Weird. I am only speaking from my experience, so I can't generalize at all, but every place I've applied (this is mostly tech jobs) has actually preferred PDFs. A few years ago, it was actually kind of impressive to use a PDF instead of a DOC; I know that one employer actually thanked me during an interview for sending in a PDF instead! Haha.
do you really believe that people can't find a phone that makes phone calls?
NO!!! And that's the point RIGHT THERE. OF COURSE people can find phones that make phone calls, thereby making the aforementioned 'stereotypical slashdot kneejerk reaction' COMPLETELY FOUNDLESS. No, they are NOT asking for anything beyond that; not aesthetics, not functionality; not anything. They just want a brick that dials. And that's the point. Right there. END OF STORY.
Once again - take a reading comprehension class. I'm done with this thread, as I've now repeated myself far too many times.
No offense, but go take a reading comprehension class. My OP was discussing how people complain about not getting what they want (a basic phone) when they can get it. Never have they mentioned aesthetic value (and in fact, many mention that they don't care how it looks as long as it does one thing). I never said there was anything WRONG with this. What *is* wrong are people who think that's the only right way to do things.
You are the one who brought up aesthetics. If you can't seem to find a simple phone that meets your criteria (hard to believe), then your needs are not getting met. However that has NOTHING to do with my OP, as it was only addressing the supposed non-existance of simple phones and never once brought aesthetics into the discussion.
Let me put it in simple terms:
Typical/. response to an article like this: "I need a phone that just makes calls. I don't want a fancy techno gizmo."
Inevitable +5 karma whore mod.
Level headed response from numerous other people: "There are phones that do only phone calls. They are still on the market. They will always be on the market. What's the problem?"
Once again, I will point out that aesthetics was never a topic of contention, and therefore, I did not pay any mind to it. You brought it in. It is not part of the stereotypical response. I was addressing the stereotypical response. Got it?
Did you even READ what I wrote? The whole lunacy of the typical slashdot post about cell phones is that people complain about feature creep, yet phone companies DO make phones that cater to your needs. Let me quote from my original post:
...almost all phone companies provide barebones phones (usually free with a service contract).
I'm not being defensive, as if I want everyone to have a technical garbage phone. I'm trying to point out the idiocy of complaining for a phone that fits your needs when clearly THERE ARE PLENTY OF THEM AVAILABLE.
Where are the hordes of people that are going to proclaim, "All I want is a phone that makes phone calls!!! No one else can possibly want more than I want!"
Of course almost all phone companies provide barebones phones (usually free with a service contract. And of course, this IS a frankenmonster of a phone and even gadget hounds would have a hard time justifying this one for the price. But don't let that stop any of you luddites out there from making it clear, once again, why YOU are right and everyone else is not entitled to have a slightly different view.
There are two commonly used standards for writing in academia and print (I'm referring to the U.S. here); the APA and CMS, respectively.
If we're going strictly by Wikipedia (not really the best for writing styles), you would either use iTunes followed by Itunes for the rest of a piece, or you would defer to an editor (though neither is spelled out definitively in the article). With that in mind, going by general consensus in print (and therefore their copy editors), iTunes is accepted use. Furthermore, the reference to Apple was simply to point out what their standard usage of the brand name is; I submit it for record simply because when one of my fellow writers (I work at a fairly large and well known New York-based magazine) used 'Itunes', it was corrected and referenced to the Apple page.
Similarly, whenever we are required to refer to a specific and proper name with a lowercase first initial (again, gescheidle gallery), unless we append a [sic], we follow the guidelines put forth by the owners and/or creators. This is simply because more times than not, companies will ask for a correction after publication. Finally, anyone who doesn't roll with the progression of standard language usage and grammar will be steamrolled.
If you go to any CMS progression session (they have numerous throughout the year), trademarks always come up. The general consensus is that if is formalized (there are numerous definitions that CMS gives for that), defer. The standard arguments of the destruction of the written form and other such nonsense are always thrown around; rest assured that we will not descend into sTRanGe and ArBItraRY rules, as both the APA and CMS lean heavily against such esoterics outside of proper nouns. This is especially prevalent in the APA style; CC's and reverse-case drug brand names have been around long before things such as 'iTunes' appeared on the scene.
It was put more succinctly by our head copy editor. "If your name is joe james, that's how we refer to you. If it's stupid, the reader will decide."
