The iPod wasn't (by a long shot) the first mp3 player, at the time mp3 players were still a relatively new-fangled thing that most people weren't yet using, and Apple's now-accepted user-friendliness wasn't in play either. In fact the iPod UI isn't amazing anyway.
There were more mp3 players, but they generally had either less capacity, or they were a lot bulkier. And the iPod UI really was better than the competition in various subtle ways. The scroll speed speeding up the longer you scrolled, made it very easy to quickly scroll through your 4000 songs.
It wasn't exactly an "OMFG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment. It wasn't really until the iPod Touch and then rumors of the iPhone that things got really interesting.
The "OMG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment was when they introduced the iPod Nano. It was then that I learned that the iPod Mini (which it replaced) was the best selling iPod at the time. The Nano was so much smaller with the same capacity, I knew it was going to be a hit. I bought stock for $40, and sold a few months later at 40% profit. In retrospect, I guess I should have held on to it.
Also remember that iPod sales didn't begin to explode until after Apple released the Windows compatible iTunes. Sure, MusicMatch would work in 2002, but it has hacked together at best and not many people knew about it.
When using playlists, MusicMatch could end up putting the same song on your iPod several times. I ran out of space unreasonably fast. MusicMatch was a piece of crap.
If you want to protect yourself, you need, as mentioned, a separate e-mail provider, preferably in a country without such crap. Then your ISP can't log anything because all they see is SSL traffic.
What about running your own mail server? I always wanted to do that anyway.
The only problem then is of course that SMTP traffic is unencrypted. Or is it? It would make sense if that also had an encrypted as well as an unencrypted version. But even then I can't force people who mail me to use the encrypted version.
Well, the iPhone's screen is actual glass, rather than the plastic or polycarbonate that almost every other phone has always been, so I suspect they are not treating the things any different. They're just made of a more fragile material.
Glass doesn't have to be that fragile. The Milestone's gorilla glass is remarkably tough.
OTOH, the tijme my iPhone's screen broke. it's because it slipped from my rain-soaked hand onto a tile floor. I maintain that if the thing had a grippy surface anywhere on it, it would never have fallen.
When I had an iPhone, I was amazed about how slippery it was. I recently refused a Galaxy S because it looks too much like an iPhone and I suspect it's every bit as slippery. I like the rubberized steel of my Milestone. There's plenty of stuff wrong with it, but at least it won't slip or break, even if you try.
The thing I find most scary about that design is the kooky idea of making the back of device in glass as well as the front. It seems like a total case of over-design, doubling the number of components prone to accidental damage for absolutely no functional reason.
But it looks great! Isn't that what matters?
Any handheld device will acquire a few scratches and bumps under normal wear, no matter how carefully you look after it.
My Milestone is still completely scratch-free. It takes quite a bit of punishment and doesn't have a protective case. It doesn't need one.
They do tend to slide off surfaces a lot easier than the previous models.
Even easier? My iPhone 3G was already ridiculously slippery. Once it'd started sliding a bit in your hand, there was almost nothing you could do to prevent it from hitting the pavement.
In comparison, I love the sturdiness of my Milestone. I know it's unreasonably locked down for an Android phone, but the really big upside is that it's practically indestructible. Steel everywhere, with some rubbery coating so it doesn't slip at all, no matter what surface it's on, and the screen won't even scratch if you try. (There's a youtube video where someone goes wild with a set of keys.) I regularly sit on it when I have it in my back pocket. My 1.5 year old son throws it around the room. Still not the tiniest scratch.
The word "libertarian" comes from 19th century libertarian socialism, which was later called anarchism. It's a part of the socialist movement that rejected Marx's state socialism for being dictatorial and oppressive. They also rejected capitalist liberalism for creating privilege, injustice, and in the end also oppression.
I honestly think we should take another look at anarchism/libertarian socialism.
Not to mention the internet service does not originate with them. They are simply a bulk account of the TRUE ISP.
That's exactly what I thought. Hotels don't have their own peering connection, do they? They're simply a customer of an ISP, and that ISP needs to do all the required data retention crap already.
Speaking of data retention, do they really log my email? Time to figure out how to encrypt my IMAP communication. (Maybe it's encrypted already, but I'd like to be sure.)
Java certainly has a lot of issues with its verbosity. Take a look at Groovy for a better way to do it, however. Mixins are a really easy way to add additional functionality to existing classes without resorting to multiple inheritance.
C++ is a safe, expressive, modern language - like Java but without all the horrible limitations. Yes it takes a bit of study and it's not for casual programmers, but the results are worth it.
C is much lower level, unsafe language. Good for what it does but dangerous and a very bad choice for large projects.
It's good you've been rated funny rather than insightful. C++ is every bit as unsafe as C.
Yes, they are very different languages, as C is intended for low-level systems programming, managing individual memory locations and stuff like that, whereas C++ has modern OO concepts badly tacked on top of that in a wrong way. It combines all the problems of Java with all the problems of C, and then adds some more. The end result is quite powerful, but not something I'd ever dare to call "safe".
