"As written by the allied forces. America was not involved in the war. We were innocently sitting by, letting them fight it out. Suddenly out of nowhere, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one expected any such thing. We were not involved. Just ignore the fleet of about 100 ships in port, 3 aircraft carriers nearby, about 400 aircraft on the ground, and all the troops."
As I remember it in the US history book that I read, Japan was busy expanding to the south, China, and the Philippines in search of more land and resources. We were telling them that they needed to stop, or we'd be forced to intervene and blockade. They decided that a pre-emptive strike was in order. We didn't expect a conventional attack on Pearl, but were guarding against Japanese sabotage. They thought an attack would give them time they needed. It didn't.
"Dropping two nukes on Japan ended it.... For the allied forces, it was a strong blow to prove our military superiority, which ended the war."
For the allied forces, it was a bluff made to prove our military superiority in an attempt to quickly end the war. If it didn't work, a long, drawn-out conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland would have killed hundreds of thousands of Allied and Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians in an operation that would have made all of the earlier Pacific operations look like cakewalks.
And it just so happens that these versions of history tie pretty closely to those espoused by the Japanese, in particular, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki. There are also several revisionist attempts, including Day of Deceit.
Just goes to show that the presentation of history isn't always as one sided as one might believe.
"Yes, but I can read and modify every line of it if I want to (yes, I'm one of those Linux freaks)."
Assuming you can read and understand and change over 200 million lines of code, you're still dependent on a compiler to take that code and compile it. Compile the clean source for the compiler, and you still can't be sure that compiler didn't change things. And you still have all of the embedded firmware on graphics cards, disk and raid controllers, network cards, boot roms, and so on, not to mention the microcode on the processor chipset itself.
We graduated from "full control" the day we moved on from the PDP-8 and the 6502.
(And yes, I'm one of those computer science freaks).
"The inherent problem with the world actually buying into this crap in a "post-PC" world, to the detriment, of course, to the PCs, is that when the market for the more-capable devices shrinks and quite possibly dies, there may well be nothing left to use but this locked-down Big-Media-friendly user-/comp."
So you think we're going to lose all of the business machines, scientific workstations, development machines, notebooks, computers doing heavy-dutyPhotoshop and Final Cut type of work, and so on?
"It's the same reason smartphones are generally more desirable than dumb phones and you can't find PDAs without cell modems these days."
Ahhh... you did notice, did you not, that the majority of those generally more desirable smartphones ditched their keyboards a long time ago? That more Android phones are full touchscreen devices?
"If these "post-PC" hopes come true, there is a very, very real threat that there will be very few devices the user will ever have full control over without hacking, ignoring the used market."
What "full control" do you have over your computer now? You use billions of lines of application code, OS code, device drivers, firmware drivers, boot ROMs, and more, all written by people you don't know. Your "full control" is an illusion. Further, full access to the system, for most people, means that they have to pay their annual protection money in order to be safe from viruses, trojans, and rootkits.
Open systems are no protection. Witness the recent rootkit trojan attack via the "open" Android Marketplace. How are "those devices" supposed to be trusted on a network?
And even on systems where people have "full control", is it exercised? Or do 99% of them check Gmail and log into Facebook, all systems controlled by others anyway. How many of the day-to-day applications you use on your computer and phone did you, personally, write?
This isn't new. I've seen variations of the same arguments back when the PC wrested control away from the mainframe priesthood. And again when the GUI took away the geek's beloved DOS prompts and when BASIC disappeared from the standard OS installation.
And you know what happened? Each time more and more people gained access to technology that could help them do their work and let them play, all without knowing or caring what was going on under the hood.
Anyone who wants to buy a full desktop or workstation and learn to program will still be free to do so, just like you, if you desired, could learn how to fix your modern computer-controlled car if you really wanted to do so.
Consider: the Nook Color runs a slower, single core processor, a phone-class graphics processor, has a smaller screen, contains half the storage of a base-model iPad, and has less than 80% of the iPad's battery life.
Also consider that the Nook Color's price is subsidized, in that B&N expects you to buy ebooks from their store.
So... a smaller locked plastic tablet with half the hardware bang-for-the-buck with a subsidized price point... and you think that's a good basis for a price comparison?
"You never create content with the exception of a blog."
Yeah. Tell that to the artists who're using the pad. Or to my friend who can't wait for his pad to arrive so he can get started with Garage Band. Or the DJ's who're using them as mixers. Or my girlfriend who just did an iMovie on hers. Or the ones who are buying Pages and Keynote and QuickOffice and Penultimate and OmniFocus and OmniGraffle and....
Yep. Can never create anything on an iPad.
