Where's your evidence that most people think that way?
I think chances are a lot of people are pissed off by the nonsense. There's just nothing they can do.
Try telling some 40-year-old mother from Peoria that you'd rather sacrifice security for freedom.
I wouldn't tell her that at all, because the whole security vs freedom thing is a false dichotomy in the first place. I would tell her that if she's worried about the small risk of dying, she's far better off not getting on a plane in the first place.
She'll tell you that no price is too high to make sure her children, and other people's children remain safe.
If she's a "OMG Think Of The Children" type, just point out that these scanners mean complete strangers will be having naked photos of her underage children. "What if one's a pedophile?" tell her, "What if an image gets sneaked out?"
My thoughts exactly. The police involved should be prosecuted under the same draconian anti-terrorism laws that would be used against anyone else who dared to pull such a stunt.
Well, if we get daily stories about Apple vaporware based on rumour from unreliable sources about possible new products, I think we can have an occasional story about predictions for Google products too.
You only get higher figures by fiddling the market to only look at a made up definition of "smartphone" which is illdefined - go on, give me a clear definition that includes Iphones, but doesn't include most feature phones?
Obviously if you redefine the market to only include Apple and a few competitor phones, 10% is hardly surprising, and not anything special. It's still less than many other companies (the biggest are Nokia, at around 40%). Apple might be doing better than a platform that's been released later than them, but that doesn't make them the biggest, or anywhere near it. For some reason though, many people on Slashdot seem to be under the illusion they are.
But you're conveniently ignoring all the other competitors in the store, such as Nokia.
If you're making a judgement from the store-window point of view, you need to compare all of them. Comparing the Iphone only to a newly released first generation Android phone is just a cheap trick to make Apple's phones look better than they are.
I think it's the get-off-my-lawn luddism applied to old school Internet users. Anything to do with blogs or social networking gets the same treatment.
Only three stories earlier to this one, do we have an Eve Online story, with none of these criticisms. Of course, it's fair to say that a game is more fun than something that isn't a game, but the SL criticisms aren't about that. The "get a first life" style comments would apply to any online environment, be it IRC, Eve Online, or indeed amusingly, posting on Slashdot, as you point out.
Ah yes, let's list transgender people alongside failing at life. Perhaps the point of Slashdot is for people like you who want to throw insults, when you'd be too scared to do so in the real world, right?
I don't know what the point of Second Life is either, but the obvious comparison is to things like IRC. People make the same tired cliched criticisms of IRC as you did of SL, but I'd hope that generally any geek on Slashdot didn't fall for that.
If I own property, I don't get to make demands on people flying over it. Can the US make demands on satellites passing overhead, too?
The "ownership" in these cases is simply a matter of who's able to back it up with action. But are you seriously suggesting that the US start shooting down civilian planes - an act of mass murder and terrorism - all because they didn't hand over private details of people, that's none of their business? The very idea disgusts me.
Indeed - I'm aghast that people are even thinking that this is a dilemma. Is the US seriously going to start shooting civilian planes down, for not handing over people's private information?
I've got to laugh at the irony of committing an act of terrorism, in the name of fighting "terrorism". Or I would laugh, if it wasn't so serious.
I fail to see why this is even a dilemma. If a third country demanded handing over all manner of invasive details, would the country and airlines stand for it? Would America? I hope not. Where would we draw the line - theoretically a country could demand anything they like!
The obvious response is for the other countries to withdraw permission for American airlines to enter their airspace, if America is unwilling to play fair. The response is never to give into unreasonable demands.
Already doable - Nokia's tablets and smartphones can use bluetooth keyboards.
The thing stopping devices being "fully fledged computers" is the display - AFAIK you can't yet connect these devices to normal monitors (and that would also mean having graphics chips on the phone/tablet that can drive the higher resolution).
"Iphone" refers to several different models. If you're looking at total sales of a company, 21 million is nothing in the phone market.
On that note, I'm thoroughly confused by "If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year." as if that's meant to be significant. Twice as many as a not exactly astounding number?
