And some people are still using 16 year old Amigas.
Let's see a reliable source to show that Mac hardware lasts longer than similarly priced PCs (i.e., it would be an unfair comparison to compare an expensive brand name to cheap budget hardware - not that you've even proven that there's a difference in lifespan here, either).
I love it how that being more costly is touted as a good thing - "they must be good, because they're so expensive". It's a common psychological fallacy, to go for the more expensive product because you think it must be better, but I'd hope for better on a geek site like Slashdot.
Amigas are pretty pricey these days, they must be even better than Macs by this reasoning.
Except there you're not comparing OS X to Windows, you're comparing OS X, with not using a backup system.
I mean, I could say that Windows is worth thousands, because of what I do with a PC running Windows, and comparing that to not having a computer at all. But it's ludicrous to say that therefore, it's worth thousands more than any other OS, as those other OSes are capable of the same.
Showing how it's worth hundreds of dollars is insufficient, because Windows is also worth that by the same reasoning. You need to show me how it's worth hundreds of dollars more than Windows.
Incidentally, I do hope you have a better backup system than just Time Machine - it won't help at all with anything that causes both drives to be damaged, lost or stolen.
My DVD Writer is worth thousands, due to the backups it can do. Does that mean my PC is worth thousands more than a Mac?
You are confusing value, with cost. By your reasoning, Linux has no value.
Yes, it is perhaps surprising and nice to hear that Microsoft agree that cost isn't the same as value. Perhaps they aren't as bad as some people make them out to be.
You'd think that people would welcome Microsoft saying that software doesn't have to be expensive - but because they're criticising Apple, that's automatically seen as bad here on Slashdot.
Very few, however, will disagree that Apple brought those and more to the public, in mature and accessible form, and prompted explosions in popularity.
Unsupported, weasel words, subjective, and undefinable.
Lots of companies bring pre-existing ideas to the market, make them better in some way, and sell more than what was previously sold. Other companies have been doing that for years with phones, GUIs and input devices.
Yes, you could give credit to Apple for the mp3 player, on the grounds of the dominance of the Ipod. But by the reasoning, the crown for GUI on the desktop goes to Microsoft, as that was most people's first experience of a GUI (sure, a few Mac fans' first experience MacOS - well my first experience was AmigaOS, but I don't make ludicirous claims that therefore they "bought the GUI to the public"). You can't have it both ways.
"Explosions in popularity"? Such as what, besides from the Ipod?
Heaven forbid that Apple has to play by the same fraud laws that everyone else does.
Although yes, I fully agree that people shouldn't use it. Which is why it's important to publicise these issues, so that it isn't drowned out by the "Now you can copy and paste, isn't that Revolutionary?" stories.
There's more than just the Iphone and Blackberry. If you're bringing in downloading media, then this became hip way back when 3G first appeared (i.e., long before the Iphone), and this was on mid-range phones too, not just smartphones. Using phones for media is commonplace now (although personally I'd rather put media on my phone directly, rather than download it on the phone at more expensive rates). And there are plenty of phones that have decent UIs out there (or at least, at least as good as a device that doesn't do copy/paste, or needs "hacks" to get working as a modem).
Why? Cause the Internet sucks on a Blackberry/Windows Mobile device. The problem is, iPhone users ACTUALLY use the Internet/data other than e-mail. Why? Cause it doesn't suck.
Nice trolling. I check more than just email on my four year old non-smartphone. Can we have a bit more intelligent debate than "iPhone RuLeZ, Windoze suckS" please?
The problem is they claimed unlimited access, and failed to live up to it. Nothing to do with special IphonE powers (you were the one who said "This is not about iPhone versus Blackberry", after all - you're right, it's not).
An obvious recent comparison is broadband ISPs claiming unlimited downloads, then whining when people download too much. Same thing here.
The US authorities are equally keen on censorship - the difference is that we don't have the First Amendment.
Whilst notionally the UK does not have Freedom of Speech in the European Convention on Human Rights, it has a get out clause of "for the protection of morals", and the Government happily ignore rulings by European courts anyway (as happened with the ruling on keeping fingerprints of unconvicted suspects), plus it obviously doesn't have anywhere near the same kind of precedent as the US constitution.
But then, even in the US, "obscenity" is considered a good enough reason to criminalise material, even if only viewed by those who want to see it.
It's not an reductio ad absurdum - I don't think anyone is in a position to disprove things based on common sense, when we're dealing with things like free will, or how the Universe works.
