It may have been a literary(and philosophical and circles in the sand) oublitette. Possibly. It burned to the ground before us commoners learned to read so we shall never know.
If you insist on being pedantic, quite a lot of the ancient greek stuff got preserved by Persia, quite a lot of the ancient Roman stuff got preserved by Byzantium. And they added their own stuff. We shall never know what was lost in Alexandria, quite nice and interesting things that weren't quite fancied by Savonarola or in Alamut when a Sunni sorted out what Ismaeli stuff was worth preserving. Silly as it may be, I will put this current blend of copyright over public domain right next to the human catastrophies like iliteracy, burnt libraries and plain idiocy.
All of the above may be apocryphal but it serves quite well as a metaphor(hyperbole, really). Shall we agree on that?
Well, ultimately and rather depressingly maybe so. You might think that if you insist on being a bore.
But that certainly wasn't the initial intent. When it comes to looking for your own selfish little bit of heaven then you don't give a damn about other people as long as they don't hinder you. Hope can be short-sighted and that was what made people set their sights west on sails or steam or old-fashioned jet engines.
It's not Per Aspera Ad Astra but rather by earthworm to really nice crops. There's no real difference between the both of them.
That's called "spin". You know, like dropping bombs on buildings and call it "surgical strikes". Or realizing you might have been wrong in the past and changing your opinion "flip-flopping". Language does determine how we think.
Scary, huh?
The truly big one is making "libertarian" a filthy word. That's the one sole unifying thing the US was built on.
Honestly, looking for national differences in the western world is an exercise in futility. We all suffer from the same ailments.
RE: James Joyce. Me literature teacher back in school told me of a friend of his who picked up Ulysses with the goal to understand it. He went mad over it. That scared me into Computer Sciences even though I'd rather have studied history or English or French or German literature.
As a direct result I never read anything Joyce, Döblin, Ibsen or Zola. But I did read Burroughs. That guy was truly beaten. Huffman enconding was definitely the better choice.
TEHY IS PRTECTING US FROM MADNESS I TELL YOU!
I always thought I was the only one with a deep feeling of resention for the Baby Boomers. Could we please get rid of that particularly horrid generation of selfish bastards and their Xer collaborators? The whole western world is paying off their debt they amassed with their Greed is Good philosophy. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20 yet theirs only goes as far as the tip of their nose.
Honstly,the primaries would be a good moment to break out the old lantern and search for a honest man.
Sadly, it's quite pointless..Spineless offers of easy answers for the punters is all I can see.
The good thing about the primaries is you get to vote for the lesser of a couple of evils. Whereas later you basically only get to choose between two lesser evils.
The city Alexandria at the time did reputedly the following.
If you entered the harbour you were asked if you had any scrolls with you. If you had then you were to hand the over so they could copy them for the Great Library.Chances were you'd get back the copy. I don't know if that particular anecdote is true but it is one that makes perfect sense. That's how important knowledge was to them. If you could read it you could access it. Copy it. Teach it. Available knowledge was part of Alexandrias wealth.
When the Great Library burned down it was one of the greatest losses to humanity I can ever imagine.
Now most of us can read it but only as far as the rights as granted by the copyright holders allow.
Not letting things enter Public Domain is a catastrophy that is akin to the fire in the Great Library. How many works have been forgotten due to nobody really knowing who holds the rights or because it isn't profitable to publish it?
Wasn't Return of the King first widely published in the 70ies? At least that's when the great craze started.
We burnt Savonarola, could we please do the same to those clowns who actively steal from our civilisation? I find that particular notion heartwarming.
Who do you want to trust with woh gets to stay and who is silenced?
The DHS?
A jury of peers?
Who else will be silenced?
Who will be collateral damage when we give in to our fears?
As I recall, the US didn't allow the Imperial Japanese or Nazi Germans to directly transmit from American radio stations in WW2. Did that constitute destroying the American radio infrastructure too?
Nope.Anybody who remotely looked Asian was rounded up and locked away into camps.Indiscriminately. They weren't allowed to directly transmit from US radio stations. They damn well nearly weren't allowed to breathe US air. The public howled for their blood. That's a damn big pee stain on US history and nothing to be proud of.
We pay your welfare, we pay your taxes, we protect your guts, we drive your cabs, we program your iDevices, we prepare our food, we build your homes, we create your creature comforts
We don't buy into your BS. We didn't sign up with you.
We are pushing our 40ies. We read the classics. We have come into our own.
Watch it! Hear us roar!