"All your data is stored using some online service that the tablet can access."
Stay tuned. (And remember that honking big NC datacenter that Apple just built...)
"Your camera(s) or other content creating devices can transfer media directly to your tablet or online storage."
You mean like with the Camera Connection Kit? Or my iPhone with PhotoSync? Or Flickr uploads? Or Dropbox?
"It's just not the case at this moment."
Yes, but I suspect that it's much, much, much closer than you or I or anyone else thinks.
"Instead of companies licensing some variant of Windows CE for their devices for a fee, many companies like phone manufacturers are choosing Android instead."
Not so cut and dried. Windows CE could not compete with modern touchscreen interfaces, and WP7 wasn't available. Android was a solution to the problem of iPhone.
I do software development and have a 17" MacBook Pro. I have an iPad 2. The two are used for different things, in different situations and in different locations and I'm here to tell you that neither one will EVER be an effective replacement for the other. I'm never going to get the horsepower and screen size I need in a tablet, and I'm never going to get the same portability and ease of use in a notebook.
That said, I can always slip a small Bluetooth keyboard into my backpack and use it with the iPad if I need to write an article or do a little more text entry than normal. I can not, on the other hand, rip the keyboard off my notebook for all of those times when a keyboard isn't needed or wanted or even useful.
Incidentally, an iPad with the Apple wireless keyboard weighs 3 oz LESS than that of an Air. And I'm sure I could find a smaller, lighter keyboard if I needed to do so.
I could just as easily say that the notebook is limited by the fact that I always have to carry around a physical keyboard, even if it's not needed for the task at hand.
"The iPad is limited in a variety of other ways (Flash, battery, ports, battery, application installs, multitasking, etc)."
Battery and battery? Really? Please point me to the laptop that will do movie and video playback for 10 hours straight.
I think Steve is right. We're entering into a "post-PC" era, and a bunch of geeks are going to whine and complain that there's nothing a tablet can do that their ten pound desktop replacement can't do.
In the meantime, the rest of the world is going to be busy buying them and using them.
"If you really think about it, there's nothing that you do with an iPad that you couldn't do on a laptop."
Well... I suppose I could try to hold my seven pound laptop in one hand when I'm reading on the couch or in bed, but I doubt it would be very comfortable. Or that I could do it for very long.
Read your own friggin' articles and stop spreading FUD.
"Yukio Edano, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, confirmed at a news conference Saturday that milk produced by a farm in Fukushima Prefecture near a crippled power plant and spinach from the neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture were found to be tainted with radiation levels SLIGHTLY [emphasis mine] above that set by the government.
However, Edano said, the contaminated food posed no immediate threat to human health. The public should remain calm, he urged.
Referring to the milk, he said, "drinking it for a year would only expose consumers to the radiation equivalent of one medical CT scan.""
Apparently xkcd did do more research. Read this article about how the US coverage from nearly all outlets (not just Fox) is sensationalist, late, and often just wrong.
Example: "This has not been just Fox News, but also CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and even the New York Times to differing degrees. They get the reactors mixed up or report information that is simply wrong (e.g., writing that the TEPCO workers had fully abandoned the effort to control the plant because of radiation levels when TEPCO had only withdrawn some non-essential personnel). They are perpetually late, continuing to report things the Japanese media had shown to be wrong or different the day before. They are woefully selective, bringing out just the sensational elements ("toxic clouds" over Tokyowhen in fact radiation in Tokyo now is actually less than that in LA on some days). They are misleading (implying for instance that the dumping of water from the air was some last ditch effort to cool the core, when it was just an effort to replenish the water in the spent rod poolswhich are now full in reactor 3 and back to normal temperature)."
Vast majority? by the time you get into those kinds of numbers, you're into Long Tail power curves. To wit:
"As a rule of thumb, for such population distributions the majority of occurrences are accounted for by the first 20% of items in the distribution. What is unusual about a long-tailed distribution is that the most frequently-occurring 20% of items represent less than 50% of occurrences; or in other words, the least-frequently-occurring 80% of items are more important as a proportion of the total population."
Other than it's what a user would see today... with today's software, and today's games.
Funny how the Droid-boys were busy bitch-slapping the year-old iPad one with the Xoom specs, but now are sputtering, "Well, sure.... but, but... sometime in the future I'm sure that things will be different. You know, with updates. Assuming we get updates, of course."
There are already many iPad apps that run home automation systems, including ones that support dedicated IR transmitters. Most of the major manufacturers and systems are on Apple, including Crestron, Savant, X-10, and others.