To me, it's obvious that free will doesn't exist. Our brains are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe, obeying the same laws.
Well that's just a vague summary of what they've proven - yes, I don't believe that there is anything special or supernatural in our brains, but that doesn't disprove free will. The reason why rocks and electrons don't behave like people isn't anything to do with free will, it's because of all the other stuff that makes brains intelligent.
What's your view on consciousness? Are you really saying that consciousness doesn't exist, because "Our brains are made of the same stuff as the rest of the Universe, and it's absurd to say the rest of the Universe is conscious"?
Indeed, we could make that argument for all sorts of things - how can brains show intelligence, if they are made of the same stuff as rocks, which obviously aren't intelligent? This is clearly an absurd argument, as it doesn't take into account how the matter is put together.
These laws may be indeterministic, but since we have no control over quantum randomness, that randomness doesn't help us in any way.
Who is "we" here? And what proof of lack of control do you have - are you asserting the possibility of two kind of non-deterministic behaviour, one that is "free will", and one that isn't, and that only the latter exists? How would this difference be defined or measured? I'm not sure that such a distinction is meaningful.
Since it's nonsensical to talk about a particle with will, it's also nonsensical to talk about a human with free will.
But it's not non-sensical to talk about it if you look at their definition, it only seems non-sensical because we conflate the term with more general usage. It conjures up an image of an electron thinking "What shall I do today - shall I go this way or that way?" - which is far more than free will, since it involves thought, memory, all things that are in our brains, but not in a single electron.
I don't see what's controversial. If free will exists, I believe it to be a natural part of the Universe rather than something supernatural (just like say energy), and hence it should not be necessarily unique to the brain.
What about consciousness? This does exist, but we still have the question of what it is. If it's something natural, then it must be something that can be associated with natural particles. But would you say it's nonsensical to talk of electrons and other particles being consciousness? Or if you believe it arises naturally in intelligent systems, is it nonsensical to say that an algorithm has consciousness? Here, you don't have the get-out clause that consciousness doesn't exist, and I don't think the idea that consciousness is something special or supernatural is particularly good either. What's your answer?
It also isn't very good science to reject something due to being against our common sense. By that reasoning, all of quantum mechanics would be false.
One could easily reverse the argument - if we think of not having free will as being like a dumb electron, is it nonsensical to say that humans don't have free will? Well no, that's unfair too. The point is that there are clearly things other than the concept of free will that distinguish our behaviour from an electron, so that works both ways - neither situation is nonsensical.
I couldn't agree more. Of course, I suspect to hear all the "But it does it better, it Just Works" apologists crawl out of the woodwork - even though it requires a hack to get it working.
The usual tactic with missing features was to claim that no one would need one. But now that Apple have finally entered the 21st Century, and joined the low end market with features such as video, MMS, copy/paste and "tethering", I predict that no longer will we hear "Why would I need that?", instead, they'll be touted as great features that are now allegedly done better than anyone else.
Consider, if it was really true that the Iphone was better off by lacking these features (as some claimed), doesn't this mean the Iphone is now worse? They can't have it both ways. But they'll try to, anyway.
Actually Apple DOES focus on what something does. They focus on it so well that they don't release half baked functionality just to lengthen their feature list. When they do release a feature it works and it works well and it's usually well thought out and a pleasure to use.
What - by requiring a "hack" to get it working?
My four year old non-smartphone can be "tethered" (I didn't even know it had a special buzzword, I just took it for granted), and it just works.
If you have evidence that a particular feature is better than every other phone on the market, then let's hear it. If not, let's drop the speculation that a feature will be better, when Apple finally get around to implementing it.
I don't think anyone disagrees with you - of course there are different levels of trust that you might give for different companies. No one's suggesting otherwise, so that's a straw man.
The point is though that something on a public website could be easily trawled by the Government, whilst getting non-public information is far more invasive, both on an ethical level (because it was not intend to be public) and in the sense that it would require them to force ISPs to track or hand over the information.
The fact that Facebook could theoretically make it public if they wanted is neither here nor there, nor does it matter how likely they are to do so (and to be honest, I'd say it's unlikely - why the hell would they suddenly annoy all their users by making all private information public all of a sudden? Indeed, Facebook have been one of the better sites at having controls on the visibility of information).
(Hint to mods, flamebait is the one that starts the flamewar.)
And another hint to mods, talking about the topic:
But now that Apple have finally entered the 21st Century, and joined the sub-£50 low end market with features such as video and MMS, I predict that no longer will we hear "Why would I need that?", instead, they'll be touted as great features.
