YOU claimed that iPad are not computers because they are not shipped with the tools to program them. Well, neither were ANY of the Android devices I own. If the iPad is not a computer, then neither are Android devices.
Now that I think about your example of building a desktop PC from parts, I have realized something.
Thank God for small favors.
(Or does realizing something imply a prohibited movement of the goalposts?)
Only if you move the goalposts as a result. Is English not your first language?
I have realized that my complaint is not even about the price per se.
None of us cares about your complaints, we're talking about whether an iPad is a computer.
It's that manufacturers of incomplete computers have been systematically misleading the public about how complete their products are.
If you're using that as your new definition of "computer", then yes, you've just moved the goalposts yet again.
Prior to the introduction of Swift Playgrounds, it was quite expensive to complete a $200 refurbished iPad by adding a Mac.
You don't have to "add a Mac" to turn an iPad into a computer. This is irrelevant. Not having a Mac to go with your iPad doesn't mean the iPad is incomplete. It means you don't have a Mac to go with it.
You can't possible "produce" more carbon that you took in,
The issue is not carbon, it is carbon dioxide. Yes, I ABSOLUTELY produce more carbon dioxide than I consume. I am converting carbon that has been converted into bio-carbon (carbohydrate, protein, fats) by plants back into the dangerous carbon dioxide. The only way to stop that process is to stop eating or stop breathing.
Yes, I am. As one should...
Not when you are evaluating the costs of one step in the cycle. Otherwise, let's be honest and include the entire existence of carbon on the planet, which we can say truly IS neutral no matter what any of us does. If "carbon neutral" is the goal, then bingo, we're there.
Yes, the entire planet is mostly carbon neutral under that definition (meteorites being a notable exception).
Yes, I forgot about those. Dang, we have to put up a shield around the planet because we're gaining dangerous carbon every second.
Whether you had eaten that cow or not, it was going to give its carbon onto the next step in the cycle pretty quickly either way.
I eat veal. Six months is a lot shorter than five years.
but zealotry is often fueled by ignorance.
Zealotry is more often fueled by presumed knowledge and arrogance. People who say "the discussion is over, the science is settled" are not ignorant, for the most part.
I guess a more useful definition of a general-purpose computer hinges on whether the public knows how to make and load programs on a particular device in a lawful manner.
You keep using different words. "User-programmable" in one place, "general purpose" in another.
NO, the definition of "computer" does NOT include whether Joe Public is smart enough to know how to program it or not. That's just fucking nuts.
Joe Public could never have figured out on his own how to keypunch an LGO card and precede it with Cyber 6500 assembly instructions to program the mainframe computer being used by Michigan State University's CS department in the mid 1970's, nor would he have had any interest in doing so. And yet, if you walked into the CS department and started claiming that the 6500 wasn't a computer because the "general public" didn't know how to program it, and because you needed an expensive keypunch to create the punched cards that were fed as input, and you had to buy the cards themselves, they'd have laughed you out of the building.
Would you likewise consider a video game console to be a user-programmable computer because "people who care enough" can start a game studio and buy a multi-thousand-dollar devkit?
Yes. And now we've moved the goalposts again, with "user-programmable". The cost of the programming software is not relevant to what the hardware is.
I deal with land mobile radios all the time. The hardware to program the frequencies into them is not free, and yet the manufacturers call the radios "programmable". Are they "not programmable" because the stuff to program them isn't free? The correct answer is no, they are programmable. The fact that YOU can't do it because you won't spend the money for the hardware to do it changes nothing.
But for user-written user-space applications, I think that's pretty important in order to consider a computer as general-purpose.
Another goal-post move. Now it's "general-purpose" computers. But even so, the iPad is one. User-space applications can be programmed for the iPad. I'm glad you've finally admitted the iPad is a computer.
Guess what Apple probably wouldn't allow.
I don't give a fuck what Apple will or won't allow. A compiler is a second year CS graduate project at worst. Apple doesn't get to tell me I cannot run apps I've developed myself on my iPad.
