For the first time in history urban areas are over 70% minorities.
I believe this is impossible, by definition.
No, by no means is it impossible.
If group A comprises 30% of the population, while groups B, C, D, E, F and G comprise 15, 15, 14, 13, 12, and 11% respectively, then while the majority of the population are part of minority groups, they are still minority groups, as each group comprises less than half of the population.
However to assume in this case that the remaining group (let's just call them "white males" for argument sake) then constitutes the majority would be a logical fallacy, though a commonly accepted one. In a political sense this does in fact constitute a simple majority when comparing the discrete groups, but often people think of these things in a sense of "most people". "Most people" in this case actually associate themselves with some defined "minority group" hence disturbing the distinction.
To further complicate things, consider that these concepts of majority and minority are defined and displayed in different scales, and will inherently represent differently in any demographic modification. Enter certain areas of business or society and "white male" is actually a majority. Enter another one and "white male" is an aberration. IE, Donald Trump is, in his field, a member of a relative majority, while Marshall Mathers represents, in his field, a minority.
Race relations are complicated? As a member of a (racial) group that has been generally discredited in this area, I can make no claims to expertise or Clue (TM). I can only speak about simple things like math.
Had a nice bit of face time with a Palm product rep not long ago, got stuck at a table with him for six hours of a trade show. Bits of handy info:
-The new Linux based system will be promoted as the next generation of Palm OS, as opposed to something completely different -Full backward compatibility will be retained for legacy palm apps, which accounts for 90% of Palm's loyal userbase -Multithreaded preemptive multitasking will fix the stability issues that arose from cramming phone and email push functionality into a single task 68k-based OS
One could suggest that this is similar to the Mac OS X upgrade from 9.x.
They are talking Intel for the platform, same as the latest generation of, well, everything. Processor should be in the 400mhz neighborhood.
The direct goal is to maintain classic Palm "look and feel" plus compatibility, but with... well, stability. And Power.
Once this platform rolls, Windows Mobile will, by my reckoning, be the only remaining platform NOT based on some flavor of *nix, unless you actually count Symbian and Blackberry as platforms...
(yes, at least in a distant, hypothetical, degrees of separation NT derived sorta way, even Vista has *nix roots)
If you've done this real-world test, I have to ask the followup question. Have you compared the other US 3g technology? Being as the iPhone is pretty much guaranteed not to be available on Verizon, the more relevant question would be whether the 3g speed boost is worth the wait. My "real world" experiences comparing Cingular's EDGE and UMTS has pretty much consisted of "choppy video" versus "clear video." With the exception of downloading LARGE content files, ie if the device was running the iTMS, or possibly streaming media which is generally outside Apple's business model, I can't think of a lot of real situations where the extra bandwidth would be much worth the battery life sacrificed.
Indeed. In the US, the caller does not pay a premium for calling a cell phone. In fact, if they are calling from a mobile on the same network, they pay nothing.
Per minute rates have actually come to be somewhat a thing of the past for domestic calling in the US. Generally, it is only for international calls that cell or house phones are charged per minute; for cell calls, a certain number of minutes tend to be included in monthly plans regardless of who they are used to call.
While this is true, the obvious issue at hand is that while the "cost" is lower due to less software required and fewer technology royalties (which are a non-cost since its Apple's own tech), their are other aspects in which the cost is raised. The bandwidth is an increased cost since the 256 files are often around double the file size. Then there is the perceived "opportunity cost" due to opening up the possibility of P2P sharing of purchased music.
While I understand the logic of feeling that cost and price should be related, in retail these two factors are so vaguely related. For instance, in parts of Long Island, rent for a small retail store can be upwards of $20,000 a month. In that case, a potential customer may question a $29.99 retail price of an item that wholesales for less than $10. But then it must be considered that in order for such a location to be profitable, accounting for other expenses like manning (perhaps $20,000 a month for a medium end retailer), then the location would need in excess of $1,200 a day of "gross profit" to even break even. Hard to accomplish on a $20 per item margin with anything less than 60 such sales. (That being said, not everywhere in the country finances billionaire real estate barons, and chances are a server farm has lower rent).
That all being said about costs, there is the other side of the equation, value. Price is not and should not be based merely on a function of cost. That's what makes some businesses more profitable than others and where we get a concept of margins. Price increasing after several years of a business plan, especially if value is significantly added. The new DRM-free itunes tracks are usable in more devices than just the downloading computer and ipods. They are now playable in cell phones, car MP3 players, set top players, and other brands of portable music players. Not to mention that removing the DRM lifts the 5 computer limit. And the difference in quality is not insubstantial- on an audiophile system, DRM'ed itunes tracks are generally intolerably fuzzy, while 256 or above tend to be near "real" CD quality.
If not for whole albums, plastic backup and all being often priced $10 or less (plus tax and gas) at retailers like Best Buy, this would be the moment that I and other audiophiles finally embrace the ITMS.
Is it me or does a $15 cartridge sounds expensive. I mean, like you go to a copying a store, and copies are like.03 each. $15 = like 450 pages. One of their ink cartridges can't even print that.
On Long Island, NY, gasoline is $3.15/gallon, a typical car gets 20ish mpg, and a copy shop tends to be a 3 mile drive for most people. So the base cost of prints is $1.00 or so plus other trip related expenses. (This is just a small example of how increasing energy costs are having an adverse effect on the entire economy, but that's offtopic).
If it costs me $1.00 fixed cost plus 3 cents a page, then for anything less than a 20 page job it's just not cost effective to outsource casual printing.
I on the other hand purchased a disposable laser printer a few years back for $30 (rebate) at Best Buy. Refill toner is $40. Even on the 5000 sheet toner it came with, for text prints on plain paper, it's barely over a penny a page plus electricity.
That being said, I'm not really sure how much longer I'll be able to afford to be pumping oil fired electricity through applicances such as said laser printer; still, my printer uses less petroleum than my car.
So yes, home printing can still be cost effective. But inkjet printers, I am convinced, sell only due to price point. With color lasers as low as about $300 to consumers, with $100 refill kits good for 5000+ pages, the consumer inkjet market exists ONLY due to the low initial investment. Because of that, I would almost doubt Kodak's success in this venture, but they have been selling inkjets in this price range for a long time with huge success and incredible brand recognition.
However, am I the only person surprised to see this as news? Didn't the old Canon BJC printers use simple, cheap ink-sponge only carts that were cheaper than high quality dirt? The Canon that hides the dust bunnies under my TV seems to also use similar sponge carts, but I'm not sure, in the age of cheap lasers, that I'll ever actually use up an entire suck cartridge. Note that Canon and Kodak are both imaging companies whereas HP, Epson, and others are more "generic profitable consumer technology" factories.