If the name of a person or thing specifically includes a lowercase first letter, then it overrides the auto-cap of a normal proper noun. There are numerous examples of this, mostly having to do with brand names, ie id Software, gescheidle gallery, etc. Yes, it's marketing and branding, but that doesn't mean it isn't their name. This even extends to people's names; you can legally change it to have it properly referred to with lowercase.
Actually, they plug a fw cable into it, and it says on the screen "you can no longer use firewire with the iPod, please plug in the USB cable" or something to that effect.
I must've skimmed over that fact in all the previous video iPod announcements, so ignore this or mark redundant if you feel so inclined. Ars seems to attribute it to decreasing the amount of space needed for the FW chipset. I'm glad Apple's still working to decrease the size, and I KNOW it's not that vital... but losing firewire seems a little sad.
Yes I know there's no rational reason for that (and they had good reasons to move on), but hey, there it is. Maybe it stems directly from my original experience with the 2G iPod (my first one) where you could just jam any old cable into the huge built in FW port on the device.
No kidding. And it's not even the most profitable R&D: they're asking geeks! More often than not, objects of geek-lust do not translate well into profitability.
Not only are you wrong (IP aliasing is not what this is doing, as everyone else has pointed out), but the way you're doing IP aliasing is deprecated in Linux. You should be using ip (the command line tool) instead of ifconfig, and reading the Linux Advanced Routing how-to.
Uh no. Maybe people use them because DUH, they come with the player and there is NO INCENTIVE to switch them out unless they break? This is borne out by the fact that while the headphones are decent, they are not really that great in sound quality. IOW, most people don't care what they look like or how they sound - to them it's good enough. Now because of the ubiquitous nature of the players, they have turned into a bit of an icon, but please, people don't wear them because they're fashionable, they wear them because they're functional. This is nothing new (see Frank Lloyd Wright for more details).
PS - I don't use the stock headphones because they aren't functional for me (ie, they sound horrid after being spoiled with studio quality stuff.).
Yeah but in two years, your Mac will not only still be useful, it will still be worth a good amount of money (just loo at ebay). IOW, you won't be replacing it anytime soon (witness how many people still use G3s and have no problems with it). Your PC won't. If you're upgrading every two years... well, why? It makes little to no sense anymore, unless you a) are a gamer b) or working with heavy duty media, and by heavy duty, I mean 100 minute length HD quality stuff (I've seen plenty of standard 100 minute stuff composed/edited on G4s and Athlon XPs).
Not even developers buy heavy duty hardware anymore for personal use. Most coders I associate with have a very specific compiling machine or server (or cluster of servers) and they code on boxes they haven't upgraded in forever.
First of all, you said none of that in the OP, either explicitly or implied. Secondly, you haven't read anything I've said three times now and clearly cannot differentiate between creativity, innovation, and wishful thinking. And finally, I am not a Palm fanboy, and clearly state that I am quite disappointed with them in my OP.
No. You were lambasting Palm for not designing what you wanted (a typical slashdot-esque 'it's not what I want so it sucks' response, no matter how ludicrous the idea is on a mainstream level). You were making an argument for something that doesn't exist, nor are the current PDAs useless.
I thought the Lifedrive, at least, was getting on to the right track. Bluetooth and Wifi, a 4GB drive, an actual file browser and the ability to transfer files like it was a normal external hard drive... I might, in theory, be able to use something like that
That's what you said you wanted, and that's what I was referring to. No PDA (sans the Lifedrive) comes even close to coming with that much storage. No PDA is very good at web browsing for extended periods of time. No PDA has an extensive file browser because PDAs rarely need such beasts. What you want is not a PDA that exists today, and comparing what you want in the ethereal future to what is today is quite pointless. As for the other things, I didn't bother addressing them because they're (as you said) opinions.
One more time: do not shoehorn what you want on a device that isn't designed that way. You want a mass storage device. Fine. Go get one. You don't think Palm is innovating anymore? I completely agree. However, don't go around saying that Palm's suck because you want a large amount of space to carry around (4GB) with file management and a good web browsing experience; Palm never claimed that's what their goals were with 99% of their devices (the Lifedrive being the exception). What you find gimicky, many people can't seem to function properly without. And stability? Palm's may be a little pokey, but stability is not one of their problems.