I'm also aware of a stipulation in the current App Store Review Guidelines implying that any user programmability is intended for education, not for production:
Did you even look at the link I posted to the Apple Developer Program? How can you honestly claim that those apps are intended for education and not production? And who gives a fuck if the app I write for my iPad is for "education" -- the point is that I CAN write apps for it, and thus the iPad is a computer using any reasonable definition of such.
Most digital wristwatches aren't nearly as user-programmable as the eZ430-Chronos.
For fucks sake, I didn't say that every watch was a computer. Fucking learn how to read, god damn it.
The iPad is not shipped as a general-purpose computer
Yes, it is. The PC you buy from pieces isn't shipped to you as a computer, but fuck all if it isn't a computer when you put it all together -- even before you install an OS.
Imagine the fun of trying to get your "computer" fixed when it won't boot, using your stupid definition. You call the computer repair people. "I have something that needs to be fixed. Can you come fix it?" "Is it a computer." "No, it isn't." "We fix computers. Call someone else. CLICK". You certainly cannot call a thing that doesn't do ANYTHING a computer if a computer has to have free programming software and the ability for everyone to program it. How do you program a computer that doesn't even boot up?
If one could program it using only free software (as opposed to the full IDE or Xcode),
Another goal post shift.
Android devices are this way, as Debian provides a functional free subset of the Android SDK.
Hypocrite. Android devices are not shipped with the tools to program them, either. The cost of the tools does not define what a computer is.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence that something is possible,
Links to programming languages for the iPad is now "anecdotal"? Proof that something is possible is sufficient to disprove the claim that something is not possible. You can program your iPad if you are smart enough and can afford ninety-nine cents US. That disproves the claim that it is not a computer because you cannot program it.
Now consider why it isn't common.
It isn't comment because the vast majority of people have no interest AT ALL in programming their iPad to do anything other than what existing apps do, or the knowledge of how to program if they did have that interest.
one cannot assume that anyone who owns the device either also owns or can easily afford the enabler.
If you can afford $500 to buy the iPad (mine just cost $180 refurb, btw) you can probably afford the $0.99 to buy an app that allows you to program for it. That may be $0.99 more than the cost of some other app, I haven't wasted my time looking for anything cheaper.
In any case, you being too cheap or too poor to buy the tools to program a computer doesn't change the computer. It is still programmable by people who care enough.
Thus you can't privately share your improvements to an app with them,
So? That's how you define "computer" now? Did you fill in the holes where the previous goalposts were? Someone is going to break an ankle if they step in one.
The owners of those supercomputers can program them themselves. The owner of an iPad cannot program it without additionally purchasing a sufficiently recent Mac, whose price typically exceeds that of the iPad.
I've already provided links to two different programming languages for the iPad, neither of which breaks the bank in price.
In any case, you being too cheap to buy the required equipment to program your computer doesn't turn it into a "not computer". It just means you are not interested enough in wanting to program it yourself using xcode or swift.
As for the comment by another about how Wikipedia defines a computer, well, I yield to the perfection of technical documentation that is Wikipedia. I shall ignore every CS class I've had that provides a useful definition and carry the Wiki-flag to my grave.
... because we need to answer the meet eating habits (mostly of the developed world).
I think we need more "meet eating habits", not less. Imagine, if all those people who wasted so much time and energy meeting to come up with the Paris Accords were just eaten as soon as they walked in the door, how much better things would be.
And every corporation should invest in "meet eating", just to cut down on the wasted time and energy of endless meetings. How many people would go to the next design review meeting if they knew they were "on the agenda", so to speak? They aren't committed to the "ham and eggs" meeting like the chicken, they're committed like the pig.
We build cars to fulfill the needs of those who want cars and refuse to take public transportation.
We build cars not because people refuse to use them, but because they are not sufficient -- despite all the claims that public transportation is the bee's knees.
Living things on this planet breathe. They exhale. Sometimes we humans kill and eat them.