I seem to hear this a lot, and doubt the degree to which it will apply. While the wifi is going to exist, it is not being treated by the manufacturer or carrier as a cost substitute for the data plan. It is exceedingly unlikely that ATT will be allowing a per-use internet service on this phone any more than they do on Blackberries. The sale of this phone will be more akin to how Verizon sells Blackberries than to how any "normal" phone is sold: it will only be offered on certain plans which include the data package. Since the exclusive channel in the US will be the Cingular/AT&T corporate stores, and the Apple stores (which are installing the Cingular point of sale account access system for provisioning this phone).
Prestaging for this phone comes among other things in the form of Cingular finally offering an unlimited SMS package; devices like Blackberry now can get "unlimited everything but out of network voice" service for about $90 a month. If you didn't notice, the iPhone demonstrated features are loudly absent any IM application other than SMS, which, wifi or not, only operates on the GSM/UMTS network. I would not be surprised if the whole $49.98 data nut was completely comulsory with the iPhone purchase, and became part of the associated two year contract.
So no, I don't think the built in wifi will have any adverse impact on the carriers whatsoever. Err, not on Cingular anyway. It will, in all likelihood, be used as compensation for the lack of 3g, which on the GSM network in the US is actually less widely deployed than wifi. AT&T does in fact own a more extensive wifi hotspot network than t-mobile, and I have never heard of such an offering from Verizon. So maybe Apple's assistance to rapidly deploy a wifi-GSM hybrid onto the Cingular network will help achieve a new and chilling level of market dominance.
I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. Where in TFA did it say anything about selling Linux or refusing to sell Windows?
This simply indicates to Microsoft that The Public (tm) have rejected their forced upgrade pipeline. If anything, they should consider it as a blessing that rather than flocking in droves to the ACTUAL competition, that they are simply preferring to choose a different (and for many purposes, superior) product from the same vendor.
In any other industry, consumers are encouraged to buy Last Year's Model while it still exists in stock. Auto makers will provide incentives to help dealers clear out last years stock. Integrated solution providers like Blackberry and Iridium will discount older hardware to help sell their service, and hope to gain the upgrade later on. Why should MS be any different? A consumer selecting XP is still sending licensing fees back to the mothership, and on a discontinued product so that in effect the money goes to the new product. On the whole I fail to see the problem here, except that MS failed to make their upgrade compelling enough for customers to choose it even at no additional cost.
Actually, I have to say my experience with MBNA was very good, and I was somewhat dismayed when they got bought by BOA. If not for my fairly great rate, I would have ditched this card a long time ago, probably about the time I closed out all my other accounts with BOA in response to their customer service and hidden fees substantial enough to single handedly eradicate my savings account.
Now I guess I have no further reason to do business with this company, and I advise everyone I know of the same. It seems their bread and butter is giant corporations like AT&T, so they're in no danger of going under just due to every consumer in America running from them like they were on fire; all the same, it'd be a nice thing to see.
I have a mixed reaction to this phone. My first, upon reading the advertizing which is all I could access after the/.ing, was "Why doesn't Cingular offer a phone like this." (I am not an unbiased observer.) I work for Cingular and a day doesn't go by where I don't see a broken RAZR. Yesterday's was cleanly halved from (supposedly) a single drop. The only phone Cingular sells that in my experience qualifies as remotely durable is the Blackberry, and that does nothing for the "I want a phone that's just a phone" crowd, nor does it do anything about the lack of weatherproofing.
This phone, of course, proves what I've suspected all along- that there's no tremendous technical reason why a phone can't be built durable. Silicon rubber membranes are already in use to make the keyboard functional; why they could not be made to enshroud 100% of the electronics except the battery terminals (or even go apple style and seal the battery in) is beyond me. The argument that circuitry should be accessible for repair is invalid; in todays market, phones are rarely repaired except by the manufacturers themselves, and the most common repair is preventable water damage. The other possible argument is cooling, but phones are designed for such low power use that this should be a nonissue anyway. Were I a true geek, I'd test this by building my own rugged phone...
A few years back either/. or a phone industry site had an article about a "disposable phone" concept. As such, it's a wasted idea, but it was proof of technology showing that years ago it was possible to create a rugged, simple phone of flexible materials. The "business end" of my blackberry occupies less volume than the battery cover does, so to enshroud it in plastic (especially a thin urethane coating merely a level beyond conformal coating) would at most add 1-2 mm in thickness. The design is already sufficient against dropping and pressure, and the risk of a water short on the battery terminal side causing damage is negligible except perhaps for salt water.
Hence, in short, the main question this phone raises is "why aren't all phones like this?"
The second question is "Why is it $300 with contract and not even bluetooth or memory card support?" To put that in perspective that means a "no contract" price of $450-$500 (same as an iphone.) Yes, I'd like my phone to be durable, and yes, in a sense one could compare it to the price of the 2 to 3 sequential phones it replaces. And I TRULY don't understand why no bluetooth. In a rugged phone, BT is a perfect fit; eliminate the electrical connection to a headset, AND market a $150 rugged bluetooth headset to go with it (...5) Profit!!!)
My hope is that this product is a hot enough seller that it puts some fear into the other manufacturers, and maybe we see some competition on this front. With open market competition involved, I see no reason why "rugged phone" couldn't become the new "camera phone" and become a standard feature within two years or so. Besides, of course, the obvious conspiratory reasons that will be posted by others in response to this statement, and yes, that's a damn shame. (about the reasons, not the posts.)
What is this keypad you speak of? The OM, just like the iPhone, does away with it. The consumer's apparent love for the keypad as it is has helped prevent market change in this area. Nokia has tried a few phones with unconventional interfaces. None of them particularly took off. Many companies have tried "alternative" mechanical designs, but in the end the old Startac-style clamshell and Brick style candy bar still reign supreme.
Quite possibly, it will take an Apple to finally break this barrier against phone evolution. Look at trends in design over the past ten years, and a few interesting points stand out. Size, for instance, bottomed out (in the US, anyway) somewhere around 2000 with the Nokia 8290. I've owned smaller phones, but the modern marketplace is all larger than that model; nearly every phone I deal with on a daily basis is at least twice the size and weight of my VK 2020. On a device such as the Blackberry Pearl, I (anecdotally... I only experience a small segment of the actual customers of the US market) hear a lot of resistance to the size of the keyboard, while at the other side, devices like the larger Blackberry and especially Treo types get complaints about physical size. Seems as though there's no win available, because of necesary compromises between screen and keyboard. The electronics haven't been really limiting, as far as I undestand, for quite some time. So maybe doing away with the fixed keypad alltogether in place of a usable touch screen is the wave of the future.
