Anyone know what "other mobile operating systems" are? (I'm presuming it's not Symbian yet, as surely that would be the main story, not the Iphone...right?)
Indeed - commercial projects suffer from "version number" inflation much higher than open source. OpenTTD could have simply made every release a full version release instead of a point release, and be on say, version 10 by now.
It's not uncommon for earlier versions of commercial products to be rather unusable (e.g., DirectX didn't become viable until version 5 or later; or the first versions of the Windows GUI). Then there's the skipping of versions (e.g., Windows NT starting at 3.5; or OS X simply starting at 10, even though the previous "versions" were for an entirely different OS). And the norm for many PC games seems to be that version 1 is rather unstable, and you have to buy the next version to get better.
Since open source developers aren't worried about sales, they don't have to differentiate it as being a "different product, honest".
I guess that's where I'm going wrong - I have excellent Karma, and get mod points about once a year:/
You just need to look at the moderation on an Apple story, to see how bad an idea a "-1 Wrong" moderation would be, although I suppose it's already the case that people use Flamebait/Troll/Off-topic to mod down anything they don't like (in this case, doesn't support Apple). I have to browse these stories at -1.
He may not have RTFS, but this is a perfect example of how people end up being misled that things are only available on the Iphone, because anything "On The Iphone" gets pulled up for the daily Slashdot Iphone story, whilst other platforms are ignored. I did RTFS, and I ask what are these "other mobile operating systems"? Does it include the remainder 95% of the market, e.g., support for Symbian?
Prediction: It'll be the same for the Ipad.
Re:He didn't address suitability of it as a ereade
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What I think is most compelling about the iPad is the fact that it is a more traditional "medium"
More traditional than what? Than the Kindle that he was talking about? Than existing tablets and netbooks? The Ipad may well be an interesting product, but don't rely on Slashdot for your tech news, which covers the Apple ones - there are plenty of other products in this "traditional" meaning.
Re:He didn't address suitability of it as a ereade
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Well, if your reading consists of just skim reading comments, for relatively short periods of time, sure. But for those of us who read books, it's a different matter.
Re:CmdrTaco drags big brass ones along the ground
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but selling 300k in one day, in one country compares pretty well to the 3G and 3GS phones
You've got to remember that they've had months of vast amounts of free advertising, media coverage and hype. So this isn't really "one day", you've got months' worth of pre-orders and Apple fans waiting up to get it.
On an iPad you'll interact with it - that 5x screen-estate isn't a "just", it's a "crucially", IMHO.
So all those years of joking about people with "bricks" for a phone that was slightly too big, but now it's suddenly okay? If you want a larger device, there are netbooks, laptops, and other tablets too of course.
Oh nonsense. Shills or not, whenever we occasionally got a news story about a "colour e-reader" tablet, long before the Ipad was even rumoured, there'd (rightly) be no end of comments pointing out that it wasn't a fair comparison if the new device was just an LCD. So even if they are shills, they aren't new with the Ipad.
But I think it's far more noticeable that now we (finally, after many years of hype and rumour) have the Ipad, suddenly we have all these comments treating it as an e-reader, and now the advantages of e-ink apparently don't matter anymore. So where are they all coming out of the woodwork from? Why weren't they saying that e-ink didn't matter, when the earlier colour e-readers were announced? If we're throwing around accusations of shills, this situation looks for more suspect.
(If Apple ever release an e-ink based e-reader, I bet that suddenly that feature will be seen as important...)
Re:You can read non DRM books on the ipad
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Well in that case, I can use my 5800 (or a netbook) to post to Slashdot, using either wireless or 3G. And I can read books on them. Try that with your Ipad sometime.
(Why do you have to wait until a 3G version is out? Surely you can just plug a 3G dongle into the standard USB slot, right?)
Re:You can read non DRM books on the ipad
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And yes, this is typed on an iPad. Try that with your kindle sometime.
Woo, posting to Slashdot, such cutting edge technology!
If you're counting the Ipad as an e-reader, then any dirt cheaper bog standard phone, tablet, laptop or netbook will do the job also. And yes, they can also do such cutting edge things as accessing a website.
