My £500 3 year old PC has never crashed, doesn't hang, doesn't drop WiFi (I've had disconnects, but only due to the router, not the laptop). It Just Works.
Actually tell a lie, I have had hangs - when I'm running Itunes (though the OS recovers fine when I close off the dodgy software).
Wow, 9 days. Obviously no one's ever had a PC on for that long.
USB and Wifi weren't Apple inventions, but no doubt like most mythical "Apple firsts", you are using some definition of pioneered that excludes any other company who did so first.
The funny thing is, you're confirming exactly what the OP said, by making just those points: that it doesn't matter about the hardware or the features, because instead they compete on intangibles, and the experience of using a "system" rather than a computer. But you get +4, and the OP gets -1 Flamebait.
Predictably you got modded down, as does anything that doesn't praise Apple (I browse Apple stories at -1, because of the moderation abuse). But I agree. And more to the point, surely so do Apple fans - consider how many times that they themselves argue:
Sure, that other phone may look better on paper, but who cares about features. What Apple are selling is an experience. I can't explain that to you, because it's not measurable, it's intangible.
I've also certainly heard on Slashdot the argument that the Iphone is better on the grounds of its looks.
Given how much hype there is over every future possible Apple product, it's not clear to me that Apple have mastered the Osborne Effect - far from it (although I suppose it could be argued that since there's so much hype over even mere rumour, people have no way of telling actual planned products from vapourware when it comes to Apple). Talking of which, the idea that Apple are a secret company seems rather odd, given the coverage they get. It's been what, three Apple stories just today? If Steve Jobs so much as picks his nose, there'll be a Slashdot story about it. Whilst actual news from actual major players in the phone market like Nokia gets ignored (unless they're doing something bad, of course).
But it's still unknown as to which of them will finally get Java support first.
To be honest, I think the comparison understates the revolution of modern technology by limiting itself to the Iphone. Nevermind $199 - with any old dirt cheap phone these days, I can browse the Internet, navigate with Google maps, and store GBs of music, photos and other data. (Without being locked into a carrier!) And the comparison of 30 million to one million is very misleading - the Commodore 64 is the single best selling computer, and was one of the mainstream home platforms in its day. The Iphone however isn't even close - far from the market shrinking, there are now something like 2.1 billion Java phones out there. That's before you consider the range of choice offered by PC laptops and netbooks.
Wait - I thought people were telling us how great the Iphone was precisely because it lacked features, and therefore made it easier to use, or something? That other phone may look better on paper, they claim, but that's just grumpy featurism.
But now we compare to a phone that you claim has fewer features, suddenly features are worth comparing? Well in that case, let's compare the Iphone to all the other phones, like Nokia's, on features.
Not that I see what the Iphone has to do with this story. I know it's been a whole day since we've had our last Iphone Slashvertisement, but when for once we at last have a story about one of the other devices (you know, the popular ones), it's a shame there still has to be the obligitary off-topic Iphone mention.
I agree. Also, even if Google aren't going to do the same thing in the US - it's still relevant interest if a US company is complying with censorship requests for China.
Not to mention that there are other countries besides China and the US, that don't have freedom of speech in the way that the US has, e.g., there are many readers from Europe (including myself).
If only that were true - downloading would be legal.
The problem is that the RIAA try to have it both ways. If you download, it's "theft". But if you upload, you're suddenly hit with something far worse than a theft conviction would get you. Well, is copyright infringement theft, or not?
Books. I find myself reading more and more of my favorites on the LCD screen, but books have something that the computer will never have. Books are solid, and real - the pixels on my screen are fleeting. A solid book and a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, listening to the storm blow outside......
And they smell!
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Giles from Buffy, who made much the same point as Mr Bradbury, although also adding that books smell, and computers don't.
Of course, later that episode a demon got stuck in the Internet and tried to kill them all. Obviously another reason to hate the Internet.
