Even if we assume the part about the "unknown room" is true, the physics behind the way radiation works (that we know a lot about) are strongly against this being a true story, unless there's an exposed piece of the core sitting on a table in that room which I find unlikely.
To be fair to the annealing process, the Windscale disaster was down to cutting corners, pushing the design limits of the pile too far, and inadequate instrumentation for monitoring it.
What the "fact" that putting your keys in your pocket with a polished metal/glass object would scratch it then wail about it being a "design flaw"?
Then some non sequitur about iPods running iOS 4 not charging batteries every 2 hours (some battery issues on some *iPhones* with *iOS5* [issue related to GPS that the iPod does not have]).
Then we have "antennagate" - the biggest non-issue to be made into a thing since the MMR nonsense. An antenna that picked up a signal over a much wider range than the one it replaced, and having a detune issue that was *slightly* accentuated compared to other phones due to the antenna being external, that only caused a problem in fringe reception areas (ie, in areas where most phones can't pick up a signal anyway).
There's joking, and there's posting nonsense. The problem with joke posts is that a lot of people go on to repeat them as facts, especially when they're about Apple. I was correcting people *this year* who were posting that the iPhone couldn't play Youtube videos, just as one example.
It's also interesting how the GPP gets +4 funny and any such joke about Android handsets gets modded into the ground. I tried to send an SMS about that, but it somehow never arrived for the person I sent it to.
Ah yes, the "antenna that is much, much better than the one it replaces in the 3GS that only shows the Death Grip(tm) issue when it's in areas of signal that the prior one couldn't even pick up in ideal conditions" problem.
In other words, something blown out of all proportion... perhaps something that the current article is being accused of...?
The iPad home button has resistance to it - it's hard to hit accidentally while simply holding the device unless you rest your thumb right on it, which is not easy to do given the width of the iPad.
The privacy thing is silly yes - it's the same as on the iPad - there's no concept of different users. Although, the Fire does have an issue with purchasing, since one it's set up there's no confirmation screen or password - it simply buys whatever you click. How did that get past QA? That's not a $600 vs $200 price issue, that's a "failed to actually pull their fingers out" sloppy issue. There is no reason for that to go live in the product. Didn't *anyone* test that and flag it as a concern?!
If this were an Apple product it would be being trashed for leaving out "obvious features", and any contrary opinion would be flamed as "sucking Jobs' cock with your inferior, limited product".
Look, I'm looking for a decent competitor the the iPad too, to push the market forwards, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.
That is extremely funny for someone who doesn't log in.
He doesn't give a fuck about you, so your pithy comment is for what? To make your cowardly self look better? To make him look small? I'm not getting it.
If you're seriously going for the "I'm adding you to my foes list on my account that I'm too cowardly to post on" burn then, I can only laugh in pity.
Your sample size is hardly representative, but nor is mine.
We don't have enough data to conclude that there's "exactly one way to interpret" this.
It might well be the wrong UI choice, but just because you personally don't like it and because I can't decide either way does not make it automatically and obviously wrong.
Because... they're using iPads... and she's... relating her experiences?
She's under no obligation to say "of course other tablets are available". She's not writing a slashdot comment that is slightly positive of Apple and thus must include a ton of disclaimers about how she's aware Apple didn't invent the tablet, or the GUI, or the mp3 player, or the ebook reader, or the concept of textbooks on an electronic device.
And there may be "huge numbers" of tablets, but not many that compete with the iPad. Off the top of my head, the only real two are the Transformer and the Galaxy. Maybe the Xoom, but who wants to pay more than an iPad and have it ship with non-working features?
Colour textbooks don't work so well on e-ink displays.
Seriously, the slashdot mantra that anyone who disagrees with the supposed "right" choice (as dictated by whatever company is the current demon du jour on slashdot) is clearly a paid shill is just fucking tiresome.
Might it just be possible, in some infinitesimally small chance, that she's positive about the whole thing because it's actually been something positive?
That's one way to look at it I guess. The other option would be to say that it's not "bad design" just "different to the way you want to do it".
