Indeed - I don't know why styluses seemed to go out of fashion. The biggest phone company, Nokia, still uses them however - I like using the one on my 5800.
And I'm also curious about the point of hover - Nokia have solved this in that if you keep your finger against the screen, it treats it as a hover. You can then either release for a "click", or slide your finger away. It's not ideal, because I don't think there is a fundamental way to solve this (unless screens can literally detect a hover), but it works. But I guess no one is interested when UI issues are solved by, ooh, only the largest phone company in the world. People like the author of this article only care when it's one of the smallest phone companies, i.e., Apple. (No doubt if Apple copied this, we'd be hearing about it all over the press about how wonderful and innovative they were...)
There's always a money angle, we do live in a capitalist society after all. If Apple doesn't want to fix it (and why should they? broken is broken), why should they
Ah yes, this one again, a common pro-Apple straw man argument. How come we never say it for any other company? "Well, why should Microsoft fix bugs in Windows, if they don't want to, why should they?"
The point is, no one is claiming that Apple don't have the right to release crappy products. People are just pointing out the fact that the products, in their opinion, have flaws. Apple have every right to released flawed products, sure - but if that's the best argument you can come up with, it doesn't bode very well; it means you're conceding that the flaws exist.
My 5800 from Nokia supports Flash - might not be perfect, but it's there for when I do need it.
And in response to the article - for heaven's sake! The Ipad isn't even released, and now people talk about it as if it was the definitive touch screen device! Doing this for the Iphone was bad enough, when there were companies with larger market share. Now we have a product that has obviously zero market share being portrayed as the single market leader...
Sure, it's a valid argument for why the Ipad is of little interest in a market filled by (far cheaper) netbooks that have a real keyboard and where Flash works fine. But the spin doesn't seem to be why "Here's why touchscreen only devices are bad for Flash" but rather "Here's why Flash is bad for touchscreens, and the almighty Apple are so wonderful for not allowing it!"
And a simulation of life doesn't satisfy the biological conditions of life - the food, components, responses etc are all simulated, which is on the same level as "simulated weather might get the simulated cat wet". A simulation of the weather can't get me wet, but a simulation of a cat can't scratch me, nor can I stroke it.
But anyhow, if you do believe a simulation of life to count as life, I don't think it's then unreasonable to say that something in a computer program counts as life. Kitkoan seemed to be both arguing that simulations counted, but also saying therefore that it's wrong to think of a simulation as being alive, and hence arguing the definition to be wrong. Whether or not simulations should be counted, I don't see this as an argument against the biological definition.
Homeostasis - Adjusts flame temperature to match fuel and oxidizer chemical composition and ratio of availability
But that's not a constant state. Homeostatis is about keeping things the same when the external environment changes. That fire changes when the external environment changes suggests it doesn't do this one very well at all!
Organization - Collects to maximize burn rate given state and configuration of fuel and oxidizer
That's not what organisation means. What is fire composed of structurally?
Adaptation - Will attempt to consume all available fuel by any means necessary
And the adaption is?
Response to Stimuli - Is influenced by and reacts to stimuli such as wind and the movement of fuel sources
By that logic, a brick would satisfy this, because if I drop it, it "reacts" by falling. Anything would satisfy this criterion, making it redundant. Whilst I'm not sure exactly what the defining line is, I presume it's more than any passive movement caused by physical forces.
But none of that actually happens - it's all a simulation. Yes, I'd say it's reasonable to say it's a simulation of life. This is no more profound than saying I can simulate nuclear fusion on a computer, but that doesn't mean it's actually nuclear fusion.
E.g., what mushrooms are these that they eat? You have mushrooms in your computer?
I'm reminded of that recent story of people selling faked "Iphones". Those people were mocked, yet it seems people are happy to have a fake photoshop to run on their Iphones...
So in other words, once a platform has all the things that currently stop making it being a real platform, it'll be a real platform. That's different from any other platform how, exactly?
Oh you missed one: it needs to actually be released. Duke Nukem Forever will be a real game, once it's released too (I hear the department of redundancy department are working on it).