CNET has a video somewhat demoing this on the iPad
Or you could just do it right now - or indeed, years ago - on a bog standard cheap old netbook (which can also ready PDFs - I think it's telling if one even has to ask that question). Even if you want graphics rather than an e-reader, there's still nothing special about the Ipad here.
Do you spend that time continually reading a long piece of text? Without taking any breaks?
There's also the point that what I put up with for work that I get paid, compared with what's best for something enjoyable when I want to relax and read a book, are different things.
I don't spend hours reading Slashdot continually. And much of the reading involves skim-reading of comments, not to mention that much of the time is broken up with time spent thinking and writing comments such as this, unlike reading a book, which involves continual reading of large amounts of text.
But in those other dimensions, netbooks own the Ipad pretty harder. The bottom line is, if you want a good e-reader, the Ipad isn't competition for the Kindle anymore than a netbook or any other tablet. But if you want something that does other things, sure a Kindle isn't good - but there's far more on offer than just the Ipad, anyway (whenever it finally gets released).
The Kindle owners rag on the Ipad, because the Apple fans assert that it's like an e-reader, only better.
If you want to concede it's not meant as an e-reader, but is a mobile platform that can do apps, games, colour displays etc, then fine. But then prepare to be ragged on by all the netbook owners, who can do all that at a fraction of the price, and have been doing so for years.
The ipad doesn't try to sell itself as anything other than a Book reader.
The funny thing is it's not really well suited for that either - more expensive than e-readers, and doesn't have the high quality display or long battery life associated with e-ink display.
It's true that scientists are sometimes reluctant to accept new ideas, even in the face of evidence. Einstein and quantum mechanics, for example (although I'm not sure it's true that the consensus was ever against it - whilst Einstein was sceptical, many scientists were accepting it). But all that tells us is that scientists can be irrational about things too - it's not an argument against the scientific method, and indeed, by sticking to that method, ultimately the improved theories become accepted.
But a further problem is:
actually, it's harder to think of scientific breakthroughs that have been readily accepted on presentation of the evidence.
That you're confusing reasonable scepticism at the time, with being irrational. It's perfectly right that we should be sceptical of new ideas. String theory today is ridiculed by many. If it turns out to become the better theory, does that means it's an example of where science was "wrong" today? No. It just means that at the moment, we weren't sure which was correct. This is different to people that are still refusing to accept things, even centuries later, on religious grounds.
The problem with the Catholic Church and Galileo was not that they were sceptical of his ideas, but that he was put on trial for it. And I disagree that they were sceptical on scientific grounds - it was very much an issue of religion.
Science shouldn't have morals - it's a thing. Scientists should have morals. If you understand the difference between things, and people, this debate may come a bit clearer to you.
Incidentally, Josef Mengele may well have argued his belief that what he was doing was "moral". It isn't an issue of "having morals", the issue is what those morals are.
Science and religion are trying to explain completely different things (religion tackles moral issues, science tackles the workings of reality).
Whilst the OP is clearly wrong, I wouldn't say that religion "tackles" moral issues either - certainly not in the same sense that science gives us answers. It asserts a moral code. But then, many religions make assertions about the workings of reality too (how the universe started, how the earth and humans came to be, claims about Jesus etc). In both cases, I'm not sure I'm going to trust mere assertions very much.
And yet there is a growing amount of religious people for whom Science (big S) is a religion. They call themselves atheists... "I'll believe what this scientist says even though I don't understand it because I don't like the religion I grew up with"
Go on, give me an example of such a person.
Sure, there might happen to exist some people, but it is wrong to attribute this to atheism - the fact that they're an atheist is no more relevant than them having a beard; and plenty of theists who misuse science exist also.
No one is claiming that all atheists are rational. After all, there are people who don't believe in god, but also believe in the supernatural, homeopathy, and so on. They're atheists, and they're irrational. But so? This is not an argument against atheism; nor is it an argument in favour of theism. Saying that there exist other forms of irrationality is not an argument in favour of being irrational!
I'm not sure what your point was? Just because some people misunderstand science doesn't mean that the OP and others fall into this category.
