As a logician I am interested in this distinction. My distinction is based on the negation. Take p as "God exists" (quantifier is not needed here). Then according to me:
Very simple. No need to talk about conclusions or certainty. In a correct 'logic for belief', (1) is compatible with not(believe(not(p))) and some would perhaps add this as a clause to (1), with which I would agree. Now you seem to suggest that famous atheists call (1) atheism. Perhaps some atheists like Dawkins have spinned it that way, but I still don't agree with this terminology. I do agree that my definition (1) probably doesn't capture how some agnostics would characterize their position, because the reference to gnosis indicates an epistemic notion. However, I still would like to know how you -- or Dawkin, or Huxly, for what it's worth -- call case (2) if atheism in your opinion covers case (1)?
No pun intended, just being curious.
Your (2) is called a number of different things. I think Dawkins calls it "strong" atheism. I've also seen "positive" and "hard" bandied about.
What about Huxley? Well, your definition of agnosticism definitely has nothing at all to do with his:
Where g is god, exists(x) is the premise stating that x exists, demonstrated(y) is where one takes as true that the evidence of the positive truth value of y exists, and where believe(not(p)) => not(believe(p)):
(1) agnosticism*: !demonstrated(x) => not(believe(x)) AND not(believe(not(x))) (2) atheism: not(believe(p)) (3) "strong" or "positive" or "hard" atheism: believe(not(p))
Agnosticism, as Thomas Henry Huxley states it, is a system whereby one does not believe something to be certainly true/false unless they are actually demonstrably so. Following from this, the agnostic position would be not to believe in a god's existence or non-existence as neither is demonstrable, meaning that atheism follows from agnosticism. That is, unless you believe that a god's existence is demonstrated.
However, yes, the way you've used "agnostic" and the way Huxley used "agnostic" are not the same as the definitions of "agnostic" that many other self-identified agnostics and non-agnostics use today. You need to use epistemology and/or certainty of belief for most of the remaining ones. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.
Perhaps some atheists like Dawkins have spinned it that way, but I still don't agree with this terminology
I'm also sorry that this is so, but it is. By-and-large, prominent atheists and atheist organizations use the definition of atheist that I've used. Substitute "atheism" of the "soft/negative/weak" variety with "agnosticism" in your mind if you want to. However, if you do, then what are you going to call the other definitions of agnosticism?
What you describe is agnosticism, lack of belief in God. Atheism is the explicit belief that God doesn't exist.
Not if you ask Richard Dawkins (who declares himself both atheist and agnostic towards God), or just about any other prominent atheist. Not if you ask the guy who original coined the term "agnostic":
Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. -- Thomas Henry Huxley, describing agnosticism
Agnosticism is not being certain about conclusions when there's no reason to be certain about them; when used in the context of gods, it's about not having certainty about either conclusion (gods exist or gods don't exist). Atheism is not having a belief in a god, which says nothing in itself about the certainty about a god existing or not.
Apologies for not responding to this yesterday; I was busy. But I'm here now!:)
Here is what Fuhrman stated in the part I quoted: "I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success.... Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] "
Here is that footnoted section with *three* studies cited (I added carriage returns to make it clearer there are three studies):
Yep, I knew I brainfarted somewhere. I shall now revise my summary of the veracity of Fuhrman's claim: it's a load of shit, he's irresponsible for making it, and he's unethical for abusing journal references to support a claim they cannot. That is, my position remains the same, and I assure you it's not merely out of quacking. Let's look at all three studies then:
Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13.
This is the one I discussed. It cannot be used as evidence that a raw vegan diet is a valid treatment for fibromyalgia, and it certainly can't be used to support the specific claims made by Fuhrman that the reason such a diet would work is because it's "a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet".
Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2001;1(1):7.
Oooooh, full article! Yes! Unfortunately, this article is worse than the last one. There was no control group (and by extension, no blinding). Again, there was no comparison to other diets. Six of twenty-six patients (23% of the study) dropped out after two months and aren't included in the statistics. Not all of the patients studied actually met the diagnostic requirements of FMS. The study does not state how many did not.
So okay, this study can't be used either. Not even in conjunction with the previous study, as both are at best at the preliminary stages. They're the sort of study you use to demonstrate that something is worth studying further when you're making a grant proposal.
Hanninen, Kaartinen K, Rauma AL, et al. Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders. Toxicology 2000 Nov 30;155(1-3):45-53.
