Oh please, Flash just has the worst PUBLISHED security record because its incredible pervasiveness made it a highly attractive attack vector. There's plenty of software out there that makes Flash look like a digital Fort Knox by comparison.
Before 1979 it was illegal to make beer in small batches (no joke) and this is where American beer got the bad reputation because only a handful of big companies were able to make beer (Bud, Coors, Miller....) and thanks to the government obtained control of the market and brought the quality way down. Since that was repealed there was an explosion of home brewing which then expanded into small business and microbreweries so that today there are over 1,400 breweries in the US making every possible type and flavor of beer imaginable.
Let's give credit where it's due -- it was President Jimmy Carter who repealed the Prohibition-era laws designed to prevent homebrewing.
Really. Have you been to that tumblr site? Some of the map 'renderings' I've seen look more like a bad psychedelic trip.
and searches for standard stuff mostly work OK day to day.
Hmm, well try telling that to the denizens of Tokyo. The Shinjuku subway station -- one of the main arteries of Tokyo's transit system -- doesn't even show up on Apple Maps, and searching for it returns no results.
I really have no problem with this. Mashup services just ride on the back of the people who do the hard work. Besides, these kinds of services are mostly used by geek and geek press. All the Silicon Valley rags will wag their tongues for a bit and go back to their lattes.
What I do have a problem with is the general move towards Twitter circling its wagons, and signalling that all unofficial Twitter clients will eventually be cut off. This is just a dumb move. Clients like Tweetbot will always offer more innovation because the guys at Twitter have not shown they care about their product or have the ability to really innovate. They're finally trying to figure out how to make money from Twitter, but so far it's just fumbling around. They'd be better off at least taking a cut of the profits from all 3rd-party Twitter services/clients that charge money.
I was at LA's Griffith Observatory today for the flyover, and the crowd was not only massive (not only was every Griffith Park parking space filled, but also the nearby Greek Theater's parking lot), but it was very diverse. Young, old, in-between. A broad mix of races and probably economic level as well. Let's not forget, these people, and everyone else who went to a flyover area, were pumped for NASA, and for a symbol of an America that they can be proud of. Yes, certainly there was a novelty factor at play of a Space Shuttle flying around on top of a frickin 747, but regardless it was capturing their attention and imagination.
Looking at these people around me, it really struck me that there's a giant disconnect in how they view NASA in comparison to how Congress and the President(s) view it. People see NASA as a tool for exploration, a window to discovery, and a symbol of America's leadership and greatness in technological innovation. Our government often sees NASA at best as a way to put jobs in local districts, and at worst as an organization they try to starve because they can't get rid of it. Thank the universe that Curiosity landed in one piece, because it shone light on a NASA that was half-buried in the backyard. On the other hand, NASA recently chose to send another geology mission to Mars instead of sending a lander to float in a Titan sea. NASA needs to capture the public's imagination. The Curiosity Twitter account has been inundated by questions from the public on why Curiosity doesn't include a microphone in order to listen to the sounds of Mars; the stock answer is that a microphone doesn't fulfill a science need. Well half of the Apollo missions included activities by their astronauts that had no science goal. The goal was capturing the spirit of wonder. NASA must keep that in mind if it is to stay viable, let alone flourish, in the harsh budgetary environment it finds itself in.
Sounds like video game projects will now have to show a prototype, and not just a teaser trailer of pre-rendered models. I think this is probably an overall good thing, as prototypes show at least the team has overcome some of the initial gameplay challenges, as games which sound amazing on paper usually have difficult roadblocks to conquer.
I'm not going to get suckered into the vinyl troll, but there are three things at play here the affect the quality of end-user digital audio:
1) The mastering engineer, which is the guy or girl who prepares the studio recordings for commercial release. They are compressing the hell out of the music so they can "make it louder". When it leaves their grubby hands, much audio information from the studio masters is already lost.
2) FLAC files are great, but almost every band sells their lossless music (the few that even do) as 16-bit files. Then again, quite a few studio engineers are recording digitally at 16-bit because they want to save on drive space and think it's "good enough" (it's not), which is a step down from the quality of a high-end studio 2" tape reel-to-reel. We need as an industry to move to 24-bit digital recording and playback across the board.