The rational folk on both sides of the theist
Aha, here we have it - let's slip in the card that, because some atheists are irrational, we can suggest that it's only some theists that are irrational, and therefore some theists are rational. Well firstly, that's a logical fallacy. Secondly, I disagree that belief in god is based on reason.
No one is doing that - having sex is good, but I wouldn't say I'm doing science. But that hardly means that religious people are right when they are claiming there are other ways to life than science.
"Science" also has a narrower meaning, whereby we only mean biology, physics, chemistry, and other things are labelled invention, engineering, history, archaeology and so on, but that's just playing word games and swapping the definitions. All of these things are still things that use reason, evidence and logic; they are based on scientific evidence and testing. If someone says "Oh, but a detective uses crime-solving skills, that's not 'science'", that doesn't support the claim that science is like religion, or that religion is another way to find answers.
The grandparent post's claim that "science is a religion" is to an extent true -- in that non-scientists often treat it as such.
So in other words, it's not true. Yes, some people misunderstand science too - that's hardly an argument if favour of religion.
There is a popular belief without evidence that "eventually science will solve every problem".
Evidence of this? Some people might believe this, but I suspect they also acknowledge that this is very much a matter of philosophy, and it's not really clear who might be right.
There is a popular belief counter to the evidence that "everything science says is True"
Evidence of this popular belief? Science isn't a person - it doesn't "say" anything.
If you'd rather that, then feel free to get off the computer...
We are living in a culture, were we can't live without science, yes you are right, but if you look where it is heading. At the moment it isn't heading in the nice star trek direction... It is more heading in direction of big calamities, terrorism (without science no boms), diseases, war....
For terrorism and war, modern times are still far less violent than at any time in the past. Yes, you might not have had the tiny chance of dying in a terrorist attack, but you'd have been far more likely to have just been mugged by a random person. And something as simple as a broken leg would most likely be the end of you.
As for diseases, life expectancy is far longer today. You seriously think diseases are worse?
Because money is involved, and moral isn't looked at
Feel free to go back to bartering. What morals are these?
Slashdot Mirror
Is that enough - http://news.google.co.uk/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&hl=en&q=wikileaks ? Over 500 news articles :)
How about a Symbian app, then?
Anyone know what "other mobile operating systems" are? (I'm presuming it's not Symbian yet, as surely that would be the main story, not the Iphone...right?)
Indeed - commercial projects suffer from "version number" inflation much higher than open source. OpenTTD could have simply made every release a full version release instead of a point release, and be on say, version 10 by now.
It's not uncommon for earlier versions of commercial products to be rather unusable (e.g., DirectX didn't become viable until version 5 or later; or the first versions of the Windows GUI). Then there's the skipping of versions (e.g., Windows NT starting at 3.5; or OS X simply starting at 10, even though the previous "versions" were for an entirely different OS). And the norm for many PC games seems to be that version 1 is rather unstable, and you have to buy the next version to get better.
Since open source developers aren't worried about sales, they don't have to differentiate it as being a "different product, honest".
I guess that's where I'm going wrong - I have excellent Karma, and get mod points about once a year :/
You just need to look at the moderation on an Apple story, to see how bad an idea a "-1 Wrong" moderation would be, although I suppose it's already the case that people use Flamebait/Troll/Off-topic to mod down anything they don't like (in this case, doesn't support Apple). I have to browse these stories at -1.
And where was the Slashdot story for that?
He may not have RTFS, but this is a perfect example of how people end up being misled that things are only available on the Iphone, because anything "On The Iphone" gets pulled up for the daily Slashdot Iphone story, whilst other platforms are ignored. I did RTFS, and I ask what are these "other mobile operating systems"? Does it include the remainder 95% of the market, e.g., support for Symbian?
Prediction: It'll be the same for the Ipad.
What I think is most compelling about the iPad is the fact that it is a more traditional "medium"
More traditional than what? Than the Kindle that he was talking about? Than existing tablets and netbooks? The Ipad may well be an interesting product, but don't rely on Slashdot for your tech news, which covers the Apple ones - there are plenty of other products in this "traditional" meaning.
