Apple is risking upsetting 65% of the world's population, seemingly without much greater purpose than speeding the removal of their rival Google from iOS
What? Sixty-five percent of the world's population will be upset by the map application? Does 65% of the world's population have an iOS device or rely on one?
I'll believe it when I see time travelers from the future who have used their warp drives and FTL travel to come backward in time to tell us about it. (According to special relativity, the ability to travel faster than light is equivalent to the ability to travel backwards in time.)
I don't think Samsung are "deathly afraid of Apple". Not then they're currently the leaders in market share, and actually supply the hardware to Apple, to make their phones/tablets/laptops. It's kind of a win-win...
I wonder how much profit Apple makes per phone compared to Samsung? I'd say Apple is probably more profitable because they have one new phone model in two colors every what, 12 - 18 months? One model, two colors. Samsung models may not be that different, but having one is cheaper than two or many.
We had the Wii - managed to score one the weekend it came out. But after about 18 months it became apparent this was going to have some real dumbed-down titles. A few stick out in my mind, most notably the Endless Ocean and Endless Ocean 2 games. I miss those enough I've been thinking of picking up a Wii after the Wii U comes out to replay them, when the price drops.
As for the Atari 2600 I had as a kid - I recall that having a greater variety of games that were almost more challenging. I don't miss it enough to buy the controller/ROM combination, but I distinctly remember titles we traded with friends and played for years. Maybe some of that is nostalgia for long summers and the lack of overall console variety then, but I was distinctly unimpressed with the Wii; with the notable exception the two titles I mentioned above.
When our Wii gave up the ghost I relented and bought an XBox for my son and that's been a great console - a good variety of games and ab online game store worth dropping some dough on. There will have to be something extraordinary for my generally Nintendo-friendly family to even consider by a Wii U. They lost us with the terribly poor game selection on the Wii and DS systems.
Agreed. Cell phones are cheap as fuck. It's the service that beats you down. I have never owned a smart phone, because while I'm fine paying a couple hundred bucks every two or three yeras for a phone, I'm *not* fine paying a couple hundred bucks a *month* for a plan.
I don't think the three of us on the family plan with iPhones pay that on AT&T. That comes with the super cool unlimited 3G that is suddenly limited at 4GB per month, but the day I hit is the day something is really wrong in the universe. But a couple hundred a month for the plan - did it come with a person?
Restrict the video only in places where they can't handle the freedom of speech without maniacal violence. Google got it right for the first time in a while.
That would make for a mighty small internet in most places.
Well put. I like choice - in RAM, screen size, and so on. I have a MacBook Air precisely because I've always enjoyed a minimalist computer setup. The thing is a dream for me because it runs the four applications I use all the time. It was the same thing with the Acer Linux netbook I had for about two years - no hard drive but just enough for Mozilla, Thunderbird, Angband and a text editor.
These debates have always bothered me. Does a nation/society/culture/state/collective do nothing with its resources if there are some with less than others? Seriously... this debate seems a red herring because it can never be concluded.
- Don't build that table because the Johnson's down the road don't have enough wood for the winter
- Don't spend resources researching reconstructive surgery when there are people on the organ transplant list
My sig paints a picture of my general mindset around 'progress' - I kind of find space exploration a silly idea but what the hell does it matter what I think? It's not like I set national budgets or anything like that. Nevertheless, can't we ask that question of every resource expenditure of ourselves and others? What business did I have buying my kid an XBox 360 when I don't have 100% of his expected college expenses saved?
It's called donationware, a variant of shareware, and its an old way of getting paid for your work. I think I saw the first example of it back in the mid 80's on the BBS scene.
It's not new, and it's not news.
I really miss those days. Being able to download something and use it for a week or so before deciding to get the full deal or pay the shareware fee. A few game companies do this, like Spiderweb Software - you can play a huge chunk of the game before it stops and requires payment. By the time the demo is over you're pretty sure it will run on your computer and there's no question about liking it or not.