3) The quality of music listener audio equipment. When most people are listening on cheap earbuds, they won't be able to tell the difference. Then there's Apple's iPods, iPhones and iPads, none of which support 24/96 and above. The highest their audio chip supports is 24/48. Pretty pathetic. And of course the digital-analog converters of your system make a difference as well.
The size of a target is THE primary metric used to determine how efficient they can be with it.
Ironically, their Human Interface Guidelines for iOS and their developer sessions for iOS are emphatic that UI elements be big enough to touch (min. 44x44 points). Surely Apple eats their own dog food, so I'm not sure how they can consider the scroll bars and tiny close/min/max window buttons acceptable for an average user. ESPECIALLY considering the laudable amount of engineering resources Apple brings to bear in advancing accessibility features.
When you have a "flat" UI you have no *secondary* _visual_ cues to tell you what you can interact with or not. You see this effect in many iPhone apps where they will have this absolutely beautiful graphics (and backgrounds) and you have no clue what the hell is an actual UI "widget" that you can push, slide, etc.
Agreed. Or they don't follow their own gestural patterns they've instilled in people, such as the Calendar app in which you can't swipe through the months, but instead have to click on tiny arrows at the bottom of the screen.
Another motivation Apple designers have had recently is, "Let's get the clutter out of the way so users can focus on the content". In theory this sounds good, but in practice on Mountain Lion they have reduced the UI widgets in size drastically -- ML window buttons (the "traffic lights") or the thin scroll bars. They're also doing things like hiding UI elements, which we see this in the system scroll bars and in the chrome for QuickTime Player. This creates extra cognitive work for users, and IMO creates more of a net distraction than just having a tried-and-true fullscreen button. And I would imagine people with shaky hands or bad eyesight would have real trouble clicking on Mountain Lion's tiny interface elements. For me, I certainly have to concentrate more to make sure I click on the buttons.
Either the changes in these basic UI elements is the embracement of a disastrous design philosophy by Apple UI designers, or Apple is slowly trying to phase out the mouse completely.
It's been reported that internally there has been in-fighting over skeumorphism. I think the software UI design team at Apple is off the rails. They don't have a leader that understands the fundamentals, and Apple no longer has a leader like Jobs to tell them what works and doesn't. [To be fair, Jobs is the one who first pushed skeumorphism when he changed iTunes to the brushed metal look.] I think Jony Ive should take over leadership of the hardware and software design teams. When OS X was first released, its Aqua UI tastefully matched the hardware cues of the Macs available then. Now, it's a complete divorce. You have these sleek, intuitive forms that Sir Ive designs, and tacky, unintuitive software running on them.
I'm sure you've noticed that the more you attend to the road while driving the less you can follow the music that is playing, and vice versa.
No. Quite the opposite, in my case. Music provides a rhythm which focuses my brain, and this is true whether I'm driving or involved in another task.
However, if someone is talking to me in the car, or I'm trying to listen to a talk radio show, I have trouble focusing on both. Perhaps that is different for others.
The only thing I never understood is that Overrated (-1) can be used on a post that hasn't been rated by an actual human. Using it on a Score 2 post is basically telling the slashdot server its mother smelt of elderberries. I think the powers that be should add the mod's username next to the rating in this instance, because it's obvious fanboyism at work. Or at least change the mod's sig to something appropriately embarassing for a few days.
By the time the spec is completed, devices will have been forced to roll their own solutions, simply because the spec isn't done. Now, they might have some inter-operable features, if that aspect of the spec had been fully codified before they had to implement it, but that's precisely the situation we had in the Netscape v. IE browser wars - each had a somewhat common base, but were independently adding new features to try an improve the browser. The features they added were mutually incompatible because there was no common standard - and we're staring straight down that road again. It's a very clear example of perfect being the enemy of good.
Yup, and this is exactly why Flash succeeded. It provided a framework for rich applications which worked consistently across all browsers. It sliced through the IE/Netscape proxy war and 'DHTML' was mostly abandoned. We're seeing a repeat with HTML5 -- I mean, we even see sites that are 'Chrome only'. That's not open standards. And it's exactly the kind of broken web we saw in the late '90s.
And Javascript, well that's a similar problem. Industry players with vested interests sabotaged the open group into doing nothing for 10 years. Adobe threw up their hands after Microsoft roadblocked progress -- Flash's Actionscript shared a common base with Javascript via the ECMAScript standard -- and continued innovating the language on their own.
