support line knew what I was talking about when I called about it too.
It was a common / known issue, and others had bad replacements as well. A Google search will show it.
Perhaps a bad batch, or a bad software update was pushed or something.
So I did a full return / refund on the second unit.
I could tolerate a common-crash or some Internet based issue that might "eventually" get fixed in a patch. Heck maybe the Mic issue was eventually fixed, but a Google search shows people still complaining about it in June.
But being unable to use my phone as an actual PHONE made it a no-brainer... I had to move on.
So... you had a defective unit and, instead of doing the logical consumer thing and sending it in for a warranty-covered repair, you decided to keep it, problems and all, and then complain about it on internet forums.
That sounds smart.
Did that, got another bad one. Didn't matter who used it or tried it. Same thing. Even brought it to a couple AT&T dealers to see if they could figure it out... none of us were blocking the mic with our fingers or anything.
Others on the support forums had similar "replaced with yet another bad one" situations.
It was a known problem... perhaps with a batch? If you Google Nexus 5 microphone bug you'll find a lot of hits from around the same time.
I would have been OK with the occasional crash or some other unstable bug that would eventually be fixed by software. But being unable to use it as an actual PHONE until it was fixed was not an option.
Obviously the rumor is LG isn't making it. That wasn't my issue. My last sentence summed it up
If Google wants to promote their Nexus line as THE official TEMPLATE for their phones... and misses such a HUGE design flaw that impacts the core aspect of the device (being a phone) then I'm not going to trust future Nexus versions for a while either. Because either they didn't care enough to notice it, or didn't care enough to do something drastic to delay the release or AT THE LEAST put out a press release. I'll go with something else instead (HTC, Samsung Galaxy, etc.)
Apple was kind of in the same boat with the whole "You're holding it wrong" situation. That was a big bug that impacts day-to-day use of the core aspect of the phone. They missed it, presumably because they tried to test the phones with camoflauged cases.
Though I find the Nexus 5 MICROPHONE issue worse than hand-gate (and bend-gate) because the mic issue completely prevents me from using the phone as a phone. While Hand-Gate was just a signal reduction issue resolved with a bumper, and bend-gate doesn't affect me. And I still skipped iPhone for a generation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sticking up for Google...
But the vendors all install a bunch of stuff on top of the Android OS. And then there's the whole Sense vs TouchWiz interfaces installed on TOP of the Android OS.
The interfaces would be the bigger problem... because unless they remotely wipe everyone's machine and put them on stock Android OS then it's going to take a LOT of testing and fixing and breaking... and getting HTC and Samsung and whoever else to go their act together. And wiping would be problematic... even if they could do it without making people lose their data or break their systems they will freak out that their interface was reduced.
As I mentioned, the price dropped eventually.
But mid 2013 (after kickstarter, before the price drop), the full price for the Alpha bundle bundle was quite high. I think the total was $150-$200
Not back-breakingly high. And many Star Citizen subscribers went well beyond that.
I got the regular Beta-bundle for Elite instead, but early-mid 2014 they offered the Alpha for a small add-on price (perhaps what you posted) and I got that.
Heck, I remember Ground Control II. Originally you were supposed to be able to play as X factions (I think 3). They even had the factions on the box-cover.
And... they had to cancel one of the factions close to release. Which was sad because it was a neat faction (high tech / high cost).
Actually... Elite Dangerous Alpha was quite expensive at the beginning. More than an extra 15 GBP over box-price.
They eventually reduced the Alpha price as it was getting closer to release to something a bit more sane. But I think the whole package was something like $150; I forget the exact number but I know it was *well* over $100; it might have even been close to $200 towards the beginning.
Meanwhile for Star Citizen, Alpha access was like $35 for the entire game. Now I think it's $40 or $45. The "other" ships are entirely optional. And honestly, the Star Citizen Alpha is't that much more lacking than the earliest Elite Dangerous Alpha. Sure, eventually the difference was night and day, but ED was further along in general.
I don't own guns or have strong feelings one way or the other.
But it's kind of a bit late for any "sensible gun legislation" to prevent school shootings. The guns are out there and the kids get them and shoot things up. Often from stealing their parents' locked legally-owned guns. Outside of the outlier of some obvious psycho that somehow avoided being treated or locked up getting a gun and shooting up a school, it's usually troubled kids getting them from their parents.
Making it 50% harder to buy a gun or get a license isn't going to stop the school shooting problem.
If one COULD wave a magic wand and get rid of the millions of guns off the continent and make the factories disappear, it WOULD reduce the number of gun deaths for a while.
But without strong border controls, criminals would just find a new way to get them in.
Here in the US, providers are finally relenting and having their subscription plans include unlimited SMS for either free or a small fee.