I thought it was just like my Amiga too;) (Albeit with vastly higher system requirements, and running a lot slower.) But yes, the criticisms of Windows being hard to use have long since disappeared. Didn't classic Mac OS lack memory protection though? All of the OSes back then that lacked memory protection were fundamentally unstable. In some sense, Windows 9x was ahead as it did have memory protection for applications, but this was offset by it being more reliant on drivers, which weren't protected.
I've not really seen any evidence that any operating system today is less stable than any other - it all seems to be anecdotal evidence, or the situation where the most common OS is assumed to be more unstable, because you hear about the crashes more often, where as users of niche operating systems are more likely to not mention their crashes.
Mathematicians don't care about trivial things like the actual numerical answer. As long as you've shown there's a solution, that's good enough:)
(I think this applies to other subject areas - most of the subject matter is unrelated to what lay people commonly think it's about. I had a History teacher at school who said she was "bad at dates". Another example would be someone studying English, with bad spelling...)
Indeed. When I was helping my parents by their first computer, I had no end of "Get a Mac" comments from friends, who told me I'd otherwise be flooded with requests about Windows from them, unless I persuaded them to spend twice as much money on an Apple PC.
Well, years later, and there's hardly been any questions at all - the only questions have been general computing ones, that they would have asked for Apple too (and if they did have a Mac, I wouldn't have been able to help them, but with Windows I could).
But what better way to show how broad and draconian the laws on child porn have become, by using them against people in positions of authority, where it's clear the purpose wasn't pedophilia?
When someone is arrested for possessing a naughty photo of a 17 year old, do you think that "no proof of actual intention of a sexual intention" will cut it? No - and the law doesn't care about that. It's irrelevant.
In that case there's a dispute about what happened. But I don't see what that has to do with your quote - where is anyone claiming that copying files constitutes theft?
The US may not have "Iphone fakes", but obviously there is a market for $120 or similar phones, without contract. The Iphone fake things sounds more a property of fashion than technicality - people are engulfed by the RDF, and think they look hip if they have an Iphone.
I showed him mine and the way it's supposed to work, with just a light flick of the finger.
So his had a resistive screen - try using your phone with gloves sometime, and see how well that works for you.
Indeed, and this is nothing new - the Iphones have long being playing catchup to what's available in cheap bog standard phones (e.g., 3G, copy/paste, video recording, Java, MMS, ability to run apps from anywhere, tethering). Sure, it has better hardware (you'd hope so, for the price), but it's also had gaps that have taken Apple years to fix (and in some cases, they're still not available), and it is hardly the be all and end all of phones, nor is it clear why it deserves the "smartphone" label when other phones don't (all feature phones are smartphones these days, really, by the original meaning of the term).
What does majority voting have to do with it being a free speech issue? They are completely unrelated.
Are you saying that if the majority voted to ban video games (not that unlikely, given the hysteria), that everyone here on Slashdot should stop criticising the ban, because twoo democracy is the best thing ever and must be respected at all cost?
What about laws on fictional cartoon child images - something widely opposed and criticised here on Slashdot, but it's conceivable a majority would support them.
You may agree or disagree with it
Yes, he does disagree with it. That's what he's saying.
No one has claimed that people didn't for it. That's a straw man argument. It's irrelevant to his point.
they are only not allowed to impose it on everyone else in the form of giant rockets
So if that's really the reason, when are Church spires going to be banned, by the same logic? Here in the UK, people buying property even end up having to pay for them (I know myself, as I recently had to pay £100 insurance to cover the liability).
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed - I don't know why styluses seemed to go out of fashion. The biggest phone company, Nokia, still uses them however - I like using the one on my 5800.
And I'm also curious about the point of hover - Nokia have solved this in that if you keep your finger against the screen, it treats it as a hover. You can then either release for a "click", or slide your finger away. It's not ideal, because I don't think there is a fundamental way to solve this (unless screens can literally detect a hover), but it works. But I guess no one is interested when UI issues are solved by, ooh, only the largest phone company in the world. People like the author of this article only care when it's one of the smallest phone companies, i.e., Apple. (No doubt if Apple copied this, we'd be hearing about it all over the press about how wonderful and innovative they were...)