Clearly what you want is NOT a PDA - you want a portable drive. A PDA is supposed to be small, fit in your pocket, and do basic PIM stuff (at least, that's what they were originally for). Photos are a nice bonus, but really, who wants to sit and thumb through photos on a PDA more than a few times? And music? Well most PDAs handle them fine, though you do have to get some flash memory to up the storage to decent levels. Games? Please. Aside from the quick jaunt of Bejeweled or whatever, most people use them for you know... work? Appointments? Storing and retrieving documents on the move?
Let me give you an example. My PDA stores my appointments, to do stuff, random notes I leave myself everyday, driving directions, email, voice memos, shopping lists, PDFs and other documents, a password database (encrypted), and random files that I store on the 1GB SD card (this is a Palm Tungsten T|3). It rarely crashes. I use it constantly for reference. This is what most people use a PDA for.
But web browsing? Well it works fine for me (PDA->bluetooth->BT phone), but it's not something I do often enough to complain about. And who surfs the internet seriously on a PDA? Again, you do it to look things up quickly or to bookmark a site for future reference. While PDA capabilities and the uses of the hardware continue to expand (phone integration, GPS, etc), they aren't meant as a replacement to your laptop (yet) or portable storage device (yet). Don't try and shoehorn fringe functionality into what it's meant to do (unless the machine is designed for it, ie, that weird ass Lifedrive).
I'll close on the fact that while I used to love Palm, they are in such a "what kind of company are we now?" mode that it's disheartening. The T|5 here doesn't do much that my T|3 doesn't, and nothing has impressed me as much when I first used the old Palm Vx.
That's not what I meant. It just sounds confusing, since he refers to the system as a whole, not just the kernel, but refers to a kernel version (I'm assuming). IOW, ambiguity. I just wanted to know what he was referring to; I couldn't care less about the whole Linux-GNU/Linux can of worms.
When I think back to the very early versions of Linux (1.0.xx) it's come a long long way.
Um, not to nitpick, but what exactly constitutes an early version of Linux? An early (1.x) Linux kernel? Because that doesn't really make any sense... Maybe you mean an early Linux distro, like Slackware 1.0? eh?
Slashdot Mirror
Weird. I am only speaking from my experience, so I can't generalize at all, but every place I've applied (this is mostly tech jobs) has actually preferred PDFs. A few years ago, it was actually kind of impressive to use a PDF instead of a DOC; I know that one employer actually thanked me during an interview for sending in a PDF instead! Haha.
You send resumes out as DOC files? What the... why not PDF??
do you really believe that people can't find a phone that makes phone calls?
NO!!! And that's the point RIGHT THERE. OF COURSE people can find phones that make phone calls, thereby making the aforementioned 'stereotypical slashdot kneejerk reaction' COMPLETELY FOUNDLESS. No, they are NOT asking for anything beyond that; not aesthetics, not functionality; not anything. They just want a brick that dials. And that's the point. Right there. END OF STORY.
Once again - take a reading comprehension class. I'm done with this thread, as I've now repeated myself far too many times.
No offense, but go take a reading comprehension class. My OP was discussing how people complain about not getting what they want (a basic phone) when they can get it. Never have they mentioned aesthetic value (and in fact, many mention that they don't care how it looks as long as it does one thing). I never said there was anything WRONG with this. What *is* wrong are people who think that's the only right way to do things.
/. response to an article like this: "I need a phone that just makes calls. I don't want a fancy techno gizmo."
You are the one who brought up aesthetics. If you can't seem to find a simple phone that meets your criteria (hard to believe), then your needs are not getting met. However that has NOTHING to do with my OP, as it was only addressing the supposed non-existance of simple phones and never once brought aesthetics into the discussion.
Let me put it in simple terms:
Typical
Inevitable +5 karma whore mod.
Level headed response from numerous other people: "There are phones that do only phone calls. They are still on the market. They will always be on the market. What's the problem?"
Once again, I will point out that aesthetics was never a topic of contention, and therefore, I did not pay any mind to it. You brought it in. It is not part of the stereotypical response. I was addressing the stereotypical response. Got it?
I'm not being defensive, as if I want everyone to have a technical garbage phone. I'm trying to point out the idiocy of complaining for a phone that fits your needs when clearly THERE ARE PLENTY OF THEM AVAILABLE.
Where are the hordes of people that are going to proclaim, "All I want is a phone that makes phone calls!!! No one else can possibly want more than I want!"