It makes changes too easy, makes hiding what was there before too easy... But then again, the Internet's ability to edit information for forge reality has been a major boon for the population of African elephants...
And how did you know about this, if is allegedly easy to hide what was there before? That's right - despite the fact that these examples of intentional Wikipedia vandalism are typically reverted quickly, you can see months later simply by trawling through the history.
Does your tabloid carry a history of all past goofs? Nope - at best, they'll put something in a tiny corner, if they're threated with a lawsuit for telling lies.
As for "telling what's an actual, factual authority and what is lies and deception too easy", how is that different to offline? At least now, it's easier to ask for references, or to follow the references, or read from multiple sources. When the only newspaper you read told you something, you had to believe it. And when you heard someone telling you something down the pub, you didn't go "citation needed", or tell them that you couldn't possibly trust an unauthoritative source. The fact that people now do this with Wikipedia shows how much of an improvement the Internet is.
Well I guess you are right that comparing the entire Internet to a library doesn't make sense.
But if you're worried about quality, then the Internet does host sites that do give great information, whether general (dare I say it, Wikipedia), or specific. Although yes, I admit that information is still lagging behind, because much like the music and video industry, professional authors and publishing companies are generally yet to switch to offering information over the Internet. But this isn't entirely true: to counter your example, if you are willing to pay the price, you can get plenty of technical books to read online, complete with hyperlinks (or if you're lucky like me, your company will pay for it:)
And the breadth of books they offer far exceeds anything that your typical bookshop, and certainly library, has to offer.
(I'm also not sure why you ridicule fan"boi" sites. Whilst there's nothing better than a complete text by a professional author - offline or online - I've found sites like GameDev invaluable in finding solutions to those obscure or unexpected problems, that the authors of these books didn't forsee. Not to mention that I can search to find the information anywhere, and get it for free, which isn't possible with books unless you've bought everyone out there on the topic.)
On the other hand, if we compared the entire Internet, to all offline sources, then you also have to include all the trash published by the likes of the media, in particular the tabloids. Accurate? Don't make me laugh.
Well sure, it's wrong to call him an idiot, the man clearly doesn't lack in intelligence (although the OP probably didn't mean it in a general sense).
But it's fair game to criticise his views on the Internet - trying to claim his views are better than the OP based on what works they have each done is basically an ad hominem.
Yes, this is what I mean really: public attitudes are becoming more liberal, so obscenity cases are falling, but new stricter laws are being brought in.
The problem in the UK at least is that new laws being brought in (the "extreme" porn law, and the proposed law on pornographic cartoons in the UK) do not have the "deprave and corrupt" test (the UK's equivalent of the Miller test); it is not up to the jury to decide if the work is obscene in this sense, instead the new laws blanketly criminalise certain categories of material.
Wait - political correctness? But you're the one getting offended over the use of someone else's language!
It might be political correctness if someone whined about the use of the word "he". But if someone uses "she", that's his, her, their or its choice[*]. And in this case, you're the one criticising the use of the word "she".
I have no problem with the use of "he" as a generic singular pronoun. But suggesting that people shouldn't use "she" as a generic singular pronoun, out of fear of offending people? That's political correctness.
So you acknowledge that all three possibilities offered by the English language are flawed, but you still criticise the author for picking one you evidently have a problem with?
And presumably also, every band on Earth will have a sample of their video on every page they can get away with
In the same way that they advertise their band on every page? Except they don't. Same for the companies. (Yet the sad thing is that other people whine about Wikipedia precisely because too much stuff is deleted...)
It seems that as each month passes wikipedia becomes less and less relevant, and less reputable.
You are mistaking your preference, and your opinion, with actual general fact. Like it or not, it's still a Top 10 website, and if you as a random person posting of a forum are going to make claims about it becoming less reputable, I do hope you have a reference?