No different to certain UI elements in Ubuntu that I'd prefer worked a different way. (I know, I know, open source, just fork it and code my own, etc etc).
If you want to talk about a bad design element in the iOS UI it's the "hold and to wiggle" system to move apps around - it's not intuitive to do that necessarily, you can easily accidentally delete an app and the way they all shift around as you drag one can make it imprecise.
By comparison, showing a big "x" button when you pop open the search so you can quickly clear the field seems mild.
Oh tell me about it - I use one that runs a UV/Vis spectrometer and it just about rolls along on XP, with some caveats (it will hang the computer if you try to quit it, it has some weird screen redraw issues if you minimise/maximise windows etc, you're limited to 8+3 all capital filenames), but it does spit out a text file with wavelengths and absorbances, so we soldier on with it.
You miss my point entirely. My argument is that if, in 10 years of knowing that your app was using a deprecated API and you did nothing to change that, then don't whine about how Apple is "screwing you" when they finally stop shipping it in Lion.
I'm not saying that it takes 10 years to rewrite the app, just that people have known *since the release of OS X* that Carbon was an OS 9 API that was being phased out, and that there would be plenty of time to make changes and adapt.
People are acting like this decision took them by surprise.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if we assume the part about the "unknown room" is true, the physics behind the way radiation works (that we know a lot about) are strongly against this being a true story, unless there's an exposed piece of the core sitting on a table in that room which I find unlikely.
To be fair to the annealing process, the Windscale disaster was down to cutting corners, pushing the design limits of the pile too far, and inadequate instrumentation for monitoring it.
Just take out the fuel rods...?
It's hardly rocket science.
Also, who said anything about "putting the reactor on fire"?
Annealing doesn't have to be done with fire, and it's something that has been done with nuclear piles before.
I think the AC that also replied hit the nail on the head here - go read that post.
You don't have enough data to say it's the "obviously wrong" choice, but nor do I.
Have you asked a statistically significant sample set of *all* iPad users?
What the "fact" that putting your keys in your pocket with a polished metal/glass object would scratch it then wail about it being a "design flaw"?
Then some non sequitur about iPods running iOS 4 not charging batteries every 2 hours (some battery issues on some *iPhones* with *iOS5* [issue related to GPS that the iPod does not have]).
Then we have "antennagate" - the biggest non-issue to be made into a thing since the MMR nonsense. An antenna that picked up a signal over a much wider range than the one it replaced, and having a detune issue that was *slightly* accentuated compared to other phones due to the antenna being external, that only caused a problem in fringe reception areas (ie, in areas where most phones can't pick up a signal anyway).
There's joking, and there's posting nonsense. The problem with joke posts is that a lot of people go on to repeat them as facts, especially when they're about Apple. I was correcting people *this year* who were posting that the iPhone couldn't play Youtube videos, just as one example.
It's also interesting how the GPP gets +4 funny and any such joke about Android handsets gets modded into the ground. I tried to send an SMS about that, but it somehow never arrived for the person I sent it to.
Ah yes, the "antenna that is much, much better than the one it replaces in the 3GS that only shows the Death Grip(tm) issue when it's in areas of signal that the prior one couldn't even pick up in ideal conditions" problem.
In other words, something blown out of all proportion... perhaps something that the current article is being accused of...?
The iPad home button has resistance to it - it's hard to hit accidentally while simply holding the device unless you rest your thumb right on it, which is not easy to do given the width of the iPad.
The privacy thing is silly yes - it's the same as on the iPad - there's no concept of different users. Although, the Fire does have an issue with purchasing, since one it's set up there's no confirmation screen or password - it simply buys whatever you click. How did that get past QA? That's not a $600 vs $200 price issue, that's a "failed to actually pull their fingers out" sloppy issue. There is no reason for that to go live in the product. Didn't *anyone* test that and flag it as a concern?!
Tell that to the legions of posters claiming that this would be the answer to the iPad. An affordable replacement for the "too expensive" iPad.
It's not surprising, but I was hoping it would be better. It seems they missed some really basic QA stuff.