Woah, I can find this one on Google. Two full articles, cool. Okay, this one is larger than the last two, but has virtually all of the problems that the first study has. There's no blinding, no comparison to other diets, nothing.
I wouldn't doubt increased fruit and vegetable intake is helpful. Does that mean it has to be raw? That animal products have to be cut out? That the rest of Fuhrman's discussion about toxins and the evils of baking and all of that is confirmed? Nope.
When he makes the claim that fibromyalgia can be dramatically treated with a raw vegan diet (the claim you quoted in the post I replied to) and that medical literature supports this claim, that study is the sole one he references. That study is not sufficient to support that claim in any manner whatsoever. There is no other relevant reference on that page. Abusing references to journals like this, as though he's assuming that his readers won't bother actually checking them, is misleading and unethical.
I have no idea why you're throwing additional quotes at me, and I have no interest in purchasing his book to get to read more improperly used references.
Only one of those references directly deals with the fibromyalgia and raw vegan diet claim that you quoted, and as I pointed out above that study cannot be used to support such a major claim. Simply throwing journal references on things doesn't make them any more true, that type of thinking nothing more than cargo cult science
(I meant "many of the benefits they tout", and left out that urine sodium levels also dropped by a full 2/3, further implying that the original diets were quite unhealthy in general. I can only hope the actual paper ends with a "More research is needed" line, since all the abstract has to conclude with is "It can be concluded that vegan diet had beneficial effects")
The only study (one study) quoted from that Timecubey article of yours is in
BMC Complement Altern Med 2001
I don't have access to the study (unless I brain farted and couldn't find the free access link) and the hell if I'm paying money to get a paper from a third-rate journal, but I can tell you what I can find from the abstract.
The study was conducted on 32 people; 15 were switched to a vegan diet, and 18 were kept on their preexisting omnivorous diet. The groups differed from one-another at the beginning of the study in terms of pain and urine sodium, which is a significant red flag considering that many of they tout are directly related to one or the other. There is no comparison to other diets. There is no comparison to healthier omnivorous diets. The abstract states that many of the patients in the study were overweight, implying that the preexisting diets in many cases may have been unhealthy in general and that generally improving the quality of the diets may have been more important than the fact the new diet was vegan.
And hell, that's just what I got from the abstract. At best this is one of those "more research is required" papers, it's certainly not enough to suggest that such a radical dietary switch is a reasonable treatment plan. Moreover, it's so oddly specific in switching from an omnivorous over to a raw vegan diet, and being published in an alt-med journal, that it sounds like it was intended to be (as the article you quoted did) treated as more than it is. And the alt-med crowd (pretends to) wonder why people call them pseudoscientists.
either it would be some sort of psychic memory or it would be some deeper physics we cannot detect, it operates at levels that are too small to be detectable.
Yeah, levels so low we can't detect an effect, let alone any of the original substance at all.
Currently, I do all of my office suite work with Google Docs, and it works very well (of course, I work for Google, so I don't have to exchange MS Office files with others).
I use LibreOffice and I don't normally have to exchange MS Office files with others either. That doesn't mean I think Google Docs on Android is an Office replacement. It's not equivalent feature-wise, and last time I used the Android app it was even more limited, slow, and clunky than the web app. I do use Google Docs for some collaborative documents, I don't think it's useless, but it's not MS Office.
Google Drive. All your files in all your devices, all the time. Works really well (other than I'm anxiously awaiting a Linux client). Or you could use Dropbox or similar -- which has a Linux client, actually.
That's nice, but I wasn't really talking about cloud solutions. Sometimes, you know, I don't want to use the cloud, or put my files on the cloud. Maybe I just want to directly transfer a file. Maybe I want to transfer a file that I didn't know I'd want to transfer and didn't stick in my cloud-synced folder. Google Drive is fine on my tablet, but then I don't use my tablet for actual work. I tend to use a combination of Google Drive and SMB on my laptop.
Printing isn't straight-forward.
Google Cloud Print makes it very straightforward, and enables printing to printers physically far away if you want (I do that from time to time, printing stuff at home while I'm at work, etc. A few weeks ago, I even printed a document for my mom, who lives in another state, on her printer).
I haven't played with that extensively, but it looks like integration with Android is still non-existent and relies on third party apps that seem kind of limited. With any of those apps, can I do print previews, enable duplex printing, print from a range, switch between coloured/monochrome, and do all of that quickly, with a large-screen formatted interface (as in, no constant jumping around between screens)? Are any of them FOSS or is there any other reason I should trust them with my documents?