Standards committees are okay when academic institutions are the ones hashing out a standard, but when you get vested interests involved, things rarely turn out well...
Dude, this is Libya. They just had a revolution a few months ago. EVERYONE in Libya has an RPG, grenades, and machine guns. Unfortunately their new government hasn't done enough to collect all the heavy weapons out there. But I don't think there's enough evidence yet to suggest what particular group was behind this or what their motives were.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you suggesting that it isn't possible for the iPad (or any tablet?) to have music-creation apps that are useful? Surely you must concede that PopeRatzo's statement that creating and performing music with an iPad/iPhone has been an abject failure is nothing but hyperbole? Well, maybe PopeRatzo and you do believe that hyperbole, but it's simply not true. Are there crappy music apps? You betcha. Are there a lot of mediocre ones? Sure, definitely. Are there some really good ones? Yes! Here's a few: Animoog, Nanostudio, Noise.io Pro, Argon synth, Bebot synth. When I saw Flaming Lips perform last year, Drozd was using Bebot.
Please keep in mind that I'm not defending the school -- their IT manager is a bonehead for approving a switch of all the teachers from laptops to iPads. I am merely trying to counter the extremism of "it's not good for creation, only consumption!"
Look, musicians don't care as much about the politics of technology -- they just want equipment that makes them more productive and opens up new creative possibilities.
Hmm, well Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips is using a lot of these music apps that -- according to you -- suck really bad, both during live performances and in the studio. And so do I. Maybe you're just not holding it right.
Same thing with Social Security Numbers; they were never supposed to be used as a Federal identification number, but companies wanted to track people in a more consistent manner and there was no alternative. In both cases, that doesn't forgive the companies for using these numbers.
To be clear, he just means all games will have an MP component, not that all games will required to be played online. The 'always on DRM' is falling out of favour with developers [...]
Right...so explain then why EA's forthcoming SimCity reboot requires online?
This is not about the customer, this is about forced obsolescence ("EA has announced the SimCity servers will sunset on Sept. 1. Thank you for playing, and pre-order SimCity 2 now!"), tracking user behaviour, and DLC. TL;DR - money, money, money.
Well, I never worked with Mr. Jobs directly, so I'll take your word on that. But it's also possible that the Jobs you knew was a mellowed-out guy compared to the early days. Time and the right woman can do that to a man. 'Course, time and the wrong woman can turn a man to vinegar...
Well yes, I'd agree with that. I think people that can only find solace/happiness in an altered state are usually using alcohol/drugs/whatever as escapism for some aspect of their life they hate. But people would often rather do that than make hard decisions in order to alter the state of their real life.
You conflate a lot of things together with your abstinence from drinking. You friends with beer bellies probably drink too heavily and don't exercise or eat properly. I too look quite a bit younger than my age, I can still solve hard problems, and enjoy learning, but guess what? I drink.
There is a nice middle area between binge drinking and being a teetotaler. It's what most people do -- have a drink now and then with friends, enjoy a good pint or glass of wine or whiskey, and enjoy themselves. I don't care whether you drink or not, and I don't think you are 'boring' for having that lifestyle, but don't try to say that drinking at all will result in horrible outcomes for your life.
I'm reading the Jobs bio right now, and it really illuminated the fact that he was always a dick. From a very young age. But he was a dick who had vision. The Macintosh would've never even been made at Apple had Jobs not bullied and yelled his way to victory. But he had no scruples or ethics; he was like the personification of Nietzsche's works. It didn't matter how much you had done for him, he would turn around and stab you if he felt like you were no longer on 'his team'. He screwed Woz over so much that he refused to work with Jobs again. If Schmidt had done his research, he would've known how Jobs would react. It was another psychological trigger for his [biological] parental abandonment that this guy Jobs had welcomed on the board at Apple was now suddenly going to compete directly against Jobs. It was a constant in his life, finding these father figures who would then turn on him (usually because Jobs was an asshole) and he'd go insane. He should've known Jobs would go ballistic and press the red button.
So, you can hate Jobs for being a dick. He had a lot of character flaws: flaws that made him succeed as an outsider in a very tough corporate game, and made his teams create some stellar products, but also emotionally wound many people in his life. But Steve suing Android -- I think it was psychological stuff he never dealt with. He felt abandoned and attacked in his relationship with Schmidt, and so he lashed out with great anger, as he had done many times throughout his career. He was a brilliant but very psychologically troubled man.