I can't imagine how this concept can be patentable. I have always assumed any idea that I "thought of" and later saw on the market, such as combining screen and keyboard, to be naught more than "common sense." So many good compromises are available. Howabout lowering the resolution, making each key a discreet display, perhaps oled (like a keyboard recently shown on/.) or digital ink (like that newfangled moto cheap phone) to create multiple softkeys? A Blackberry Suretype style board could work, combined with the predictive letter availability like that on many GPS system interfaces. Creating physical keys with incorporated displays really just serves to lower the digitizer resolution on the phone board, which is itself a workable idea. A touchscreen for a non-stylus device doesn't need pixel resolution, it needs to accurately know fuzzy logic style (sorry, I know that's two decades ago's buzzword) general areas, ie locating the approximate map that overlaps with the majority of the 100ish pixel region where pressure or proximity is felt.
There is one area I have yet to understand why we've seen so little improvement over the years- durability and longevity. I understand all about lead free solder and tin whiskers and poor joints, but why has nobody thought to plastic-coat the circuitry of a phone to make it waterproof and shock resistant? Is there a major technical/electrical/thermal impediment to this, or is it really just something that benefits nobody besides consumers, so nobody wants to fix it? Does OpenMoko intend to be any more survivable than its forbears?
I apologize, I realize I've just created a random rant on the shortcomings of phones. I think I'm going to head down to the local patent clerk to get rich quick. Later...
USA recently passed a law requiring carriers to unlock phones for customers if requested. I'm not sure it applies to Verizon/Sprint or what good it would do you, but for Cingular(AT&T) and T-mobile it means you can use each other's phones and use a local sim when you leave the states. Phones are still locked out the door, though, and I'm not sure what Apple's workaround will be for this... if my only option was to pay $0.99+ a minute when going overseas, I'd certainly steer clear of an iPhone for my world travel needs.
Steve's statement in the keynote about why the keyboard was bad was that, specifically, if you upgrade software later on, a fixed keyboard can't adapt. Why would you need the interface to adapt if you didn't intend for the software to be flexible?
Not to mention Java. The first phone to be lacking Java loses. (err, except for that other big phone company.)
I am making a statement that does NOT in any way represent the opinion or policy of my employer, nor disclose any confidential policy information.
That being said, I sell Cingular for a living, and deal mainly with "high end" customers. In the past 48 hours, virtually every customer I've had has asked about the iPhone, whether they ultimately bought a Blackberry, a Windows phone (which sell in spite of my best efforts), or a "basic" phone. At $499 with contract, it will be the most expensive handset ever sold by Cingular in any significant volume, and expect the monthly service to be the same as a 3G PDA- probably about $50 a month on top of the voice plan. And you know what? It will sell like iPods and it will pay my bills. The two objections most people raise about premium phones are price and ease of use. The iPhone promises to solve one of those, and I would not be surprised if the exclusive agreement between Apple and Cingular solves the other. While the device price is very high, it would not surprise me if the data plan on it were discounted similar to a Blackberry. (Cingular "discounts" blackberry plans to $10 below comparable PDA plans, despite the service being much more useful and reliable.) How many people purchased the iPod Photo when it came out at the same price as the iPhone? How many parents have bought Sidekicks and Blackberries for the same teenage children they buy iPods for?
The strangest thing about the phones, in my experience, is that so far, the speculation has not seemed to slow down the rest of the smartphone market; in fact, if anything, it has had almost the opposite effect, and I can't make any sense of that. The new Windows GSM Treo has actually been selling (somewhat) despite being priced just $100 below the iPhone. The Blackberry Pearl is as popular as ever, with customers casually discussing the iPhone (and their plans to upgrade to it in a year or two) at the point of sale. Of course, the lack of 3G should hurt the iPhone, but the strange thing is, if you talk to the average prospective customer (the one in the store... not the one on slashdot) 3G just isn't compelling enough to matter. For every 3G device I sell, I deliver 10 to 15 Blackberries and GPRS phones. The technology just isn't deployed enough for people to care. Maybe once video calling hits people will start to care, but until then, watching TV and surfing the web on a 3.5" or smaller screen just doesn't justify a megabit downlink for most people.
Of the slashdotters here, though, who actually has a data phone already? Who is planning to buy an iPhone despite it's $500+ cost of entry and three figure monthly cost? (Raises hands both times) Worst part for me will be having to come up with the cash for two, because I think my sigificant other will bludgeon me with mine if I don't get her one.
In regards to the above referenced dialogue, I may be interested in commencing service with Verizon Wireless. I have heard it quoted now from three different reps that your rate is.002 cents ($0.00002) per kilobyte for international data. Is the rate the same for US service? If so, I would like to initiate a new data service account with Verizon Wireless. Please inform me what equipment is compatible with this rate, and what other charges are involved. I look forward to a satisfying relationship.
On a footnote, I am aware that most other carriers rates are much higher than this. How is it that you are able to undercut the competition by such a huge margin?
Right now, in the US ALL of the major providers have the SAME plans. $40 a month gets you 450 minutes of daytime calling and either unlimited or thousands of night/weekend minutes. No included text messages, but you can get 200 (text or picture) for about $5 (US).
This whole thread is confusing to me because I am being mindful of exchange rates. I'm wondering what "90 pounds worth" of value translates to, as well. To illustrate:
On Cingular, if you do prepaid (akin to what the non-US bit of the world uses for most mobiles) it's $0.25/minute or text, or $0.10/min + $1/day. So a typical plan gives you, by that math, $112.5 worth of minutes for $40, or $50 worth of texts for $5. I sell this stuff for a living, so at times I'll point out to a customer that with a $15 "data package" you get "$50 worth of internet (at a penny a kilobyte) and $250 worth of messages."
Ok, so really, my point is, cell service is really not very expensive in the US for those who buy the packages and who use the services. I really am curious what it costs in the rest of the world. What are the usual per minute rates to make call in the UK, EU, and asia?
I do know that when I did prepaid service in Malaysia and Hong Kong, it cost me about the same to call the US from my cell phone as it would have cost to call the US from a prepaid phone in the US, so I'm sure the rates were, in US economic terms, unfathomably good. But I still don't know what those rates were.
Where I worked, it was 70 hours a week for the "good" jobs- in port. The job I last held was 98 hours a week out to sea, 70 or so in port. Not sure that's 100% typical, but I know that it applied to at least 1/3 of the 6000 people on my ship.