Coding
I wouldn't want to try that on any tablet. It'd be like programming through a porthole.
Yeah, that's why I mentioned it as a potential plus for the Surface. You can program on an Ultrabook if need-be.
That's a pretty big exception. Have you ever tried to use the available office suites for Android? No comparison whatsoever with MS Office.
An Android tablet just wouldn't be my first choice for work. Transferring files to a computer and back? There are GUI file browsers that do that, but they're all pretty clunky (and though I haven't tried it, I assume even clunkier with keyboard/mouse). Printing isn't straight-forward. Coding? Hah. And keyboard/mouse support within apps is all over the map. I can get work done if I connect to my PC with my tablet using an RDP app or something, but then I'm not really doing the work on the tablet itself, and that's obviously only available if I have a decent Internet connection available.
If Windows 8/the Surface can deliver, it would essentially act like an Ultrabook (light and with good battery life, but completely capable as a low-spec laptop) when you need it to, and a tablet (light, high battery-life, touchscreen, instant-on gratification, etc.) when you need it to do that. The Transformer promises to do that, but nice hardware is nothing without the software to back it up.
It's hard to say, but the Recent and Trending sections don't seem to work (the same things stay in there for weeks), the scoring needs some sort of adjustment to kick incumbents out more quickly. Beyond that, even just adding to and highlighting new Editor's Choice apps more often really couldn't hurt.
I haven't really spent much time with Apple's store, so I've no idea how it compares.
One thing I've noticed, which may or may not be affecting how little Android app developers are getting for their apps, is that the Google Play store is useless for discovering new apps. Totally useless. They display ads for a small number of high-profile apps, most of which would get a bunch of purchases regardless, and they rarely cycle those ads out. There's "Editor's Choice" apps, but those are the same high-profile apps and again are rarely added to. Otherwise, the only methods of discovery are looking at the top lists (which rarely change), or searching.
Most of the apps I have installed I had to discover elsewhere, including some terrific games (even terrific free games, which you'd think cheap Android users would really go for) which only have on the order of 1000 or so downloads at most, making them totally invisible as far as a user browsing the store is concerned.
Family Christian is essentially a bookstore, and this is their "Nook" or "Kindle." I'm a little surprised they are big enough to do that, but it's attractive that they are offering an android tablet comparable to the Kindle Fire, for $50 less. That could be pretty useful, regardless of religion.
Spec-wise, it looks like it's closer to the Nook Color (not the Nook Tablet), which is $170. However, it has a lower-resolution screen (800x480 compared to 1024x600), no 802.11n, and a resistive touchscreen instead of capacitive. You can get the exact same specs in an even cheaper Chinese tablet; I wouldn't be shocked if these are based on one of those, but rebranded and with Christian-themed software preinstalled.
That's a very clever strategy. It's posing questions that let you talk a lot, and that typically lead the conversation down a very predictable, scriptable path. Whenever it can't parse something, it poses a somewhat generic response and tries to lead the conversation back into predictable territory.
Where do you live? X How have you found X? Y Oh, that's nice. What's your profession? Z How have you liked doing Z? A Interesting, I've always wondered if Z was A.
As they've always been, chat bots are smoke and mirrors. The thing this uses better than others seems to be scripted conversations. It has a "talk about their profession" script built-in, and it's got memory within that script so it holds a little bit of context. Take it off the rails and it crashes pretty badly, though.
Uh, I'm a "gamer", I use the key all the time when I'm doing desktop work, and I never hit it accidentally in-game. How can you even do that? Does your keyboard have really tiny ctrl and alt keys?
Or, if you want coverage outside the city on Rogers network, get the 7-11 Speakout for $25 per month ($10 for unlimited data). Voice calls are flat.25 per minute, vs. Wind's few unlimited eves and weekends, but if you're an occasional caller it's tolerable.
(Speakout claims data plans only work with their cheapo feature phones, but google 'Speakout data plan Android') and you can find the APM setup parameters for using any smartphone with the Rogers proxy server.)
That's not better at all. Wind's prepaid plan is a flat $0.20 per minute on Wind's network, on Rogers' network, and anywhere in the United States. The same rate applies for roaming on Rogers on the monthly plans.