The hammer fell and the anvil rang. Our turn.
That war was neither good nor evil even if the reasons stated were dishonest and later recanted.
What made it irrelevant was the stupid, demented and criminally negligent notion that earts and minds would be instantly won. That was beyond moronic. If you want to change how people think and feel then you need to invest a whole generation into that. Europe after WW2 was a full success financially and culturally due to how freaking long US troops were stationed there(amongst other things like the US are a culturally descendant of Europe).
Imagine two persons. Their ultimate aspiration is to live a happy life but how they plan on doing that is different. Owning land and breathing free air for one, convenience for the other. Now imagine a whole room full of people. For each and every one of them their plan for their puruit of happyness is different. Now imagine a town square of peole. The mind starts to boggle. Now imagine millions and millions of them. Each from a cultural background so diverse it would take a lifetime to understand it all. Each has a different plan for life. Ranging from owning enough goats to feed the family to designing the ultimate iDevice. Each and every one of them is entitled to pursue their goals if it is not to the detriment of others.
If you elect people who claim to have easy answers and paint the world in black and white, this is what you don't get.
Those 500 billion could have been well spent for exactly the goal stated. Ineptitude did away with that.
Terry Prachett made his own sword from a meteorite when he received his honours.
That's as wonderful as owning a pet elephant.
And I say this not in disrespect of Sir Jon. Design does matter. Usability helps with the potential usefulness of an item. In fact, bad usability marrs the usefulness of an item more than anything else. Apple understood this and slashed features for sake of usability.
Take for instance a door handle. It serves one purpose and one alone. Ornaments should not get in the way of that. It does not need self-lighting features, WiFi connection to indicate wether the door is closed or not. It needs no rumble pack, expansion slots, self heating, a cup holder,...
Door handles are easy but when it comes to general purpose items like computers then it becomes a lot harder. Recognizing that for the things you design it for places it into an exposed position in the household which adds aesthetical requirements it didn't have before is a now obvious strike of genious. Excersizing the design with that in mind and such consitency is high craftmannship.
If you carry a device at all times then it doesn't only have to look neat but also feel pleasing to the touch.
I don't own iDevices because I don't like paying for a company's cash register which seems to be the primary business model of Apple. I don't like being dictated how I use stuff nor do I like being prevented to be tinker with it. These preferences are mine and possibly that iStuff may be for you. That's a reason for why the devices are so successfull and trend setting.The clarity of focus does make them a piece of art.
The choice to include him in the New Years Honours List is justified. He did something and wasn't merely born to it. Outdated or no, it is a way of our civilisation to honour those thad furthered it. Well done.
People use infrastructure. Terrorists are people. Therefore terrorists use infrastructure. Therefore we must destroy infrastructure.
You gotta love that kind of reasoning.
Pirates use infrastructure.
Illegal immigrants use infrastructure.
Yep, hawkish application of a scorched earth strategy also applies when it comes to your own GODDAM home. Let's outdo all of the above when it comes to damage done. It's like writing your name on the wall you built with other peoples poo.
Why do they need a huge pile of cash for that when access to the decision making process is supposed to be without barriers of race, creed, social standing or wealth?
But if this is what it takes to break the infinitely corrupt stranglehold D&R have put the USA in then more power to them.I've completely given up on that.
ATM this is so ridiculous. How much money do they spend on the primaries just so we actully care who of the curent rank and file of turkey dinner leftovers does the same thin again for the real election? People gobble it up and cheer on them as if they were their home team. You are expected to pick one when the clear choice seems to be: none of the above.
Yep, we're screwed.
Java,.NET and GPS are not entirely new concepts. They are a combination and refinement of already existing concepts. Real research is something like LHC with no immediate benefit but simply motivated to understand things a little better.
I consider your examples rather an example of standing on the shoulders of giants. Breakthroughs they are nevertheless. But they needed the giants and I fear we may not support them enough since we are chasing immediate benefits and forget about the longterm. Which may lie very well beyond our life span.
I do not expect this kind of thinking from the military. Which is fine because it's not its job.
As long as they also do basic research for sake of researching only then there will be stuff that also heals. Also quite a bit of these funds are bound to go into joint projects with MIT, SRI and the likes.
I don't know if the superglue story is correct but at least it sounds plausible.