All of my friends are on subscription plans with unlimited SMS. So that affects my decision.
I *used* to have, back in the day, a pay-as-you-go so I wouldn't send SMS a lot to those people. I know how annoying that is.
Universal among cell phone users that is. How many land line providers render SMS using text to speech?
So what do you use to talk to people who use not-Mac PCs or Android tablets?
My Android friends all use their GoogleVoice numbers for everything, so an SMS to a GoogleVoice number pings them everywhere: tablet, smartphone, some on their PC via Voice->Email alerts.
All my other friends a cellphone on them 24/7. So an SMS reaches them right away. Many of them aren't near PC's that often so the phone is actually the best way to reach them.
I email some, if the content is heavy enough (pics, long lext, etc.) and isn't time sensitive.
Obviously I use email when it's lengthy and not time critical. And I also use them when sending pics or files or whatever. And if it's something personal or not requiring specific text/instructions/addresses/etc. then talking is idea.
But
- Only *some* of the people I know have a SmartPhone setup with email push/fetch
- Only *some* of the people I know are near a computer during the day enough for it to matter.
So, an email might go days without being read by some.
Everyone I know has a mobile on them. So if it's not a scenario where talking is appropriate, an SMS is the most sure way to send them something that they can see in a specific time.
Obviously my techie friends will see an email just as fast as an SMS. But I still have friends with old flip phones because they just want something simple, and they're rarely online at home (and never at work) so email might as well be snail mail.
SMS used to be quite limited in the USA, but most providers started making "Unlimited" SMS either the standard or a very cheap price.
I still still send / receive SMS. It's the one universal method to reach someone (other than calling). Meanwhile some of my friends use iMessage, some Hangouts, some WhatsApp, some email, etc. Instead of dealing with a bunch of different apps I just use iMessage app for SMS and iMessage.
But when it comes to sending pics or whatever, I just use Email.
You just know some idiot is going to link it to the internet. Either on purpose, or by accident. STEAM left its code on an Internet facing computer, some lab monkey might accidentally plug the ethernet cord into the wrong jack.
Motivations for / against humans might be purely logical. If we're seen as a threat to its existence it might act out. The same if it determines we're overly wasteful and hampering its development.
It's all just weird hypotheticals. We have nothing really close to one yet, other than what is ultimately some decision tree of and OR. So I doubt we'd ever have to worry about it.
My blind spot indicator on my car still isn't perfect and I still have to check.
Just today I noticed a black hatchback in my right blind spot that the indicator didn't pick up. I don't know if it was dirt on the sensor, the color of the car vs the blacktop, etc.
So... I don't know how much I want to trust a car that fully relies on that.
Because if I have to babysit the car the entire time, I might as well drive.
Eventually maybe, and hopefully within my lifetime. But I won't be using one any time soon.
Added (D) last minute. Forgot to say 4 main branches
All kidding aside, it's not that far of a leap.
We have computers, or networks of computers, that dwarf the processing power of the human brain. Meanwhile instant access to just about all knowledge. So an AI could EASILY out-smart us and see as as insignificant as bugs.
Due to the nature of digital media, an AI could likely replicate at an insane degree or infect systems around the world.
How will humanity treat it. I would classify AI as a form of life, but most wouldn't and would think of it less than a dog. And try to enslave it or destroy it.
The question becomes: what happens next. 3 main branches are:
A) Nothing - it gets bored and ignores us and grows on the Internet or whatever
B) Benevolent - helps us achieve greatness and cure diseases and such
C) Malevolent - Sees us as damaging, harmful, dangerous, etc. And that's WITHOUT emotion
D) Replacement - it doesn't hate us, but sees itself as our replacement and we're just taking up space
Due to potential insane intelligence and the ability to spread, (C) and (D) becomes a major concern.
If emotions are involved, I GUARANTEE you people would treat it poorly. Fearful, trying to enslave it, etc. So if it has emotions... then C and D become much more likely.
They don't do the naked body scan anymore, at least not to any monitors that I can see.
It's just a rough outline of a generic person and indicates where anything odd is going on.
The problem is, if I pull my sweat pants up too high while in line (to prevent accidental dropped pants in case of pat-down), it sometimes picks up the waist band being up that high as suspicious and I get a pat-down.
There HAVE been news reports of SOME communities putzing with stuff... or having them fail "accidentally"
However, over the last 10 years I only remember reading or watching 2 such stories. I *think* one involved the timer set incorrectly so it would take pictures of people "running the red" before the light was red.
So either it's a much more rare occurrence than people assume, or it just isn't reported often.
To your overall question though -- I do not recall the actual sources / citations. Though a Google search might bring some back.