He doesn't say? That's bullshit. He explains why each is an issue. Let me paraphrase:
- Nye's experiment involved a long cylinder, with a thin lid on top, an infrared source above the lid, and a thermometer on the bottom
- Watts' experiment involved a smaller jar (reduced amount of gas and a greater surface area absorbing energy from the IR source directly; increases the ratio of heating effect from the IR source directly compared to the effect from trapped heat by the GHG) with an infrared source above, a thick lid on top (absorbing some of the IR from the source, partially negating its effect over that of ambient heating), a large object in the jar (even further reducing the amount of gas in the jar, reducing its contribution to the jar's heating), and the thermometer on the object rather than on the bottom of the jar (placing it closer to the IR source, meaning that temperature contributions to the thermometer will be dominated by the IR source's direct heading, with trapped heat due to the GHG making a much diminished contribution)
- Nye asserts, therefore, that Watts' modified apparatus shrunk the contribution of heating to the thermometer by the GHG to a level where it was below the error level of the thermometer being used to measure it.
Americans can hear it. I was flabbergasted the first time an American (a Californian, whose accent I couldn't tell apart from my own) recognized I was Canadian just from speaking to me; then I realized I'd just said "about". I have a pretty standard west/central Canadian accent.
Compromise? How, pray tell, does one compromise on a fundamental scientific fact? And why should one do so? We're not talking about a political ideology, we're not making a decision to what restaurant we want to visit, we're talking about cold hard science.
The only locally-owned, non-franchise electronics places I know of around here are: A) Electronics, as in what Radio Shack once was, not consumer electronics B) Computers and small electronics C) High-end audio/home theatre stores selling stuff with a substantial markup that was already overpriced at MSRP
Plantronics has also been advertising on Slashdot the normal way (ever notice it in the "Slashdot Vibe" faux-polls?), which is why that video immediately struck me as an ad. As such I'm taking any claims to the contrary with a big ol' grain of salt.
Slashdot Mirror
As a logician I am interested in this distinction. My distinction is based on the negation. Take p as "God exists" (quantifier is not needed here). Then according to me:
(1) agnosticism: not(believe(p))
(2) atheism: believe(not(p))
Very simple. No need to talk about conclusions or certainty. In a correct 'logic for belief', (1) is compatible with not(believe(not(p))) and some would perhaps add this as a clause to (1), with which I would agree. Now you seem to suggest that famous atheists call (1) atheism. Perhaps some atheists like Dawkins have spinned it that way, but I still don't agree with this terminology. I do agree that my definition (1) probably doesn't capture how some agnostics would characterize their position, because the reference to gnosis indicates an epistemic notion. However, I still would like to know how you -- or Dawkin, or Huxly, for what it's worth -- call case (2) if atheism in your opinion covers case (1)?
No pun intended, just being curious.
Your (2) is called a number of different things. I think Dawkins calls it "strong" atheism. I've also seen "positive" and "hard" bandied about.
What about Huxley? Well, your definition of agnosticism definitely has nothing at all to do with his:
Where g is god, exists(x) is the premise stating that x exists, demonstrated(y) is where one takes as true that the evidence of the positive truth value of y exists, and where believe(not(p)) => not(believe(p)):
(1) agnosticism*: !demonstrated(x) => not(believe(x)) AND not(believe(not(x)))
(2) atheism: not(believe(p))
(3) "strong" or "positive" or "hard" atheism: believe(not(p))
Agnosticism, as Thomas Henry Huxley states it, is a system whereby one does not believe something to be certainly true/false unless they are actually demonstrably so. Following from this, the agnostic position would be not to believe in a god's existence or non-existence as neither is demonstrable, meaning that atheism follows from agnosticism. That is, unless you believe that a god's existence is demonstrated.
However, yes, the way you've used "agnostic" and the way Huxley used "agnostic" are not the same as the definitions of "agnostic" that many other self-identified agnostics and non-agnostics use today. You need to use epistemology and/or certainty of belief for most of the remaining ones. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.
Perhaps some atheists like Dawkins have spinned it that way, but I still don't agree with this terminology
I'm also sorry that this is so, but it is. By-and-large, prominent atheists and atheist organizations use the definition of atheist that I've used. Substitute "atheism" of the "soft/negative/weak" variety with "agnosticism" in your mind if you want to. However, if you do, then what are you going to call the other definitions of agnosticism?
What you describe is agnosticism, lack of belief in God. Atheism is the explicit belief that God doesn't exist.
