I'm racking my brains for an example. The first Blackberry Bold had a door catch issue which would cause the back to fall off (fixed in subsequent designs) but even then, with the battery (gasp) exposed to the air, I don't remember it ever falling out.
Agreed. I've owned several Palm Pilots, Trios, dumb phones and android phones over the years, all with battery doors and externally accessible batteries, and can't think of a single instance of a battery falling out. My current DroidX has a battery so firmly in place that a little ejector tab exists to get it out.
> How many normal people do you think ever upgrade any piece of electronics they own, by themselves?
Just about everyone I know have at some point replaced their battery or upgraded their SD card (or have multiple cards), even my mother-in-law, and she's in her seventies and has never been a geek. Except for the people I know who own Apple products, where it is not part of the culture to do so.
An Apple user has a different perspective on this. If you have to be Apple certified to replace the battery in your macbook, not many regular users could do that. But a seven year old can replace a battery in a thinkpad. (I've seen one do so.)
It's important, I think, to agree to a common definition of terms. Non-Apple users, for instance, don't consider replacing the battery to be an "upgrade".
You're right. But people who are not geeks should have a better option than just throwing away a perfectly good device just because the culture says that this is acceptable. That offends me. I get some small solace in the fact that every device I repair is one less new device purchased.
> Appliance buyers don't tear down their toaster very often either.
Not very often. On the other hand, toasters last longer, (ours is over 17 years old, my mother-in-law's still functional toaster is from a time when Bakelite was considered a valid construction material) and don't cost nearly as much. And they *are* fixable by anyone with a screwdriver and some aptitude.
> I won't be buying one. The ability to quickly repair Thinkpads is a key reason I buy them instead.
Agreed. Exactly. I just recently "repaired" my daughter's T30 -- open one door, replace battery, open a different door, replace hard drive, install OS, done.
So have I, but we're not normal users. I'm actually not a user at all, except for a third generation ipod in my truck -- I got the special tools and a line on several parts suppliers because the disposable mentality of the Apple product line just annoys the hell out of me. I offer repair/refurbish services to family, friends, friends-of-friends because I get satisfaction out of spoiling Apple's throw-away stand-in-line-for-new-model paradigm. And that it's more environmentally moral to keep the older devices in play.
Third rate? Seriously? Ming-Na, Donald Sutherland, Steve Buscemi, James Woods? What do you consider first rate? Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson?
You have a point about an animated show trying to ape live actors -- if it's not appropriate to the material, it just looks goofy. But the idea of computer animation (or any digital effect) is to create environments and situations that you couldn't easily do live, to give the writers a richer landscape in which to tell their story. This is the real place FF fell down. FF had some amazing visuals, but the story was secondary (or third or fourth) and it showed.
I was creeped out by the final fantasy movie because such a tremendous amount of resources (for the time) with such a tremendous potential (also for the time) and such a great collection of voice talent (by any measure) went into creating such an incoherent, annoying movie. It was like they were trying to be stupid on purpose.
Final Fantasy could have been the Avatar of its time, (which is not necessarily a totally good thing, but that's another topic) but was instead a jumbled, irritating mess despite the gorgeous graphics (which for the most part still hold up today).
> Wrong: when you make the decision to outsource or move stuff to the cloud, it is your responsibility to do some due diligence on the vendor, make sure there's a sensible SLA, and have contingency plans just like you had when the servers were still under your control.
Mod up. I recently saw a CIO make an, um, sudden change in career because outsourcing blew their hands off when they flipped the switch. It can be done sensibly in some situations, but that depends on sensible decisions made by sensible people. The salesperson will try to make you believe they are your friend. Your success is pretty much inversely proportional to how much you believe this.
So somebody did bother. Bravo. Let me know when they're all gone.
when I'd heard that (spoiler alert!) Sean Bean's character was axed (get it? Axed? Never mind.) I actually felt some relief. He's a fine actor, and free of this tawdry mess makes him available to appear in something I'd actually watch.
> This is NOT the modern definition of melodrama in film. Melodrama is, in basic terms, where the story is posed like a drama, but you know the outcome.
Can you tell me with a straight face that you do not know the outcome?
Compare the character interaction between Game of Thrones and, say... Dallas (1978). Besides the environment, (texas oil tycoons vs power struggle in environment with fantasy elements) what's the difference?
Wow, you're really into it. That's fine, if there weren't different kinds of people, there wouldn't be different kinds of entertainment.