Indeed, and taking averages as a way of making a consensus is flawed for many reasons generally. For example, it rewards people for taking an extreme position. It's also biased because people who think the fine should be low are unable to take an extreme position, because they presumably can't give a negative amount - they are limited by zero (even if they say zero, a person can make the average as arbitrarily high as they like, just by given an amount twice as much). Although that would be funny to see: "I think that the RIAA should pay her $2 million, for being such complete arses!"
This argument also crops up in politics. E.g, in the UK, the Government pushing for three months' detention said that extending it to 28 days was a "compromise", despite still being vastly longer than most other countries. I also saw one lobbyist supporting the recent criminalisation of possession of so-called "extreme" porn, by saying "criminalising some kinds of adult porn is a compromise between people who want all porn to be criminalised, and people who don't want any adult porn criminalised".
Unless we've experienced the full horror of fighting in a war, I don't think any of us can say what someone should have done (or at least, chances are we would have done the same, even if we wished otherwise). Consider the well known psychological effect where people often do not help strangers in emergency situations, even if they are not risking death themselves.
And even if he had shot the guy - that'd still be a person killed. There's no winner in war.
Yes, let's turn it into a pointless US vs. UK war. Because obviously it's some kind of competition. What does the winner get? Oh wait, we both lose.
And I'm sure that the OP agrees with and is personally responsible for all the things you list. Really.
I'll take down the CCTV as soon as you've personally managed to stop all the bad things happening in your country. Let me know when you're done, okay?
that we now refuse to even enter your country.
Yes, the same is true in reverse. Which doesn't make it okay - it means it's bad for all of us. We lose, the UK and US politicians gain. That's the real competition we're fighting here, not against each other.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like you picked up a crappy HP.
My £500 3 year old PC has never crashed, doesn't hang, doesn't drop WiFi (I've had disconnects, but only due to the router, not the laptop). It Just Works.
Actually tell a lie, I have had hangs - when I'm running Itunes (though the OS recovers fine when I close off the dodgy software).
Wow, 9 days. Obviously no one's ever had a PC on for that long.
USB and Wifi weren't Apple inventions, but no doubt like most mythical "Apple firsts", you are using some definition of pioneered that excludes any other company who did so first.
The funny thing is, you're confirming exactly what the OP said, by making just those points: that it doesn't matter about the hardware or the features, because instead they compete on intangibles, and the experience of using a "system" rather than a computer. But you get +4, and the OP gets -1 Flamebait.
Predictably you got modded down, as does anything that doesn't praise Apple (I browse Apple stories at -1, because of the moderation abuse). But I agree. And more to the point, surely so do Apple fans - consider how many times that they themselves argue:
Sure, that other phone may look better on paper, but who cares about features. What Apple are selling is an experience. I can't explain that to you, because it's not measurable, it's intangible.
I've also certainly heard on Slashdot the argument that the Iphone is better on the grounds of its looks.
Given how much hype there is over every future possible Apple product, it's not clear to me that Apple have mastered the Osborne Effect - far from it (although I suppose it could be argued that since there's so much hype over even mere rumour, people have no way of telling actual planned products from vapourware when it comes to Apple). Talking of which, the idea that Apple are a secret company seems rather odd, given the coverage they get. It's been what, three Apple stories just today? If Steve Jobs so much as picks his nose, there'll be a Slashdot story about it. Whilst actual news from actual major players in the phone market like Nokia gets ignored (unless they're doing something bad, of course).
Well hey - it had copy and paste.
But it's still unknown as to which of them will finally get Java support first.
To be honest, I think the comparison understates the revolution of modern technology by limiting itself to the Iphone. Nevermind $199 - with any old dirt cheap phone these days, I can browse the Internet, navigate with Google maps, and store GBs of music, photos and other data. (Without being locked into a carrier!) And the comparison of 30 million to one million is very misleading - the Commodore 64 is the single best selling computer, and was one of the mainstream home platforms in its day. The Iphone however isn't even close - far from the market shrinking, there are now something like 2.1 billion Java phones out there. That's before you consider the range of choice offered by PC laptops and netbooks.