Not if you ask Richard Dawkins (who declares himself both atheist and agnostic towards God), or just about any other prominent atheist. Not if you ask the guy who original coined the term "agnostic":
Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. -- Thomas Henry Huxley, describing agnosticism
Agnosticism is not being certain about conclusions when there's no reason to be certain about them; when used in the context of gods, it's about not having certainty about either conclusion (gods exist or gods don't exist). Atheism is not having a belief in a god, which says nothing in itself about the certainty about a god existing or not.
Apologies for not responding to this yesterday; I was busy. But I'm here now! :)
Here is what Fuhrman stated in the part I quoted: "I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. ... Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] "
Here is that footnoted section with *three* studies cited (I added carriage returns to make it clearer there are three studies):
Yep, I knew I brainfarted somewhere. I shall now revise my summary of the veracity of Fuhrman's claim: it's a load of shit, he's irresponsible for making it, and he's unethical for abusing journal references to support a claim they cannot. That is, my position remains the same, and I assure you it's not merely out of quacking. Let's look at all three studies then:
Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13.
This is the one I discussed. It cannot be used as evidence that a raw vegan diet is a valid treatment for fibromyalgia, and it certainly can't be used to support the specific claims made by Fuhrman that the reason such a diet would work is because it's "a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet".
Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2001;1(1):7.
Oooooh, full article! Yes! Unfortunately, this article is worse than the last one. There was no control group (and by extension, no blinding). Again, there was no comparison to other diets. Six of twenty-six patients (23% of the study) dropped out after two months and aren't included in the statistics. Not all of the patients studied actually met the diagnostic requirements of FMS. The study does not state how many did not.
So okay, this study can't be used either. Not even in conjunction with the previous study, as both are at best at the preliminary stages. They're the sort of study you use to demonstrate that something is worth studying further when you're making a grant proposal.
Hanninen, Kaartinen K, Rauma AL, et al. Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders. Toxicology 2000 Nov 30;155(1-3):45-53.
Woah, I can find this one on Google. Two full articles, cool. Okay, this one is larger than the last two, but has virtually all of the problems that the first study has. There's no blinding, no comparison to other diets, nothing.
I wouldn't doubt increased fruit and vegetable intake is helpful. Does that mean it has to be raw? That animal products have to be cut out? That the rest of Fuhrman's discussion about toxins and the evils of baking and all of that is confirmed? Nope.
When he makes the claim that fibromyalgia can be dramatically treated with a raw vegan diet (the claim you quoted in the post I replied to) and that medical literature supports this claim, that study is the sole one he references. That study is not sufficient to support that claim in any manner whatsoever. There is no other relevant reference on that page. Abusing references to journals like this, as though he's assuming that his readers won't bother actually checking them, is misleading and unethical.
I have no idea why you're throwing additional quotes at me, and I have no interest in purchasing his book to get to read more improperly used references.
Only one of those references directly deals with the fibromyalgia and raw vegan diet claim that you quoted, and as I pointed out above that study cannot be used to support such a major claim. Simply throwing journal references on things doesn't make them any more true, that type of thinking nothing more than cargo cult science
(I meant "many of the benefits they tout", and left out that urine sodium levels also dropped by a full 2/3, further implying that the original diets were quite unhealthy in general. I can only hope the actual paper ends with a "More research is needed" line, since all the abstract has to conclude with is "It can be concluded that vegan diet had beneficial effects")
BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
The only study (one study) quoted from that Timecubey article of yours is in
BMC Complement Altern Med 2001
I don't have access to the study (unless I brain farted and couldn't find the free access link) and the hell if I'm paying money to get a paper from a third-rate journal, but I can tell you what I can find from the abstract.
The study was conducted on 32 people; 15 were switched to a vegan diet, and 18 were kept on their preexisting omnivorous diet. The groups differed from one-another at the beginning of the study in terms of pain and urine sodium, which is a significant red flag considering that many of they tout are directly related to one or the other. There is no comparison to other diets. There is no comparison to healthier omnivorous diets. The abstract states that many of the patients in the study were overweight, implying that the preexisting diets in many cases may have been unhealthy in general and that generally improving the quality of the diets may have been more important than the fact the new diet was vegan.