Consider, if it was really true that the Iphone was better off by lacking these features (as some claimed), doesn't this mean the Iphone is now worse? They can't have it both ways. But they'll try to, anyway.
Is not off-topic.
This is why I always have to browse at -1 on Apple stories, because the moderation simply does not work.
Firstly, why draw a distinction between Facebook messages, and using email provided by some other company?
Yes, encryption is one viable response (which in fact is what someone suggested above for Faceboo), but (a) this doesn't mean that such mass surveillance laws are justified, and (b) in the UK, it's a criminal offence to not hand over your keys if asked to.
I know that Facebook is unfashionable here, but let's not forget the seriousness of these issues. Moreover, Facebook was merely an example - the plans cover all kinds web traffic. And your email is already intended to be covered, btw.
The downside is that it has a get out clause (something like "for the protection of morals").
The other problem is that whilst the Supreme Court can overturn laws, I'm not quite sure how that works here - for example, there was the recent case where a European court found that keeping fingerprints of people who were arrested but not convicted of a crime unlawful. Has the practice stopped? No. Has the law changed? No. All that's happened is that the Government have muttered something like "We'll take a look at it sometime, honest".
Actually there are lots of us, and we've been using our phones as modems for years.
For the three people who might be interested in this article, I do wonder why they spent so much money on the one phone that lacks this standard feature?
Note that another option is just to use a $50 phone in the first place (I take your point about the advantages of having a separate card, but most people already have a phone so this saves spending out extra money - it's not just high end "smart" phones that do this, my four year old cheapo phone works fine).
If posting links carries a hefty fine, then I think it's certainly more activist than most things.
And the point here is about the publicity generated (especially if they blocked Wikipedia), which highlights what's going on to people, far better than petitions or protests or anything else. Sometimes the easier routes are the most effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Worst problem that I've had was solved in less than an hour.
You had a problem that took that long? I never have problems on Windows here.
And some people are still using 16 year old Amigas.
Let's see a reliable source to show that Mac hardware lasts longer than similarly priced PCs (i.e., it would be an unfair comparison to compare an expensive brand name to cheap budget hardware - not that you've even proven that there's a difference in lifespan here, either).
I love it how that being more costly is touted as a good thing - "they must be good, because they're so expensive". It's a common psychological fallacy, to go for the more expensive product because you think it must be better, but I'd hope for better on a geek site like Slashdot.
Amigas are pretty pricey these days, they must be even better than Macs by this reasoning.
Except there you're not comparing OS X to Windows, you're comparing OS X, with not using a backup system.
I mean, I could say that Windows is worth thousands, because of what I do with a PC running Windows, and comparing that to not having a computer at all. But it's ludicrous to say that therefore, it's worth thousands more than any other OS, as those other OSes are capable of the same.
Showing how it's worth hundreds of dollars is insufficient, because Windows is also worth that by the same reasoning. You need to show me how it's worth hundreds of dollars more than Windows.
Incidentally, I do hope you have a better backup system than just Time Machine - it won't help at all with anything that causes both drives to be damaged, lost or stolen.
My DVD Writer is worth thousands, due to the backups it can do. Does that mean my PC is worth thousands more than a Mac?
You are confusing value, with cost. By your reasoning, Linux has no value.
Yes, it is perhaps surprising and nice to hear that Microsoft agree that cost isn't the same as value. Perhaps they aren't as bad as some people make them out to be.
You'd think that people would welcome Microsoft saying that software doesn't have to be expensive - but because they're criticising Apple, that's automatically seen as bad here on Slashdot.
Very few, however, will disagree that Apple brought those and more to the public, in mature and accessible form, and prompted explosions in popularity.
Unsupported, weasel words, subjective, and undefinable.
Lots of companies bring pre-existing ideas to the market, make them better in some way, and sell more than what was previously sold. Other companies have been doing that for years with phones, GUIs and input devices.
Yes, you could give credit to Apple for the mp3 player, on the grounds of the dominance of the Ipod. But by the reasoning, the crown for GUI on the desktop goes to Microsoft, as that was most people's first experience of a GUI (sure, a few Mac fans' first experience MacOS - well my first experience was AmigaOS, but I don't make ludicirous claims that therefore they "bought the GUI to the public"). You can't have it both ways.
"Explosions in popularity"? Such as what, besides from the Ipod?
Sheesh, sometimes you athiests are worse than the "Christian" "fundamentalists".