Wait - I thought people were telling us how great the Iphone was precisely because it lacked features, and therefore made it easier to use, or something? That other phone may look better on paper, they claim, but that's just grumpy featurism.
But now we compare to a phone that you claim has fewer features, suddenly features are worth comparing? Well in that case, let's compare the Iphone to all the other phones, like Nokia's, on features.
Not that I see what the Iphone has to do with this story. I know it's been a whole day since we've had our last Iphone Slashvertisement, but when for once we at last have a story about one of the other devices (you know, the popular ones), it's a shame there still has to be the obligitary off-topic Iphone mention.
OMG, it's Politically Correctness Gone Mad!
Someone call the Daily Mail!
I agree. Also, even if Google aren't going to do the same thing in the US - it's still relevant interest if a US company is complying with censorship requests for China.
Not to mention that there are other countries besides China and the US, that don't have freedom of speech in the way that the US has, e.g., there are many readers from Europe (including myself).
If only that were true - downloading would be legal.
The problem is that the RIAA try to have it both ways. If you download, it's "theft". But if you upload, you're suddenly hit with something far worse than a theft conviction would get you. Well, is copyright infringement theft, or not?
Books. I find myself reading more and more of my favorites on the LCD screen, but books have something that the computer will never have. Books are solid, and real - the pixels on my screen are fleeting. A solid book and a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, listening to the storm blow outside......
And they smell!
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Giles from Buffy, who made much the same point as Mr Bradbury, although also adding that books smell, and computers don't.
Of course, later that episode a demon got stuck in the Internet and tried to kill them all. Obviously another reason to hate the Internet.
Of course he's entitled to his opinions.
Just as everyone replying to him are also entitled to their opinions.
I wonder if Ray asked Mr Fahrenheit's permission to use his name...
Face it, the vast majority of time people spend is wasted in stupid, distracting ways.
Fixed that for you.
Now what's the Internet got to do with anything?
And if you're going to be like that, why should reading Bradbury's books count any differently? It's still something people do as a pasttime.
It makes changes too easy, makes hiding what was there before too easy ... But then again, the Internet's ability to edit information for forge reality has been a major boon for the population of African elephants...
And how did you know about this, if is allegedly easy to hide what was there before? That's right - despite the fact that these examples of intentional Wikipedia vandalism are typically reverted quickly, you can see months later simply by trawling through the history.
Does your tabloid carry a history of all past goofs? Nope - at best, they'll put something in a tiny corner, if they're threated with a lawsuit for telling lies.
As for "telling what's an actual, factual authority and what is lies and deception too easy", how is that different to offline? At least now, it's easier to ask for references, or to follow the references, or read from multiple sources. When the only newspaper you read told you something, you had to believe it. And when you heard someone telling you something down the pub, you didn't go "citation needed", or tell them that you couldn't possibly trust an unauthoritative source. The fact that people now do this with Wikipedia shows how much of an improvement the Internet is.
Well I guess you are right that comparing the entire Internet to a library doesn't make sense.
But if you're worried about quality, then the Internet does host sites that do give great information, whether general (dare I say it, Wikipedia), or specific. Although yes, I admit that information is still lagging behind, because much like the music and video industry, professional authors and publishing companies are generally yet to switch to offering information over the Internet. But this isn't entirely true: to counter your example, if you are willing to pay the price, you can get plenty of technical books to read online, complete with hyperlinks (or if you're lucky like me, your company will pay for it:)
And the breadth of books they offer far exceeds anything that your typical bookshop, and certainly library, has to offer.
(I'm also not sure why you ridicule fan"boi" sites. Whilst there's nothing better than a complete text by a professional author - offline or online - I've found sites like GameDev invaluable in finding solutions to those obscure or unexpected problems, that the authors of these books didn't forsee. Not to mention that I can search to find the information anywhere, and get it for free, which isn't possible with books unless you've bought everyone out there on the topic.)