No one is claiming Apple should be ignored. The problem is that we get daily stories based on nothing more than rumour of vaporware from unreliable sources, whilst actual product releases from major companies that are far more successful in that market *do* get ignored.
Firstly, I'm surprised that such a logical fallacy gets modded up, but then this is an Apple story ("X prediction was wrong in the past, therefore Y prediction must be wrong too"?!)
But what's wrong with that often-quoted statement? He doesn't say the Ipod will fail, he says it's lame. Since when does being popular mean it can't be lame? Oh okay - it's now fair game to ridicule every Apple fan who criticises Windows and Internet Explorer. Given how popular they are, they obviously can't be lame, right?
Personally I love my Sandisk Sansa, because I thought the Ipod Shuffle offering was lame. There, I've said it. But I guess according to you, I'm not allowed my own opinion? Quarter of the storage space at the same price, primitive controls, can only use the Apple headphones, and no card slot for additional storage. But I'd never have heard of the Sansa as an alternative if I only read Slashdot, instead I have to read mainstream articles. News for Nerds? Not anymore.
Except I don't think it's the fanboys this time, as much as the PC industry pundits and "analysts."
Same thing. Just because you have a job as a journalist doesn't mean you can't be a fanboy. Indeed, given the historical usage of Macs in DTP and design, it would explain the pro-Apple views that pervade the media.
And it's nothing new. We have it with the Iphone, and we've had it for years with every previous Apple product - the media and "analysts" are driving the rumour cycle, not just random people posting on Slashdot.
Further prediction: even if tablets fail, we'll still have endless stories about the almighty Itablet (with everything else referred to as a clone - even if like Nokia they're more successful and were doing it earlier), pretending that they outsell both netbooks and phones.
The real question is, since this story itself is nothing more than idle speculation, why don't we each get a front page news story for our predictions too?
It's too close to netbooks, but not as useful as a netbook.
I agree. Even on phones, it's a questionable tradeoff whether to do away with a real keyboard for a touch screen one. But on a larger device? There's no way I'd do without one.
Sure yes, at the high end you could buy better - the problem wasn't Commodore, but that Motorola were falling behind Intel (the 68040 coming out later than the 486).
But how much did that machine cost? What the Amiga did much better was providing decent performance at low cost, which is what many people want. Indeed, it's what people still want today: think how many people today buy low cost PCs, compared with people spending thousands? Again, it's an example of where the PC is popular today, but filling what the Amiga was doing back then anyway.
Your point doesn't support the original rant about the Amiga platform as a whole. And if PC's were so good, why were Amigas still being preferred back then for things like video and 3D rendering? The only "history" that you originally referred to were things that happened since Commodore went bust.
So basically you're even worse than I originally thought. You were someone who spent an immense amount of money of a high end computer, and here you are 20 years later, still whining about how your machine was better than someone else's!
For heaven's sake. If I had money I could go and buy a super computer, but I've got better things to do than do that just to brag, and I understand that most people would rather spend smaller amounts of money for something more cost effective. I'm not going to get upset that most people buy PCs today, and I'm certainly not going to be still obsessed by it 20 years later.
We still get occasional articles of other popular old platforms, such as MacOS. And we still get occasional articles of current but obscure platforms. The Amiga falls into both of these categories, so why should it be any different?
Certainly more interesting than the daily Iphone advertisements, anyway...
The fact that it wasn't a good solution 20 years later doesn't make it a "kludge" when actually it was the best solution at the time period. And plenty of other platforms did - and still do - use custom generations of chips (though these days it's more common on consoles).
Under current laws, it would be the original girl herself guilty of a serious crime, for making the images in the first place (the fact that it's of her own body is irrelevant).
Slashdot Mirror
Where's your evidence that most people think that way?
I think chances are a lot of people are pissed off by the nonsense. There's just nothing they can do.
Try telling some 40-year-old mother from Peoria that you'd rather sacrifice security for freedom.