Yeah those Christian fundies, they're so evil, always posting things on Slashdot that I disagree with. The horror!
We should be glad that religious fundies never do anything worse than that. Oh wait.
Heaven forbid that Apple has to play by the same fraud laws that everyone else does.
Although yes, I fully agree that people shouldn't use it. Which is why it's important to publicise these issues, so that it isn't drowned out by the "Now you can copy and paste, isn't that Revolutionary?" stories.
There's more than just the Iphone and Blackberry. If you're bringing in downloading media, then this became hip way back when 3G first appeared (i.e., long before the Iphone), and this was on mid-range phones too, not just smartphones. Using phones for media is commonplace now (although personally I'd rather put media on my phone directly, rather than download it on the phone at more expensive rates). And there are plenty of phones that have decent UIs out there (or at least, at least as good as a device that doesn't do copy/paste, or needs "hacks" to get working as a modem).
Why? Cause the Internet sucks on a Blackberry/Windows Mobile device. The problem is, iPhone users ACTUALLY use the Internet/data other than e-mail. Why? Cause it doesn't suck.
Nice trolling. I check more than just email on my four year old non-smartphone. Can we have a bit more intelligent debate than "iPhone RuLeZ, Windoze suckS" please?
The problem is they claimed unlimited access, and failed to live up to it. Nothing to do with special IphonE powers (you were the one who said "This is not about iPhone versus Blackberry", after all - you're right, it's not).
An obvious recent comparison is broadband ISPs claiming unlimited downloads, then whining when people download too much. Same thing here.
The US authorities are equally keen on censorship - the difference is that we don't have the First Amendment.
Whilst notionally the UK does not have Freedom of Speech in the European Convention on Human Rights, it has a get out clause of "for the protection of morals", and the Government happily ignore rulings by European courts anyway (as happened with the ruling on keeping fingerprints of unconvicted suspects), plus it obviously doesn't have anywhere near the same kind of precedent as the US constitution.
But then, even in the US, "obscenity" is considered a good enough reason to criminalise material, even if only viewed by those who want to see it.
With pages like that, you'll just get Encyclopedia Dramatica added to the list too!
Oh wait, it's already on there.
It's not an reductio ad absurdum - I don't think anyone is in a position to disprove things based on common sense, when we're dealing with things like free will, or how the Universe works.
To me, it's obvious that free will doesn't exist. Our brains are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe, obeying the same laws.
Well that's just a vague summary of what they've proven - yes, I don't believe that there is anything special or supernatural in our brains, but that doesn't disprove free will. The reason why rocks and electrons don't behave like people isn't anything to do with free will, it's because of all the other stuff that makes brains intelligent.
What's your view on consciousness? Are you really saying that consciousness doesn't exist, because "Our brains are made of the same stuff as the rest of the Universe, and it's absurd to say the rest of the Universe is conscious"?
Indeed, we could make that argument for all sorts of things - how can brains show intelligence, if they are made of the same stuff as rocks, which obviously aren't intelligent? This is clearly an absurd argument, as it doesn't take into account how the matter is put together.
These laws may be indeterministic, but since we have no control over quantum randomness, that randomness doesn't help us in any way.
Who is "we" here? And what proof of lack of control do you have - are you asserting the possibility of two kind of non-deterministic behaviour, one that is "free will", and one that isn't, and that only the latter exists? How would this difference be defined or measured? I'm not sure that such a distinction is meaningful.
Since it's nonsensical to talk about a particle with will, it's also nonsensical to talk about a human with free will.
But it's not non-sensical to talk about it if you look at their definition, it only seems non-sensical because we conflate the term with more general usage. It conjures up an image of an electron thinking "What shall I do today - shall I go this way or that way?" - which is far more than free will, since it involves thought, memory, all things that are in our brains, but not in a single electron.
I don't see what's controversial. If free will exists, I believe it to be a natural part of the Universe rather than something supernatural (just like say energy), and hence it should not be necessarily unique to the brain.
What about consciousness? This does exist, but we still have the question of what it is. If it's something natural, then it must be something that can be associated with natural particles. But would you say it's nonsensical to talk of electrons and other particles being consciousness? Or if you believe it arises naturally in intelligent systems, is it nonsensical to say that an algorithm has consciousness? Here, you don't have the get-out clause that consciousness doesn't exist, and I don't think the idea that consciousness is something special or supernatural is particularly good either. What's your answer?