On the other hand, if we compared the entire Internet, to all offline sources, then you also have to include all the trash published by the likes of the media, in particular the tabloids. Accurate? Don't make me laugh.
Well sure, it's wrong to call him an idiot, the man clearly doesn't lack in intelligence (although the OP probably didn't mean it in a general sense).
But it's fair game to criticise his views on the Internet - trying to claim his views are better than the OP based on what works they have each done is basically an ad hominem.
Yes, this is what I mean really: public attitudes are becoming more liberal, so obscenity cases are falling, but new stricter laws are being brought in.
The problem in the UK at least is that new laws being brought in (the "extreme" porn law, and the proposed law on pornographic cartoons in the UK) do not have the "deprave and corrupt" test (the UK's equivalent of the Miller test); it is not up to the jury to decide if the work is obscene in this sense, instead the new laws blanketly criminalise certain categories of material.
Wait - political correctness? But you're the one getting offended over the use of someone else's language!
It might be political correctness if someone whined about the use of the word "he". But if someone uses "she", that's his, her, their or its choice[*]. And in this case, you're the one criticising the use of the word "she".
I have no problem with the use of "he" as a generic singular pronoun. But suggesting that people shouldn't use "she" as a generic singular pronoun, out of fear of offending people? That's political correctness.
[*] - is that okay for you?
Note that this problem already exists with sound samples that are allowed on Wikipedia. And I'm not aware of it being a problem.
So you acknowledge that all three possibilities offered by the English language are flawed, but you still criticise the author for picking one you evidently have a problem with?
For heaven's sake - get over it.
And presumably also, every band on Earth will have a sample of their video on every page they can get away with
In the same way that they advertise their band on every page? Except they don't. Same for the companies. (Yet the sad thing is that other people whine about Wikipedia precisely because too much stuff is deleted...)
It seems that as each month passes wikipedia becomes less and less relevant, and less reputable.
You are mistaking your preference, and your opinion, with actual general fact. Like it or not, it's still a Top 10 website, and if you as a random person posting of a forum are going to make claims about it becoming less reputable, I do hope you have a reference?
But it will still be clean, fast, and mainly text layout. No one is forcing you to play the images.
I don't see how this is that different to allowing sound files, which is already possible in articles.
Indeed, and taking averages as a way of making a consensus is flawed for many reasons generally. For example, it rewards people for taking an extreme position. It's also biased because people who think the fine should be low are unable to take an extreme position, because they presumably can't give a negative amount - they are limited by zero (even if they say zero, a person can make the average as arbitrarily high as they like, just by given an amount twice as much). Although that would be funny to see: "I think that the RIAA should pay her $2 million, for being such complete arses!"
This argument also crops up in politics. E.g, in the UK, the Government pushing for three months' detention said that extending it to 28 days was a "compromise", despite still being vastly longer than most other countries. I also saw one lobbyist supporting the recent criminalisation of possession of so-called "extreme" porn, by saying "criminalising some kinds of adult porn is a compromise between people who want all porn to be criminalised, and people who don't want any adult porn criminalised".
Unless we've experienced the full horror of fighting in a war, I don't think any of us can say what someone should have done (or at least, chances are we would have done the same, even if we wished otherwise). Consider the well known psychological effect where people often do not help strangers in emergency situations, even if they are not risking death themselves.
And even if he had shot the guy - that'd still be a person killed. There's no winner in war.
Yes, let's turn it into a pointless US vs. UK war. Because obviously it's some kind of competition. What does the winner get? Oh wait, we both lose.
And I'm sure that the OP agrees with and is personally responsible for all the things you list. Really.
I'll take down the CCTV as soon as you've personally managed to stop all the bad things happening in your country. Let me know when you're done, okay?
that we now refuse to even enter your country.
Yes, the same is true in reverse. Which doesn't make it okay - it means it's bad for all of us. We lose, the UK and US politicians gain. That's the real competition we're fighting here, not against each other.