Do I feel good about most of publicly funded R&D is financed by the military? No. Absolutely not as the focus of that is rather set on killing and destruction. The military also does a lot of building which resulted in a lot of pre-made parts and techniques to erect stuff that may not be meant to last for ages but has immediate worth nevertheless. Corporate research tends to focus more on the immediately marketable which will be refinement of already existing and well understood principles, not real breakthroughs.
Is a huge R&D budget necessary? Absolutely. We spent enough time banging rocks together and frankly since we managed to organize our civilization much more effectively we do have funds for that. It is vital. It is an investment into the future. Which should NOT, I repeat, NOT lie in the hands of the military. Its role in society is already overexaggerated as is. The ultimate goal of research is to improve our civilisation.
Gosh, I'm absolutely happy with my Xoom but I urgently need an excuse to get a Transformer Prime. The OP forced me to watch a couple of Youtube videos and now I need that thing.
It does? I got mine from T-Mobile in Germany and they pushed 3.2 to my device only a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to brick it. Is ICS even that much better than 3.2?
Whatever you do, don't ever, under no circumstances buy a tablet without SD Card expansion slot. 32GB or even 16GB fill up fairly fast if you transfer video or music onto it. Also avoid vendor specific connectors. USB should be there. HDMI if this is a priority for you. Vendor specific connectors are too much of a headache in the long run.
Also assume you will use it for 2 years. If tablets are here to stay that would be about the upgrade cycle.
I have a XOOM and no experience whatsoever with other tablets.
The XOOM was one of the first of its generation of Android devices. In the meantime they got slimmer and the next generation is just around the bend. I don't know about a 4.0 update and I haven't read up on 4.0 so I can't even say if it could handle it. But what it does it does quite well. Build quality is superb, it's responsive and it handles web browsing and most video viewing quite well.
My only criticism is the type and placement of connections. You can't recharge it and have it in an upright and landscape position due to the placement of the recharging/mini-usb socket.
Battery lasts for quite some time when doing heavy duty web browsing. Depending on what you do you can expect it to be up and running for at least 6-8 hours under seriously heavy use. Recharge time is fairly short. And it recharges when plugged in even if you use it heavily. You'd be surprised how this is not a given for cheaper and not so cheap tablets.
Mini SD slot is just beneath the SIM Card slot, so this makes changing it fairly awkward. I never change it, so it's not a big deal to me.
It's got the whole set of features. AGPS, 3G(if you opt to buy that version), WLAN, SD Card slot(wasn't activated from the beginning but is by now), two functional cameras, functional stereo sound(I use Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones and it sounds great with those) and really, really good build quality. This is the template for the whole Android 3.2 generation. So by now it's not spectacular but very solid.
At first I used it for YouTube(which it does very well), web browsing, games and listening to music for half a year because I was without a desktop computer. It NEARLY substitutes one. Now I use it professionally as a messenger device and for taking notes during meetings with a nice mind-mapping app.
You will need to get a man-bag for it and you will need to buy a protective casing. The one Motorola sells for it is rather idiotic since it covers the USB connection. I had to drill a hole into that one so I could recharge it with the protective lid closed. I did this after I found my cat playing Angry Birds while recharging during the night. If you have glasses then you already own microfiber cloth for cleaning it. Which you will do very often. Don't assume you can apply protective foil yourself because that's a clean-rom job. I don't have one on my device. But you might want to consider having one applied to it. I know a company in Germany who offers this as a service for 50€. And they are an affiliate of 3M and get rave reviews. It's not strictly necessary. So factor in buying accessories for it.
I don't regret buying it for 400€.
Motorola has announced the XOOM2 so if you find it on the cheap(200€) it is not a bad buy.
Don't buy it at full price(last time I looked it was at 500€) because that should get you a device of the next generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIAQ4-TBC1A
YknowwhatImean?
This is a very brief demonstration to a semi-professional gaming enthusiast journalist. At no point does he demo the thing properly. He comes over like he only had a couple of cue cards and no real concept of how he wants to sell the idea to the punters.
He misses the heartwarming story of a teacher who came up with the idea to help out a student with a disability. Which would have taken all of 20 seconds of his 2 minutes pitch.
He didn't show the mechanics behind the thing and how and why it is so customizable. which would have taken one minute of his two minutes pitch.
He didn't hand it over to the punter so he could at least have touched it for a couple of seconds. The tactile experience is an important factor when you sell physical goods. While the guy was holding a mike he could have held it for at least 30 seconds while Christoforo points out that the thing is optimized for 1st person shooters or talk about plans for the PS3 version or answer questions for future improvements.