When I hear people talking about a 60 hour work week nowadays I'm envious and exctatic. Now that I'm out my new job is promising me a 60 or less hour week and (glory of glories) an hourly wage with the option of overtime.
I guess my point is that the US government is "guilty" of exploitive labor practices as well, but I don't get the impression that anyone really cares. If we couldn't get soldiers and sailors to work hard for less than 3 dollars an hour, either this country wouldn't be as "safe" as we think it is, or there'd be even more complaints about military spending.
Titanium is accepted slang for the look. Only the first generation were Ti, but it was enough to establish the exotic "look and feel" of the Powerbook G4 in the minds of consumers everywhere.
I never owned one, but based on other titanium objects I've owned, I think it's a good thing to not be still using it. Too brittle, expensive and impossible to repair. Not bad for watches, though, as long as you make the clasp of something else.
I'm not sure you understand the definition of profit margin.
You can run a business at 0% profit margin and go on and on forever. You'd probably even be very competitive.
Thing is that in a small business what to a large business would be itemized as "CEO's salary" is miscategorized as "profit margin." So if you itemized correctly many small businesses would end up as 0 margin companies, though the CEO might find himself with a varying and inadequate salary.
For a corporation, if profits were 0 for a long time you'd have irate stockholders, which would result in stocks being sold, value diminishing, equity vanishing, and a net loss magically appearing due to economic forces that I do not personally comprehend. But again, if the stockholders were OK with it, a company could persist forever with a 0 or small margin. It could even grow tremendously with just a slim percentage- if, for instance, Apple slashed their prices by 8% on average to drop down to a 1% margin, it would probably result in greater sales and increased revenues, larger market share, etc, so that the company would be growing; they could just as well invest it into advertising or RD or hardware specs, and in any of these cases the margin would go below 9% and the volume would go up.
The evidence that Apple is not all about sales volume is that they haven't achieved sales volume. They could sell iBooks for $799 and maybe sell a few more. They could sell 30 gig iPods for $269 and maybe sell more (well lets see how the current round sells, my money is on "lots and lots".) They're not all about sales volume, and they're not all about per-unit profits, and so neither is really a good measure of the company's health. Apple is doing what Steve Jobs and other boardmembers want it to do, and it's doing it very well, as evidenced by the fact that you don't hear those people complaining, and the only complaint I've heard from an Apple employee was (I think) in jest, when he joked that he probably made less than me (I doubt it's true) so I suspect the company is doing ok.
So I wonder. What exactly do we care about the company's profit margin?
This is what I care about about Apple. They made the computer that I use every day. They make the music player I listen to every day. Both things are the most satisfying products I own. I'm pretty sure I'll succumb to their "marketing" again. And I know I don't mind because I like their products and yeah, I appreciate the image.
Dell does well because they make decent stuff cheaply.. They are the Honda of computer makers, and though they ain't perfect, they are pretty darn good and TONS of people like 'em.
Umm, No.
I've owned Hondas. Honda cars last forever and ever and are painfully bland. I put 99000 miles on a Civic and had one problem... a turn signal switch that didn't return automatically. I got rid of the car because it bored me.
Honda also makes excellent motorcycles, ATVs, lawnmowers, etc, and in every area of industry that they exist, their customers swear by them, and their products are innovatively designed with intelligent features and bulletproof reliability.
Not terribly unlike Apple.
Dell, on the other hand, would more aptly be compared to one of the American car companies, say back in the nineties before they started to wake up. Mediocre products that, when it really comes down to it, are just ever so slightly lacking in quality or innovation, slightly subpar design, but sold in huge numbers because of price and familiarity, and the oft misplaced "buy American" philosophy. (Not sure this applies quite as much, as most American car makers are starting to correct themselves, but it's still mostly true.)
I think you're trying to compare Honda and Dell on the commodity nature of their product? Hondas are commodities because of another attribute of commodities: they're reliable. A true commodity item, ie coffee or oil, does not vary substantially in quality, and can be reliably priced as a function of supply and demand and other market/economic forces. Honda cars are ubiquitous enough to ALMOST meet this definition, but even in that case, consumer perception plays enough of a role to skew it off; people will pay more for a Honda than for a Chevy, to the tune of paying >sticker vs sub-invoice.
Sadly, you're right about "tons of people like 'em". I got a phone call recently from a friend who wants help picking out a Dell laptop. It has to be a Dell, he says, because his company gives him a discount with Dell. You can't compete with them on price alone, and to most consumers that's all that matters, especially when you have a geek family member to fix it when it breaks. I've had at least three Dell laptops, and while they were decent for the price, I'd never actually pay money for one. The only computer I've ever bought in once piece was a Mac, and I'm never going back.
Aside from buzzword type and "everybody knows" comments, I haven't heard or read much about the intense hazard that H2 supposedly presents.
From how little I understand about the material, the nature of the explosive hazard in general isn't so much a function of magnitude as just the fact that it's explosive; ie, something it has in common with most motor fuels, not something that sets it apart.
Ergo, why is compressed hydrogen more of a hazard than say, CNG? I think the "mounds of burning metal" comment is a bit ridiculous- unless I'm just missing the punchline or a hyperbole went over my head.
Please, would a more chemically inclined engineer explain this to me?
Clamshell 2 inches thick... so roughly, the thickness of my Nokia 6230 cell phone, ipod nano, and Canon Powershot SD200 stacked on top of each other? For a 1.3mp camera and a 512 meg player, how is that an improvement over separates?
To achieve the same effect I could just get a rubber band or a sleek velvet bag (the one that came with my sunglasses works) to tie all my existing stuff together.
The idea behind a video blog for a dead person isn't so you can send them a message. That's just silly- unless it's continually playing on a video screen somewhere, how will the ghost ever see it? Have you ever seen a ghost browse the web? None of the ghosts I've ever seen have been sufficiently solid to move the mouse, so clearly that wouldn't work.
A better idea (and the one I think the grandparent was getting at) would be to leave a video message to be played to your family and friends after your death, that they never get to see when you're alive. Sort of like how people sometimes write messages to relatives in their will, like "You're not getting my car, you selfish prick. I'm donating it to the catholics." With a postmortem video blog, you could actually say it to their face. Or, more likely, say a few words of comfort to your (ideally) grieving wife/kids/parents, like "Look on the bright side, you have the house to yourself now, and all my money!" or "If by any chance I'm still just technically alive, kindly pull the plug." So much fun to be had, not sure how much would be socially acceptable or in good taste.
So yeah. A video blog is for the guy that died to put out a message to his or her survivors, having recorded it in advance, for playback after his demise.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe this is impossible, by definition.
No, by no means is it impossible.
