To add on to my statement above, if someone excepts what you say then EVERY market is a Ponzi scheme.
No it's only a Ponzi scheme when it relies on new-comers to generate the "profits". As bitcoin does.
For example a market in a blue chip company stock is not a Ponzi scheme, as a share isn't just a trading token. It carries the real value of a fractional ownership of the company, it's assets and potential profits.
Bitcoin (or any national currency) doesn't fit the definition in any way. If you want to argue that Bitcoin is a scam then do it with facts, but arguing that it's a "ponzi" scheme is an attempt to scare with loaded words and it's a fallacy.
Of course it does. The high "value" ($600 ish) of a bitcoin is completely a product of new people getting sucked into the scam. Once there are no suckers left who want to buy into bitcoins, the price will fall, leading people to try to flee, and within the space of a day or two the value has completely disappeared.
It's a Ponzi scheme. And those who have bought into the idea will only realise it when it's over.
If you want to claim otherwise, in face of evidence to the contrary
There is no evidence it's not an ad hominem. It's clearly an ad hominem.
All I've got out of you so far is bold assertion.
And all I have is your bold and incorrect assertion that it isn't.
Perhaps that's all you've got? All you have left is to dodge the issue, refusing to defend the indefensible statement: "It's irrational for non-experts to form a opinion contradicted by the consensus of domain experts. You are wrong if you think otherwise."?
Indefensible? It's unassailable. The only reason you think it's wrong is that you've imagined scenarios in which you've picked people who are not the domain experts.
Homeopaths are only domain experts on what the system of homeopathy says. They are not domain experts on whether it works. Domain experts on whether it works are medical research scientists from one angle, and physicists or chemists from another.
That's not true. You simply ignored it [homeopathy], mumbling some nonsense about "ad hominem" instead.
I looked back through the thread. Actually I said: "The domain-experts on homeopathy are the scientists that have peer-reviewd papers in scientific journals on the topic of homeopathy. The scientific consensus on homeopathy is that it has no effect beyond placebo." So I've already covered this. Again, you made a claim that is provably wrong, simply by looking back up the thread.
Moving on you said: "Should I accept the consensus position on the divinity of Jesus from the Vatican?" Again, the problem is you not knowing what domain experts are. The Vatican (or at least Catholic theologists) are domain experts on what the set of beliefs that catholics hold to be true. They are not domain experts on whether those beliefs are true. As they claim their beliefs are outside science, it becomes a philosophical question. And an unanswerable one at that, even by the domain expert philosophers. It's a huge debate in itself. But because of the "outside science" angle we can just avoid solving the religion question by noting that you chose a bad analogy. Choosing bad analogies is particularly common with people on the false side of the argument.
Which basically describes the mp3 player market before the iPod.
By saying that, you're accepting that Apple didn't invent when it came up with the iPod. It improved on products that other companies already did. And Apple knew there was a mass-market for the company that did it right, as there had already been mass markets for the older tech versions: the Walkman and the DiscMan.
Apple throws away most of the products they consider. They make a new product category when they see that there is big latent demand for a product, but it's being poorly served by the products currently in the market, and where they think Apple can bring something new to the category. That describes the iPod perfectly. And the iPhone. And the iPad. But it's not an opportunity that comes up every year.
When they don't get those 3 conditions in place, they end up with something that isn't a great success, such as the Apple TV, or the Boombox.
Occulus Rift Raspberry Pi Steam Machine Lytro Sol Tablet Wilocity PicoP Fitbit CubeX Zigbee Nest
If you put all of those companies together, their combined market cap probably doesn't even meet 5% of Apple's
Sorry, these are all interesting and I guess successful small companies, but specialist. You can't cherry pick a bunch of successful one trick ponies, with smallish markets, and then ask why multinational hasn't got a stable of such ponies. It doesn't work like that.
Take Nest as a company with a product that seems quite Apple like. OK, but it's a tiny market, and would still be a tiny market had Apple done it. Far smaller than Apple TV.
Again I note that you have failed to find a company that innovates more than Apple. You have a bunch of companies with pretty much a single product. Apple isn't lacking, you have unrealistic expectations.
Apple had the Advanced Technology Group
Which existed from 1986 to 1997. Pretty much the years Apple was failing. And you think that's a better idea than what Apple do now?
Nowadays, Apple occasionally buys a startup to integrate into existing products.