It is most definitely melodrama. Test by: Go over the dialog and situations in your head and try to imagine real people acting that way. No, right? To have a collection of people that mean and that thoughtless and that self-absorbed, and (the important part) that transparent about it, is not realistic. The characters are painfully exaggerated, and this is where drama => melodrama.
You know, it's fine. I saw this tendency in the BG reboot -- to make a soap opera with sci-fi elements, or a sci-fi in a soap opera framework (whether you believe that the chicken or egg came first) in an obvious attempt to combine the audience for long winded melodrama (typically non-geek women) with the audience for sci-fi or fantasy (typically geek men) which provides something both can enjoy. It's not for me. I liked the crew interaction in Firefly, for example, but every scene had a purpose -- it led somewhere, it wasn't just people continuously barking at each other for little reason. If I wanted that, I'd just stay at work.
Parenthetically, I think it was melodrama that killed SGU. By the time the writers had grown tired of the painfully long-winded "who was commanding the ship" thread and finally got to the real story arc, most of the viewers had bailed. Too bad, there was an interesting story in there somewhere, but it never got told.
But Game of Thrones still seems to be doing well, I suspect in part because it has inherited part of its audience from housewives still in withdrawal from the cancellation of "All My Children". And if there are fantasy enthusiasts who don't mind the soap opera elements or have gone through the mental gymnastics to redefine what their eyes and ears are telling them, who am I to say that's wrong? It's not like the show offends me by existing. I'm not required to watch it.
> 4. What DVR did you use? They aren't trouble. They are really, really easy. A good measure of that is after trying many times, I cannot teach my mom or sibling how to download things off of bittorrent and have it stick, but they understand DVRs well enough to get by (another testament is the old joke about being unable to program your VCR didn't survive the jump to DVRs).
I've used a lot of different kinds over the years, from old tape machines, to DVR built into the cable box, to Windows Media Center. It's always easier to download than it is to dvr. I'm sorry, but until usability improves, it just is.
Noun: A television or radio drama series dealing typically with daily events in the lives of the same group of characters. The plot in "Soap Operas" tend towards the melodramatic. The writing is often open-ended, with plot threads rarely being resolved. The story centers on the feelings and emotions of the various characters to the exclusion of almost all else.
Yep. To which I would add, most of the characters are an absolute waste of skin, and the only reason they're still breathing is that nobody has yet bothered to put them out of their misery.
1) I'm talking in general, not necessarily this show in particular. 2) "Multiple times a week" is still != "when I want to watch it" 3) see 1), 4) Yes, I have, thanks. They're a lot of trouble, compared to typing in a show name and clicking on a link.
I don't download Game of Thrones. I watched the first few episodes, saw that it was a soap opera trying to gain legitimacy with a few sword and sorcery components, and gave it up. But one reason to download is that you get to see the film on your terms, at a date and time of your choosing, instead of being locked into a broadcasting schedule. And, no commercials, but the first part is the biggest I think. If these shows were available on demand, instead of trying to force a TV paradigm that's largely dead these days, there may be fewer downloads.
The patent is not limited to Exchange - it covers any implementation of meeting requests on a mobile device. Exchange is only given as an example of the broader class of "personal information managers (PIMs)" that the patent applies to:
PIMs typically comprise applications which enable the user of the mobile device to better manage scheduling and communications, and other such tasks. Some commonly available PIMs include scheduling and calendar programs, task lists, address books, and electronic mail (e-mail) programs. Some commonly commercially available PIMs are sold under the brand names Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Outlook and are commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of this discussion, PIMs shall also include separate electronic mail applications, such as that available under the brand name Microsoft Exchange.
Given that, wouldn't Blackberry (1999) or the Palm Pilot (1996) be prior art?
The problem with XKCD style passwords is the more characters in a password, the more likely I am to make a typo while entering it. I mistype a typical 8 character password a couple times a day. I can imagine what it would be like with a 25 character password.
Um..... practice typing more?
The thing with xkcd type passwords is that they are made up of english words (or whatever your native language) which you have probably typed a million times before. How could you not type them correctly? I just typed this sentence without a single mistake and it contains 49 words.
Where the xkcd password "Correct horse staple battery" would take 72624497 centuries to crack. That is if it wasn't already on the internet for everyone to see and try.
Yep. (nods). Now if you excuse me, I have to change my password right now.
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I'm racking my brains for an example. The first Blackberry Bold had a door catch issue which would cause the back to fall off (fixed in subsequent designs) but even then, with the battery (gasp) exposed to the air, I don't remember it ever falling out.