This is a carbon-neutral process.
Huh? Animals produce a lot more carbon dioxide than they consume. How is this "carbon neutral"? Or has "carbon neutral" been defined so that it doesn't mean you have to stop doing anything, just all those other people who are doing other things?
This belies a complete lack of understanding of the carbon cycle:/
Oh, I see. You are applying the entire carbon cycle to animal respiration and coming up with "neutral".
Here's a shocker. The entire planet is carbon neutral under that definition. There will never be more carbon than what is here today, or was here yesterday. It takes up various forms, just like in "the carbon cycle", but it is all still here and will still be here.
I am, of course, excluding the trivial amounts of carbon that may have been lost by sending stuff into outer space that never came back. I don't think the lunar landers and rovers left on the moon count for much in the way of carbon loss.
Your ignorance makes this problem intractable.
I'd say that zealotry is making this intractable, but...
The claim is that offset one's own individual carbon usage doesn't right now take much.
Every bite of food you eat requires some amount of energy to produce, and eating it results in carbon dioxide. To "offset one's own carbon usage" means not eating. And not breathing. And not decomposing when something else eats you.
Doesn't take much, does it?
There's no way it will be effective on a very large scale.
Not eating or breathing on a very large scale would be very effective in reducing carbon emissions, wouldn't it?
It makes implicitly a whole bunch of useful points: First, that transport and direct personal electrical consumption aren't the only producers of CO2.
D'oh. Thank god for scientific research funding to tell us this.
Second, that as our economy and society currently stands, the production of CO2 is going to be pretty large no matter what.
Which is what makes meaningless virtue signaling like the Paris Accord a waste of time and money.
Honestly, this is substantially more CO2 than I would have expected for this,
Do you think the next research into this would get funded if the result were "there's nothing to see here, there is no problem from eating sandwiches, move along"? It is kinda obvious that they're going to come out with a startling result.
By 2100, and with 2 meters of global sea rise, and 3 degrees of Celcius increase in temps, one third of Florida will be underwater.
And by 2050, with 8 meters of sea level rise, and 18 degrees C increase in temps, we're all dead. You see, I can predict catastrophe, too, and my predictions are even catastrophier than yours.
You said "tell that to the people of Florida". If one third of the people of Florida are underwater in 2100, then they were the morons who didn't know how to move away from the approaching coast and I say good riddance. Darwin Awards to every damn one of them. 2100 is 82 years from now, and 99% of the people living in Florida today will be dead. Anyone who lives there in 2100 will have CHOSEN to live in a place where they know the sea will come wash them away after they drown. They CHOSE to stay.
By the way, "global sea level rise" is irrelevant when it comes to talking about coastal inundation. It is the local sea level that matters when talking about local effects. For example, while some parts of the planet are possibly seeing serious issues from rising sea levels, Oregon is not. It just happens that the sea level rise from higher water is being offset by coastal rise as the subduction zone pushes the land up. The "sea level rise" that will most impact the Oregon coast is when the cascadia subduction zone earthquake happens, the crustal deformation reduces, and the coast drops a couple of meters or more as a result. But the coast is toast by that time anyway.
A computer is capable of building software, including the software that forms the computer itself.
There is nothing in the standard definition of "computer" that says it has to be powerful enough to compile its own operating system.
Even so, all it would take is an assembler ported to the iPad for it to be able to do so, if one hasn't already been. An iPad is a pretty flexible computer once you learn enough about it and not parrot the apple-hater rhetoric.
The neighbor didn't ask "is that a computer?" The goal of the question was not to find out what device the girl was using. The goal of the question was to find out what interesting thing the girl was doing on whatever that thing is. Not "what are you doing on your computer?" More like "You seem engrossed in something interesting, I'd like to have a friendly conversation about what it is and how you are doing. I've lived next door to your your entire life, I've been your babysitter when necessary, I know your parents and we play bridge together. I'm interested in you."