Of course almost all phone companies provide barebones phones (usually free with a service contract. And of course, this IS a frankenmonster of a phone and even gadget hounds would have a hard time justifying this one for the price. But don't let that stop any of you luddites out there from making it clear, once again, why YOU are right and everyone else is not entitled to have a slightly different view.
The most ironic statement on the planet since we don't accept advertising. It's a literature magazine.
There are two commonly used standards for writing in academia and print (I'm referring to the U.S. here); the APA and CMS, respectively. If we're going strictly by Wikipedia (not really the best for writing styles), you would either use iTunes followed by Itunes for the rest of a piece, or you would defer to an editor (though neither is spelled out definitively in the article). With that in mind, going by general consensus in print (and therefore their copy editors), iTunes is accepted use. Furthermore, the reference to Apple was simply to point out what their standard usage of the brand name is; I submit it for record simply because when one of my fellow writers (I work at a fairly large and well known New York-based magazine) used 'Itunes', it was corrected and referenced to the Apple page.
Similarly, whenever we are required to refer to a specific and proper name with a lowercase first initial (again, gescheidle gallery), unless we append a [sic], we follow the guidelines put forth by the owners and/or creators. This is simply because more times than not, companies will ask for a correction after publication. Finally, anyone who doesn't roll with the progression of standard language usage and grammar will be steamrolled.
If you go to any CMS progression session (they have numerous throughout the year), trademarks always come up. The general consensus is that if is formalized (there are numerous definitions that CMS gives for that), defer. The standard arguments of the destruction of the written form and other such nonsense are always thrown around; rest assured that we will not descend into sTRanGe and ArBItraRY rules, as both the APA and CMS lean heavily against such esoterics outside of proper nouns. This is especially prevalent in the APA style; CC's and reverse-case drug brand names have been around long before things such as 'iTunes' appeared on the scene.
It was put more succinctly by our head copy editor. "If your name is joe james, that's how we refer to you. If it's stupid, the reader will decide."
Apple
Also, just do a search for APA and capitalization + trademarks and brand names.
If the name of a person or thing specifically includes a lowercase first letter, then it overrides the auto-cap of a normal proper noun. There are numerous examples of this, mostly having to do with brand names, ie id Software, gescheidle gallery, etc. Yes, it's marketing and branding, but that doesn't mean it isn't their name. This even extends to people's names; you can legally change it to have it properly referred to with lowercase.
Actually, they plug a fw cable into it, and it says on the screen "you can no longer use firewire with the iPod, please plug in the USB cable" or something to that effect.
I must've skimmed over that fact in all the previous video iPod announcements, so ignore this or mark redundant if you feel so inclined. Ars seems to attribute it to decreasing the amount of space needed for the FW chipset. I'm glad Apple's still working to decrease the size, and I KNOW it's not that vital... but losing firewire seems a little sad.
Yes I know there's no rational reason for that (and they had good reasons to move on), but hey, there it is. Maybe it stems directly from my original experience with the 2G iPod (my first one) where you could just jam any old cable into the huge built in FW port on the device.
What was the DHCP problem? Do you have a link or reference? It sounds interesting.
No kidding. And it's not even the most profitable R&D: they're asking geeks! More often than not, objects of geek-lust do not translate well into profitability.
Not only are you wrong (IP aliasing is not what this is doing, as everyone else has pointed out), but the way you're doing IP aliasing is deprecated in Linux. You should be using ip (the command line tool) instead of ifconfig, and reading the Linux Advanced Routing how-to.
Uh no. Maybe people use them because DUH, they come with the player and there is NO INCENTIVE to switch them out unless they break? This is borne out by the fact that while the headphones are decent, they are not really that great in sound quality. IOW, most people don't care what they look like or how they sound - to them it's good enough. Now because of the ubiquitous nature of the players, they have turned into a bit of an icon, but please, people don't wear them because they're fashionable, they wear them because they're functional. This is nothing new (see Frank Lloyd Wright for more details).
PS - I don't use the stock headphones because they aren't functional for me (ie, they sound horrid after being spoiled with studio quality stuff.).