It reminds me a lot of the graphs that github creates, showing who committed when, who pulled from whom and merged what with what. I could stare at those graphs for hours.
I completely disagree. Suppose your livelihood depended on creating intellectual property;
Suppose your livelihood depended on creating hot air. It's not the law's job to enable business models, its job is to enable a healthy society. And at the moment, a lot of IP laws don't seem to do much good to society.
There are already ridiculous amounts of money and lawyers involved in IP at the moment. We're creating more content than ever before. More than we can ever hope to consume. Why do we need a new treaty to make IP even more powerful? We need some balance.
Now let's say your hot new video game gets distributed in a way that results in heavy losses for your employer. Now let's take this one step further - your bonus/raise/benefits have all been drastically reduced due to heavy damages. Then what are you going to do?
Try something that works, rather than go whining to the government for more draconian laws.
Considering the many errors and misunderstandings that Slashdotters are making and propagating in this discussion, I'd say yes.
Some people seem to think it's solar power. A lot of people seem to think that 1km cable is to transport power to earth, and a surprising number of people fail to grasp that 100 billion is really quite a lot.
If you're able to build these, aren't you automatically able to build a Dyson sphere? What's a Dyson sphere other than billions and billions of these things?
Note that a Dyson sphere was never intended to be a solid shell. It has been interpreted as such by some uninformed SF writers, but such a structure (called a Dyson Shell) is every bit as super-science as a ringworld. A Dyson sphere sounds quite possible now, though.
Wow, a Dyson sphere! They're really not afraid to think big.
I admit one of my first thoughts was: so that's what a Dyson sphere really means! My next thought was that this was a step towards a Kardashev type II civilization (though I had to look up that name), skipping properly finishing the type I step.
And there's not the slightest chance you're going to get this thing built and producing power for less than what we can currently produce power for. Which is why no one is seriously pursuing electricity generation in space.
Is this intended as irony/sarcasm, or have you not been paying attention to the scale we're talking about here?
Slashdot Mirror
Not anymore. It asks for an http login now.
Seriously, it's good to have both sides of the coin, because BOTH sides have made a lot of mistakes.
If that's the case, wouldn't you rather have some other coins instead?
It still surprises me that GPG/PGP is still not a standard feature of all mail readers. It seems so obvious.
The iPod wasn't (by a long shot) the first mp3 player, at the time mp3 players were still a relatively new-fangled thing that most people weren't yet using, and Apple's now-accepted user-friendliness wasn't in play either. In fact the iPod UI isn't amazing anyway.
There were more mp3 players, but they generally had either less capacity, or they were a lot bulkier. And the iPod UI really was better than the competition in various subtle ways. The scroll speed speeding up the longer you scrolled, made it very easy to quickly scroll through your 4000 songs.
It wasn't exactly an "OMFG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment. It wasn't really until the iPod Touch and then rumors of the iPhone that things got really interesting.
The "OMG I must invest in Apple right now!" moment was when they introduced the iPod Nano. It was then that I learned that the iPod Mini (which it replaced) was the best selling iPod at the time. The Nano was so much smaller with the same capacity, I knew it was going to be a hit. I bought stock for $40, and sold a few months later at 40% profit. In retrospect, I guess I should have held on to it.
Also remember that iPod sales didn't begin to explode until after Apple released the Windows compatible iTunes. Sure, MusicMatch would work in 2002, but it has hacked together at best and not many people knew about it.
When using playlists, MusicMatch could end up putting the same song on your iPod several times. I ran out of space unreasonably fast. MusicMatch was a piece of crap.
If you want to protect yourself, you need, as mentioned, a separate e-mail provider, preferably in a country without such crap. Then your ISP can't log anything because all they see is SSL traffic.
What about running your own mail server? I always wanted to do that anyway.
The only problem then is of course that SMTP traffic is unencrypted. Or is it? It would make sense if that also had an encrypted as well as an unencrypted version. But even then I can't force people who mail me to use the encrypted version.
I now see a future where you can't do anything at all unless you have the appropriate license from an IP holder.
Well, the iPhone's screen is actual glass, rather than the plastic or polycarbonate that almost every other phone has always been, so I suspect they are not treating the things any different. They're just made of a more fragile material.
Glass doesn't have to be that fragile. The Milestone's gorilla glass is remarkably tough.
OTOH, the tijme my iPhone's screen broke. it's because it slipped from my rain-soaked hand onto a tile floor. I maintain that if the thing had a grippy surface anywhere on it, it would never have fallen.
When I had an iPhone, I was amazed about how slippery it was. I recently refused a Galaxy S because it looks too much like an iPhone and I suspect it's every bit as slippery. I like the rubberized steel of my Milestone. There's plenty of stuff wrong with it, but at least it won't slip or break, even if you try.
Wow, maybe I should get rid of my iphone and get a slow as hell droid because I could drop it and it might not break.
"slow as hell droid"? Do you have any clue what you're talking about?
Despite not being able to easily swap the battery, the whole seamless construction thing does make a sturdier device.