"Fuck off old woman, this isn't a computer you dimwit. Leave me alone. I'm going to ignore you now. I'm Apple's prime demographic, so I don't need you."
I have a watch that is a computer for real. It is the EZ430 which has an MSP430 microprocessor in a watch form factor, and comes with software to program it. Not just tell it what functions to do, but actual programs. If you buy the full IDE you can modify the entire watch program. The free version is limited and has software for "watch", but not the full functionality of the installed demo program.
The difference between TV, DVD, walkie-talkie, and the EZ430 is that you do not program the computer in the former, but you can in the latter. You tell the already programmed computer what of the preprogrammed functions it should do for consumer devices that contain computers; you program the computer in a computer. And yes, the iPad has a processor that you can program, so it is, indeed, a computer.
A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out arbitrary sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
You fail CS100. A computer is a device that has input, output, storage, and processing. An iPad is a computer.
The iPad is not a computer because it is very restricted/limited (apps are restricted to the walled garden of Apple's App Store for example).
So the supercomputers being run by NCAR are not computers because you cannot program them yourself? In case you missed the announcements, Apple runs a Developer Program which allows people who pay the money to program apps for iOS and MacOS. Once you get the license and keys, you can write your own programs to do whatever you want. I've done it, and I find Xcode to be a very nice development platform.
If you don't want to pay for the developer license, you can still use Forth ($0.99), or Python ($9.99), as just two examples of programming languages that run on iOS/iPad. I am sure there are others, but those two are the first two I found.
You can feel free to disagree that iPads are computers, but you are so obviously wrong that you might think about not saying it in public again.
Your points are mostly true, but they are not why the ad is stupid, and insulting, too.
1. The "smart kid" who is using the Apple device knows what a computer is, she'd just playing stupid for pretend. You can't be older than 5 and not know what a computer is, and many sub-5s probably know, too.
2. She just plain rude. Her next door neighbor is attempting to have a conversation with her, she knows that the question means ("what are you working on?"), but she flippantly dismisses her and continues tapping away on her computer after hardly acknowledging the existence of the other person. A more polite response would be to show her neighbor the cute bug document project she's working on and act like a real human with the person who lives next door.
Congratulations, advertising team, for an ad that teaches me that Apple users are rude morons.
The city in Colorado that just passed the city council resolution putting the city into the internet business, for one. I don't recall the name of the city, but I remember looking for ISPs there and found 8 different residential ISPs, and 8 business ISPs, and the two lists were not identical. That makes more than 8 ISPs all for that one city.
I'd liken it to, when you were a kid, and you had a gripe/complaint about your parents. You'd have to petition your parents for a change of rules or procedures.
If only there were a separate but co-equal someone to your parents you could petition for redress of your grievances. I'd liken it to, the US courts and the US legislature/executive branch.
The delivery mechanism when owned by a private entity and unregulated chooses to become a monopoly on the ISP end.
That's what I said. There are certain forms of DELIVERY that are natural monopolies just because of the cost of the infrastructure. That does not make "ISP" into "natural monopoly".
Thus the ISP portion is part of the natural vertical and horizontal monopolistic entity.
THAT ISP using THAT DELIVERY MEDIUM has a natural monopoly on THAT DELIVERY MEDIUM. If you haven't noticed, there are more available media than just "cable" and "telco".
"One ISP has a monopoly on cable delivery of internet service" is NOT THE SAME as "ISPs are a natural monopoly."
Federal, state and local governments negotiated contracts with vendors to give their traffic priority, for "public safety" reasons.
Interesting point. Is New York an adopter of FirstNet? If so, then they're going to have internet for first responders that has priority over normal consumers.
Slashdot Mirror
They can be programmed with tools that are
YOU claimed that iPad are not computers because they are not shipped with the tools to program them. Well, neither were ANY of the Android devices I own. If the iPad is not a computer, then neither are Android devices.
Now that I think about your example of building a desktop PC from parts, I have realized something.
Thank God for small favors.