I do think though that his trip to India and the LSD and Zen meditation, it was all kind of bullshit. The contradictions between that lifestyle and the way he treated others, it's inexcusable. But you know, many of his generation are the same way. They like to think they still embrace hippie culture, like they all share a secret everyone else doesn't have, but it's very superficial.
But to say Steve "got what he deserved" and attributing that to karma... man, Steve was not a great guy, but not someone that death should be wished upon. And that's not what karma is about. It's not some kind of cosmic schadenfreude. You seem to have a lot of anger in you that you'd be so worked up over a phone. There's more important things in life.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh please, Flash just has the worst PUBLISHED security record because its incredible pervasiveness made it a highly attractive attack vector. There's plenty of software out there that makes Flash look like a digital Fort Knox by comparison.
Let's give credit where it's due -- it was President Jimmy Carter who repealed the Prohibition-era laws designed to prevent homebrewing.
Really. Have you been to that tumblr site? Some of the map 'renderings' I've seen look more like a bad psychedelic trip.
Hmm, well try telling that to the denizens of Tokyo. The Shinjuku subway station -- one of the main arteries of Tokyo's transit system -- doesn't even show up on Apple Maps, and searching for it returns no results.
I really have no problem with this. Mashup services just ride on the back of the people who do the hard work. Besides, these kinds of services are mostly used by geek and geek press. All the Silicon Valley rags will wag their tongues for a bit and go back to their lattes.
What I do have a problem with is the general move towards Twitter circling its wagons, and signalling that all unofficial Twitter clients will eventually be cut off. This is just a dumb move. Clients like Tweetbot will always offer more innovation because the guys at Twitter have not shown they care about their product or have the ability to really innovate. They're finally trying to figure out how to make money from Twitter, but so far it's just fumbling around. They'd be better off at least taking a cut of the profits from all 3rd-party Twitter services/clients that charge money.
I was at LA's Griffith Observatory today for the flyover, and the crowd was not only massive (not only was every Griffith Park parking space filled, but also the nearby Greek Theater's parking lot), but it was very diverse. Young, old, in-between. A broad mix of races and probably economic level as well. Let's not forget, these people, and everyone else who went to a flyover area, were pumped for NASA, and for a symbol of an America that they can be proud of. Yes, certainly there was a novelty factor at play of a Space Shuttle flying around on top of a frickin 747, but regardless it was capturing their attention and imagination.
Looking at these people around me, it really struck me that there's a giant disconnect in how they view NASA in comparison to how Congress and the President(s) view it. People see NASA as a tool for exploration, a window to discovery, and a symbol of America's leadership and greatness in technological innovation. Our government often sees NASA at best as a way to put jobs in local districts, and at worst as an organization they try to starve because they can't get rid of it. Thank the universe that Curiosity landed in one piece, because it shone light on a NASA that was half-buried in the backyard. On the other hand, NASA recently chose to send another geology mission to Mars instead of sending a lander to float in a Titan sea. NASA needs to capture the public's imagination. The Curiosity Twitter account has been inundated by questions from the public on why Curiosity doesn't include a microphone in order to listen to the sounds of Mars; the stock answer is that a microphone doesn't fulfill a science need. Well half of the Apollo missions included activities by their astronauts that had no science goal. The goal was capturing the spirit of wonder. NASA must keep that in mind if it is to stay viable, let alone flourish, in the harsh budgetary environment it finds itself in.
They've promised to replant twice the number of trees. It was part of the deal.
Sounds like video game projects will now have to show a prototype, and not just a teaser trailer of pre-rendered models. I think this is probably an overall good thing, as prototypes show at least the team has overcome some of the initial gameplay challenges, as games which sound amazing on paper usually have difficult roadblocks to conquer.
I'm not going to get suckered into the vinyl troll, but there are three things at play here the affect the quality of end-user digital audio:
1) The mastering engineer, which is the guy or girl who prepares the studio recordings for commercial release. They are compressing the hell out of the music so they can "make it louder". When it leaves their grubby hands, much audio information from the studio masters is already lost.
2) FLAC files are great, but almost every band sells their lossless music (the few that even do) as 16-bit files. Then again, quite a few studio engineers are recording digitally at 16-bit because they want to save on drive space and think it's "good enough" (it's not), which is a step down from the quality of a high-end studio 2" tape reel-to-reel. We need as an industry to move to 24-bit digital recording and playback across the board.
