Apple is only known for overpricing things among people who don't actually run the numbers. If you look carefully, Apple generally prices their hardware reasonably compared to similar hardware from other manufacturers, except for things like BTO RAM. What they don't do is offer a budget, cut-the-corners option.
With the iPad Apple has existing experience and supply agreements from the iPhone, they have some chip and industrial design capability in-house and they have all the software infrastructure already built. Just the mass production probably lets them cut the price significantly. Everyone else is starting from scratch.
Plenty of cheap tablets have been released, but anyone who wants to compete directly with the iPad is discovering that they actually have to match it. Unlike, say, notebooks, a tablet that weighs twice as much, is three times as thick, has a cheap plastic case and comes with a pile of adware installed just isn't seen as an equivalent by anyone.
They've used their model to predict observable effects. That's the way science works. Someone comes up with a crazy idea and someone figures out how to test whether it's real or not. The difference with the crackpots is that they either a) don't have models that will ever make actual predictions or b) refuse to believe evidence that their predictions are incorrect.
You're hilarious. We can, and are, looking for dark matter, both as indirect observations and directly. We have indirectly observed dark energy. "Phantom matter?" You mean the stuff they're talking about in the article? That's not exactly "scientists" talking. It's some guys with an interesting hypothetical situation they're playing with.
You clearly don't understand what you're criticizing, and very likely don't want to.
Faster than light and time travel are both admitted as possibilities by the laws of physics as we know them. Depending on what you mean by antigravity, it probably is too.
Those rumours are from idiots. They were around last year too. Apple isn't going to release a device and then turn around and replace it in less than six months. They never do that, and there's no reason they would this time.
After a year of regular use my iPad still has a battery life that's pretty much what it started at. Maybe in two years it'll be down a bit. If it gets to be a problem in a few years Apple will replace it for $99. Or, if it's anything like an iPhone and you know how to use a screwdriver (this IS Slashdot, right?) you'll be able to buy a new one for $20 from a third party and do it yourself.
Sure. But it would involve putting a lens very close to the thing you want to look at.
Magnification isn't usually an important limit for telescopes anyway. The limiting factor is usually how much light you can gather. If you want really high resolution, interferometry already lets us do insane things like see sunspots on other stars.
They do. X-ray microscopy has been around for a long time, and is highly developed in areas it's useful in.
It's not so great for most biology because x-rays tend to go through things pretty well, and when they don't they do a lot of damage. Plus they're a pain to focus. Now, if you want to look at crystals....
If you built an electron microscope you know it has "lenses" not lenses. The quotes are important - a focusing magnet isn't an optical element. Also, "optical" implies light: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optics.
Technically there are some scanning electron microscopes that measure created x-rays or cathodoluminescence but it's still a pretty bit stretch to call those optical microscopes. Hybrid electron-optical would be a better description.
Kepler was specifically designed to find planets of an interesting size (like Earth, but it can certainly detect larger ones) in interesting orbits (like Earth's, but it can certainly detect ones closer in). We have other methods to identify giant planets further out.
It would be even cooler to find their still-functioning planet moving drives because if the things weren't still working the planet would have drifted out of the unstable L3 point already.
Ha, right. Did you maybe miss what happened to the shuttle program when some astronauts got killed? NASA sending a crew to slowly die on Mars on evening television would probably be the end of the whole US space program.
And die they would. We're nowhere near having the capability to put a self sustaining base on Mars.
Why would you expect the breakout box to be powered? That's silly.
I'd much rather have one connector to plug into my notebook and have it docked to everything, rather than two. It's slightly more annoying while travelling if I happen to have two Thunderbolt devices to plug in - I'd need a splitter/hub type dohickey, but sharing with the displayport connector isn't an issue.
Uh huh. And if it were a different company, say DoubleClick (oops, that's part of Google now, isn't it?) or Microsoft doing this? Would you be so quick to just believe they made a mistake?
I have a friend who developed a technique to remove nonuniformity in MRIs. It's customary in the field to give your techniques a cute acronym. He tried hard to call it the Field Uniformity Correction Kit.
It doesn't have to log you out all the way, just switch to a login screen while maintaining your session. It seems that kind of thing, with something to automatically detect whether you are at the computer, would be perfect. Set it up so it recognizes your cell phone and can log you in as well as out.
Porn is a moderately big industry but notice that no porn production has anything like the budget of a major Hollywood film. And it shows. The people who spend lots on going to movies are kids and their parents. If an under 18 can't get in, you've just cut most of your potential audience.
The people who want to watch porn mostly want to watch it at home, and a good many of them prefer to download it for free.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is only known for overpricing things among people who don't actually run the numbers. If you look carefully, Apple generally prices their hardware reasonably compared to similar hardware from other manufacturers, except for things like BTO RAM. What they don't do is offer a budget, cut-the-corners option.
With the iPad Apple has existing experience and supply agreements from the iPhone, they have some chip and industrial design capability in-house and they have all the software infrastructure already built. Just the mass production probably lets them cut the price significantly. Everyone else is starting from scratch.