If group A comprises 30% of the population, while groups B, C, D, E, F and G comprise 15, 15, 14, 13, 12, and 11% respectively, then while the majority of the population are part of minority groups, they are still minority groups, as each group comprises less than half of the population.
However to assume in this case that the remaining group (let's just call them "white males" for argument sake) then constitutes the majority would be a logical fallacy, though a commonly accepted one. In a political sense this does in fact constitute a simple majority when comparing the discrete groups, but often people think of these things in a sense of "most people". "Most people" in this case actually associate themselves with some defined "minority group" hence disturbing the distinction.
To further complicate things, consider that these concepts of majority and minority are defined and displayed in different scales, and will inherently represent differently in any demographic modification. Enter certain areas of business or society and "white male" is actually a majority. Enter another one and "white male" is an aberration. IE, Donald Trump is, in his field, a member of a relative majority, while Marshall Mathers represents, in his field, a minority.
Race relations are complicated? As a member of a (racial) group that has been generally discredited in this area, I can make no claims to expertise or Clue (TM). I can only speak about simple things like math.
Had a nice bit of face time with a Palm product rep not long ago, got stuck at a table with him for six hours of a trade show. Bits of handy info:
-The new Linux based system will be promoted as the next generation of Palm OS, as opposed to something completely different
-Full backward compatibility will be retained for legacy palm apps, which accounts for 90% of Palm's loyal userbase
-Multithreaded preemptive multitasking will fix the stability issues that arose from cramming phone and email push functionality into a single task 68k-based OS
One could suggest that this is similar to the Mac OS X upgrade from 9.x.
They are talking Intel for the platform, same as the latest generation of, well, everything. Processor should be in the 400mhz neighborhood.
The direct goal is to maintain classic Palm "look and feel" plus compatibility, but with... well, stability. And Power.
Once this platform rolls, Windows Mobile will, by my reckoning, be the only remaining platform NOT based on some flavor of *nix, unless you actually count Symbian and Blackberry as platforms...
(yes, at least in a distant, hypothetical, degrees of separation NT derived sorta way, even Vista has *nix roots)
If you've done this real-world test, I have to ask the followup question. Have you compared the other US 3g technology? Being as the iPhone is pretty much guaranteed not to be available on Verizon, the more relevant question would be whether the 3g speed boost is worth the wait. My "real world" experiences comparing Cingular's EDGE and UMTS has pretty much consisted of "choppy video" versus "clear video." With the exception of downloading LARGE content files, ie if the device was running the iTMS, or possibly streaming media which is generally outside Apple's business model, I can't think of a lot of real situations where the extra bandwidth would be much worth the battery life sacrificed.
Indeed. In the US, the caller does not pay a premium for calling a cell phone. In fact, if they are calling from a mobile on the same network, they pay nothing.
Per minute rates have actually come to be somewhat a thing of the past for domestic calling in the US. Generally, it is only for international calls that cell or house phones are charged per minute; for cell calls, a certain number of minutes tend to be included in monthly plans regardless of who they are used to call.
While this is true, the obvious issue at hand is that while the "cost" is lower due to less software required and fewer technology royalties (which are a non-cost since its Apple's own tech), their are other aspects in which the cost is raised. The bandwidth is an increased cost since the 256 files are often around double the file size. Then there is the perceived "opportunity cost" due to opening up the possibility of P2P sharing of purchased music.
While I understand the logic of feeling that cost and price should be related, in retail these two factors are so vaguely related. For instance, in parts of Long Island, rent for a small retail store can be upwards of $20,000 a month. In that case, a potential customer may question a $29.99 retail price of an item that wholesales for less than $10. But then it must be considered that in order for such a location to be profitable, accounting for other expenses like manning (perhaps $20,000 a month for a medium end retailer), then the location would need in excess of $1,200 a day of "gross profit" to even break even. Hard to accomplish on a $20 per item margin with anything less than 60 such sales. (That being said, not everywhere in the country finances billionaire real estate barons, and chances are a server farm has lower rent).
That all being said about costs, there is the other side of the equation, value. Price is not and should not be based merely on a function of cost. That's what makes some businesses more profitable than others and where we get a concept of margins. Price increasing after several years of a business plan, especially if value is significantly added. The new DRM-free itunes tracks are usable in more devices than just the downloading computer and ipods. They are now playable in cell phones, car MP3 players, set top players, and other brands of portable music players. Not to mention that removing the DRM lifts the 5 computer limit. And the difference in quality is not insubstantial- on an audiophile system, DRM'ed itunes tracks are generally intolerably fuzzy, while 256 or above tend to be near "real" CD quality.
If not for whole albums, plastic backup and all being often priced $10 or less (plus tax and gas) at retailers like Best Buy, this would be the moment that I and other audiophiles finally embrace the ITMS.
Is it me or does a $15 cartridge sounds expensive. I mean, like you go to a copying a store, and copies are like .03 each. $15 = like 450 pages. One of their ink cartridges can't even print that.
On Long Island, NY, gasoline is $3.15/gallon, a typical car gets 20ish mpg, and a copy shop tends to be a 3 mile drive for most people. So the base cost of prints is $1.00 or so plus other trip related expenses. (This is just a small example of how increasing energy costs are having an adverse effect on the entire economy, but that's offtopic).
If it costs me $1.00 fixed cost plus 3 cents a page, then for anything less than a 20 page job it's just not cost effective to outsource casual printing.
I on the other hand purchased a disposable laser printer a few years back for $30 (rebate) at Best Buy. Refill toner is $40. Even on the 5000 sheet toner it came with, for text prints on plain paper, it's barely over a penny a page plus electricity.
That being said, I'm not really sure how much longer I'll be able to afford to be pumping oil fired electricity through applicances such as said laser printer; still, my printer uses less petroleum than my car.
So yes, home printing can still be cost effective. But inkjet printers, I am convinced, sell only due to price point. With color lasers as low as about $300 to consumers, with $100 refill kits good for 5000+ pages, the consumer inkjet market exists ONLY due to the low initial investment. Because of that, I would almost doubt Kodak's success in this venture, but they have been selling inkjets in this price range for a long time with huge success and incredible brand recognition.
However, am I the only person surprised to see this as news? Didn't the old Canon BJC printers use simple, cheap ink-sponge only carts that were cheaper than high quality dirt? The Canon that hides the dust bunnies under my TV seems to also use similar sponge carts, but I'm not sure, in the age of cheap lasers, that I'll ever actually use up an entire suck cartridge. Note that Canon and Kodak are both imaging companies whereas HP, Epson, and others are more "generic profitable consumer technology" factories.