What if the campus had more walking-friendly routes to and from the rest of the city, to encourage interaction between workers and local businesses? Facebook did this, by basically buying a little mini-city
Facebook HQ is a bunch of office buildings surrounded by car parks, off an expressway. There's no through route to anywhere for the general public. Nor anything resembling a park.
I note the lack of any specific examples. As I expected.
On the plus side I see you've changed "inventing" to "innovation". For sure Apple innovates more than most, and possibly all, consumer product companies.
Again, if you disagree, give examples. How often do Samsung, Sony and Acer for example come up with radically new products.
No, a walled garden and a prison are different things. It's like you've never seen even photos of wither of them.
A walled garden is tended by a skilled gardener, encouraging beautiful flowers and strong trees, and making sure the weeds are pulled up as soon as they appear. People come to visit through choice, because it's such a nice place to be, due to the labours of that gardener.
A prison is stark, uncomfortable and ugly. People are put there against their will. No one would choose to be there.
What astonishes me is that they have all this cash and they don't seem to be inventing anything new or creating any new markets. That's the bigger sign of distress at the company.
As opposed to........... ? Which other consumer product company that invents something new ever year?
Creating consumer products is a matter of evolving and innovating, not inventing. And Apple is one of best in the world at it right now.
But really, 1.2% Come on! That's tiny! 1.2% tells me Google is doing a pretty good job!
Compared to?
Apple is so close to 0% as makes no difference. It's not possible to package someone else's app as your own. And malware is so rare, each single one becomes a significant media story.
Fix 3: Parental Controls > Require password for new apps. Poof the device is now safe in the hands of your teenager or grandmother.
Only works for those teens or grandparents that have a phone bought for them by a geek parent or grandson. Which is a small minority. So not really any kind of worthwhile fix for the platform.
Android's permission model is far from all or nothing, it is entirely declarative and applications do not have all permissions
You seem to have misunderstood what the previous poster was saying. With Android, if an app requires permissions A, B and C, then you have to give permission for all of A, B and C, or you can't run the app at all. That's all or nothing permissions.
With iOS, the app might require permissions A, B and C (which will be requested at the time the app first needs each one. And you might only give permission for A and C. And the app will still run. It will be missing the functionality that requires permission B. But everything else will work. That's selective permissions.
It would be nice if the Android model presented a little more granular information at times
If you want to make Android even less user friendly than it already is.
Either you have that problem on iThings too or you're ignoring the pre-install permission list on Android for some unknwon reason.
The situation is not the same on iOS, as there is an app approval process. And there's also a process to remove apps from the store if they are subsequently discovered to be malware.
On Android, there is no central authority to approve or remove apps.
The paradox of choice. Having a choice of apps in a particular category is actually detrimental to the user, when a significant number of them are bad choices.
How many people install the adware apps, though? I'd wager that the proportion of _downloads_ of adware is significantly less than 1.2%.
The double think is fascinating. On the odd occasion, perhaps once a year, when some malware app manages to circumvent both the Apple app sandbox and the app approval process, to be listed on the Apple App Store, the Slashdot typical reaction is: "See, the walled garden approach is totally broken".
But when we have reports of a 1.2% of Android apps being malware, the typical response is: "Well that doesn't matter if not so many people download them".
I'm saying malware rather than your "adware", because there is a hell of a lot more than 1.2% adware on Android. This is about apps maliciously pretending to be something other than what they are. That's malware. And your rephrasing it as simply "adware" is another example of doublethink.
Then again it took me about a year of tinkering around to master the intricacies
Wow! A year is a hell of a lot of money spent on training when you account for the cost of time. More money than most people will spend on training in a lifetime.
For sure, if tinkering and learning Linux is your hobby, then it's free. But that describes a tiny minority of the potential users of Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
How about 20,000 merchants including a bunch of subways around the world that accept Bitcoin.
20,000 merchants. There's roughly 200 countries in the world. So on average 100 merchants per country.
And the "bunch of subways" is a single franchisee, who got some media coverage a couple of days ago by the stunt of accepting bitcoins.
It's a small-time fad.
To add on to my statement above, if someone excepts what you say then EVERY market is a Ponzi scheme.
No it's only a Ponzi scheme when it relies on new-comers to generate the "profits". As bitcoin does.
For example a market in a blue chip company stock is not a Ponzi scheme, as a share isn't just a trading token. It carries the real value of a fractional ownership of the company, it's assets and potential profits.
Bitcoin (or any national currency) doesn't fit the definition in any way. If you want to argue that Bitcoin is a scam then do it with facts, but arguing that it's a "ponzi" scheme is an attempt to scare with loaded words and it's a fallacy.