Agreed. I've owned several Palm Pilots, Trios, dumb phones and android phones over the years, all with battery doors and externally accessible batteries, and can't think of a single instance of a battery falling out. My current DroidX has a battery so firmly in place that a little ejector tab exists to get it out.
> How many normal people do you think ever upgrade any piece of electronics they own, by themselves?
Just about everyone I know have at some point replaced their battery or upgraded their SD card (or have multiple cards), even my mother-in-law, and she's in her seventies and has never been a geek. Except for the people I know who own Apple products, where it is not part of the culture to do so.
An Apple user has a different perspective on this. If you have to be Apple certified to replace the battery in your macbook, not many regular users could do that. But a seven year old can replace a battery in a thinkpad. (I've seen one do so.)
It's important, I think, to agree to a common definition of terms. Non-Apple users, for instance, don't consider replacing the battery to be an "upgrade".
You're right. But people who are not geeks should have a better option than just throwing away a perfectly good device just because the culture says that this is acceptable. That offends me. I get some small solace in the fact that every device I repair is one less new device purchased.
Mod parent up.
> Yet it's a measly 15 inches.. but it is 16:10, so I'll give them that. It's an improvement over this 16:9 shit standard nowadays
Yes yes yes! Not an Apple fan, but 16:9 is pants!
> Appliance buyers don't tear down their toaster very often either.
Not very often. On the other hand, toasters last longer, (ours is over 17 years old, my mother-in-law's still functional toaster is from a time when Bakelite was considered a valid construction material) and don't cost nearly as much. And they *are* fixable by anyone with a screwdriver and some aptitude.
> I won't be buying one. The ability to quickly repair Thinkpads is a key reason I buy them instead.
Agreed. Exactly. I just recently "repaired" my daughter's T30 -- open one door, replace battery, open a different door, replace hard drive, install OS, done.
So have I, but we're not normal users. I'm actually not a user at all, except for a third generation ipod in my truck -- I got the special tools and a line on several parts suppliers because the disposable mentality of the Apple product line just annoys the hell out of me. I offer repair/refurbish services to family, friends, friends-of-friends because I get satisfaction out of spoiling Apple's throw-away stand-in-line-for-new-model paradigm. And that it's more environmentally moral to keep the older devices in play.
Third rate? Seriously? Ming-Na, Donald Sutherland, Steve Buscemi, James Woods? What do you consider first rate? Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson?
You have a point about an animated show trying to ape live actors -- if it's not appropriate to the material, it just looks goofy. But the idea of computer animation (or any digital effect) is to create environments and situations that you couldn't easily do live, to give the writers a richer landscape in which to tell their story. This is the real place FF fell down. FF had some amazing visuals, but the story was secondary (or third or fourth) and it showed.
I was creeped out by the final fantasy movie because such a tremendous amount of resources (for the time) with such a tremendous potential (also for the time) and such a great collection of voice talent (by any measure) went into creating such an incoherent, annoying movie. It was like they were trying to be stupid on purpose.
Final Fantasy could have been the Avatar of its time, (which is not necessarily a totally good thing, but that's another topic) but was instead a jumbled, irritating mess despite the gorgeous graphics (which for the most part still hold up today).
> Wrong: when you make the decision to outsource or move stuff to the cloud, it is your responsibility to do some due diligence on the vendor, make sure there's a sensible SLA, and have contingency plans just like you had when the servers were still under your control.
Mod up. I recently saw a CIO make an, um, sudden change in career because outsourcing blew their hands off when they flipped the switch. It can be done sensibly in some situations, but that depends on sensible decisions made by sensible people. The salesperson will try to make you believe they are your friend. Your success is pretty much inversely proportional to how much you believe this.
So somebody did bother. Bravo. Let me know when they're all gone.
when I'd heard that (spoiler alert!) Sean Bean's character was axed (get it? Axed? Never mind.) I actually felt some relief. He's a fine actor, and free of this tawdry mess makes him available to appear in something I'd actually watch.
Clearly you missed the Dynasty 1985 season finale. Well, so did I, but my wife watches that stuff so I hear all about it.
> This is NOT the modern definition of melodrama in film. Melodrama is, in basic terms, where the story is posed like a drama, but you know the outcome.
Can you tell me with a straight face that you do not know the outcome?
Compare the character interaction between Game of Thrones and, say... Dallas (1978). Besides the environment, (texas oil tycoons vs power struggle in environment with fantasy elements) what's the difference?