I seem to hear this a lot, and doubt the degree to which it will apply. While the wifi is going to exist, it is not being treated by the manufacturer or carrier as a cost substitute for the data plan. It is exceedingly unlikely that ATT will be allowing a per-use internet service on this phone any more than they do on Blackberries. The sale of this phone will be more akin to how Verizon sells Blackberries than to how any "normal" phone is sold: it will only be offered on certain plans which include the data package. Since the exclusive channel in the US will be the Cingular/AT&T corporate stores, and the Apple stores (which are installing the Cingular point of sale account access system for provisioning this phone).
Prestaging for this phone comes among other things in the form of Cingular finally offering an unlimited SMS package; devices like Blackberry now can get "unlimited everything but out of network voice" service for about $90 a month. If you didn't notice, the iPhone demonstrated features are loudly absent any IM application other than SMS, which, wifi or not, only operates on the GSM/UMTS network. I would not be surprised if the whole $49.98 data nut was completely comulsory with the iPhone purchase, and became part of the associated two year contract.
So no, I don't think the built in wifi will have any adverse impact on the carriers whatsoever. Err, not on Cingular anyway. It will, in all likelihood, be used as compensation for the lack of 3g, which on the GSM network in the US is actually less widely deployed than wifi. AT&T does in fact own a more extensive wifi hotspot network than t-mobile, and I have never heard of such an offering from Verizon. So maybe Apple's assistance to rapidly deploy a wifi-GSM hybrid onto the Cingular network will help achieve a new and chilling level of market dominance.
I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. Where in TFA did it say anything about selling Linux or refusing to sell Windows?
This simply indicates to Microsoft that The Public (tm) have rejected their forced upgrade pipeline. If anything, they should consider it as a blessing that rather than flocking in droves to the ACTUAL competition, that they are simply preferring to choose a different (and for many purposes, superior) product from the same vendor.
In any other industry, consumers are encouraged to buy Last Year's Model while it still exists in stock. Auto makers will provide incentives to help dealers clear out last years stock. Integrated solution providers like Blackberry and Iridium will discount older hardware to help sell their service, and hope to gain the upgrade later on. Why should MS be any different? A consumer selecting XP is still sending licensing fees back to the mothership, and on a discontinued product so that in effect the money goes to the new product. On the whole I fail to see the problem here, except that MS failed to make their upgrade compelling enough for customers to choose it even at no additional cost.
Actually, I have to say my experience with MBNA was very good, and I was somewhat dismayed when they got bought by BOA. If not for my fairly great rate, I would have ditched this card a long time ago, probably about the time I closed out all my other accounts with BOA in response to their customer service and hidden fees substantial enough to single handedly eradicate my savings account.
Now I guess I have no further reason to do business with this company, and I advise everyone I know of the same. It seems their bread and butter is giant corporations like AT&T, so they're in no danger of going under just due to every consumer in America running from them like they were on fire; all the same, it'd be a nice thing to see.
I have a mixed reaction to this phone. My first, upon reading the advertizing which is all I could access after the /.ing, was "Why doesn't Cingular offer a phone like this." (I am not an unbiased observer.) I work for Cingular and a day doesn't go by where I don't see a broken RAZR. Yesterday's was cleanly halved from (supposedly) a single drop. The only phone Cingular sells that in my experience qualifies as remotely durable is the Blackberry, and that does nothing for the "I want a phone that's just a phone" crowd, nor does it do anything about the lack of weatherproofing.
/. or a phone industry site had an article about a "disposable phone" concept. As such, it's a wasted idea, but it was proof of technology showing that years ago it was possible to create a rugged, simple phone of flexible materials. The "business end" of my blackberry occupies less volume than the battery cover does, so to enshroud it in plastic (especially a thin urethane coating merely a level beyond conformal coating) would at most add 1-2 mm in thickness. The design is already sufficient against dropping and pressure, and the risk of a water short on the battery terminal side causing damage is negligible except perhaps for salt water.
This phone, of course, proves what I've suspected all along- that there's no tremendous technical reason why a phone can't be built durable. Silicon rubber membranes are already in use to make the keyboard functional; why they could not be made to enshroud 100% of the electronics except the battery terminals (or even go apple style and seal the battery in) is beyond me. The argument that circuitry should be accessible for repair is invalid; in todays market, phones are rarely repaired except by the manufacturers themselves, and the most common repair is preventable water damage. The other possible argument is cooling, but phones are designed for such low power use that this should be a nonissue anyway. Were I a true geek, I'd test this by building my own rugged phone...
A few years back either
Hence, in short, the main question this phone raises is "why aren't all phones like this?"
The second question is "Why is it $300 with contract and not even bluetooth or memory card support?" To put that in perspective that means a "no contract" price of $450-$500 (same as an iphone.) Yes, I'd like my phone to be durable, and yes, in a sense one could compare it to the price of the 2 to 3 sequential phones it replaces. And I TRULY don't understand why no bluetooth. In a rugged phone, BT is a perfect fit; eliminate the electrical connection to a headset, AND market a $150 rugged bluetooth headset to go with it (...5) Profit!!!)
My hope is that this product is a hot enough seller that it puts some fear into the other manufacturers, and maybe we see some competition on this front. With open market competition involved, I see no reason why "rugged phone" couldn't become the new "camera phone" and become a standard feature within two years or so. Besides, of course, the obvious conspiratory reasons that will be posted by others in response to this statement, and yes, that's a damn shame. (about the reasons, not the posts.)
What is this keypad you speak of? The OM, just like the iPhone, does away with it. The consumer's apparent love for the keypad as it is has helped prevent market change in this area. Nokia has tried a few phones with unconventional interfaces. None of them particularly took off. Many companies have tried "alternative" mechanical designs, but in the end the old Startac-style clamshell and Brick style candy bar still reign supreme.
/.) or digital ink (like that newfangled moto cheap phone) to create multiple softkeys? A Blackberry Suretype style board could work, combined with the predictive letter availability like that on many GPS system interfaces. Creating physical keys with incorporated displays really just serves to lower the digitizer resolution on the phone board, which is itself a workable idea. A touchscreen for a non-stylus device doesn't need pixel resolution, it needs to accurately know fuzzy logic style (sorry, I know that's two decades ago's buzzword) general areas, ie locating the approximate map that overlaps with the majority of the 100ish pixel region where pressure or proximity is felt.