Of course it does. The high "value" ($600 ish) of a bitcoin is completely a product of new people getting sucked into the scam. Once there are no suckers left who want to buy into bitcoins, the price will fall, leading people to try to flee, and within the space of a day or two the value has completely disappeared.
It's a Ponzi scheme. And those who have bought into the idea will only realise it when it's over.
So, because it's possible to pay for parking in a few places with conkers, you think conkers are a currency?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24162228
( Conkers are the seeds of the horse chestnut tree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers )
If you want to claim otherwise, in face of evidence to the contrary
There is no evidence it's not an ad hominem. It's clearly an ad hominem.
All I've got out of you so far is bold assertion.
And all I have is your bold and incorrect assertion that it isn't.
Perhaps that's all you've got? All you have left is to dodge the issue, refusing to defend the indefensible statement: "It's irrational for non-experts to form a opinion contradicted by the consensus of domain experts. You are wrong if you think otherwise."?
Indefensible? It's unassailable. The only reason you think it's wrong is that you've imagined scenarios in which you've picked people who are not the domain experts.
Homeopaths are only domain experts on what the system of homeopathy says. They are not domain experts on whether it works. Domain experts on whether it works are medical research scientists from one angle, and physicists or chemists from another.
That's not true. You simply ignored it [homeopathy], mumbling some nonsense about "ad hominem" instead.
I looked back through the thread. Actually I said: "The domain-experts on homeopathy are the scientists that have peer-reviewd papers in scientific journals on the topic of homeopathy. The scientific consensus on homeopathy is that it has no effect beyond placebo." So I've already covered this. Again, you made a claim that is provably wrong, simply by looking back up the thread.
Moving on you said: "Should I accept the consensus position on the divinity of Jesus from the Vatican?" Again, the problem is you not knowing what domain experts are. The Vatican (or at least Catholic theologists) are domain experts on what the set of beliefs that catholics hold to be true. They are not domain experts on whether those beliefs are true. As they claim their beliefs are outside science, it becomes a philosophical question. And an unanswerable one at that, even by the domain expert philosophers. It's a huge debate in itself. But because of the "outside science" angle we can just avoid solving the religion question by noting that you chose a bad analogy. Choosing bad analogies is particularly common with people on the false side of the argument.
Which basically describes the mp3 player market before the iPod.
By saying that, you're accepting that Apple didn't invent when it came up with the iPod. It improved on products that other companies already did. And Apple knew there was a mass-market for the company that did it right, as there had already been mass markets for the older tech versions: the Walkman and the DiscMan.
Apple throws away most of the products they consider. They make a new product category when they see that there is big latent demand for a product, but it's being poorly served by the products currently in the market, and where they think Apple can bring something new to the category. That describes the iPod perfectly. And the iPhone. And the iPad. But it's not an opportunity that comes up every year.
When they don't get those 3 conditions in place, they end up with something that isn't a great success, such as the Apple TV, or the Boombox.
Sure it is. Blatantly. So clearly it's you who doesn't understand the term.
Occulus Rift
Raspberry Pi
Steam Machine
Lytro
Sol Tablet
Wilocity
PicoP
Fitbit
CubeX
Zigbee
Nest
If you put all of those companies together, their combined market cap probably doesn't even meet 5% of Apple's
Sorry, these are all interesting and I guess successful small companies, but specialist. You can't cherry pick a bunch of successful one trick ponies, with smallish markets, and then ask why multinational hasn't got a stable of such ponies. It doesn't work like that.
Take Nest as a company with a product that seems quite Apple like. OK, but it's a tiny market, and would still be a tiny market had Apple done it. Far smaller than Apple TV.
Again I note that you have failed to find a company that innovates more than Apple. You have a bunch of companies with pretty much a single product. Apple isn't lacking, you have unrealistic expectations.
Apple had the Advanced Technology Group
Which existed from 1986 to 1997. Pretty much the years Apple was failing. And you think that's a better idea than what Apple do now?
Nowadays, Apple occasionally buys a startup to integrate into existing products.
Sure. And it works well.
What if the campus had more walking-friendly routes to and from the rest of the city, to encourage interaction between workers and local businesses? Facebook did this, by basically buying a little mini-city
Facebook HQ is a bunch of office buildings surrounded by car parks, off an expressway. There's no through route to anywhere for the general public. Nor anything resembling a park.