Tap into the PS3 market. Yeah, right. That's the right choice of words when talking to N-Control but a big no-no when talking to punters. That's grandstanding and fairly ridiculous.
All in all it shows he is no professional. A booth-babe showing her perlies and not saying a word would have done a better job.
Yep, propably it was a heat-of-the-moment thing. In retrospect it propably wasn't the best or cleanest move. But hindsight is always 20/20. Even after the Dickwolves thing I guess he's fairly surprised how this played out.
Frankly, this mob mentality on the internet is really quite frightening. And highly unpredictable how far it will go. And quite irreversible.
I hear you. While I don't work in retail and don't have to deal with punters like that we are currently in the process of firing an especially unreasonable customer ourselves.
The customer his hardly ever right. Especially if they wade in with inflated expectations based on half knowledge. In my opinion this is totally ok and the very reason why advising them to your best experience and knowledge will see you through in the long run.
This Christoforo guy missed a couple of key moments to resolves this in a way that would have made him shine. Apart from the demeanor.
Dave said he needed one device as a Christmas present. That was an easy way to resolve this. I'd have asked him if this was his main concern and offered him a used/preliminary/beta device soon to be replaced by a brand new one so he would have at least something. It's an easy game of spotting the critical deadline. That's hardly rocket surgery. Also a bit of honesty would have gone a long way. Making promises which are out of your control to fulfill will always generate bad feelings. Always assume that your BS will be called and act accordingly. Unfortunately a bit of BS is part of the job.
I don't blame them for falling for this guy. I've seen it happening at my own company where the owners fell for gass bags like this one. Repeatedly. Basically if you talk the right talk(like this guy) you will get an business account with any small business. Now I have a very senior position with my company(basically I'm number 3 in the hirarchy) and I got this position because I know and play the BS game very well. It takes one to recognize one. Difference is I'm a techie and never will be more than that no matter how much responsibility you pile upon me. And even I know that if you don't do right by your customers you will not have any. BS lands you the gig, but BS won't keep it.
Bullshit is power. The world runs on BS. It makes me sick how easy it is to pull the blinds over peoples eyes in a first impression scenario. And it fills me with a deep sense of satisfaction how much effort it takes to keep this first impression up. BS lands you the gig but honesty and integrity and hard work keeps it. If you get an account by grandstanding then you have entered a personal obligation to actually deliver what your customer needs(not necessarily what he thinks he wants). It IS a matter of honour.
It's not N-Gadget who were his customer but N-Control. And they cut the ties before it hit their bank account. Their disclaimer and reaction is so competent and thourough that I strongly suspect they got a highly competent PR company to sort this out within minutes of this going viral.
Honestly, Gabe's role in this shit storm is just a lighter shade of brown. He did wade into this and handled it in a way that harmed parties not directly involved in this kerfuffle. Namely the inventor and makers of the Avenger. It's one thing calling BS on this guy Cristivoro(with a V) but it is another posting this on his MASSIVE website whithout pointing out that this guy is from an independent marketing company hired by the makeres of the Avenger which should be judged on its own merits.That disclaimer would have warrented the use of the blink tag. Font size filling your whole goddamn screen.
Instead it was a contest of who has the biggest balls.Turns out to be Gabe. But honestly, I don't know if I would have handled it better myself. And unlike Chrvstoforo(with a V) it is not a major character flaw. Still gotta love Gabe who is one of the finest persons on this planet.
Funny thing is he was at PAX this year and presented the Avenger. There is a Youtube video of him being totally inept. If you get asked if the thing you are selling will be available for PS3 then you don't talk about entering that market. When you talk to customers or interested parties you don't talk to them as you would do to your business account representatives or marketing chums. He comes over barely prepared and unable to stress the good points of the thing he is supposed to sell. Christoforo represents only Christoforo.
Also attending PAX and not knowing who Gabe is is barely competent. Finding out who he is and saying "He has a lot of connections, ones I want too." is a clear indicator that reality burns up on entry of the atmosphere of planet Christoforo.
I deal with sales critters on a professional basis. The best ones are the ones who honestly want to do right by their customers. Which requires a bit of empathy. I watched a sales rep of my company giving a potential customer the phone number of the competitions sales rep because they will do better by them. A sales critter at my local electronics shop told me I don't want a G15 if all I want is a good keyboard. Sold me a generic Cherry keyboard for 20 bucks. Both did build a bond with their customer and both generated huge repeat business.
A masive ego only impresses for the first few moments and needs to be followed up by substance. That substance better not be warm, stinky and brown.