Wow, you're really into it. That's fine, if there weren't different kinds of people, there wouldn't be different kinds of entertainment.
It is most definitely melodrama. Test by: Go over the dialog and situations in your head and try to imagine real people acting that way. No, right? To have a collection of people that mean and that thoughtless and that self-absorbed, and (the important part) that transparent about it, is not realistic. The characters are painfully exaggerated, and this is where drama => melodrama.
You know, it's fine. I saw this tendency in the BG reboot -- to make a soap opera with sci-fi elements, or a sci-fi in a soap opera framework (whether you believe that the chicken or egg came first) in an obvious attempt to combine the audience for long winded melodrama (typically non-geek women) with the audience for sci-fi or fantasy (typically geek men) which provides something both can enjoy. It's not for me. I liked the crew interaction in Firefly, for example, but every scene had a purpose -- it led somewhere, it wasn't just people continuously barking at each other for little reason. If I wanted that, I'd just stay at work.
Parenthetically, I think it was melodrama that killed SGU. By the time the writers had grown tired of the painfully long-winded "who was commanding the ship" thread and finally got to the real story arc, most of the viewers had bailed. Too bad, there was an interesting story in there somewhere, but it never got told.
But Game of Thrones still seems to be doing well, I suspect in part because it has inherited part of its audience from housewives still in withdrawal from the cancellation of "All My Children". And if there are fantasy enthusiasts who don't mind the soap opera elements or have gone through the mental gymnastics to redefine what their eyes and ears are telling them, who am I to say that's wrong? It's not like the show offends me by existing. I'm not required to watch it.
> 4. What DVR did you use? They aren't trouble. They are really, really easy. A good measure of that is after trying many times, I cannot teach my mom or sibling how to download things off of bittorrent and have it stick, but they understand DVRs well enough to get by (another testament is the old joke about being unable to program your VCR didn't survive the jump to DVRs).
I've used a lot of different kinds over the years, from old tape machines, to DVR built into the cable box, to Windows Media Center. It's always easier to download than it is to dvr. I'm sorry, but until usability improves, it just is.
Nod. You appear to be easily bored.
Soap Op--er-a
Noun: A television or radio drama series dealing typically with daily events in the lives of the same group of characters. The plot in "Soap Operas" tend towards the melodramatic. The writing is often open-ended, with plot threads rarely being resolved. The story centers on the feelings and emotions of the various characters to the exclusion of almost all else.
Yep. To which I would add, most of the characters are an absolute waste of skin, and the only reason they're still breathing is that nobody has yet bothered to put them out of their misery.
1) I'm talking in general, not necessarily this show in particular. 2) "Multiple times a week" is still != "when I want to watch it" 3) see 1), 4) Yes, I have, thanks. They're a lot of trouble, compared to typing in a show name and clicking on a link.
I don't download Game of Thrones. I watched the first few episodes, saw that it was a soap opera trying to gain legitimacy with a few sword and sorcery components, and gave it up. But one reason to download is that you get to see the film on your terms, at a date and time of your choosing, instead of being locked into a broadcasting schedule. And, no commercials, but the first part is the biggest I think. If these shows were available on demand, instead of trying to force a TV paradigm that's largely dead these days, there may be fewer downloads.
What the heck are you talking about?
The patent is not limited to Exchange - it covers any implementation of meeting requests on a mobile device. Exchange is only given as an example of the broader class of "personal information managers (PIMs)" that the patent applies to:
PIMs typically comprise applications which enable the user of the mobile device to better manage scheduling and communications, and other such tasks. Some commonly available PIMs include scheduling and calendar programs, task lists, address books, and electronic mail (e-mail) programs. Some commonly commercially available PIMs are sold under the brand names Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Outlook and are commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of this discussion, PIMs shall also include separate electronic mail applications, such as that available under the brand name Microsoft Exchange.
Given that, wouldn't Blackberry (1999) or the Palm Pilot (1996) be prior art?
The problem with XKCD style passwords is the more characters in a password, the more likely I am to make a typo while entering it. I mistype a typical 8 character password a couple times a day. I can imagine what it would be like with a 25 character password.
Um..... practice typing more?
The thing with xkcd type passwords is that they are made up of english words (or whatever your native language) which you have probably typed a million times before. How could you not type them correctly? I just typed this sentence without a single mistake and it contains 49 words.
Where the xkcd password "Correct horse staple battery" would take 72624497 centuries to crack. That is if it wasn't already on the internet for everyone to see and try.
Yep. (nods). Now if you excuse me, I have to change my password right now.