Quite possibly, it will take an Apple to finally break this barrier against phone evolution. Look at trends in design over the past ten years, and a few interesting points stand out. Size, for instance, bottomed out (in the US, anyway) somewhere around 2000 with the Nokia 8290. I've owned smaller phones, but the modern marketplace is all larger than that model; nearly every phone I deal with on a daily basis is at least twice the size and weight of my VK 2020. On a device such as the Blackberry Pearl, I (anecdotally... I only experience a small segment of the actual customers of the US market) hear a lot of resistance to the size of the keyboard, while at the other side, devices like the larger Blackberry and especially Treo types get complaints about physical size. Seems as though there's no win available, because of necesary compromises between screen and keyboard. The electronics haven't been really limiting, as far as I undestand, for quite some time. So maybe doing away with the fixed keypad alltogether in place of a usable touch screen is the wave of the future.
I can't imagine how this concept can be patentable. I have always assumed any idea that I "thought of" and later saw on the market, such as combining screen and keyboard, to be naught more than "common sense." So many good compromises are available. Howabout lowering the resolution, making each key a discreet display, perhaps oled (like a keyboard recently shown on
There is one area I have yet to understand why we've seen so little improvement over the years- durability and longevity. I understand all about lead free solder and tin whiskers and poor joints, but why has nobody thought to plastic-coat the circuitry of a phone to make it waterproof and shock resistant? Is there a major technical/electrical/thermal impediment to this, or is it really just something that benefits nobody besides consumers, so nobody wants to fix it? Does OpenMoko intend to be any more survivable than its forbears?
I apologize, I realize I've just created a random rant on the shortcomings of phones. I think I'm going to head down to the local patent clerk to get rich quick. Later...
USA recently passed a law requiring carriers to unlock phones for customers if requested. I'm not sure it applies to Verizon/Sprint or what good it would do you, but for Cingular(AT&T) and T-mobile it means you can use each other's phones and use a local sim when you leave the states. Phones are still locked out the door, though, and I'm not sure what Apple's workaround will be for this... if my only option was to pay $0.99+ a minute when going overseas, I'd certainly steer clear of an iPhone for my world travel needs.
Steve's statement in the keynote about why the keyboard was bad was that, specifically, if you upgrade software later on, a fixed keyboard can't adapt. Why would you need the interface to adapt if you didn't intend for the software to be flexible?
Not to mention Java. The first phone to be lacking Java loses. (err, except for that other big phone company.)
iPod games?
I am making a statement that does NOT in any way represent the opinion or policy of my employer, nor disclose any confidential policy information.
That being said, I sell Cingular for a living, and deal mainly with "high end" customers. In the past 48 hours, virtually every customer I've had has asked about the iPhone, whether they ultimately bought a Blackberry, a Windows phone (which sell in spite of my best efforts), or a "basic" phone. At $499 with contract, it will be the most expensive handset ever sold by Cingular in any significant volume, and expect the monthly service to be the same as a 3G PDA- probably about $50 a month on top of the voice plan. And you know what? It will sell like iPods and it will pay my bills. The two objections most people raise about premium phones are price and ease of use. The iPhone promises to solve one of those, and I would not be surprised if the exclusive agreement between Apple and Cingular solves the other. While the device price is very high, it would not surprise me if the data plan on it were discounted similar to a Blackberry. (Cingular "discounts" blackberry plans to $10 below comparable PDA plans, despite the service being much more useful and reliable.) How many people purchased the iPod Photo when it came out at the same price as the iPhone? How many parents have bought Sidekicks and Blackberries for the same teenage children they buy iPods for?
The strangest thing about the phones, in my experience, is that so far, the speculation has not seemed to slow down the rest of the smartphone market; in fact, if anything, it has had almost the opposite effect, and I can't make any sense of that. The new Windows GSM Treo has actually been selling (somewhat) despite being priced just $100 below the iPhone. The Blackberry Pearl is as popular as ever, with customers casually discussing the iPhone (and their plans to upgrade to it in a year or two) at the point of sale. Of course, the lack of 3G should hurt the iPhone, but the strange thing is, if you talk to the average prospective customer (the one in the store... not the one on slashdot) 3G just isn't compelling enough to matter. For every 3G device I sell, I deliver 10 to 15 Blackberries and GPRS phones. The technology just isn't deployed enough for people to care. Maybe once video calling hits people will start to care, but until then, watching TV and surfing the web on a 3.5" or smaller screen just doesn't justify a megabit downlink for most people.
Of the slashdotters here, though, who actually has a data phone already? Who is planning to buy an iPhone despite it's $500+ cost of entry and three figure monthly cost? (Raises hands both times) Worst part for me will be having to come up with the cash for two, because I think my sigificant other will bludgeon me with mine if I don't get her one.
Just my $.02...
I prefer mine:
- doesnt-know-difference-between-dollars-and-cents-2 20362.php
.002 cents ($0.00002) per kilobyte for international data. Is the rate the same for US service? If so, I would like to initiate a new data service account with Verizon Wireless. Please inform me what equipment is compatible with this rate, and what other charges are involved. I look forward to a satisfying relationship.
http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/clips/verizon
In regards to the above referenced dialogue, I may be interested in commencing service with Verizon Wireless. I have heard it quoted now from three different reps that your rate is
On a footnote, I am aware that most other carriers rates are much higher than this. How is it that you are able to undercut the competition by such a huge margin?
So I take it you've never used a Motorola iTunes phone.
I guess it means you don't need to specifically design a touch interface- he's got software to automagically adapt to touch based?
Where the hell are you getting your cell service?
Right now, in the US ALL of the major providers have the SAME plans. $40 a month gets you 450 minutes of daytime calling and either unlimited or thousands of night/weekend minutes. No included text messages, but you can get 200 (text or picture) for about $5 (US).
This whole thread is confusing to me because I am being mindful of exchange rates. I'm wondering what "90 pounds worth" of value translates to, as well. To illustrate:
On Cingular, if you do prepaid (akin to what the non-US bit of the world uses for most mobiles) it's $0.25/minute or text, or $0.10/min + $1/day. So a typical plan gives you, by that math, $112.5 worth of minutes for $40, or $50 worth of texts for $5. I sell this stuff for a living, so at times I'll point out to a customer that with a $15 "data package" you get "$50 worth of internet (at a penny a kilobyte) and $250 worth of messages."
Ok, so really, my point is, cell service is really not very expensive in the US for those who buy the packages and who use the services. I really am curious what it costs in the rest of the world. What are the usual per minute rates to make call in the UK, EU, and asia?
I do know that when I did prepaid service in Malaysia and Hong Kong, it cost me about the same to call the US from my cell phone as it would have cost to call the US from a prepaid phone in the US, so I'm sure the rates were, in US economic terms, unfathomably good. But I still don't know what those rates were.
Where I worked, it was 70 hours a week for the "good" jobs- in port. The job I last held was 98 hours a week out to sea, 70 or so in port. Not sure that's 100% typical, but I know that it applied to at least 1/3 of the 6000 people on my ship.