No, making it entirely out of steel makes it a sturdier device. I've got a steel phone, and I can still swap the battery.
Odd my iPhone 3G is the longest lasting phone I have ever owned. I'm over two years now without a single replacement--the first time ever.
My longest lasting phone is the plastic Nokia that I got for free with a free subscription about 10 years ago. Best investment ever!
The thing I find most scary about that design is the kooky idea of making the back of device in glass as well as the front. It seems like a total case of over-design, doubling the number of components prone to accidental damage for absolutely no functional reason.
But it looks great! Isn't that what matters?
Any handheld device will acquire a few scratches and bumps under normal wear, no matter how carefully you look after it.
My Milestone is still completely scratch-free. It takes quite a bit of punishment and doesn't have a protective case. It doesn't need one.
They do tend to slide off surfaces a lot easier than the previous models.
Even easier? My iPhone 3G was already ridiculously slippery. Once it'd started sliding a bit in your hand, there was almost nothing you could do to prevent it from hitting the pavement.
In comparison, I love the sturdiness of my Milestone. I know it's unreasonably locked down for an Android phone, but the really big upside is that it's practically indestructible. Steel everywhere, with some rubbery coating so it doesn't slip at all, no matter what surface it's on, and the screen won't even scratch if you try. (There's a youtube video where someone goes wild with a set of keys.) I regularly sit on it when I have it in my back pocket. My 1.5 year old son throws it around the room. Still not the tiniest scratch.
The word "libertarian" comes from 19th century libertarian socialism, which was later called anarchism. It's a part of the socialist movement that rejected Marx's state socialism for being dictatorial and oppressive. They also rejected capitalist liberalism for creating privilege, injustice, and in the end also oppression.
I honestly think we should take another look at anarchism/libertarian socialism.
Not to mention the internet service does not originate with them. They are simply a bulk account of the TRUE ISP.
That's exactly what I thought. Hotels don't have their own peering connection, do they? They're simply a customer of an ISP, and that ISP needs to do all the required data retention crap already.
Speaking of data retention, do they really log my email? Time to figure out how to encrypt my IMAP communication. (Maybe it's encrypted already, but I'd like to be sure.)
Java certainly has a lot of issues with its verbosity. Take a look at Groovy for a better way to do it, however. Mixins are a really easy way to add additional functionality to existing classes without resorting to multiple inheritance.
C++ is a safe, expressive, modern language - like Java but without all the horrible limitations. Yes it takes a bit of study and it's not for casual programmers, but the results are worth it.
C is much lower level, unsafe language. Good for what it does but dangerous and a very bad choice for large projects.
It's good you've been rated funny rather than insightful. C++ is every bit as unsafe as C.
Yes, they are very different languages, as C is intended for low-level systems programming, managing individual memory locations and stuff like that, whereas C++ has modern OO concepts badly tacked on top of that in a wrong way. It combines all the problems of Java with all the problems of C, and then adds some more. The end result is quite powerful, but not something I'd ever dare to call "safe".
I think you need the surface of a Klein bottle to draw that graph.
It reminds me a lot of the graphs that github creates, showing who committed when, who pulled from whom and merged what with what. I could stare at those graphs for hours.
I completely disagree. Suppose your livelihood depended on creating intellectual property;
Suppose your livelihood depended on creating hot air. It's not the law's job to enable business models, its job is to enable a healthy society. And at the moment, a lot of IP laws don't seem to do much good to society.
There are already ridiculous amounts of money and lawyers involved in IP at the moment. We're creating more content than ever before. More than we can ever hope to consume. Why do we need a new treaty to make IP even more powerful? We need some balance.
Now let's say your hot new video game gets distributed in a way that results in heavy losses for your employer. Now let's take this one step further - your bonus/raise/benefits have all been drastically reduced due to heavy damages. Then what are you going to do?
Try something that works, rather than go whining to the government for more draconian laws.
Not to mention that they blame NASA for the summary.
Considering the many errors and misunderstandings that Slashdotters are making and propagating in this discussion, I'd say yes.
Some people seem to think it's solar power. A lot of people seem to think that 1km cable is to transport power to earth, and a surprising number of people fail to grasp that 100 billion is really quite a lot.
If you're able to build these, aren't you automatically able to build a Dyson sphere? What's a Dyson sphere other than billions and billions of these things?
Note that a Dyson sphere was never intended to be a solid shell. It has been interpreted as such by some uninformed SF writers, but such a structure (called a Dyson Shell) is every bit as super-science as a ringworld. A Dyson sphere sounds quite possible now, though.
Wow, a Dyson sphere! They're really not afraid to think big.
I admit one of my first thoughts was: so that's what a Dyson sphere really means! My next thought was that this was a step towards a Kardashev type II civilization (though I had to look up that name), skipping properly finishing the type I step.
And there's not the slightest chance you're going to get this thing built and producing power for less than what we can currently produce power for. Which is why no one is seriously pursuing electricity generation in space.
Is this intended as irony/sarcasm, or have you not been paying attention to the scale we're talking about here?