There's always a money angle, we do live in a capitalist society after all.
If Apple doesn't want to fix it (and why should they? broken is broken), why should they
Ah yes, this one again, a common pro-Apple straw man argument. How come we never say it for any other company? "Well, why should Microsoft fix bugs in Windows, if they don't want to, why should they?"
The point is, no one is claiming that Apple don't have the right to release crappy products. People are just pointing out the fact that the products, in their opinion, have flaws. Apple have every right to released flawed products, sure - but if that's the best argument you can come up with, it doesn't bode very well; it means you're conceding that the flaws exist.
My 5800 from Nokia supports Flash - might not be perfect, but it's there for when I do need it.
And in response to the article - for heaven's sake! The Ipad isn't even released, and now people talk about it as if it was the definitive touch screen device! Doing this for the Iphone was bad enough, when there were companies with larger market share. Now we have a product that has obviously zero market share being portrayed as the single market leader...
Sure, it's a valid argument for why the Ipad is of little interest in a market filled by (far cheaper) netbooks that have a real keyboard and where Flash works fine. But the spin doesn't seem to be why "Here's why touchscreen only devices are bad for Flash" but rather "Here's why Flash is bad for touchscreens, and the almighty Apple are so wonderful for not allowing it!"
And a simulation of life doesn't satisfy the biological conditions of life - the food, components, responses etc are all simulated, which is on the same level as "simulated weather might get the simulated cat wet". A simulation of the weather can't get me wet, but a simulation of a cat can't scratch me, nor can I stroke it.
But anyhow, if you do believe a simulation of life to count as life, I don't think it's then unreasonable to say that something in a computer program counts as life. Kitkoan seemed to be both arguing that simulations counted, but also saying therefore that it's wrong to think of a simulation as being alive, and hence arguing the definition to be wrong. Whether or not simulations should be counted, I don't see this as an argument against the biological definition.
Homeostasis - Adjusts flame temperature to match fuel and oxidizer chemical composition and ratio of availability
But that's not a constant state. Homeostatis is about keeping things the same when the external environment changes. That fire changes when the external environment changes suggests it doesn't do this one very well at all!
Organization - Collects to maximize burn rate given state and configuration of fuel and oxidizer
That's not what organisation means. What is fire composed of structurally?
Adaptation - Will attempt to consume all available fuel by any means necessary
And the adaption is?
Response to Stimuli - Is influenced by and reacts to stimuli such as wind and the movement of fuel sources
By that logic, a brick would satisfy this, because if I drop it, it "reacts" by falling. Anything would satisfy this criterion, making it redundant. Whilst I'm not sure exactly what the defining line is, I presume it's more than any passive movement caused by physical forces.
But none of that actually happens - it's all a simulation. Yes, I'd say it's reasonable to say it's a simulation of life. This is no more profound than saying I can simulate nuclear fusion on a computer, but that doesn't mean it's actually nuclear fusion.
E.g., what mushrooms are these that they eat? You have mushrooms in your computer?
A liger's cells reproduce.
How would fire meet adaption? And how would it fit organisation or response to stimuli?
My face is already public, so there's nothing extra to lose. They might as well just look at me, anyway.
I'm reminded of that recent story of people selling faked "Iphones". Those people were mocked, yet it seems people are happy to have a fake photoshop to run on their Iphones...
So in other words, once a platform has all the things that currently stop making it being a real platform, it'll be a real platform. That's different from any other platform how, exactly?
Oh you missed one: it needs to actually be released. Duke Nukem Forever will be a real game, once it's released too (I hear the department of redundancy department are working on it).
But where was the front page news about GIMP for the N900?
Oh sorry, I forgot, this is Slashdot. Nostalgia for Apple fans, and stuff that hasn't been released yet.