... I use a surprisingly small number of applications. In the last decade the types of applications I always run on my computer are one each of the following:
Photo software to grab from camera/phone and put into albums on my computer
Text editor to update my homepage
Interactive fiction authoring and interpreter software
Some kind of office suite - usually not Microsoft Office and I'm happy
Music management software to store my files and copy them to my phone
Calendar and contact manager that syncs to my phone
Email, RSS, Web, FTP, Jabber software
Having tried this with Windows, Linux, and MacOS I can say the solution that works out-of-the box for me is MacOS. I'd rather use open source software because I like donating money to software I use rather than paying for a silly license that puts a smile on the face of an attorney somewhere.
When I tried this with Linux I have to do a lot research to make sure the phone works with the OS and the software available for the OS. I've tried using Songbird and Lightning/Sunbird as well as the full suite of Mozilla-based applications. Inevitably something I use a computer for is not available in a single Linux distribution. If the phone works the calendar is crappy or Songbird doesn't sync with that phone.
So for me it does boil down not just to the software that's available but to device compatibility. I'm sure it's possible but computers are less hobby and more appliance for me. On an odd notes I was able to do all of this on an older MacBook I didn't know what to use for. So with the exception of the OS, obviously, I had all my music in open source applications: OpenOffice, Songbird, Thunderbird, Instantbird, Inform 7, Sunbird and a small handful of text editors. I couldn't find the right Linux counterparts.
Because it's stupid to have cell coverage in vast swathes of uninhabited areas?
What does habitation have to do with anything? Some uninhabited areas have lots of travelers. Airports probably have a population of zero, yet those travellers I'll bet use a lot of the provided cell coverage. Same goes for the endless stretches of Interstate in places like Wyoming and Montana. Population zero but lots of people using the road.
You could be scarring him for life you know. If he doesn't have an aptitude for math, this will not help him.
I agree. Education is more about discovering yourself than learning geometry or calculus - two things that directly benefit few people; but obviously their work is to the benefit of the rest of us. Presumably when a kid leaves high school they have an idea of what they want to do next - study to become a writer or mathematician, for example. Forcing Hemingway to do math problems in the summer would have wrecked his writing;-)
That's a good point. My son is in school for seven hours a day. Minus one hour for lunch leaves six. That's six periods each 50 minutes, for a total of five hours of scheduled instruction. When you factor in roll call for attendance, the normal hustle and bustle of teenage kids it's probably closer to four hours of actual instruction, on a good day.
We have friends who home schooled their kids. They completed (and exceeded) minimum curriculum in our state in four hours a day. And she educated two very smart and confident kids.
People do not have to work this hard to survive. When you work your entire life away- unless you love working- you basically didn't live. They took your entire life from you.
I wish had a mod point. But I'd make one correction: "People do not have to work this hard to thrive, let alone survive.
One of the students did not know 8 x 4 is "32". He did know 8 x 2 but, according to my son, could not double "16" to get to "32".
I don't think he forgot that over the summer - he never learned it. This high school is a popular public school in my city many students "choice" in if they are not in the school's immediate vicinity. Even the silly statewide proficiency tests let this kid fall through the cracks.
He wasn't failed by summer but by a school system that allows a fourteen year old boy to enter high school not knowing 8 x 4.
There is noting wrong with summer than a year-round school will fix.
I've done a lot of driving in the American west - and I've been impressed at the proliferation of WiFi at truck stops; even those in ten people towns in Montana and Wyoming. Of course, this restricts you to interstate travel for the most part, but that's the same case with 4G I'm guessing.
The Trucker's Guide to the Internet gives some advice on this, and talks a little about MiFi, which may or may not be of use to you. Truckers have solved many of the problems you may face and I'm guessing will have some sound practical advice.
Good luck in this. My approach is similar but involves a sailboat with up times doing software testing when I'm in a marina with WiFi. I can break software from a sailboat salon in the Bahamas as easily as I can in the Rocky Mountains. I won't have any access while sailing, of course, but like truck stops most marinas offer WiFi and many of those have free access.