(Or does realizing something imply a prohibited movement of the goalposts?)
Only if you move the goalposts as a result. Is English not your first language?
I have realized that my complaint is not even about the price per se.
None of us cares about your complaints, we're talking about whether an iPad is a computer.
It's that manufacturers of incomplete computers have been systematically misleading the public about how complete their products are.
If you're using that as your new definition of "computer", then yes, you've just moved the goalposts yet again.
Prior to the introduction of Swift Playgrounds, it was quite expensive to complete a $200 refurbished iPad by adding a Mac.
You don't have to "add a Mac" to turn an iPad into a computer. This is irrelevant. Not having a Mac to go with your iPad doesn't mean the iPad is incomplete. It means you don't have a Mac to go with it.
You can't possible "produce" more carbon that you took in,
The issue is not carbon, it is carbon dioxide. Yes, I ABSOLUTELY produce more carbon dioxide than I consume. I am converting carbon that has been converted into bio-carbon (carbohydrate, protein, fats) by plants back into the dangerous carbon dioxide. The only way to stop that process is to stop eating or stop breathing.
Yes, I am. As one should...
Not when you are evaluating the costs of one step in the cycle. Otherwise, let's be honest and include the entire existence of carbon on the planet, which we can say truly IS neutral no matter what any of us does. If "carbon neutral" is the goal, then bingo, we're there.
Yes, the entire planet is mostly carbon neutral under that definition (meteorites being a notable exception).
Yes, I forgot about those. Dang, we have to put up a shield around the planet because we're gaining dangerous carbon every second.
Whether you had eaten that cow or not, it was going to give its carbon onto the next step in the cycle pretty quickly either way.
I eat veal. Six months is a lot shorter than five years.
but zealotry is often fueled by ignorance.
Zealotry is more often fueled by presumed knowledge and arrogance. People who say "the discussion is over, the science is settled" are not ignorant, for the most part.
I guess a more useful definition of a general-purpose computer hinges on whether the public knows how to make and load programs on a particular device in a lawful manner.
You keep using different words. "User-programmable" in one place, "general purpose" in another.
NO, the definition of "computer" does NOT include whether Joe Public is smart enough to know how to program it or not. That's just fucking nuts.
Joe Public could never have figured out on his own how to keypunch an LGO card and precede it with Cyber 6500 assembly instructions to program the mainframe computer being used by Michigan State University's CS department in the mid 1970's, nor would he have had any interest in doing so. And yet, if you walked into the CS department and started claiming that the 6500 wasn't a computer because the "general public" didn't know how to program it, and because you needed an expensive keypunch to create the punched cards that were fed as input, and you had to buy the cards themselves, they'd have laughed you out of the building.
Just like I'm laughing at you, now.
Would you likewise consider a video game console to be a user-programmable computer because "people who care enough" can start a game studio and buy a multi-thousand-dollar devkit?
Yes. And now we've moved the goalposts again, with "user-programmable". The cost of the programming software is not relevant to what the hardware is.
I deal with land mobile radios all the time. The hardware to program the frequencies into them is not free, and yet the manufacturers call the radios "programmable". Are they "not programmable" because the stuff to program them isn't free? The correct answer is no, they are programmable. The fact that YOU can't do it because you won't spend the money for the hardware to do it changes nothing.
But for user-written user-space applications, I think that's pretty important in order to consider a computer as general-purpose.
Another goal-post move. Now it's "general-purpose" computers. But even so, the iPad is one. User-space applications can be programmed for the iPad. I'm glad you've finally admitted the iPad is a computer.
Guess what Apple probably wouldn't allow.
I don't give a fuck what Apple will or won't allow. A compiler is a second year CS graduate project at worst. Apple doesn't get to tell me I cannot run apps I've developed myself on my iPad.
I'm also aware of a stipulation in the current App Store Review Guidelines implying that any user programmability is intended for education, not for production:
Did you even look at the link I posted to the Apple Developer Program? How can you honestly claim that those apps are intended for education and not production? And who gives a fuck if the app I write for my iPad is for "education" -- the point is that I CAN write apps for it, and thus the iPad is a computer using any reasonable definition of such.