I thought it was just like my Amiga too ;) (Albeit with vastly higher system requirements, and running a lot slower.) But yes, the criticisms of Windows being hard to use have long since disappeared. Didn't classic Mac OS lack memory protection though? All of the OSes back then that lacked memory protection were fundamentally unstable. In some sense, Windows 9x was ahead as it did have memory protection for applications, but this was offset by it being more reliant on drivers, which weren't protected.
I've not really seen any evidence that any operating system today is less stable than any other - it all seems to be anecdotal evidence, or the situation where the most common OS is assumed to be more unstable, because you hear about the crashes more often, where as users of niche operating systems are more likely to not mention their crashes.
Mathematicians don't care about trivial things like the actual numerical answer. As long as you've shown there's a solution, that's good enough :)
(I think this applies to other subject areas - most of the subject matter is unrelated to what lay people commonly think it's about. I had a History teacher at school who said she was "bad at dates". Another example would be someone studying English, with bad spelling...)
Indeed. When I was helping my parents by their first computer, I had no end of "Get a Mac" comments from friends, who told me I'd otherwise be flooded with requests about Windows from them, unless I persuaded them to spend twice as much money on an Apple PC.
Well, years later, and there's hardly been any questions at all - the only questions have been general computing ones, that they would have asked for Apple too (and if they did have a Mac, I wouldn't have been able to help them, but with Windows I could).
But what better way to show how broad and draconian the laws on child porn have become, by using them against people in positions of authority, where it's clear the purpose wasn't pedophilia?
When someone is arrested for possessing a naughty photo of a 17 year old, do you think that "no proof of actual intention of a sexual intention" will cut it? No - and the law doesn't care about that. It's irrelevant.
In that case there's a dispute about what happened. But I don't see what that has to do with your quote - where is anyone claiming that copying files constitutes theft?
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot the claims of one random person on Slashdot define whether a country is part of Asia or not.
Er, no, RTFS - he removed the servers.
This is the one time that referring to "IP theft" actually makes sense. He stole it, removing the original rather than duplicating.
Do people who commit piracy do so by going to the record companies at night, sneaking in, and removing their CDs?
Anyhow, where does anyone accuse him of stealing? Or are you just making up a straw man?
Surely people can already download another search application from another site, without waiting for the official app store?
Oh wait, I forgot, this is the Iphone.
The US may not have "Iphone fakes", but obviously there is a market for $120 or similar phones, without contract. The Iphone fake things sounds more a property of fashion than technicality - people are engulfed by the RDF, and think they look hip if they have an Iphone.
I showed him mine and the way it's supposed to work, with just a light flick of the finger.
So his had a resistive screen - try using your phone with gloves sometime, and see how well that works for you.
The point is that $599 is way more than $120, as mentioned in the OP.
Indeed, and this is nothing new - the Iphones have long being playing catchup to what's available in cheap bog standard phones (e.g., 3G, copy/paste, video recording, Java, MMS, ability to run apps from anywhere, tethering). Sure, it has better hardware (you'd hope so, for the price), but it's also had gaps that have taken Apple years to fix (and in some cases, they're still not available), and it is hardly the be all and end all of phones, nor is it clear why it deserves the "smartphone" label when other phones don't (all feature phones are smartphones these days, really, by the original meaning of the term).
Is that you, Data?
Especially if you can't ever seem to get it right.
Aha, an imposter!
What does majority voting have to do with it being a free speech issue? They are completely unrelated.
Are you saying that if the majority voted to ban video games (not that unlikely, given the hysteria), that everyone here on Slashdot should stop criticising the ban, because twoo democracy is the best thing ever and must be respected at all cost?
What about laws on fictional cartoon child images - something widely opposed and criticised here on Slashdot, but it's conceivable a majority would support them.
You may agree or disagree with it
Yes, he does disagree with it. That's what he's saying.
No one has claimed that people didn't for it. That's a straw man argument. It's irrelevant to his point.
they are only not allowed to impose it on everyone else in the form of giant rockets
So if that's really the reason, when are Church spires going to be banned, by the same logic? Here in the UK, people buying property even end up having to pay for them (I know myself, as I recently had to pay £100 insurance to cover the liability).