Slashdot Mirror
It may have been a literary(and philosophical and circles in the sand) oublitette. Possibly. It burned to the ground before us commoners learned to read so we shall never know.
If you insist on being pedantic, quite a lot of the ancient greek stuff got preserved by Persia, quite a lot of the ancient Roman stuff got preserved by Byzantium. And they added their own stuff. We shall never know what was lost in Alexandria, quite nice and interesting things that weren't quite fancied by Savonarola or in Alamut when a Sunni sorted out what Ismaeli stuff was worth preserving. Silly as it may be, I will put this current blend of copyright over public domain right next to the human catastrophies like iliteracy, burnt libraries and plain idiocy.
All of the above may be apocryphal but it serves quite well as a metaphor(hyperbole, really). Shall we agree on that?
Well, ultimately and rather depressingly maybe so. You might think that if you insist on being a bore.
But that certainly wasn't the initial intent. When it comes to looking for your own selfish little bit of heaven then you don't give a damn about other people as long as they don't hinder you. Hope can be short-sighted and that was what made people set their sights west on sails or steam or old-fashioned jet engines.
It's not Per Aspera Ad Astra but rather by earthworm to really nice crops. There's no real difference between the both of them.
That's called "spin". You know, like dropping bombs on buildings and call it "surgical strikes". Or realizing you might have been wrong in the past and changing your opinion "flip-flopping". Language does determine how we think.
Scary, huh?
The truly big one is making "libertarian" a filthy word. That's the one sole unifying thing the US was built on.
Honestly, looking for national differences in the western world is an exercise in futility. We all suffer from the same ailments.
RE: James Joyce. Me literature teacher back in school told me of a friend of his who picked up Ulysses with the goal to understand it. He went mad over it. That scared me into Computer Sciences even though I'd rather have studied history or English or French or German literature.
As a direct result I never read anything Joyce, Döblin, Ibsen or Zola. But I did read Burroughs. That guy was truly beaten. Huffman enconding was definitely the better choice.
TEHY IS PRTECTING US FROM MADNESS I TELL YOU!
I always thought I was the only one with a deep feeling of resention for the Baby Boomers. Could we please get rid of that particularly horrid generation of selfish bastards and their Xer collaborators? The whole western world is paying off their debt they amassed with their Greed is Good philosophy. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20 yet theirs only goes as far as the tip of their nose.
Honstly,the primaries would be a good moment to break out the old lantern and search for a honest man.
Sadly, it's quite pointless..Spineless offers of easy answers for the punters is all I can see.
The good thing about the primaries is you get to vote for the lesser of a couple of evils. Whereas later you basically only get to choose between two lesser evils.
The city Alexandria at the time did reputedly the following.
If you entered the harbour you were asked if you had any scrolls with you. If you had then you were to hand the over so they could copy them for the Great Library.Chances were you'd get back the copy. I don't know if that particular anecdote is true but it is one that makes perfect sense. That's how important knowledge was to them. If you could read it you could access it. Copy it. Teach it. Available knowledge was part of Alexandrias wealth.
When the Great Library burned down it was one of the greatest losses to humanity I can ever imagine.
Now most of us can read it but only as far as the rights as granted by the copyright holders allow.
Not letting things enter Public Domain is a catastrophy that is akin to the fire in the Great Library. How many works have been forgotten due to nobody really knowing who holds the rights or because it isn't profitable to publish it?
Wasn't Return of the King first widely published in the 70ies? At least that's when the great craze started.
We burnt Savonarola, could we please do the same to those clowns who actively steal from our civilisation? I find that particular notion heartwarming.
The DHS?
A jury of peers?
Who else will be silenced?
Who will be collateral damage when we give in to our fears?
As I recall, the US didn't allow the Imperial Japanese or Nazi Germans to directly transmit from American radio stations in WW2. Did that constitute destroying the American radio infrastructure too?
Nope.Anybody who remotely looked Asian was rounded up and locked away into camps.Indiscriminately. They weren't allowed to directly transmit from US radio stations. They damn well nearly weren't allowed to breathe US air. The public howled for their blood. That's a damn big pee stain on US history and nothing to be proud of.
We pay your welfare, we pay your taxes, we protect your guts, we drive your cabs, we program your iDevices, we prepare our food, we build your homes, we create your creature comforts
We don't buy into your BS. We didn't sign up with you.
We are pushing our 40ies. We read the classics. We have come into our own.
Watch it! Hear us roar!