I wouldn't tell her that at all, because the whole security vs freedom thing is a false dichotomy in the first place. I would tell her that if she's worried about the small risk of dying, she's far better off not getting on a plane in the first place.
She'll tell you that no price is too high to make sure her children, and other people's children remain safe.
If she's a "OMG Think Of The Children" type, just point out that these scanners mean complete strangers will be having naked photos of her underage children. "What if one's a pedophile?" tell her, "What if an image gets sneaked out?"
My thoughts exactly. The police involved should be prosecuted under the same draconian anti-terrorism laws that would be used against anyone else who dared to pull such a stunt.
I've got a decent Nokia smartphone. You don't have to restrict yourself to those covered by Slashdot. Look in a shop sometime.
I'm not sure - can you clarify where exactly they are on the release cycle?
Well, if we get daily stories about Apple vaporware based on rumour from unreliable sources about possible new products, I think we can have an occasional story about predictions for Google products too.
It has 4% market share of phones worldwide.
You only get higher figures by fiddling the market to only look at a made up definition of "smartphone" which is illdefined - go on, give me a clear definition that includes Iphones, but doesn't include most feature phones?
Obviously if you redefine the market to only include Apple and a few competitor phones, 10% is hardly surprising, and not anything special. It's still less than many other companies (the biggest are Nokia, at around 40%). Apple might be doing better than a platform that's been released later than them, but that doesn't make them the biggest, or anywhere near it. For some reason though, many people on Slashdot seem to be under the illusion they are.
But you're conveniently ignoring all the other competitors in the store, such as Nokia.
If you're making a judgement from the store-window point of view, you need to compare all of them. Comparing the Iphone only to a newly released first generation Android phone is just a cheap trick to make Apple's phones look better than they are.
I think it's the get-off-my-lawn luddism applied to old school Internet users. Anything to do with blogs or social networking gets the same treatment.
Only three stories earlier to this one, do we have an Eve Online story, with none of these criticisms. Of course, it's fair to say that a game is more fun than something that isn't a game, but the SL criticisms aren't about that. The "get a first life" style comments would apply to any online environment, be it IRC, Eve Online, or indeed amusingly, posting on Slashdot, as you point out.
Ah yes, let's list transgender people alongside failing at life. Perhaps the point of Slashdot is for people like you who want to throw insults, when you'd be too scared to do so in the real world, right?
I don't know what the point of Second Life is either, but the obvious comparison is to things like IRC. People make the same tired cliched criticisms of IRC as you did of SL, but I'd hope that generally any geek on Slashdot didn't fall for that.
Then there are the ones who find time to post on Slashdot.
If I own property, I don't get to make demands on people flying over it. Can the US make demands on satellites passing overhead, too?
The "ownership" in these cases is simply a matter of who's able to back it up with action. But are you seriously suggesting that the US start shooting down civilian planes - an act of mass murder and terrorism - all because they didn't hand over private details of people, that's none of their business? The very idea disgusts me.
Indeed - I'm aghast that people are even thinking that this is a dilemma. Is the US seriously going to start shooting civilian planes down, for not handing over people's private information?
I've got to laugh at the irony of committing an act of terrorism, in the name of fighting "terrorism". Or I would laugh, if it wasn't so serious.
Well said.
I fail to see why this is even a dilemma. If a third country demanded handing over all manner of invasive details, would the country and airlines stand for it? Would America? I hope not. Where would we draw the line - theoretically a country could demand anything they like!
The obvious response is for the other countries to withdraw permission for American airlines to enter their airspace, if America is unwilling to play fair. The response is never to give into unreasonable demands.
What could she do with it that can't already be done on the various phones, tablets and netbooks that exist?
Already doable - Nokia's tablets and smartphones can use bluetooth keyboards.
The thing stopping devices being "fully fledged computers" is the display - AFAIK you can't yet connect these devices to normal monitors (and that would also mean having graphics chips on the phone/tablet that can drive the higher resolution).
Well said, Anonymous Coward!
(I guess you support the opposite - multiple people sharing one identity...)