Yeah but in two years, your Mac will not only still be useful, it will still be worth a good amount of money (just loo at ebay). IOW, you won't be replacing it anytime soon (witness how many people still use G3s and have no problems with it). Your PC won't. If you're upgrading every two years... well, why? It makes little to no sense anymore, unless you a) are a gamer b) or working with heavy duty media, and by heavy duty, I mean 100 minute length HD quality stuff (I've seen plenty of standard 100 minute stuff composed/edited on G4s and Athlon XPs).
Not even developers buy heavy duty hardware anymore for personal use. Most coders I associate with have a very specific compiling machine or server (or cluster of servers) and they code on boxes they haven't upgraded in forever.
First of all, you said none of that in the OP, either explicitly or implied. Secondly, you haven't read anything I've said three times now and clearly cannot differentiate between creativity, innovation, and wishful thinking. And finally, I am not a Palm fanboy, and clearly state that I am quite disappointed with them in my OP.
No. You were lambasting Palm for not designing what you wanted (a typical slashdot-esque 'it's not what I want so it sucks' response, no matter how ludicrous the idea is on a mainstream level). You were making an argument for something that doesn't exist, nor are the current PDAs useless.
I thought the Lifedrive, at least, was getting on to the right track. Bluetooth and Wifi, a 4GB drive, an actual file browser and the ability to transfer files like it was a normal external hard drive... I might, in theory, be able to use something like that
That's what you said you wanted, and that's what I was referring to. No PDA (sans the Lifedrive) comes even close to coming with that much storage. No PDA is very good at web browsing for extended periods of time. No PDA has an extensive file browser because PDAs rarely need such beasts. What you want is not a PDA that exists today, and comparing what you want in the ethereal future to what is today is quite pointless. As for the other things, I didn't bother addressing them because they're (as you said) opinions.
One more time: do not shoehorn what you want on a device that isn't designed that way. You want a mass storage device. Fine. Go get one. You don't think Palm is innovating anymore? I completely agree. However, don't go around saying that Palm's suck because you want a large amount of space to carry around (4GB) with file management and a good web browsing experience; Palm never claimed that's what their goals were with 99% of their devices (the Lifedrive being the exception). What you find gimicky, many people can't seem to function properly without. And stability? Palm's may be a little pokey, but stability is not one of their problems.
Clearly what you want is NOT a PDA - you want a portable drive. A PDA is supposed to be small, fit in your pocket, and do basic PIM stuff (at least, that's what they were originally for). Photos are a nice bonus, but really, who wants to sit and thumb through photos on a PDA more than a few times? And music? Well most PDAs handle them fine, though you do have to get some flash memory to up the storage to decent levels. Games? Please. Aside from the quick jaunt of Bejeweled or whatever, most people use them for you know... work? Appointments? Storing and retrieving documents on the move?
Let me give you an example. My PDA stores my appointments, to do stuff, random notes I leave myself everyday, driving directions, email, voice memos, shopping lists, PDFs and other documents, a password database (encrypted), and random files that I store on the 1GB SD card (this is a Palm Tungsten T|3). It rarely crashes. I use it constantly for reference. This is what most people use a PDA for.
But web browsing? Well it works fine for me (PDA->bluetooth->BT phone), but it's not something I do often enough to complain about. And who surfs the internet seriously on a PDA? Again, you do it to look things up quickly or to bookmark a site for future reference. While PDA capabilities and the uses of the hardware continue to expand (phone integration, GPS, etc), they aren't meant as a replacement to your laptop (yet) or portable storage device (yet). Don't try and shoehorn fringe functionality into what it's meant to do (unless the machine is designed for it, ie, that weird ass Lifedrive).
I'll close on the fact that while I used to love Palm, they are in such a "what kind of company are we now?" mode that it's disheartening. The T|5 here doesn't do much that my T|3 doesn't, and nothing has impressed me as much when I first used the old Palm Vx.
That's not what I meant. It just sounds confusing, since he refers to the system as a whole, not just the kernel, but refers to a kernel version (I'm assuming). IOW, ambiguity. I just wanted to know what he was referring to; I couldn't care less about the whole Linux-GNU/Linux can of worms.
Yeah. It's called a colloquial expression. You know, like, "Not to nitpick, but you just said something obvious."
When I think back to the very early versions of Linux (1.0.xx) it's come a long long way.
Um, not to nitpick, but what exactly constitutes an early version of Linux? An early (1.x) Linux kernel? Because that doesn't really make any sense... Maybe you mean an early Linux distro, like Slackware 1.0? eh?