The hammer fell and the anvil rang. Our turn.
That war was neither good nor evil even if the reasons stated were dishonest and later recanted.
What made it irrelevant was the stupid, demented and criminally negligent notion that earts and minds would be instantly won. That was beyond moronic. If you want to change how people think and feel then you need to invest a whole generation into that. Europe after WW2 was a full success financially and culturally due to how freaking long US troops were stationed there(amongst other things like the US are a culturally descendant of Europe).
Imagine two persons. Their ultimate aspiration is to live a happy life but how they plan on doing that is different. Owning land and breathing free air for one, convenience for the other. Now imagine a whole room full of people. For each and every one of them their plan for their puruit of happyness is different. Now imagine a town square of peole. The mind starts to boggle. Now imagine millions and millions of them. Each from a cultural background so diverse it would take a lifetime to understand it all. Each has a different plan for life. Ranging from owning enough goats to feed the family to designing the ultimate iDevice. Each and every one of them is entitled to pursue their goals if it is not to the detriment of others.
If you elect people who claim to have easy answers and paint the world in black and white, this is what you don't get.
Those 500 billion could have been well spent for exactly the goal stated. Ineptitude did away with that.
Terry Prachett made his own sword from a meteorite when he received his honours.
That's as wonderful as owning a pet elephant.
And I say this not in disrespect of Sir Jon. Design does matter. Usability helps with the potential usefulness of an item. In fact, bad usability marrs the usefulness of an item more than anything else. Apple understood this and slashed features for sake of usability.
Take for instance a door handle. It serves one purpose and one alone. Ornaments should not get in the way of that. It does not need self-lighting features, WiFi connection to indicate wether the door is closed or not. It needs no rumble pack, expansion slots, self heating, a cup holder,...
Door handles are easy but when it comes to general purpose items like computers then it becomes a lot harder. Recognizing that for the things you design it for places it into an exposed position in the household which adds aesthetical requirements it didn't have before is a now obvious strike of genious. Excersizing the design with that in mind and such consitency is high craftmannship.
If you carry a device at all times then it doesn't only have to look neat but also feel pleasing to the touch.
I don't own iDevices because I don't like paying for a company's cash register which seems to be the primary business model of Apple. I don't like being dictated how I use stuff nor do I like being prevented to be tinker with it. These preferences are mine and possibly that iStuff may be for you. That's a reason for why the devices are so successfull and trend setting.The clarity of focus does make them a piece of art.
The choice to include him in the New Years Honours List is justified. He did something and wasn't merely born to it. Outdated or no, it is a way of our civilisation to honour those thad furthered it. Well done.
People use infrastructure. Terrorists are people. Therefore terrorists use infrastructure. Therefore we must destroy infrastructure.
You gotta love that kind of reasoning.
Pirates use infrastructure.
Illegal immigrants use infrastructure.
Yep, hawkish application of a scorched earth strategy also applies when it comes to your own GODDAM home. Let's outdo all of the above when it comes to damage done. It's like writing your name on the wall you built with other peoples poo.
Why do they need a huge pile of cash for that when access to the decision making process is supposed to be without barriers of race, creed, social standing or wealth?
But if this is what it takes to break the infinitely corrupt stranglehold D&R have put the USA in then more power to them.I've completely given up on that.
ATM this is so ridiculous. How much money do they spend on the primaries just so we actully care who of the curent rank and file of turkey dinner leftovers does the same thin again for the real election? People gobble it up and cheer on them as if they were their home team. You are expected to pick one when the clear choice seems to be: none of the above.
Yep, we're screwed.
Java, .NET and GPS are not entirely new concepts. They are a combination and refinement of already existing concepts. Real research is something like LHC with no immediate benefit but simply motivated to understand things a little better.
I consider your examples rather an example of standing on the shoulders of giants. Breakthroughs they are nevertheless. But they needed the giants and I fear we may not support them enough since we are chasing immediate benefits and forget about the longterm. Which may lie very well beyond our life span.
I do not expect this kind of thinking from the military. Which is fine because it's not its job.
As long as they also do basic research for sake of researching only then there will be stuff that also heals. Also quite a bit of these funds are bound to go into joint projects with MIT, SRI and the likes.
I don't know if the superglue story is correct but at least it sounds plausible.
Do I feel good about most of publicly funded R&D is financed by the military? No. Absolutely not as the focus of that is rather set on killing and destruction. The military also does a lot of building which resulted in a lot of pre-made parts and techniques to erect stuff that may not be meant to last for ages but has immediate worth nevertheless. Corporate research tends to focus more on the immediately marketable which will be refinement of already existing and well understood principles, not real breakthroughs.