Are you into social networking? Photography? Cooking? Design? Reading? Watch movies? Like music? Do you fly a plane? Play golf? Go to school? Do construction? Are you an artist? Play in a band? An independent contractor? A consultant? A lawyer? A doctor? Work in IT?
I could go on and on and on, but even if one were to accept that no one would install more than 30 apps (I have about 100, and NOT all games), we'd still be faced with the fact that the 30 apps that YOU might want are completely and totally different than the 30 apps that I might want, and those still are different from the ones that a housewife, my son, and your daughter might want and need and use.
Take a calculator: simple, basic functionality, right? Well... do you want a paper tape of your results? Do you need a scientific calculator? A programmer's calculator that works in hex? A mortgage calculator? A graphing calculator for advanced mathematics? Do currency conversions? Want RPN? Need a photography calculator that can do DOF and hyperfocal calculations?
Sorry, but one size does NOT fit all.
So -- in fact -- the number of apps on a given platform is significant, because it dramatically increases the likelihood that a set of apps exist to suit your interests and suit your needs and suit your lifestyle.
"So writing a tablet app for it is fundamentally the same as writing an iphone app. You just make a minor screen resolution change, republish as "Ipad version!" and get a second sale to the fuckwit that bought your iphone app."
Well... no. Many, many iPad apps are updated to actually USE the extra screen real-estate (games, magazine and news apps, etc.), or to use UISplitViewControllers for master-detail application relationships (list on the left, detail on the right).
If all you're doing is adjusting your view size to the increase in screen size, then in all likelihood you're limiting functionality and wasting screen space by simply making your list view wider. Especially on a wide-screen tablet like the Xoom which is primarily designed to operate horizontally in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
"BUT, and it's a big but, who stands to make money from Apple products in the long run? Apple. Who else? Ah...Apple?"
You do remember that moment in the iPad 2 announcement when Steve announced that Apple has paid out two billion dollars to iOS developers, right?
"As written by the allied forces. America was not involved in the war. We were innocently sitting by, letting them fight it out. Suddenly out of nowhere, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one expected any such thing. We were not involved. Just ignore the fleet of about 100 ships in port, 3 aircraft carriers nearby, about 400 aircraft on the ground, and all the troops."
As I remember it in the US history book that I read, Japan was busy expanding to the south, China, and the Philippines in search of more land and resources. We were telling them that they needed to stop, or we'd be forced to intervene and blockade. They decided that a pre-emptive strike was in order. We didn't expect a conventional attack on Pearl, but were guarding against Japanese sabotage. They thought an attack would give them time they needed. It didn't.
"Dropping two nukes on Japan ended it. ... For the allied forces, it was a strong blow to prove our military superiority, which ended the war."
For the allied forces, it was a bluff made to prove our military superiority in an attempt to quickly end the war. If it didn't work, a long, drawn-out conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland would have killed hundreds of thousands of Allied and Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians in an operation that would have made all of the earlier Pacific operations look like cakewalks.
And it just so happens that these versions of history tie pretty closely to those espoused by the Japanese, in particular, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki. There are also several revisionist attempts, including Day of Deceit.
Just goes to show that the presentation of history isn't always as one sided as one might believe.
"Yes, but I can read and modify every line of it if I want to (yes, I'm one of those Linux freaks)."
Assuming you can read and understand and change over 200 million lines of code, you're still dependent on a compiler to take that code and compile it. Compile the clean source for the compiler, and you still can't be sure that compiler didn't change things. And you still have all of the embedded firmware on graphics cards, disk and raid controllers, network cards, boot roms, and so on, not to mention the microcode on the processor chipset itself.
We graduated from "full control" the day we moved on from the PDP-8 and the 6502.
(And yes, I'm one of those computer science freaks).
"The inherent problem with the world actually buying into this crap in a "post-PC" world, to the detriment, of course, to the PCs, is that when the market for the more-capable devices shrinks and quite possibly dies, there may well be nothing left to use but this locked-down Big-Media-friendly user-/comp."
So you think we're going to lose all of the business machines, scientific workstations, development machines, notebooks, computers doing heavy-dutyPhotoshop and Final Cut type of work, and so on?
Right....
"It's the same reason smartphones are generally more desirable than dumb phones and you can't find PDAs without cell modems these days."
Ahhh... you did notice, did you not, that the majority of those generally more desirable smartphones ditched their keyboards a long time ago? That more Android phones are full touchscreen devices?
"If these "post-PC" hopes come true, there is a very, very real threat that there will be very few devices the user will ever have full control over without hacking, ignoring the used market."