"Iphone" refers to several different models. If you're looking at total sales of a company, 21 million is nothing in the phone market.
On that note, I'm thoroughly confused by "If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year." as if that's meant to be significant. Twice as many as a not exactly astounding number?
No one is claiming Apple should be ignored. The problem is that we get daily stories based on nothing more than rumour of vaporware from unreliable sources, whilst actual product releases from major companies that are far more successful in that market *do* get ignored.
Firstly, I'm surprised that such a logical fallacy gets modded up, but then this is an Apple story ("X prediction was wrong in the past, therefore Y prediction must be wrong too"?!)
But what's wrong with that often-quoted statement? He doesn't say the Ipod will fail, he says it's lame. Since when does being popular mean it can't be lame? Oh okay - it's now fair game to ridicule every Apple fan who criticises Windows and Internet Explorer. Given how popular they are, they obviously can't be lame, right?
Personally I love my Sandisk Sansa, because I thought the Ipod Shuffle offering was lame. There, I've said it. But I guess according to you, I'm not allowed my own opinion? Quarter of the storage space at the same price, primitive controls, can only use the Apple headphones, and no card slot for additional storage. But I'd never have heard of the Sansa as an alternative if I only read Slashdot, instead I have to read mainstream articles. News for Nerds? Not anymore.
Except I don't think it's the fanboys this time, as much as the PC industry pundits and "analysts."
Same thing. Just because you have a job as a journalist doesn't mean you can't be a fanboy. Indeed, given the historical usage of Macs in DTP and design, it would explain the pro-Apple views that pervade the media.
And it's nothing new. We have it with the Iphone, and we've had it for years with every previous Apple product - the media and "analysts" are driving the rumour cycle, not just random people posting on Slashdot.
Further prediction: even if tablets fail, we'll still have endless stories about the almighty Itablet (with everything else referred to as a clone - even if like Nokia they're more successful and were doing it earlier), pretending that they outsell both netbooks and phones.
The real question is, since this story itself is nothing more than idle speculation, why don't we each get a front page news story for our predictions too?
It's too close to netbooks, but not as useful as a netbook.
I agree. Even on phones, it's a questionable tradeoff whether to do away with a real keyboard for a touch screen one. But on a larger device? There's no way I'd do without one.
And what OS were you running on that machine?
Sure yes, at the high end you could buy better - the problem wasn't Commodore, but that Motorola were falling behind Intel (the 68040 coming out later than the 486).
But how much did that machine cost? What the Amiga did much better was providing decent performance at low cost, which is what many people want. Indeed, it's what people still want today: think how many people today buy low cost PCs, compared with people spending thousands? Again, it's an example of where the PC is popular today, but filling what the Amiga was doing back then anyway.
Your point doesn't support the original rant about the Amiga platform as a whole. And if PC's were so good, why were Amigas still being preferred back then for things like video and 3D rendering? The only "history" that you originally referred to were things that happened since Commodore went bust.
So basically you're even worse than I originally thought. You were someone who spent an immense amount of money of a high end computer, and here you are 20 years later, still whining about how your machine was better than someone else's!
For heaven's sake. If I had money I could go and buy a super computer, but I've got better things to do than do that just to brag, and I understand that most people would rather spend smaller amounts of money for something more cost effective. I'm not going to get upset that most people buy PCs today, and I'm certainly not going to be still obsessed by it 20 years later.
We still get occasional articles of other popular old platforms, such as MacOS. And we still get occasional articles of current but obscure platforms. The Amiga falls into both of these categories, so why should it be any different?
Certainly more interesting than the daily Iphone advertisements, anyway...
The fact that it wasn't a good solution 20 years later doesn't make it a "kludge" when actually it was the best solution at the time period. And plenty of other platforms did - and still do - use custom generations of chips (though these days it's more common on consoles).
Under current laws, it would be the original girl herself guilty of a serious crime, for making the images in the first place (the fact that it's of her own body is irrelevant).
So that helps us how, exactly?