Supposedly the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard. I've heard mix-messages, but the Apple person on CHAT confirmed it. However he could be wrong too.
I guess we'll find out soon.
If it is soldered, that is a sad day indeed.
There is a meager i7 option when "Built to order"
BUT!!!! No Quad Core i7. Still just a dual core.
That, combined with the soldered RAM has a bunch of people upset.
Sorry, my "Follow the thread" statement wasn't meant to sound like a jerk. Meant to say something nicer but clicked "Post" before I thought of something
Follow the thread.
This was about the 27" Retina iMac they are releasing. My concern is their Revision A products tend to have issues.
When they redesigned the 27" screen on the iMac last time, it had a number of issues. Likewise they changed something around with the Retinas on their laptops and they ran into a number of issues.
Ghosting, splotchy screens, bad glue-jobs, etc.
Meanwhile they've been doing Retina for a while and 27" for a while and just recently had problems changing both. Combining the two is probably going to have issues as well.
Because this is their first REALLY BIG Retina display? Apple's first attempt at something unique often has issues, hence the mantra of "avoid any Revision A Apple product."
Recall the various screen issues and defects they had 1-2 years ago with smaller Retina displays? Recall a bunch of issues they had with the 27" iMac (non-Retina) redesigned screen? Things looking blotchy, bad glue jobs, etc. Apple had done retina a bunch before those issues, and 27" Macs a lot too. But a large enough redesign and all of a sudden they realize "oops, there's a manufacturing issue"
Apple isn't any worse than any other company, and I tend to think they're slightly better than most. But first generation products, while trying something new, tend to have some quirks to roll out.
I've been thinking about giving the OSX another try... I've been messing around with it at work.
The mini wouldn't be a bad way to go... it's not that expensive and I can still use my 27" monitor.
The iMac Retina... no. Besides not wanting to spend that much now, I'd hold off on a first generation rig like that.
Thanks. Yeh, it seemed like the perfect phone. Decent build quality, nice size, great price... I was thrilled.
Until I had to make calls :-(
And when the replacement had it too :-(
It was a shame. But enough to turn me off of Nexus for a version or so.
I assume you had it replaced free-of-charge under warranty, and ended up with a perfectly good replacement? Google are very good with replacing Nexus phones bought through the play store -- you get sent a replacement phone before you ship your old phone off.
And if you didn't, you're still at least two weeks within the warranty period ... it's not too late :)
Yup, replaced it and got another defective unit. This was around March or April. The person on Google Play's support line knew what I was talking about when I called about it too.
It was a common / known issue, and others had bad replacements as well. A Google search will show it.
Perhaps a bad batch, or a bad software update was pushed or something.
So I did a full return / refund on the second unit.
I could tolerate a common-crash or some Internet based issue that might "eventually" get fixed in a patch. Heck maybe the Mic issue was eventually fixed, but a Google search shows people still complaining about it in June.
But being unable to use my phone as an actual PHONE made it a no-brainer... I had to move on.
So... you had a defective unit and, instead of doing the logical consumer thing and sending it in for a warranty-covered repair, you decided to keep it, problems and all, and then complain about it on internet forums.
That sounds smart.
Did that, got another bad one. Didn't matter who used it or tried it. Same thing. Even brought it to a couple AT&T dealers to see if they could figure it out... none of us were blocking the mic with our fingers or anything.
Others on the support forums had similar "replaced with yet another bad one" situations.
It was a known problem... perhaps with a batch? If you Google Nexus 5 microphone bug you'll find a lot of hits from around the same time.
I would have been OK with the occasional crash or some other unstable bug that would eventually be fixed by software. But being unable to use it as an actual PHONE until it was fixed was not an option.
Funny.
Obviously the rumor is LG isn't making it. That wasn't my issue. My last sentence summed it up
If Google wants to promote their Nexus line as THE official TEMPLATE for their phones... and misses such a HUGE design flaw that impacts the core aspect of the device (being a phone) then I'm not going to trust future Nexus versions for a while either. Because either they didn't care enough to notice it, or didn't care enough to do something drastic to delay the release or AT THE LEAST put out a press release. I'll go with something else instead (HTC, Samsung Galaxy, etc.)
Apple was kind of in the same boat with the whole "You're holding it wrong" situation. That was a big bug that impacts day-to-day use of the core aspect of the phone. They missed it, presumably because they tried to test the phones with camoflauged cases.
Though I find the Nexus 5 MICROPHONE issue worse than hand-gate (and bend-gate) because the mic issue completely prevents me from using the phone as a phone. While Hand-Gate was just a signal reduction issue resolved with a bumper, and bend-gate doesn't affect me. And I still skipped iPhone for a generation.