... since driving only requires a set of rules and environmental awareness.
If you replace the word driving with any verb your statement is true. I can't imagine the mayhem this will mean - in part because I don't think anyone knows how 'autonomous cars' will be implemented. In the simplest since we are talking about putting our safety into the hands of something engineered. Fair enough - we do that every day of our life - most of it unwittingly. However, engineering it seems to me, is best when solving a specific problem we're having with a conflict between our sets of rules and the environment.
Homes and bridges were probably the first things experienced, if not hunger or thirst, solved by engineering.
I can't for the life of me think of a problem solved by 'autonomous cars' that won't create more problems requiring more engineering.
Making airplanes isn't about technology, it is all about regulation and certification of components and complete product. Open sourcing wont help you with that.
Not necessarily in the United States, where the Federal Aviation Administration "... does not certify, certificate, or approve aircraft kits. Also, the FAA does not approve kit manufacturers." Though I'm sure there are regulations for the person piloting the aircraft.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of professionals out there with significant admin experience with both Unix and Windows. Being a Windows professional doesn't make you some sort of dirt-eating Tauron, nor does it necessarily make you a "fan" who's chosen his side in some nerd-rage fight to the death.
Completely sidestepping the merits of UNIX over Windows the Windows Admins I have worked with can be described as incredible troubleshooters with an inferiority complex. They have always volunteered wonderfully creafted reasons why a server that ran fine for two weeks would take a dirt nap when no one was on it at 0200 and require three hours to get back up.
It goes without saying the UNIX admins I've had to work with have never had to display such grit under fire. But I have (with only a few minor exceptions) been a little impressed at how good Windows admins are at troubleshooting. Even if that can be attributed as an effect caused by a crappy OS it's something I've seen time and time again. Whereas many of the UNIX admins truly felt they could replace their mother with a shell script, could quote Stephenson backwards, and were the most unpersonable people I've ever met.
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What? Sixty-five percent of the world's population will be upset by the map application? Does 65% of the world's population have an iOS device or rely on one?
I'll believe it when I see time travelers from the future who have used their warp drives and FTL travel to come backward in time to tell us about it. (According to special relativity, the ability to travel faster than light is equivalent to the ability to travel backwards in time.)
Or a Delorean.
I don't think Samsung are "deathly afraid of Apple". Not then they're currently the leaders in market share, and actually supply the hardware to Apple, to make their phones/tablets/laptops. It's kind of a win-win...
I wonder how much profit Apple makes per phone compared to Samsung? I'd say Apple is probably more profitable because they have one new phone model in two colors every what, 12 - 18 months? One model, two colors. Samsung models may not be that different, but having one is cheaper than two or many.
We had the Wii - managed to score one the weekend it came out. But after about 18 months it became apparent this was going to have some real dumbed-down titles. A few stick out in my mind, most notably the Endless Ocean and Endless Ocean 2 games. I miss those enough I've been thinking of picking up a Wii after the Wii U comes out to replay them, when the price drops.
As for the Atari 2600 I had as a kid - I recall that having a greater variety of games that were almost more challenging. I don't miss it enough to buy the controller/ROM combination, but I distinctly remember titles we traded with friends and played for years. Maybe some of that is nostalgia for long summers and the lack of overall console variety then, but I was distinctly unimpressed with the Wii; with the notable exception the two titles I mentioned above.
When our Wii gave up the ghost I relented and bought an XBox for my son and that's been a great console - a good variety of games and ab online game store worth dropping some dough on. There will have to be something extraordinary for my generally Nintendo-friendly family to even consider by a Wii U. They lost us with the terribly poor game selection on the Wii and DS systems.
Agreed. Cell phones are cheap as fuck. It's the service that beats you down. I have never owned a smart phone, because while I'm fine paying a couple hundred bucks every two or three yeras for a phone, I'm *not* fine paying a couple hundred bucks a *month* for a plan.