Lots of companies do
I note the lack of any specific examples. As I expected.
On the plus side I see you've changed "inventing" to "innovation". For sure Apple innovates more than most, and possibly all, consumer product companies.
Again, if you disagree, give examples. How often do Samsung, Sony and Acer for example come up with radically new products.
No, a walled garden and a prison are different things. It's like you've never seen even photos of wither of them.
A walled garden is tended by a skilled gardener, encouraging beautiful flowers and strong trees, and making sure the weeds are pulled up as soon as they appear. People come to visit through choice, because it's such a nice place to be, due to the labours of that gardener.
A prison is stark, uncomfortable and ugly. People are put there against their will. No one would choose to be there.
What astonishes me is that they have all this cash and they don't seem to be inventing anything new or creating any new markets. That's the bigger sign of distress at the company.
As opposed to........... ? Which other consumer product company that invents something new ever year?
Creating consumer products is a matter of evolving and innovating, not inventing. And Apple is one of best in the world at it right now.
Then it's a pretty good demonstration that a walled garden isn't a bad thing.
But really, 1.2% Come on! That's tiny! 1.2% tells me Google is doing a pretty good job!
Compared to?
Apple is so close to 0% as makes no difference. It's not possible to package someone else's app as your own. And malware is so rare, each single one becomes a significant media story.
Assuming the same rat on all apps on the app store, 1.2% is 12,000 apps.
Apple's rate is as close to 0% as makes no difference. There are few enough that every one that is found makes it's own media storm.
Fix 3: Parental Controls > Require password for new apps. Poof the device is now safe in the hands of your teenager or grandmother.
Only works for those teens or grandparents that have a phone bought for them by a geek parent or grandson. Which is a small minority. So not really any kind of worthwhile fix for the platform.
Android's permission model is far from all or nothing, it is entirely declarative and applications do not have all permissions
You seem to have misunderstood what the previous poster was saying. With Android, if an app requires permissions A, B and C, then you have to give permission for all of A, B and C, or you can't run the app at all. That's all or nothing permissions.
With iOS, the app might require permissions A, B and C (which will be requested at the time the app first needs each one. And you might only give permission for A and C. And the app will still run. It will be missing the functionality that requires permission B. But everything else will work. That's selective permissions.
It would be nice if the Android model presented a little more granular information at times
If you want to make Android even less user friendly than it already is.
It works well for iOS.
That Microsoft got it wrong on Vista is irrelevant when there is a mobile phone example that got it right.
Sad isn't it, that it's such a chore on Android to even find something as basic as a decent flashlight app.
Either you have that problem on iThings too or you're ignoring the pre-install permission list on Android for some unknwon reason.
The situation is not the same on iOS, as there is an app approval process. And there's also a process to remove apps from the store if they are subsequently discovered to be malware.
On Android, there is no central authority to approve or remove apps.
The paradox of choice. Having a choice of apps in a particular category is actually detrimental to the user, when a significant number of them are bad choices.
Choice is no substitute for quality control.
How many people install the adware apps, though? I'd wager that the proportion of _downloads_ of adware is significantly less than 1.2%.
The double think is fascinating. On the odd occasion, perhaps once a year, when some malware app manages to circumvent both the Apple app sandbox and the app approval process, to be listed on the Apple App Store, the Slashdot typical reaction is: "See, the walled garden approach is totally broken".
But when we have reports of a 1.2% of Android apps being malware, the typical response is: "Well that doesn't matter if not so many people download them".
I'm saying malware rather than your "adware", because there is a hell of a lot more than 1.2% adware on Android. This is about apps maliciously pretending to be something other than what they are. That's malware. And your rephrasing it as simply "adware" is another example of doublethink.
There are thousands of useless or malware infested apps out there but are people really using them?
Even if no one downloaded a single one of them, they would decrease the signal to noise ratio of the store.
So there's really no excusing them.
Amount spent on training: Zero.
Only true if your time is worth nothing.
Then again it took me about a year of tinkering around to master the intricacies
Wow! A year is a hell of a lot of money spent on training when you account for the cost of time. More money than most people will spend on training in a lifetime.
For sure, if tinkering and learning Linux is your hobby, then it's free. But that describes a tiny minority of the potential users of Linux.
I don't think you realize how much FOSS is written/maintained with no expectation or want of compensation.
And the FOSS software primarily developed by those people is generally worth the money you pay for it.
The important FOSS software is developed primarily by people who're employed to develop it.