Is a huge R&D budget necessary? Absolutely. We spent enough time banging rocks together and frankly since we managed to organize our civilization much more effectively we do have funds for that. It is vital. It is an investment into the future. Which should NOT, I repeat, NOT lie in the hands of the military. Its role in society is already overexaggerated as is. The ultimate goal of research is to improve our civilisation.
Gosh, I'm absolutely happy with my Xoom but I urgently need an excuse to get a Transformer Prime. The OP forced me to watch a couple of Youtube videos and now I need that thing.
It does? I got mine from T-Mobile in Germany and they pushed 3.2 to my device only a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to brick it. Is ICS even that much better than 3.2?
Whatever you do, don't ever, under no circumstances buy a tablet without SD Card expansion slot. 32GB or even 16GB fill up fairly fast if you transfer video or music onto it. Also avoid vendor specific connectors. USB should be there. HDMI if this is a priority for you. Vendor specific connectors are too much of a headache in the long run.
Also assume you will use it for 2 years. If tablets are here to stay that would be about the upgrade cycle.
I have a XOOM and no experience whatsoever with other tablets.
The XOOM was one of the first of its generation of Android devices. In the meantime they got slimmer and the next generation is just around the bend. I don't know about a 4.0 update and I haven't read up on 4.0 so I can't even say if it could handle it. But what it does it does quite well. Build quality is superb, it's responsive and it handles web browsing and most video viewing quite well.
My only criticism is the type and placement of connections. You can't recharge it and have it in an upright and landscape position due to the placement of the recharging/mini-usb socket.
Battery lasts for quite some time when doing heavy duty web browsing. Depending on what you do you can expect it to be up and running for at least 6-8 hours under seriously heavy use. Recharge time is fairly short. And it recharges when plugged in even if you use it heavily. You'd be surprised how this is not a given for cheaper and not so cheap tablets.
Mini SD slot is just beneath the SIM Card slot, so this makes changing it fairly awkward. I never change it, so it's not a big deal to me.
It's got the whole set of features. AGPS, 3G(if you opt to buy that version), WLAN, SD Card slot(wasn't activated from the beginning but is by now), two functional cameras, functional stereo sound(I use Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones and it sounds great with those) and really, really good build quality. This is the template for the whole Android 3.2 generation. So by now it's not spectacular but very solid.
At first I used it for YouTube(which it does very well), web browsing, games and listening to music for half a year because I was without a desktop computer. It NEARLY substitutes one. Now I use it professionally as a messenger device and for taking notes during meetings with a nice mind-mapping app.
You will need to get a man-bag for it and you will need to buy a protective casing. The one Motorola sells for it is rather idiotic since it covers the USB connection. I had to drill a hole into that one so I could recharge it with the protective lid closed. I did this after I found my cat playing Angry Birds while recharging during the night. If you have glasses then you already own microfiber cloth for cleaning it. Which you will do very often. Don't assume you can apply protective foil yourself because that's a clean-rom job. I don't have one on my device. But you might want to consider having one applied to it. I know a company in Germany who offers this as a service for 50€. And they are an affiliate of 3M and get rave reviews. It's not strictly necessary. So factor in buying accessories for it.
I don't regret buying it for 400€.
Motorola has announced the XOOM2 so if you find it on the cheap(200€) it is not a bad buy.
Don't buy it at full price(last time I looked it was at 500€) because that should get you a device of the next generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIAQ4-TBC1A
YknowwhatImean?
This is a very brief demonstration to a semi-professional gaming enthusiast journalist. At no point does he demo the thing properly. He comes over like he only had a couple of cue cards and no real concept of how he wants to sell the idea to the punters.
He misses the heartwarming story of a teacher who came up with the idea to help out a student with a disability. Which would have taken all of 20 seconds of his 2 minutes pitch.
He didn't show the mechanics behind the thing and how and why it is so customizable. which would have taken one minute of his two minutes pitch.
He didn't hand it over to the punter so he could at least have touched it for a couple of seconds. The tactile experience is an important factor when you sell physical goods. While the guy was holding a mike he could have held it for at least 30 seconds while Christoforo points out that the thing is optimized for 1st person shooters or talk about plans for the PS3 version or answer questions for future improvements.