Most digital wristwatches aren't nearly as user-programmable as the eZ430-Chronos.
For fucks sake, I didn't say that every watch was a computer. Fucking learn how to read, god damn it.
The iPad is not shipped as a general-purpose computer
Yes, it is. The PC you buy from pieces isn't shipped to you as a computer, but fuck all if it isn't a computer when you put it all together -- even before you install an OS.
Imagine the fun of trying to get your "computer" fixed when it won't boot, using your stupid definition. You call the computer repair people. "I have something that needs to be fixed. Can you come fix it?" "Is it a computer." "No, it isn't." "We fix computers. Call someone else. CLICK". You certainly cannot call a thing that doesn't do ANYTHING a computer if a computer has to have free programming software and the ability for everyone to program it. How do you program a computer that doesn't even boot up?
If one could program it using only free software (as opposed to the full IDE or Xcode),
Another goal post shift.
Android devices are this way, as Debian provides a functional free subset of the Android SDK.
Hypocrite. Android devices are not shipped with the tools to program them, either. The cost of the tools does not define what a computer is.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence that something is possible,
Links to programming languages for the iPad is now "anecdotal"? Proof that something is possible is sufficient to disprove the claim that something is not possible. You can program your iPad if you are smart enough and can afford ninety-nine cents US. That disproves the claim that it is not a computer because you cannot program it.
Now consider why it isn't common.
It isn't comment because the vast majority of people have no interest AT ALL in programming their iPad to do anything other than what existing apps do, or the knowledge of how to program if they did have that interest.
one cannot assume that anyone who owns the device either also owns or can easily afford the enabler.
If you can afford $500 to buy the iPad (mine just cost $180 refurb, btw) you can probably afford the $0.99 to buy an app that allows you to program for it. That may be $0.99 more than the cost of some other app, I haven't wasted my time looking for anything cheaper.
In any case, you being too cheap or too poor to buy the tools to program a computer doesn't change the computer. It is still programmable by people who care enough.
Thus you can't privately share your improvements to an app with them,
So? That's how you define "computer" now? Did you fill in the holes where the previous goalposts were? Someone is going to break an ankle if they step in one.
The owners of those supercomputers can program them themselves. The owner of an iPad cannot program it without additionally purchasing a sufficiently recent Mac, whose price typically exceeds that of the iPad.
I've already provided links to two different programming languages for the iPad, neither of which breaks the bank in price.
In any case, you being too cheap to buy the required equipment to program your computer doesn't turn it into a "not computer". It just means you are not interested enough in wanting to program it yourself using xcode or swift.
As for the comment by another about how Wikipedia defines a computer, well, I yield to the perfection of technical documentation that is Wikipedia. I shall ignore every CS class I've had that provides a useful definition and carry the Wiki-flag to my grave.
... because we need to answer the meet eating habits (mostly of the developed world).
I think we need more "meet eating habits", not less. Imagine, if all those people who wasted so much time and energy meeting to come up with the Paris Accords were just eaten as soon as they walked in the door, how much better things would be.
And every corporation should invest in "meet eating", just to cut down on the wasted time and energy of endless meetings. How many people would go to the next design review meeting if they knew they were "on the agenda", so to speak? They aren't committed to the "ham and eggs" meeting like the chicken, they're committed like the pig.
We build cars to fulfill the needs of those who want cars and refuse to take public transportation.
We build cars not because people refuse to use them, but because they are not sufficient -- despite all the claims that public transportation is the bee's knees.
Living things on this planet breathe. They exhale. Sometimes we humans kill and eat them.
This is a carbon-neutral process.
Huh? Animals produce a lot more carbon dioxide than they consume. How is this "carbon neutral"? Or has "carbon neutral" been defined so that it doesn't mean you have to stop doing anything, just all those other people who are doing other things?