I don't think the three of us on the family plan with iPhones pay that on AT&T. That comes with the super cool unlimited 3G that is suddenly limited at 4GB per month, but the day I hit is the day something is really wrong in the universe. But a couple hundred a month for the plan - did it come with a person?
Restrict the video only in places where they can't handle the freedom of speech without maniacal violence. Google got it right for the first time in a while.
That would make for a mighty small internet in most places.
Well put. I like choice - in RAM, screen size, and so on. I have a MacBook Air precisely because I've always enjoyed a minimalist computer setup. The thing is a dream for me because it runs the four applications I use all the time. It was the same thing with the Acer Linux netbook I had for about two years - no hard drive but just enough for Mozilla, Thunderbird, Angband and a text editor.
"Europe Sets Sights on Steroid Tracking Radars"
... return RSS to their Mail application in 10.8 with 120 lines of code?
These debates have always bothered me. Does a nation/society/culture/state/collective do nothing with its resources if there are some with less than others? Seriously ... this debate seems a red herring because it can never be concluded.
My sig paints a picture of my general mindset around 'progress' - I kind of find space exploration a silly idea but what the hell does it matter what I think? It's not like I set national budgets or anything like that. Nevertheless, can't we ask that question of every resource expenditure of ourselves and others? What business did I have buying my kid an XBox 360 when I don't have 100% of his expected college expenses saved?
It's called donationware, a variant of shareware, and its an old way of getting paid for your work. I think I saw the first example of it back in the mid 80's on the BBS scene.
It's not new, and it's not news.
I really miss those days. Being able to download something and use it for a week or so before deciding to get the full deal or pay the shareware fee. A few game companies do this, like Spiderweb Software - you can play a huge chunk of the game before it stops and requires payment. By the time the demo is over you're pretty sure it will run on your computer and there's no question about liking it or not.
... I use a surprisingly small number of applications. In the last decade the types of applications I always run on my computer are one each of the following:
Having tried this with Windows, Linux, and MacOS I can say the solution that works out-of-the box for me is MacOS. I'd rather use open source software because I like donating money to software I use rather than paying for a silly license that puts a smile on the face of an attorney somewhere.
When I tried this with Linux I have to do a lot research to make sure the phone works with the OS and the software available for the OS. I've tried using Songbird and Lightning/Sunbird as well as the full suite of Mozilla-based applications. Inevitably something I use a computer for is not available in a single Linux distribution. If the phone works the calendar is crappy or Songbird doesn't sync with that phone.
So for me it does boil down not just to the software that's available but to device compatibility. I'm sure it's possible but computers are less hobby and more appliance for me. On an odd notes I was able to do all of this on an older MacBook I didn't know what to use for. So with the exception of the OS, obviously, I had all my music in open source applications: OpenOffice, Songbird, Thunderbird, Instantbird, Inform 7, Sunbird and a small handful of text editors. I couldn't find the right Linux counterparts.
I am proud in knowing that the % of profits from my phone are minimal and did not come from slave labor.
How can you possibly know that? Does anyone know what percent of the profits of the phone the company gets and how the labor fares?
Because it's stupid to have cell coverage in vast swathes of uninhabited areas?
What does habitation have to do with anything? Some uninhabited areas have lots of travelers. Airports probably have a population of zero, yet those travellers I'll bet use a lot of the provided cell coverage. Same goes for the endless stretches of Interstate in places like Wyoming and Montana. Population zero but lots of people using the road.
I read "Paperweight" instead of "Paperwhite"
In Denver, CO the school system adjusted stop/start dates because the older schools don't have air conditioning and the summers are hotter.
You could be scarring him for life you know. If he doesn't have an aptitude for math, this will not help him.