Tap into the PS3 market. Yeah, right. That's the right choice of words when talking to N-Control but a big no-no when talking to punters. That's grandstanding and fairly ridiculous.
All in all it shows he is no professional. A booth-babe showing her perlies and not saying a word would have done a better job.
Yep, propably it was a heat-of-the-moment thing. In retrospect it propably wasn't the best or cleanest move. But hindsight is always 20/20. Even after the Dickwolves thing I guess he's fairly surprised how this played out.
Frankly, this mob mentality on the internet is really quite frightening. And highly unpredictable how far it will go. And quite irreversible.
I hear you. While I don't work in retail and don't have to deal with punters like that we are currently in the process of firing an especially unreasonable customer ourselves.
The customer his hardly ever right. Especially if they wade in with inflated expectations based on half knowledge. In my opinion this is totally ok and the very reason why advising them to your best experience and knowledge will see you through in the long run.
This Christoforo guy missed a couple of key moments to resolves this in a way that would have made him shine. Apart from the demeanor.
Dave said he needed one device as a Christmas present. That was an easy way to resolve this. I'd have asked him if this was his main concern and offered him a used/preliminary/beta device soon to be replaced by a brand new one so he would have at least something. It's an easy game of spotting the critical deadline. That's hardly rocket surgery. Also a bit of honesty would have gone a long way. Making promises which are out of your control to fulfill will always generate bad feelings.
Always assume that your BS will be called and act accordingly. Unfortunately a bit of BS is part of the job.
I don't blame them for falling for this guy. I've seen it happening at my own company where the owners fell for gass bags like this one. Repeatedly. Basically if you talk the right talk(like this guy) you will get an business account with any small business. Now I have a very senior position with my company(basically I'm number 3 in the hirarchy) and I got this position because I know and play the BS game very well. It takes one to recognize one. Difference is I'm a techie and never will be more than that no matter how much responsibility you pile upon me. And even I know that if you don't do right by your customers you will not have any. BS lands you the gig, but BS won't keep it.
Bullshit is power. The world runs on BS. It makes me sick how easy it is to pull the blinds over peoples eyes in a first impression scenario. And it fills me with a deep sense of satisfaction how much effort it takes to keep this first impression up. BS lands you the gig but honesty and integrity and hard work keeps it. If you get an account by grandstanding then you have entered a personal obligation to actually deliver what your customer needs(not necessarily what he thinks he wants). It IS a matter of honour.
It's not N-Gadget who were his customer but N-Control. And they cut the ties before it hit their bank account. Their disclaimer and reaction is so competent and thourough that I strongly suspect they got a highly competent PR company to sort this out within minutes of this going viral.
Honestly, Gabe's role in this shit storm is just a lighter shade of brown. He did wade into this and handled it in a way that harmed parties not directly involved in this kerfuffle. Namely the inventor and makers of the Avenger. It's one thing calling BS on this guy Cristivoro(with a V) but it is another posting this on his MASSIVE website whithout pointing out that this guy is from an independent marketing company hired by the makeres of the Avenger which should be judged on its own merits.That disclaimer would have warrented the use of the blink tag. Font size filling your whole goddamn screen.
Instead it was a contest of who has the biggest balls.Turns out to be Gabe. But honestly, I don't know if I would have handled it better myself. And unlike Chrvstoforo(with a V) it is not a major character flaw. Still gotta love Gabe who is one of the finest persons on this planet.
Funny thing is he was at PAX this year and presented the Avenger. There is a Youtube video of him being totally inept. If you get asked if the thing you are selling will be available for PS3 then you don't talk about entering that market. When you talk to customers or interested parties you don't talk to them as you would do to your business account representatives or marketing chums. He comes over barely prepared and unable to stress the good points of the thing he is supposed to sell. Christoforo represents only Christoforo.
Also attending PAX and not knowing who Gabe is is barely competent. Finding out who he is and saying "He has a lot of connections, ones I want too." is a clear indicator that reality burns up on entry of the atmosphere of planet Christoforo.
I deal with sales critters on a professional basis. The best ones are the ones who honestly want to do right by their customers. Which requires a bit of empathy. I watched a sales rep of my company giving a potential customer the phone number of the competitions sales rep because they will do better by them. A sales critter at my local electronics shop told me I don't want a G15 if all I want is a good keyboard. Sold me a generic Cherry keyboard for 20 bucks. Both did build a bond with their customer and both generated huge repeat business.
A masive ego only impresses for the first few moments and needs to be followed up by substance. That substance better not be warm, stinky and brown.