When I hear people talking about a 60 hour work week nowadays I'm envious and exctatic. Now that I'm out my new job is promising me a 60 or less hour week and (glory of glories) an hourly wage with the option of overtime.
I guess my point is that the US government is "guilty" of exploitive labor practices as well, but I don't get the impression that anyone really cares. If we couldn't get soldiers and sailors to work hard for less than 3 dollars an hour, either this country wouldn't be as "safe" as we think it is, or there'd be even more complaints about military spending.
Titanium is accepted slang for the look. Only the first generation were Ti, but it was enough to establish the exotic "look and feel" of the Powerbook G4 in the minds of consumers everywhere.
I never owned one, but based on other titanium objects I've owned, I think it's a good thing to not be still using it. Too brittle, expensive and impossible to repair. Not bad for watches, though, as long as you make the clasp of something else.
I'm not sure you understand the definition of profit margin.
You can run a business at 0% profit margin and go on and on forever. You'd probably even be very competitive.
Thing is that in a small business what to a large business would be itemized as "CEO's salary" is miscategorized as "profit margin." So if you itemized correctly many small businesses would end up as 0 margin companies, though the CEO might find himself with a varying and inadequate salary.
For a corporation, if profits were 0 for a long time you'd have irate stockholders, which would result in stocks being sold, value diminishing, equity vanishing, and a net loss magically appearing due to economic forces that I do not personally comprehend. But again, if the stockholders were OK with it, a company could persist forever with a 0 or small margin. It could even grow tremendously with just a slim percentage- if, for instance, Apple slashed their prices by 8% on average to drop down to a 1% margin, it would probably result in greater sales and increased revenues, larger market share, etc, so that the company would be growing; they could just as well invest it into advertising or RD or hardware specs, and in any of these cases the margin would go below 9% and the volume would go up.
The evidence that Apple is not all about sales volume is that they haven't achieved sales volume. They could sell iBooks for $799 and maybe sell a few more. They could sell 30 gig iPods for $269 and maybe sell more (well lets see how the current round sells, my money is on "lots and lots".) They're not all about sales volume, and they're not all about per-unit profits, and so neither is really a good measure of the company's health. Apple is doing what Steve Jobs and other boardmembers want it to do, and it's doing it very well, as evidenced by the fact that you don't hear those people complaining, and the only complaint I've heard from an Apple employee was (I think) in jest, when he joked that he probably made less than me (I doubt it's true) so I suspect the company is doing ok.
So I wonder. What exactly do we care about the company's profit margin?
This is what I care about about Apple. They made the computer that I use every day. They make the music player I listen to every day. Both things are the most satisfying products I own. I'm pretty sure I'll succumb to their "marketing" again. And I know I don't mind because I like their products and yeah, I appreciate the image.
Umm, No.
I've owned Hondas. Honda cars last forever and ever and are painfully bland. I put 99000 miles on a Civic and had one problem... a turn signal switch that didn't return automatically. I got rid of the car because it bored me.
Honda also makes excellent motorcycles, ATVs, lawnmowers, etc, and in every area of industry that they exist, their customers swear by them, and their products are innovatively designed with intelligent features and bulletproof reliability.
Not terribly unlike Apple.
Dell, on the other hand, would more aptly be compared to one of the American car companies, say back in the nineties before they started to wake up. Mediocre products that, when it really comes down to it, are just ever so slightly lacking in quality or innovation, slightly subpar design, but sold in huge numbers because of price and familiarity, and the oft misplaced "buy American" philosophy. (Not sure this applies quite as much, as most American car makers are starting to correct themselves, but it's still mostly true.)
I think you're trying to compare Honda and Dell on the commodity nature of their product? Hondas are commodities because of another attribute of commodities: they're reliable. A true commodity item, ie coffee or oil, does not vary substantially in quality, and can be reliably priced as a function of supply and demand and other market/economic forces. Honda cars are ubiquitous enough to ALMOST meet this definition, but even in that case, consumer perception plays enough of a role to skew it off; people will pay more for a Honda than for a Chevy, to the tune of paying >sticker vs sub-invoice.
Sadly, you're right about "tons of people like 'em". I got a phone call recently from a friend who wants help picking out a Dell laptop. It has to be a Dell, he says, because his company gives him a discount with Dell. You can't compete with them on price alone, and to most consumers that's all that matters, especially when you have a geek family member to fix it when it breaks. I've had at least three Dell laptops, and while they were decent for the price, I'd never actually pay money for one. The only computer I've ever bought in once piece was a Mac, and I'm never going back.
I don't get it.
Hydrogen is flammable.
Gasoline is flammable.
Aside from buzzword type and "everybody knows" comments, I haven't heard or read much about the intense hazard that H2 supposedly presents.
From how little I understand about the material, the nature of the explosive hazard in general isn't so much a function of magnitude as just the fact that it's explosive; ie, something it has in common with most motor fuels, not something that sets it apart.
Ergo, why is compressed hydrogen more of a hazard than say, CNG? I think the "mounds of burning metal" comment is a bit ridiculous- unless I'm just missing the punchline or a hyperbole went over my head.
Please, would a more chemically inclined engineer explain this to me?
Clamshell 2 inches thick... so roughly, the thickness of my Nokia 6230 cell phone, ipod nano, and Canon Powershot SD200 stacked on top of each other? For a 1.3mp camera and a 512 meg player, how is that an improvement over separates?
To achieve the same effect I could just get a rubber band or a sleek velvet bag (the one that came with my sunglasses works) to tie all my existing stuff together.
I think parent missed the point here.
The idea behind a video blog for a dead person isn't so you can send them a message. That's just silly- unless it's continually playing on a video screen somewhere, how will the ghost ever see it? Have you ever seen a ghost browse the web? None of the ghosts I've ever seen have been sufficiently solid to move the mouse, so clearly that wouldn't work.
A better idea (and the one I think the grandparent was getting at) would be to leave a video message to be played to your family and friends after your death, that they never get to see when you're alive. Sort of like how people sometimes write messages to relatives in their will, like "You're not getting my car, you selfish prick. I'm donating it to the catholics." With a postmortem video blog, you could actually say it to their face. Or, more likely, say a few words of comfort to your (ideally) grieving wife/kids/parents, like "Look on the bright side, you have the house to yourself now, and all my money!" or "If by any chance I'm still just technically alive, kindly pull the plug." So much fun to be had, not sure how much would be socially acceptable or in good taste.
So yeah. A video blog is for the guy that died to put out a message to his or her survivors, having recorded it in advance, for playback after his demise.