This belies a complete lack of understanding of the carbon cycle :/
Oh, I see. You are applying the entire carbon cycle to animal respiration and coming up with "neutral".
Here's a shocker. The entire planet is carbon neutral under that definition. There will never be more carbon than what is here today, or was here yesterday. It takes up various forms, just like in "the carbon cycle", but it is all still here and will still be here.
I am, of course, excluding the trivial amounts of carbon that may have been lost by sending stuff into outer space that never came back. I don't think the lunar landers and rovers left on the moon count for much in the way of carbon loss.
Your ignorance makes this problem intractable.
I'd say that zealotry is making this intractable, but ...
The claim is that offset one's own individual carbon usage doesn't right now take much.
Every bite of food you eat requires some amount of energy to produce, and eating it results in carbon dioxide. To "offset one's own carbon usage" means not eating. And not breathing. And not decomposing when something else eats you.
Doesn't take much, does it?
There's no way it will be effective on a very large scale.
Not eating or breathing on a very large scale would be very effective in reducing carbon emissions, wouldn't it?
It makes implicitly a whole bunch of useful points: First, that transport and direct personal electrical consumption aren't the only producers of CO2.
D'oh. Thank god for scientific research funding to tell us this.
Second, that as our economy and society currently stands, the production of CO2 is going to be pretty large no matter what.
Which is what makes meaningless virtue signaling like the Paris Accord a waste of time and money.
Honestly, this is substantially more CO2 than I would have expected for this,
Do you think the next research into this would get funded if the result were "there's nothing to see here, there is no problem from eating sandwiches, move along"? It is kinda obvious that they're going to come out with a startling result.
By 2100, and with 2 meters of global sea rise, and 3 degrees of Celcius increase in temps, one third of Florida will be underwater.
And by 2050, with 8 meters of sea level rise, and 18 degrees C increase in temps, we're all dead. You see, I can predict catastrophe, too, and my predictions are even catastrophier than yours.
You said "tell that to the people of Florida". If one third of the people of Florida are underwater in 2100, then they were the morons who didn't know how to move away from the approaching coast and I say good riddance. Darwin Awards to every damn one of them. 2100 is 82 years from now, and 99% of the people living in Florida today will be dead. Anyone who lives there in 2100 will have CHOSEN to live in a place where they know the sea will come wash them away after they drown. They CHOSE to stay.
By the way, "global sea level rise" is irrelevant when it comes to talking about coastal inundation. It is the local sea level that matters when talking about local effects. For example, while some parts of the planet are possibly seeing serious issues from rising sea levels, Oregon is not. It just happens that the sea level rise from higher water is being offset by coastal rise as the subduction zone pushes the land up. The "sea level rise" that will most impact the Oregon coast is when the cascadia subduction zone earthquake happens, the crustal deformation reduces, and the coast drops a couple of meters or more as a result. But the coast is toast by that time anyway.
When your kids, or whoever, ask/beg for a 'tablet' for Christmas, consider getting them a finely polished piece of slice of rock, and a chisel...
No, I'll just give them an aspirin, but not a gel cap version.
A computer is capable of building software, including the software that forms the computer itself.
There is nothing in the standard definition of "computer" that says it has to be powerful enough to compile its own operating system.
Even so, all it would take is an assembler ported to the iPad for it to be able to do so, if one hasn't already been. An iPad is a pretty flexible computer once you learn enough about it and not parrot the apple-hater rhetoric.
.... "Is that a PC?"
The neighbor didn't ask "is that a computer?" The goal of the question was not to find out what device the girl was using. The goal of the question was to find out what interesting thing the girl was doing on whatever that thing is. Not "what are you doing on your computer?" More like "You seem engrossed in something interesting, I'd like to have a friendly conversation about what it is and how you are doing. I've lived next door to your your entire life, I've been your babysitter when necessary, I know your parents and we play bridge together. I'm interested in you."