Well, if your reading consists of just skim reading comments, for relatively short periods of time, sure. But for those of us who read books, it's a different matter.
but selling 300k in one day, in one country compares pretty well to the 3G and 3GS phones
You've got to remember that they've had months of vast amounts of free advertising, media coverage and hype. So this isn't really "one day", you've got months' worth of pre-orders and Apple fans waiting up to get it.
On an iPad you'll interact with it - that 5x screen-estate isn't a "just", it's a "crucially", IMHO.
So all those years of joking about people with "bricks" for a phone that was slightly too big, but now it's suddenly okay? If you want a larger device, there are netbooks, laptops, and other tablets too of course.
Be fair, he's used to Apple - he probably thinks that you'd have to buy a special Amazon-approved Kindle-compatible light to use with a Kindle...
Oh nonsense. Shills or not, whenever we occasionally got a news story about a "colour e-reader" tablet, long before the Ipad was even rumoured, there'd (rightly) be no end of comments pointing out that it wasn't a fair comparison if the new device was just an LCD. So even if they are shills, they aren't new with the Ipad.
But I think it's far more noticeable that now we (finally, after many years of hype and rumour) have the Ipad, suddenly we have all these comments treating it as an e-reader, and now the advantages of e-ink apparently don't matter anymore. So where are they all coming out of the woodwork from? Why weren't they saying that e-ink didn't matter, when the earlier colour e-readers were announced? If we're throwing around accusations of shills, this situation looks for more suspect.
(If Apple ever release an e-ink based e-reader, I bet that suddenly that feature will be seen as important...)
Well in that case, I can use my 5800 (or a netbook) to post to Slashdot, using either wireless or 3G. And I can read books on them. Try that with your Ipad sometime.
(Why do you have to wait until a 3G version is out? Surely you can just plug a 3G dongle into the standard USB slot, right?)
And yes, this is typed on an iPad. Try that with your kindle sometime.
Woo, posting to Slashdot, such cutting edge technology!
If you're counting the Ipad as an e-reader, then any dirt cheaper bog standard phone, tablet, laptop or netbook will do the job also. And yes, they can also do such cutting edge things as accessing a website.
CNET has a video somewhat demoing this on the iPad
Or you could just do it right now - or indeed, years ago - on a bog standard cheap old netbook (which can also ready PDFs - I think it's telling if one even has to ask that question). Even if you want graphics rather than an e-reader, there's still nothing special about the Ipad here.
Do you spend that time continually reading a long piece of text? Without taking any breaks?
There's also the point that what I put up with for work that I get paid, compared with what's best for something enjoyable when I want to relax and read a book, are different things.
I don't spend hours reading Slashdot continually. And much of the reading involves skim-reading of comments, not to mention that much of the time is broken up with time spent thinking and writing comments such as this, unlike reading a book, which involves continual reading of large amounts of text.
But in those other dimensions, netbooks own the Ipad pretty harder. The bottom line is, if you want a good e-reader, the Ipad isn't competition for the Kindle anymore than a netbook or any other tablet. But if you want something that does other things, sure a Kindle isn't good - but there's far more on offer than just the Ipad, anyway (whenever it finally gets released).
The Kindle owners rag on the Ipad, because the Apple fans assert that it's like an e-reader, only better.
If you want to concede it's not meant as an e-reader, but is a mobile platform that can do apps, games, colour displays etc, then fine. But then prepare to be ragged on by all the netbook owners, who can do all that at a fraction of the price, and have been doing so for years.
The ipad doesn't try to sell itself as anything other than a Book reader.
The funny thing is it's not really well suited for that either - more expensive than e-readers, and doesn't have the high quality display or long battery life associated with e-ink display.
It's true that scientists are sometimes reluctant to accept new ideas, even in the face of evidence. Einstein and quantum mechanics, for example (although I'm not sure it's true that the consensus was ever against it - whilst Einstein was sceptical, many scientists were accepting it). But all that tells us is that scientists can be irrational about things too - it's not an argument against the scientific method, and indeed, by sticking to that method, ultimately the improved theories become accepted.
But a further problem is:
actually, it's harder to think of scientific breakthroughs that have been readily accepted on presentation of the evidence.