What "full control" do you have over your computer now? You use billions of lines of application code, OS code, device drivers, firmware drivers, boot ROMs, and more, all written by people you don't know. Your "full control" is an illusion. Further, full access to the system, for most people, means that they have to pay their annual protection money in order to be safe from viruses, trojans, and rootkits.
Open systems are no protection. Witness the recent rootkit trojan attack via the "open" Android Marketplace. How are "those devices" supposed to be trusted on a network?
And even on systems where people have "full control", is it exercised? Or do 99% of them check Gmail and log into Facebook, all systems controlled by others anyway. How many of the day-to-day applications you use on your computer and phone did you, personally, write?
This isn't new. I've seen variations of the same arguments back when the PC wrested control away from the mainframe priesthood. And again when the GUI took away the geek's beloved DOS prompts and when BASIC disappeared from the standard OS installation.
And you know what happened? Each time more and more people gained access to technology that could help them do their work and let them play, all without knowing or caring what was going on under the hood.
Anyone who wants to buy a full desktop or workstation and learn to program will still be free to do so, just like you, if you desired, could learn how to fix your modern computer-controlled car if you really wanted to do so.
Me, I'd rather just get in it and go somewhere...
Consider: the Nook Color runs a slower, single core processor, a phone-class graphics processor, has a smaller screen, contains half the storage of a base-model iPad, and has less than 80% of the iPad's battery life.
Also consider that the Nook Color's price is subsidized, in that B&N expects you to buy ebooks from their store.
So... a smaller locked plastic tablet with half the hardware bang-for-the-buck with a subsidized price point... and you think that's a good basis for a price comparison?
"Know what's better, if cost is not an issue, and everything can be made light enough and convenient enough to transport?"
An Apple iPad 2 and an Apple Wireless Keyboard weigh less than a 11" MacBook Air.
"You never create content with the exception of a blog."
Yeah. Tell that to the artists who're using the pad. Or to my friend who can't wait for his pad to arrive so he can get started with Garage Band. Or the DJ's who're using them as mixers. Or my girlfriend who just did an iMovie on hers. Or the ones who are buying Pages and Keynote and QuickOffice and Penultimate and OmniFocus and OmniGraffle and....
Yep. Can never create anything on an iPad.
"All your data is stored using some online service that the tablet can access."
Stay tuned. (And remember that honking big NC datacenter that Apple just built...)
"Your camera(s) or other content creating devices can transfer media directly to your tablet or online storage."
You mean like with the Camera Connection Kit? Or my iPhone with PhotoSync? Or Flickr uploads? Or Dropbox?
"It's just not the case at this moment."
Yes, but I suspect that it's much, much, much closer than you or I or anyone else thinks.
"Instead of companies licensing some variant of Windows CE for their devices for a fee, many companies like phone manufacturers are choosing Android instead."
Not so cut and dried. Windows CE could not compete with modern touchscreen interfaces, and WP7 wasn't available. Android was a solution to the problem of iPhone.
I do software development and have a 17" MacBook Pro. I have an iPad 2. The two are used for different things, in different situations and in different locations and I'm here to tell you that neither one will EVER be an effective replacement for the other. I'm never going to get the horsepower and screen size I need in a tablet, and I'm never going to get the same portability and ease of use in a notebook.
That said, I can always slip a small Bluetooth keyboard into my backpack and use it with the iPad if I need to write an article or do a little more text entry than normal. I can not, on the other hand, rip the keyboard off my notebook for all of those times when a keyboard isn't needed or wanted or even useful.
Incidentally, an iPad with the Apple wireless keyboard weighs 3 oz LESS than that of an Air. And I'm sure I could find a smaller, lighter keyboard if I needed to do so.
"The tablet is limited by lack of a keyboard."
I could just as easily say that the notebook is limited by the fact that I always have to carry around a physical keyboard, even if it's not needed for the task at hand.
"The iPad is limited in a variety of other ways (Flash, battery, ports, battery, application installs, multitasking, etc)."
Battery and battery? Really? Please point me to the laptop that will do movie and video playback for 10 hours straight.
I think Steve is right. We're entering into a "post-PC" era, and a bunch of geeks are going to whine and complain that there's nothing a tablet can do that their ten pound desktop replacement can't do.
In the meantime, the rest of the world is going to be busy buying them and using them.
"If you really think about it, there's nothing that you do with an iPad that you couldn't do on a laptop."
Well... I suppose I could try to hold my seven pound laptop in one hand when I'm reading on the couch or in bed, but I doubt it would be very comfortable. Or that I could do it for very long.
That's the cute part. They didn't sue Google, just the companies that sell products using Android.
Read your own friggin' articles and stop spreading FUD.