I agree. Education is more about discovering yourself than learning geometry or calculus - two things that directly benefit few people; but obviously their work is to the benefit of the rest of us. Presumably when a kid leaves high school they have an idea of what they want to do next - study to become a writer or mathematician, for example. Forcing Hemingway to do math problems in the summer would have wrecked his writing ;-)
That's a good point. My son is in school for seven hours a day. Minus one hour for lunch leaves six. That's six periods each 50 minutes, for a total of five hours of scheduled instruction. When you factor in roll call for attendance, the normal hustle and bustle of teenage kids it's probably closer to four hours of actual instruction, on a good day.
We have friends who home schooled their kids. They completed (and exceeded) minimum curriculum in our state in four hours a day. And she educated two very smart and confident kids.
People do not have to work this hard to survive. When you work your entire life away- unless you love working- you basically didn't live. They took your entire life from you.
I wish had a mod point. But I'd make one correction: "People do not have to work this hard to thrive, let alone survive.
One of the students did not know 8 x 4 is "32". He did know 8 x 2 but, according to my son, could not double "16" to get to "32".
I don't think he forgot that over the summer - he never learned it. This high school is a popular public school in my city many students "choice" in if they are not in the school's immediate vicinity. Even the silly statewide proficiency tests let this kid fall through the cracks.
He wasn't failed by summer but by a school system that allows a fourteen year old boy to enter high school not knowing 8 x 4.
There is noting wrong with summer than a year-round school will fix.
I've done a lot of driving in the American west - and I've been impressed at the proliferation of WiFi at truck stops; even those in ten people towns in Montana and Wyoming. Of course, this restricts you to interstate travel for the most part, but that's the same case with 4G I'm guessing.
The Trucker's Guide to the Internet gives some advice on this, and talks a little about MiFi, which may or may not be of use to you. Truckers have solved many of the problems you may face and I'm guessing will have some sound practical advice.
Good luck in this. My approach is similar but involves a sailboat with up times doing software testing when I'm in a marina with WiFi. I can break software from a sailboat salon in the Bahamas as easily as I can in the Rocky Mountains. I won't have any access while sailing, of course, but like truck stops most marinas offer WiFi and many of those have free access.
... since driving only requires a set of rules and environmental awareness.
If you replace the word driving with any verb your statement is true. I can't imagine the mayhem this will mean - in part because I don't think anyone knows how 'autonomous cars' will be implemented. In the simplest since we are talking about putting our safety into the hands of something engineered. Fair enough - we do that every day of our life - most of it unwittingly. However, engineering it seems to me, is best when solving a specific problem we're having with a conflict between our sets of rules and the environment. Homes and bridges were probably the first things experienced, if not hunger or thirst, solved by engineering. I can't for the life of me think of a problem solved by 'autonomous cars' that won't create more problems requiring more engineering.
I can't believe people in the Middle-east don't already have tablets, MP3 players, and mobile phones. What are they doing? When in Rome ...
Making airplanes isn't about technology, it is all about regulation and certification of components and complete product. Open sourcing wont help you with that.
Not necessarily in the United States, where the Federal Aviation Administration "... does not certify, certificate, or approve aircraft kits. Also, the FAA does not approve kit manufacturers." Though I'm sure there are regulations for the person piloting the aircraft.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of professionals out there with significant admin experience with both Unix and Windows. Being a Windows professional doesn't make you some sort of dirt-eating Tauron, nor does it necessarily make you a "fan" who's chosen his side in some nerd-rage fight to the death.
Completely sidestepping the merits of UNIX over Windows the Windows Admins I have worked with can be described as incredible troubleshooters with an inferiority complex. They have always volunteered wonderfully creafted reasons why a server that ran fine for two weeks would take a dirt nap when no one was on it at 0200 and require three hours to get back up.
It goes without saying the UNIX admins I've had to work with have never had to display such grit under fire. But I have (with only a few minor exceptions) been a little impressed at how good Windows admins are at troubleshooting. Even if that can be attributed as an effect caused by a crappy OS it's something I've seen time and time again. Whereas many of the UNIX admins truly felt they could replace their mother with a shell script, could quote Stephenson backwards, and were the most unpersonable people I've ever met.