That you're confusing reasonable scepticism at the time, with being irrational. It's perfectly right that we should be sceptical of new ideas. String theory today is ridiculed by many. If it turns out to become the better theory, does that means it's an example of where science was "wrong" today? No. It just means that at the moment, we weren't sure which was correct. This is different to people that are still refusing to accept things, even centuries later, on religious grounds.
The problem with the Catholic Church and Galileo was not that they were sceptical of his ideas, but that he was put on trial for it. And I disagree that they were sceptical on scientific grounds - it was very much an issue of religion.
Science shouldn't have morals - it's a thing. Scientists should have morals. If you understand the difference between things, and people, this debate may come a bit clearer to you.
Incidentally, Josef Mengele may well have argued his belief that what he was doing was "moral". It isn't an issue of "having morals", the issue is what those morals are.
The problem with science is that they are missing the moral factor
"They"? Science isn't a thing. Assuming you meant scientists, then your claim is simply wrong anyway.
Science and religion are trying to explain completely different things (religion tackles moral issues, science tackles the workings of reality).
Whilst the OP is clearly wrong, I wouldn't say that religion "tackles" moral issues either - certainly not in the same sense that science gives us answers. It asserts a moral code. But then, many religions make assertions about the workings of reality too (how the universe started, how the earth and humans came to be, claims about Jesus etc). In both cases, I'm not sure I'm going to trust mere assertions very much.
And yet there is a growing amount of religious people for whom Science (big S) is a religion. They call themselves atheists ... "I'll believe what this scientist says even though I don't understand it because I don't like the religion I grew up with"
Go on, give me an example of such a person.
Sure, there might happen to exist some people, but it is wrong to attribute this to atheism - the fact that they're an atheist is no more relevant than them having a beard; and plenty of theists who misuse science exist also.
No one is claiming that all atheists are rational. After all, there are people who don't believe in god, but also believe in the supernatural, homeopathy, and so on. They're atheists, and they're irrational. But so? This is not an argument against atheism; nor is it an argument in favour of theism. Saying that there exist other forms of irrationality is not an argument in favour of being irrational!
I'm not sure what your point was? Just because some people misunderstand science doesn't mean that the OP and others fall into this category.
The rational folk on both sides of the theist
Aha, here we have it - let's slip in the card that, because some atheists are irrational, we can suggest that it's only some theists that are irrational, and therefore some theists are rational. Well firstly, that's a logical fallacy. Secondly, I disagree that belief in god is based on reason.
No one is doing that - having sex is good, but I wouldn't say I'm doing science. But that hardly means that religious people are right when they are claiming there are other ways to life than science.
"Science" also has a narrower meaning, whereby we only mean biology, physics, chemistry, and other things are labelled invention, engineering, history, archaeology and so on, but that's just playing word games and swapping the definitions. All of these things are still things that use reason, evidence and logic; they are based on scientific evidence and testing. If someone says "Oh, but a detective uses crime-solving skills, that's not 'science'", that doesn't support the claim that science is like religion, or that religion is another way to find answers.
The grandparent post's claim that "science is a religion" is to an extent true -- in that non-scientists often treat it as such.
So in other words, it's not true. Yes, some people misunderstand science too - that's hardly an argument if favour of religion.
There is a popular belief without evidence that "eventually science will solve every problem".
Evidence of this? Some people might believe this, but I suspect they also acknowledge that this is very much a matter of philosophy, and it's not really clear who might be right.
There is a popular belief counter to the evidence that "everything science says is True"
Evidence of this popular belief? Science isn't a person - it doesn't "say" anything.
I rather lived without science then
If you'd rather that, then feel free to get off the computer...
We are living in a culture, were we can't live without science, yes you are right, but if you look where it is heading. At the moment it isn't heading in the nice star trek direction... It is more heading in direction of big calamities, terrorism (without science no boms), diseases, war....
For terrorism and war, modern times are still far less violent than at any time in the past. Yes, you might not have had the tiny chance of dying in a terrorist attack, but you'd have been far more likely to have just been mugged by a random person. And something as simple as a broken leg would most likely be the end of you.
As for diseases, life expectancy is far longer today. You seriously think diseases are worse?
Because money is involved, and moral isn't looked at
Feel free to go back to bartering. What morals are these?