"Yukio Edano, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, confirmed at a news conference Saturday that milk produced by a farm in Fukushima Prefecture near a crippled power plant and spinach from the neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture were found to be tainted with radiation levels SLIGHTLY [emphasis mine] above that set by the government.
However, Edano said, the contaminated food posed no immediate threat to human health. The public should remain calm, he urged.
Referring to the milk, he said, "drinking it for a year would only expose consumers to the radiation equivalent of one medical CT scan.""
Read this: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/03/taking_stock_3.php
According to reports by the Japanese government and media, the situation is not unstable. Levels are decreasing. Stop listening to US news coverage.
Apparently xkcd did do more research. Read this article about how the US coverage from nearly all outlets (not just Fox) is sensationalist, late, and often just wrong.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/JNlPwKP6WAs/taking_stock_3.php
Or read this article about how the US coverage from nearly all outlets (not just Fox) is sensationalist, late, and often just wrong?
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/JNlPwKP6WAs/taking_stock_3.php
Example: "This has not been just Fox News, but also CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and even the New York Times to differing degrees. They get the reactors mixed up or report information that is simply wrong (e.g., writing that the TEPCO workers had fully abandoned the effort to control the plant because of radiation levels when TEPCO had only withdrawn some non-essential personnel). They are perpetually late, continuing to report things the Japanese media had shown to be wrong or different the day before. They are woefully selective, bringing out just the sensational elements ("toxic clouds" over Tokyowhen in fact radiation in Tokyo now is actually less than that in LA on some days). They are misleading (implying for instance that the dumping of water from the air was some last ditch effort to cool the core, when it was just an effort to replenish the water in the spent rod poolswhich are now full in reactor 3 and back to normal temperature)."
"Fascist, communist, socialist, elitist, anti-business agenda."
You forgot socialist and elitist.
Vast majority? by the time you get into those kinds of numbers, you're into Long Tail power curves. To wit:
"As a rule of thumb, for such population distributions the majority of occurrences are accounted for by the first 20% of items in the distribution. What is unusual about a long-tailed distribution is that the most frequently-occurring 20% of items represent less than 50% of occurrences; or in other words, the least-frequently-occurring 80% of items are more important as a proportion of the total population."
Other than it's what a user would see today... with today's software, and today's games.
Funny how the Droid-boys were busy bitch-slapping the year-old iPad one with the Xoom specs, but now are sputtering, "Well, sure.... but, but... sometime in the future I'm sure that things will be different. You know, with updates. Assuming we get updates, of course."
There are already many iPad apps that run home automation systems, including ones that support dedicated IR transmitters. Most of the major manufacturers and systems are on Apple, including Crestron, Savant, X-10, and others.
Are you into social networking? Photography? Cooking? Design? Reading? Watch movies? Like music? Do you fly a plane? Play golf? Go to school? Do construction? Are you an artist? Play in a band? An independent contractor? A consultant? A lawyer? A doctor? Work in IT?
I could go on and on and on, but even if one were to accept that no one would install more than 30 apps (I have about 100, and NOT all games), we'd still be faced with the fact that the 30 apps that YOU might want are completely and totally different than the 30 apps that I might want, and those still are different from the ones that a housewife, my son, and your daughter might want and need and use.
Take a calculator: simple, basic functionality, right? Well... do you want a paper tape of your results? Do you need a scientific calculator? A programmer's calculator that works in hex? A mortgage calculator? A graphing calculator for advanced mathematics? Do currency conversions? Want RPN? Need a photography calculator that can do DOF and hyperfocal calculations?
Sorry, but one size does NOT fit all.
So -- in fact -- the number of apps on a given platform is significant, because it dramatically increases the likelihood that a set of apps exist to suit your interests and suit your needs and suit your lifestyle.
"So writing a tablet app for it is fundamentally the same as writing an iphone app. You just make a minor screen resolution change, republish as "Ipad version!" and get a second sale to the fuckwit that bought your iphone app."
Well... no. Many, many iPad apps are updated to actually USE the extra screen real-estate (games, magazine and news apps, etc.), or to use UISplitViewControllers for master-detail application relationships (list on the left, detail on the right).
If all you're doing is adjusting your view size to the increase in screen size, then in all likelihood you're limiting functionality and wasting screen space by simply making your list view wider. Especially on a wide-screen tablet like the Xoom which is primarily designed to operate horizontally in the first place.
A tablet is NOT just a big iPhone (or Droid).
"...yes, and they only grab such a big piece of the market because their app is 99 cents."
That one doesn't follow. There are a ton of $0.99 apps, and few sell in those numbers. (Or, in many cases, at any numbers at all.)
As such, their success has much, much more to do with creating a fun little game than price.