3) The quality of music listener audio equipment. When most people are listening on cheap earbuds, they won't be able to tell the difference. Then there's Apple's iPods, iPhones and iPads, none of which support 24/96 and above. The highest their audio chip supports is 24/48. Pretty pathetic. And of course the digital-analog converters of your system make a difference as well.
Ironically, their Human Interface Guidelines for iOS and their developer sessions for iOS are emphatic that UI elements be big enough to touch (min. 44x44 points). Surely Apple eats their own dog food, so I'm not sure how they can consider the scroll bars and tiny close/min/max window buttons acceptable for an average user. ESPECIALLY considering the laudable amount of engineering resources Apple brings to bear in advancing accessibility features.
Agreed. Or they don't follow their own gestural patterns they've instilled in people, such as the Calendar app in which you can't swipe through the months, but instead have to click on tiny arrows at the bottom of the screen.
Another motivation Apple designers have had recently is, "Let's get the clutter out of the way so users can focus on the content". In theory this sounds good, but in practice on Mountain Lion they have reduced the UI widgets in size drastically -- ML window buttons (the "traffic lights") or the thin scroll bars. They're also doing things like hiding UI elements, which we see this in the system scroll bars and in the chrome for QuickTime Player. This creates extra cognitive work for users, and IMO creates more of a net distraction than just having a tried-and-true fullscreen button. And I would imagine people with shaky hands or bad eyesight would have real trouble clicking on Mountain Lion's tiny interface elements. For me, I certainly have to concentrate more to make sure I click on the buttons.
Either the changes in these basic UI elements is the embracement of a disastrous design philosophy by Apple UI designers, or Apple is slowly trying to phase out the mouse completely.
It's been reported that internally there has been in-fighting over skeumorphism. I think the software UI design team at Apple is off the rails. They don't have a leader that understands the fundamentals, and Apple no longer has a leader like Jobs to tell them what works and doesn't. [To be fair, Jobs is the one who first pushed skeumorphism when he changed iTunes to the brushed metal look.] I think Jony Ive should take over leadership of the hardware and software design teams. When OS X was first released, its Aqua UI tastefully matched the hardware cues of the Macs available then. Now, it's a complete divorce. You have these sleek, intuitive forms that Sir Ive designs, and tacky, unintuitive software running on them.
No. Quite the opposite, in my case. Music provides a rhythm which focuses my brain, and this is true whether I'm driving or involved in another task.
However, if someone is talking to me in the car, or I'm trying to listen to a talk radio show, I have trouble focusing on both. Perhaps that is different for others.
The only thing I never understood is that Overrated (-1) can be used on a post that hasn't been rated by an actual human. Using it on a Score 2 post is basically telling the slashdot server its mother smelt of elderberries. I think the powers that be should add the mod's username next to the rating in this instance, because it's obvious fanboyism at work. Or at least change the mod's sig to something appropriately embarassing for a few days.
Yup, and this is exactly why Flash succeeded. It provided a framework for rich applications which worked consistently across all browsers. It sliced through the IE/Netscape proxy war and 'DHTML' was mostly abandoned. We're seeing a repeat with HTML5 -- I mean, we even see sites that are 'Chrome only'. That's not open standards. And it's exactly the kind of broken web we saw in the late '90s.
And Javascript, well that's a similar problem. Industry players with vested interests sabotaged the open group into doing nothing for 10 years. Adobe threw up their hands after Microsoft roadblocked progress -- Flash's Actionscript shared a common base with Javascript via the ECMAScript standard -- and continued innovating the language on their own.
Standards committees are okay when academic institutions are the ones hashing out a standard, but when you get vested interests involved, things rarely turn out well...
Dude, this is Libya. They just had a revolution a few months ago. EVERYONE in Libya has an RPG, grenades, and machine guns. Unfortunately their new government hasn't done enough to collect all the heavy weapons out there. But I don't think there's enough evidence yet to suggest what particular group was behind this or what their motives were.
swooooosh...
Blue Velvet
Heineken?? Fuck that shit! PABST BLUE RIBBON!