"Fuck off old woman, this isn't a computer you dimwit. Leave me alone. I'm going to ignore you now. I'm Apple's prime demographic, so I don't need you."
but it *can* carry out arbitrary instructions. It's carrying out the instructions it's been given (by apple).
And it can carry out instruction you give it, if you bother to learn how to program it. Your ignorance of how to do it doesn't change the hardware.
The computer in your microwave can also carry out arbitrary instructions.
Really? Can I program it to count down by twos?
Can you not differentiate between "contains a computer" and "is a computer"?
But you'll never hear a TV, DVD player, watch,
I have a watch that is a computer for real. It is the EZ430 which has an MSP430 microprocessor in a watch form factor, and comes with software to program it. Not just tell it what functions to do, but actual programs. If you buy the full IDE you can modify the entire watch program. The free version is limited and has software for "watch", but not the full functionality of the installed demo program.
The difference between TV, DVD, walkie-talkie, and the EZ430 is that you do not program the computer in the former, but you can in the latter. You tell the already programmed computer what of the preprogrammed functions it should do for consumer devices that contain computers; you program the computer in a computer. And yes, the iPad has a processor that you can program, so it is, indeed, a computer.
A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out arbitrary sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
You fail CS100. A computer is a device that has input, output, storage, and processing. An iPad is a computer.
The iPad is not a computer because it is very restricted/limited (apps are restricted to the walled garden of Apple's App Store for example).
So the supercomputers being run by NCAR are not computers because you cannot program them yourself? In case you missed the announcements, Apple runs a Developer Program which allows people who pay the money to program apps for iOS and MacOS. Once you get the license and keys, you can write your own programs to do whatever you want. I've done it, and I find Xcode to be a very nice development platform.
If you don't want to pay for the developer license, you can still use Forth ($0.99), or Python ($9.99), as just two examples of programming languages that run on iOS/iPad. I am sure there are others, but those two are the first two I found.
You can feel free to disagree that iPads are computers, but you are so obviously wrong that you might think about not saying it in public again.
It's stupid because:
Your points are mostly true, but they are not why the ad is stupid, and insulting, too.
1. The "smart kid" who is using the Apple device knows what a computer is, she'd just playing stupid for pretend. You can't be older than 5 and not know what a computer is, and many sub-5s probably know, too.
2. She just plain rude. Her next door neighbor is attempting to have a conversation with her, she knows that the question means ("what are you working on?"), but she flippantly dismisses her and continues tapping away on her computer after hardly acknowledging the existence of the other person. A more polite response would be to show her neighbor the cute bug document project she's working on and act like a real human with the person who lives next door.
Congratulations, advertising team, for an ad that teaches me that Apple users are rude morons.
I've counted about five in the city where I live.
"If you haven't noticed, there are more available media than just "cable" and "telco"." No there are not,
Your ignorance also does not convert "ISP" into "monopoly."
I'd liken it to, when you were a kid, and you had a gripe/complaint about your parents. You'd have to petition your parents for a change of rules or procedures.
If only there were a separate but co-equal someone to your parents you could petition for redress of your grievances. I'd liken it to, the US courts and the US legislature/executive branch.
The delivery mechanism when owned by a private entity and unregulated chooses to become a monopoly on the ISP end.
That's what I said. There are certain forms of DELIVERY that are natural monopolies just because of the cost of the infrastructure. That does not make "ISP" into "natural monopoly".
Thus the ISP portion is part of the natural vertical and horizontal monopolistic entity.
THAT ISP using THAT DELIVERY MEDIUM has a natural monopoly on THAT DELIVERY MEDIUM. If you haven't noticed, there are more available media than just "cable" and "telco".
"One ISP has a monopoly on cable delivery of internet service" is NOT THE SAME as "ISPs are a natural monopoly."
Federal, state and local governments negotiated contracts with vendors to give their traffic priority, for "public safety" reasons.
Interesting point. Is New York an adopter of FirstNet? If so, then they're going to have internet for first responders that has priority over normal consumers.