Now imagine if that had been your review for an iPad on here. What do you think the response would be?
I was really hoping the Fire would be better :/
I assume you think all the stories that are critical of Apple are funded by their competitors too, right?
The "x is critical of a thing I like! paid shill! paid shill!" nonsense is simply tiresome.
Goodness me, you must have quite the lower back issue to contend with, carrying that massive chip around.
My goodness, the damage control is out in force.
If this were an Apple product it would be being trashed for leaving out "obvious features", and any contrary opinion would be flamed as "sucking Jobs' cock with your inferior, limited product".
Look, I'm looking for a decent competitor the the iPad too, to push the market forwards, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.
That is extremely funny for someone who doesn't log in.
He doesn't give a fuck about you, so your pithy comment is for what? To make your cowardly self look better? To make him look small? I'm not getting it.
If you're seriously going for the "I'm adding you to my foes list on my account that I'm too cowardly to post on" burn then, I can only laugh in pity.
Steve Ballmer, is that you?
There's very little wrong with the Kindle fire that can't be fixed with software.
Which raises the question, why the need to fix it? Didn't they have any QA or user testing at all?
Some of these things seem like obvious issues.
How is that the only way to interpret it?
Your sample size is hardly representative, but nor is mine.
We don't have enough data to conclude that there's "exactly one way to interpret" this.
It might well be the wrong UI choice, but just because you personally don't like it and because I can't decide either way does not make it automatically and obviously wrong.
Because... they're using iPads... and she's... relating her experiences?
She's under no obligation to say "of course other tablets are available". She's not writing a slashdot comment that is slightly positive of Apple and thus must include a ton of disclaimers about how she's aware Apple didn't invent the tablet, or the GUI, or the mp3 player, or the ebook reader, or the concept of textbooks on an electronic device.
And there may be "huge numbers" of tablets, but not many that compete with the iPad. Off the top of my head, the only real two are the Transformer and the Galaxy. Maybe the Xoom, but who wants to pay more than an iPad and have it ship with non-working features?
Colour textbooks don't work so well on e-ink displays.
Seriously, the slashdot mantra that anyone who disagrees with the supposed "right" choice (as dictated by whatever company is the current demon du jour on slashdot) is clearly a paid shill is just fucking tiresome.
Might it just be possible, in some infinitesimally small chance, that she's positive about the whole thing because it's actually been something positive?
Then charge them over lunch at a central point, or provide desks with a USB output.
I agree they won't last all day if used constantly.
You forgot to log in, dumbass.
Why are they using them in the playground?
Also, you put a strong case on them to reduce damage.
That's one way to look at it I guess. The other option would be to say that it's not "bad design" just "different to the way you want to do it".
No different to certain UI elements in Ubuntu that I'd prefer worked a different way. (I know, I know, open source, just fork it and code my own, etc etc).
If you want to talk about a bad design element in the iOS UI it's the "hold and to wiggle" system to move apps around - it's not intuitive to do that necessarily, you can easily accidentally delete an app and the way they all shift around as you drag one can make it imprecise.
By comparison, showing a big "x" button when you pop open the search so you can quickly clear the field seems mild.
Tap the X in the box right after you tap the box itself when you're entering text.
I'm torn over whether I would prefer the text started already highlighted. This would be another example where a preference would be useful.
Oh tell me about it - I use one that runs a UV/Vis spectrometer and it just about rolls along on XP, with some caveats (it will hang the computer if you try to quit it, it has some weird screen redraw issues if you minimise/maximise windows etc, you're limited to 8+3 all capital filenames), but it does spit out a text file with wavelengths and absorbances, so we soldier on with it.
You miss my point entirely. My argument is that if, in 10 years of knowing that your app was using a deprecated API and you did nothing to change that, then don't whine about how Apple is "screwing you" when they finally stop shipping it in Lion.
I'm not saying that it takes 10 years to rewrite the app, just that people have known *since the release of OS X* that Carbon was an OS 9 API that was being phased out, and that there would be plenty of time to make changes and adapt.
People are acting like this decision took them by surprise.