And hell, that's just what I got from the abstract. At best this is one of those "more research is required" papers, it's certainly not enough to suggest that such a radical dietary switch is a reasonable treatment plan. Moreover, it's so oddly specific in switching from an omnivorous over to a raw vegan diet, and being published in an alt-med journal, that it sounds like it was intended to be (as the article you quoted did) treated as more than it is. And the alt-med crowd (pretends to) wonder why people call them pseudoscientists.
either it would be some sort of psychic memory or it would be some deeper physics we cannot detect, it operates at levels that are too small to be detectable.
Yeah, levels so low we can't detect an effect, let alone any of the original substance at all.
What's more, multiple people apparently modded him up, and multiple people have modded the call-out posts (including the parent) down. Just lovely.
Currently, I do all of my office suite work with Google Docs, and it works very well (of course, I work for Google, so I don't have to exchange MS Office files with others).
I use LibreOffice and I don't normally have to exchange MS Office files with others either. That doesn't mean I think Google Docs on Android is an Office replacement. It's not equivalent feature-wise, and last time I used the Android app it was even more limited, slow, and clunky than the web app. I do use Google Docs for some collaborative documents, I don't think it's useless, but it's not MS Office.
Google Drive. All your files in all your devices, all the time. Works really well (other than I'm anxiously awaiting a Linux client). Or you could use Dropbox or similar -- which has a Linux client, actually.
That's nice, but I wasn't really talking about cloud solutions. Sometimes, you know, I don't want to use the cloud, or put my files on the cloud. Maybe I just want to directly transfer a file. Maybe I want to transfer a file that I didn't know I'd want to transfer and didn't stick in my cloud-synced folder. Google Drive is fine on my tablet, but then I don't use my tablet for actual work. I tend to use a combination of Google Drive and SMB on my laptop.
Printing isn't straight-forward.
Google Cloud Print makes it very straightforward, and enables printing to printers physically far away if you want (I do that from time to time, printing stuff at home while I'm at work, etc. A few weeks ago, I even printed a document for my mom, who lives in another state, on her printer).
I haven't played with that extensively, but it looks like integration with Android is still non-existent and relies on third party apps that seem kind of limited. With any of those apps, can I do print previews, enable duplex printing, print from a range, switch between coloured/monochrome, and do all of that quickly, with a large-screen formatted interface (as in, no constant jumping around between screens)? Are any of them FOSS or is there any other reason I should trust them with my documents?
Coding
I wouldn't want to try that on any tablet. It'd be like programming through a porthole.
Yeah, that's why I mentioned it as a potential plus for the Surface. You can program on an Ultrabook if need-be.
That's a pretty big exception. Have you ever tried to use the available office suites for Android? No comparison whatsoever with MS Office.
An Android tablet just wouldn't be my first choice for work. Transferring files to a computer and back? There are GUI file browsers that do that, but they're all pretty clunky (and though I haven't tried it, I assume even clunkier with keyboard/mouse). Printing isn't straight-forward. Coding? Hah. And keyboard/mouse support within apps is all over the map. I can get work done if I connect to my PC with my tablet using an RDP app or something, but then I'm not really doing the work on the tablet itself, and that's obviously only available if I have a decent Internet connection available.
If Windows 8/the Surface can deliver, it would essentially act like an Ultrabook (light and with good battery life, but completely capable as a low-spec laptop) when you need it to, and a tablet (light, high battery-life, touchscreen, instant-on gratification, etc.) when you need it to do that. The Transformer promises to do that, but nice hardware is nothing without the software to back it up.
It's hard to say, but the Recent and Trending sections don't seem to work (the same things stay in there for weeks), the scoring needs some sort of adjustment to kick incumbents out more quickly. Beyond that, even just adding to and highlighting new Editor's Choice apps more often really couldn't hurt.
I haven't really spent much time with Apple's store, so I've no idea how it compares.
One thing I've noticed, which may or may not be affecting how little Android app developers are getting for their apps, is that the Google Play store is useless for discovering new apps. Totally useless. They display ads for a small number of high-profile apps, most of which would get a bunch of purchases regardless, and they rarely cycle those ads out. There's "Editor's Choice" apps, but those are the same high-profile apps and again are rarely added to. Otherwise, the only methods of discovery are looking at the top lists (which rarely change), or searching.
Most of the apps I have installed I had to discover elsewhere, including some terrific games (even terrific free games, which you'd think cheap Android users would really go for) which only have on the order of 1000 or so downloads at most, making them totally invisible as far as a user browsing the store is concerned.