You're calling The Flaming Lips a "local band"? You have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you suggesting that it isn't possible for the iPad (or any tablet?) to have music-creation apps that are useful? Surely you must concede that PopeRatzo's statement that creating and performing music with an iPad/iPhone has been an abject failure is nothing but hyperbole? Well, maybe PopeRatzo and you do believe that hyperbole, but it's simply not true. Are there crappy music apps? You betcha. Are there a lot of mediocre ones? Sure, definitely. Are there some really good ones? Yes! Here's a few: Animoog, Nanostudio, Noise.io Pro, Argon synth, Bebot synth. When I saw Flaming Lips perform last year, Drozd was using Bebot.
Please keep in mind that I'm not defending the school -- their IT manager is a bonehead for approving a switch of all the teachers from laptops to iPads. I am merely trying to counter the extremism of "it's not good for creation, only consumption!"
Look, musicians don't care as much about the politics of technology -- they just want equipment that makes them more productive and opens up new creative possibilities.
Hmm, well Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips is using a lot of these music apps that -- according to you -- suck really bad, both during live performances and in the studio. And so do I. Maybe you're just not holding it right.
Same thing with Social Security Numbers; they were never supposed to be used as a Federal identification number, but companies wanted to track people in a more consistent manner and there was no alternative. In both cases, that doesn't forgive the companies for using these numbers.
Right...so explain then why EA's forthcoming SimCity reboot requires online?
This is not about the customer, this is about forced obsolescence ("EA has announced the SimCity servers will sunset on Sept. 1. Thank you for playing, and pre-order SimCity 2 now!"), tracking user behaviour, and DLC. TL;DR - money, money, money.
Well, I never worked with Mr. Jobs directly, so I'll take your word on that. But it's also possible that the Jobs you knew was a mellowed-out guy compared to the early days. Time and the right woman can do that to a man. 'Course, time and the wrong woman can turn a man to vinegar...
Well yes, I'd agree with that. I think people that can only find solace/happiness in an altered state are usually using alcohol/drugs/whatever as escapism for some aspect of their life they hate. But people would often rather do that than make hard decisions in order to alter the state of their real life.
You conflate a lot of things together with your abstinence from drinking. You friends with beer bellies probably drink too heavily and don't exercise or eat properly. I too look quite a bit younger than my age, I can still solve hard problems, and enjoy learning, but guess what? I drink.
There is a nice middle area between binge drinking and being a teetotaler. It's what most people do -- have a drink now and then with friends, enjoy a good pint or glass of wine or whiskey, and enjoy themselves. I don't care whether you drink or not, and I don't think you are 'boring' for having that lifestyle, but don't try to say that drinking at all will result in horrible outcomes for your life.
I'm reading the Jobs bio right now, and it really illuminated the fact that he was always a dick. From a very young age. But he was a dick who had vision. The Macintosh would've never even been made at Apple had Jobs not bullied and yelled his way to victory. But he had no scruples or ethics; he was like the personification of Nietzsche's works. It didn't matter how much you had done for him, he would turn around and stab you if he felt like you were no longer on 'his team'. He screwed Woz over so much that he refused to work with Jobs again. If Schmidt had done his research, he would've known how Jobs would react. It was another psychological trigger for his [biological] parental abandonment that this guy Jobs had welcomed on the board at Apple was now suddenly going to compete directly against Jobs. It was a constant in his life, finding these father figures who would then turn on him (usually because Jobs was an asshole) and he'd go insane. He should've known Jobs would go ballistic and press the red button.
So, you can hate Jobs for being a dick. He had a lot of character flaws: flaws that made him succeed as an outsider in a very tough corporate game, and made his teams create some stellar products, but also emotionally wound many people in his life. But Steve suing Android -- I think it was psychological stuff he never dealt with. He felt abandoned and attacked in his relationship with Schmidt, and so he lashed out with great anger, as he had done many times throughout his career. He was a brilliant but very psychologically troubled man.
I do think though that his trip to India and the LSD and Zen meditation, it was all kind of bullshit. The contradictions between that lifestyle and the way he treated others, it's inexcusable. But you know, many of his generation are the same way. They like to think they still embrace hippie culture, like they all share a secret everyone else doesn't have, but it's very superficial.
But to say Steve "got what he deserved" and attributing that to karma... man, Steve was not a great guy, but not someone that death should be wished upon. And that's not what karma is about. It's not some kind of cosmic schadenfreude. You seem to have a lot of anger in you that you'd be so worked up over a phone. There's more important things in life.