It also isn't very good science to reject something due to being against our common sense. By that reasoning, all of quantum mechanics would be false.
One could easily reverse the argument - if we think of not having free will as being like a dumb electron, is it nonsensical to say that humans don't have free will? Well no, that's unfair too. The point is that there are clearly things other than the concept of free will that distinguish our behaviour from an electron, so that works both ways - neither situation is nonsensical.
I couldn't agree more. Of course, I suspect to hear all the "But it does it better, it Just Works" apologists crawl out of the woodwork - even though it requires a hack to get it working.
The usual tactic with missing features was to claim that no one would need one. But now that Apple have finally entered the 21st Century, and joined the low end market with features such as video, MMS, copy/paste and "tethering", I predict that no longer will we hear "Why would I need that?", instead, they'll be touted as great features that are now allegedly done better than anyone else.
Consider, if it was really true that the Iphone was better off by lacking these features (as some claimed), doesn't this mean the Iphone is now worse? They can't have it both ways. But they'll try to, anyway.
Except for a little thing called Jailbreaking
So much for "But it Just Works!"
Actually Apple DOES focus on what something does. They focus on it so well that they don't release half baked functionality just to lengthen their feature list. When they do release a feature it works and it works well and it's usually well thought out and a pleasure to use.
What - by requiring a "hack" to get it working?
My four year old non-smartphone can be "tethered" (I didn't even know it had a special buzzword, I just took it for granted), and it just works.
If you have evidence that a particular feature is better than every other phone on the market, then let's hear it. If not, let's drop the speculation that a feature will be better, when Apple finally get around to implementing it.
I don't think anyone disagrees with you - of course there are different levels of trust that you might give for different companies. No one's suggesting otherwise, so that's a straw man.
The point is though that something on a public website could be easily trawled by the Government, whilst getting non-public information is far more invasive, both on an ethical level (because it was not intend to be public) and in the sense that it would require them to force ISPs to track or hand over the information.
The fact that Facebook could theoretically make it public if they wanted is neither here nor there, nor does it matter how likely they are to do so (and to be honest, I'd say it's unlikely - why the hell would they suddenly annoy all their users by making all private information public all of a sudden? Indeed, Facebook have been one of the better sites at having controls on the visibility of information).
(Hint to mods, flamebait is the one that starts the flamewar.)
And another hint to mods, talking about the topic:
But now that Apple have finally entered the 21st Century, and joined the sub-£50 low end market with features such as video and MMS, I predict that no longer will we hear "Why would I need that?", instead, they'll be touted as great features.
Consider, if it was really true that the Iphone was better off by lacking these features (as some claimed), doesn't this mean the Iphone is now worse? They can't have it both ways. But they'll try to, anyway.
Is not off-topic.
This is why I always have to browse at -1 on Apple stories, because the moderation simply does not work.
Firstly, why draw a distinction between Facebook messages, and using email provided by some other company?
Yes, encryption is one viable response (which in fact is what someone suggested above for Faceboo), but (a) this doesn't mean that such mass surveillance laws are justified, and (b) in the UK, it's a criminal offence to not hand over your keys if asked to.
I know that Facebook is unfashionable here, but let's not forget the seriousness of these issues. Moreover, Facebook was merely an example - the plans cover all kinds web traffic. And your email is already intended to be covered, btw.
The downside is that it has a get out clause (something like "for the protection of morals").
The other problem is that whilst the Supreme Court can overturn laws, I'm not quite sure how that works here - for example, there was the recent case where a European court found that keeping fingerprints of people who were arrested but not convicted of a crime unlawful. Has the practice stopped? No. Has the law changed? No. All that's happened is that the Government have muttered something like "We'll take a look at it sometime, honest".
It would be like covering everything that China did, and not mentioning other countries at all.
I mean, can you point me to the stories for every single other make of phone out there, where it was announced that they can do this?
Actually there are lots of us, and we've been using our phones as modems for years.
For the three people who might be interested in this article, I do wonder why they spent so much money on the one phone that lacks this standard feature?
Note that another option is just to use a $50 phone in the first place (I take your point about the advantages of having a separate card, but most people already have a phone so this saves spending out extra money - it's not just high end "smart" phones that do this, my four year old cheapo phone works fine).
If posting links carries a hefty fine, then I think it's certainly more activist than most things.
And the point here is about the publicity generated (especially if they blocked Wikipedia), which highlights what's going on to people, far better than petitions or protests or anything else. Sometimes the easier routes are the most effective.