Family Christian is essentially a bookstore, and this is their "Nook" or "Kindle." I'm a little surprised they are big enough to do that, but it's attractive that they are offering an android tablet comparable to the Kindle Fire, for $50 less. That could be pretty useful, regardless of religion.
No, it's not comparable with the Kindle Fire. A spec comparison is here.
Spec-wise, it looks like it's closer to the Nook Color (not the Nook Tablet), which is $170. However, it has a lower-resolution screen (800x480 compared to 1024x600), no 802.11n, and a resistive touchscreen instead of capacitive. You can get the exact same specs in an even cheaper Chinese tablet; I wouldn't be shocked if these are based on one of those, but rebranded and with Christian-themed software preinstalled.
That's a very clever strategy. It's posing questions that let you talk a lot, and that typically lead the conversation down a very predictable, scriptable path. Whenever it can't parse something, it poses a somewhat generic response and tries to lead the conversation back into predictable territory.
Where do you live?
X
How have you found X?
Y
Oh, that's nice. What's your profession?
Z
How have you liked doing Z?
A
Interesting, I've always wondered if Z was A.
As they've always been, chat bots are smoke and mirrors. The thing this uses better than others seems to be scripted conversations. It has a "talk about their profession" script built-in, and it's got memory within that script so it holds a little bit of context. Take it off the rails and it crashes pretty badly, though.
That key us gamers haven't used, ever?
Uh, I'm a "gamer", I use the key all the time when I'm doing desktop work, and I never hit it accidentally in-game. How can you even do that? Does your keyboard have really tiny ctrl and alt keys?
Or, if you want coverage outside the city on Rogers network, get the 7-11 Speakout for $25 per month ($10 for unlimited data). Voice calls are flat .25 per minute, vs. Wind's few unlimited eves and weekends, but if you're an occasional caller it's tolerable.
(Speakout claims data plans only work with their cheapo feature phones, but google 'Speakout data plan Android') and you can find the APM setup parameters for using any smartphone with the Rogers proxy server.)
That's not better at all. Wind's prepaid plan is a flat $0.20 per minute on Wind's network, on Rogers' network, and anywhere in the United States. The same rate applies for roaming on Rogers on the monthly plans.
He doesn't say? That's bullshit. He explains why each is an issue. Let me paraphrase:
- Nye's experiment involved a long cylinder, with a thin lid on top, an infrared source above the lid, and a thermometer on the bottom
- Watts' experiment involved a smaller jar (reduced amount of gas and a greater surface area absorbing energy from the IR source directly; increases the ratio of heating effect from the IR source directly compared to the effect from trapped heat by the GHG) with an infrared source above, a thick lid on top (absorbing some of the IR from the source, partially negating its effect over that of ambient heating), a large object in the jar (even further reducing the amount of gas in the jar, reducing its contribution to the jar's heating), and the thermometer on the object rather than on the bottom of the jar (placing it closer to the IR source, meaning that temperature contributions to the thermometer will be dominated by the IR source's direct heading, with trapped heat due to the GHG making a much diminished contribution)
- Nye asserts, therefore, that Watts' modified apparatus shrunk the contribution of heating to the thermometer by the GHG to a level where it was below the error level of the thermometer being used to measure it.
Relevant SMBC strip
Americans can hear it. I was flabbergasted the first time an American (a Californian, whose accent I couldn't tell apart from my own) recognized I was Canadian just from speaking to me; then I realized I'd just said "about". I have a pretty standard west/central Canadian accent.
That's what a cogent argument is. It's one that's logically sound, and based on evidence.
Compromise? How, pray tell, does one compromise on a fundamental scientific fact? And why should one do so? We're not talking about a political ideology, we're not making a decision to what restaurant we want to visit, we're talking about cold hard science.
The only locally-owned, non-franchise electronics places I know of around here are:
A) Electronics, as in what Radio Shack once was, not consumer electronics
B) Computers and small electronics
C) High-end audio/home theatre stores selling stuff with a substantial markup that was already overpriced at MSRP
When someone criticizes corporate citizenship and "free speech" rights, they're reminded that corporations are just "groups of people".
When someone criticizes corporate immorality, they're reminded "corporations are amoral entities". What happened to the people comprising them?
Plantronics has also been advertising on Slashdot the normal way (ever notice it in the "Slashdot Vibe" faux-polls?), which is why that video immediately struck me as an ad. As such I'm taking any claims to the contrary with a big ol' grain of salt.