Plenty of cheap tablets have been released, but anyone who wants to compete directly with the iPad is discovering that they actually have to match it. Unlike, say, notebooks, a tablet that weighs twice as much, is three times as thick, has a cheap plastic case and comes with a pile of adware installed just isn't seen as an equivalent by anyone.
They've used their model to predict observable effects. That's the way science works. Someone comes up with a crazy idea and someone figures out how to test whether it's real or not. The difference with the crackpots is that they either a) don't have models that will ever make actual predictions or b) refuse to believe evidence that their predictions are incorrect.
You're hilarious. We can, and are, looking for dark matter, both as indirect observations and directly. We have indirectly observed dark energy. "Phantom matter?" You mean the stuff they're talking about in the article? That's not exactly "scientists" talking. It's some guys with an interesting hypothetical situation they're playing with.
You clearly don't understand what you're criticizing, and very likely don't want to.
Faster than light and time travel are both admitted as possibilities by the laws of physics as we know them. Depending on what you mean by antigravity, it probably is too.
Those rumours are from idiots. They were around last year too. Apple isn't going to release a device and then turn around and replace it in less than six months. They never do that, and there's no reason they would this time.
After a year of regular use my iPad still has a battery life that's pretty much what it started at. Maybe in two years it'll be down a bit. If it gets to be a problem in a few years Apple will replace it for $99. Or, if it's anything like an iPhone and you know how to use a screwdriver (this IS Slashdot, right?) you'll be able to buy a new one for $20 from a third party and do it yourself.
Sure. But it would involve putting a lens very close to the thing you want to look at.
Magnification isn't usually an important limit for telescopes anyway. The limiting factor is usually how much light you can gather. If you want really high resolution, interferometry already lets us do insane things like see sunspots on other stars.
They do. X-ray microscopy has been around for a long time, and is highly developed in areas it's useful in.
It's not so great for most biology because x-rays tend to go through things pretty well, and when they don't they do a lot of damage. Plus they're a pain to focus. Now, if you want to look at crystals....
If you built an electron microscope you know it has "lenses" not lenses. The quotes are important - a focusing magnet isn't an optical element. Also, "optical" implies light: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optics.
Technically there are some scanning electron microscopes that measure created x-rays or cathodoluminescence but it's still a pretty bit stretch to call those optical microscopes. Hybrid electron-optical would be a better description.
Kepler was specifically designed to find planets of an interesting size (like Earth, but it can certainly detect larger ones) in interesting orbits (like Earth's, but it can certainly detect ones closer in). We have other methods to identify giant planets further out.
I guess you missed the part where these planets are at each other's Lagrange points hey?
There aren't any planets, or anything close to planets that we know of, sharing an orbit that way in the solar system.
I don't think they're even supposed to be in the same solar system.
The classic twin planet arrangement is two planets orbiting each other though. Like the Earth and moon.
It would be even cooler to find their still-functioning planet moving drives because if the things weren't still working the planet would have drifted out of the unstable L3 point already.
Ha, right. Did you maybe miss what happened to the shuttle program when some astronauts got killed? NASA sending a crew to slowly die on Mars on evening television would probably be the end of the whole US space program.
And die they would. We're nowhere near having the capability to put a self sustaining base on Mars.
http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/
I've been planning to put an SSD in one of these into my MBP for a while.
Or, you know, here: www.apple.com
Why would you expect the breakout box to be powered? That's silly.
I'd much rather have one connector to plug into my notebook and have it docked to everything, rather than two. It's slightly more annoying while travelling if I happen to have two Thunderbolt devices to plug in - I'd need a splitter/hub type dohickey, but sharing with the displayport connector isn't an issue.
Sure. Except they asked for birth city as well. That's really suspicious. And their justification (checking for US citizenship) doesn't hold water.
Uh huh. And if it were a different company, say DoubleClick (oops, that's part of Google now, isn't it?) or Microsoft doing this? Would you be so quick to just believe they made a mistake?
Sure, that's fine if no one else needs to use that computer.
I have a friend who developed a technique to remove nonuniformity in MRIs. It's customary in the field to give your techniques a cute acronym. He tried hard to call it the Field Uniformity Correction Kit.
It doesn't have to log you out all the way, just switch to a login screen while maintaining your session. It seems that kind of thing, with something to automatically detect whether you are at the computer, would be perfect. Set it up so it recognizes your cell phone and can log you in as well as out.
I use Proximity on the Mac. It lets you run an Applescript when your phone comes in range, and another when it goes out of range.
No, they won't.
Porn is a moderately big industry but notice that no porn production has anything like the budget of a major Hollywood film. And it shows. The people who spend lots on going to movies are kids and their parents. If an under 18 can't get in, you've just cut most of your potential audience.
The people who want to watch porn mostly want to watch it at home, and a good many of them prefer to download it for free.
Sure there is. It's just mostly in a small but heavily populated island nation and the girls have to have big eyes and heads and wear short skirts.