A often over looked factor is attrition in WWII. Made up numbers:
Lets say the US had zero elite level tankers but millions of noobs and we didn't start the land war until, well, frankly pretty much d-day 1944. Solution, make millions of noob-tanks. We didn't have any elite combat veteran tankers anyway to make use of elite level tanks.
Lets say the Germans had a hundred thousand elite combat vet tankers, but a quarter of them die in combat every year starting in 1939, so by 1945 you've got 12 year olds with hunting rifles "defending" Berlin at the last stand. Solution, make tens of thousands of elite-tanks and hope each elite-tank blows up more than 10 noob-tanks. Eventually you end up with dudes from the assembly line trying to be tankers, that didn't work out so well.
They darn near won, despite the attrition, so I wouldn't harsh their strategy too much.
Or if you're going to intentionally violate international standards of assembly, management needs to hire a QA/QC guy who's sole job is to make sure things are put together the wrong way. Unless of course he failed in this case, but he was someone important's son, so he can't be blamed...
There's always a way to design something the "right" way. If clearances are that tight, g-loading of the frame would have screwed it up eventually, or a tiny piece of shrapnel could take down a plane... A "combat" style repair during an emergency on a distant island could cause the loss of a plane, this isn't just a manufacturing problem.
This incident was an hour long seminar in class and at the end of class, there's no way around it, it was an engineering failure but some lowly peon took the hit, with a sub-text esoteric or whatever meaning that even when engineering "wins" in a corporate BS scenario, everyone else really "loses".
We came up with all manner of solutions like "shorter bolts everywhere not just one shorter bolt", "rivets not bolts", "reroute the cable". One unpopular one was "well, in wartime, you're gonna take losses, just deal with it".
The funniest, yet best human factors solution, which won the award for the best solution, was to work with human nature, not against it, and make the build fixture upside down. So the plant workers install the bolts right side up, from their perspective. Don't even tell the bolt installer plant workers that they're working upside down. I wish I could say that was my bright idea, but mine was a crappy solution involving spray painting bolt heads and spray painting the holes on the bolt side using a fixture, which got shot down, something about F-ing up corrosion control chromate primer or whatever.
Sounds like a great case for RFID inventory control ; tag every tool, log them out of the toolbox with a loop mounted on the side, log them back in again when you return them.
Who fills out the ISO9000 report paperwork documenting the RFID hasn't fallen off the tool and remains in the bottom of the toolbox? You could generate an exception report of tools that were supposed to be used but haven't been used in "X" months, but then someone needs to review that and follow up and most importantly, document it and get a sign off from their boss.
If the RFID falls off a $125000 radar spectrum analyzer, does that make it non-compliant and eligible to be sold to techs buddy for $50 govt surplus or... just what level of corruption is allowable here WRT to compliance?
You know the govt contracted to a contractor, but the contractor probably contracted to a subcontractor 1099'd A/P freelancer. Who tags his tools? Or should only subs who charge twice as much per hour because they "are in the system" be hired? Looking at total airforce annual labor costs, It could be cheaper to buy a new airframe once in a while rather than pay twice as much for labor.
Those RFIDs... can't work on planes without them... so they're not a strategic national asset and require domestic second sourcing... bye bye to 2000 tags for $100.
Those RFIDs... merely commercial/industrial temp range or aerospace grade? What works for walmart in Georgia isn't going to work in Alaska.
She knows clearance issues are why you install a shorter bolt Again, engineering design failed, miserably, so a way to blame the peon.
If you insist on putting the brake pedal on the right foot and accelerator on the left, it doesn't matter how loudly you blame the driver, its still a design failure.
This specific incident was hashed out in one of those freshman "intro to engineering ethics" classes I had to take a long time ago. Still remember it. It was a huge design failure, although you could claim it was also a huge management and PR success to put all the blame on some poor chick. Was used as an object lesson for how management picks the winner and loser, sometimes engineering gets it, sometimes operations/factory floor gets it, and part of being an engineer is "toughening up" that you're going to be involved in corporate BS like that, so get used to thinking about it.
Remember that the airframe for this airplane (a KC-135) is basically a late 50s-early 60s design/build.
Whatever. Back then engineers had to be smarter because they couldn't rely on computers. The days of iron men, not heavy iron mainframes... Age is no excuse for poor design, assuming thats what you meant.
More likely, since this has not been a popular failure mode over the past half century, the cost of designing it out probably exceeds the cost of just eating an airframe every century or two.
It is ass-covering of the lowest order to blame a lowly mechanic for what is obviously a design flaw. A simple sensor to monitor the presence of a plug
Terrible design mistake because now someone needs to maintain, replace, test, and probably F-up that sensor. Also its heavy. The better design involves multiple permanently installed frangible disks on extra vent piping.
See how hard design is? Finding incompetence is always easier than designing around it. First guess is usually wrong. That's probably what happened to the A+P mechanic, too.
what if it had been a bullet instead of a mistake?
LOL this model of vehicle is the ultimate REMF machine. If it eats a bullet we've already lost our entire military and been completely and totally utterly overrun. Like that plane contains the last living airmen in the entire USAF.
Also from an engineering perspective its very easy to design something to take a bullet from the outside, but an overpressure failure from the inside? That is uneconomical to design for.
He's all oh the thumbwheel broke off my micrometer: I'll print a new thumbwheel bracket. The windshield mount on my recumbent broke, so I'll print a new one. He's printed plumbing parts, cookie cutters, centering adapters for optics, replacement bar handle clamps, you name it
Has he printed any foundry patterns yet? That's the idea that I'm hot for, but no one else seems to like or try that idea, as far as I know.
I want to print a pattern, cast it in Aluminum or maybe advanced zinc alloy (or maybe someday I'll afford the fancier safety gear to cast brass) and then machine my new "whatever" casting on the mill to get a finished part.
I can already do that with lost foam, by making a foam pattern on the cnc mill, but my god the pillar of smoke from burning styrofoam is an instant EPA superfund site, and having to make a new pattern for each casting is a drag.
I needed to buy a replacement TV (well, technically its just a really freaking huge monitor hooked up to my mythtv box, but "they" don't sell 42 inch monitors so I had to buy a TV which is a monitor with a ATSC tuner that I'll never use, etc)
I went to best buy because the TV is big and heavy and I want to inspect the carton and make sure I don't purchase a box of broken glass. I have purchased monitors online for years (decades now?) but the giant TV shipping cost would be a bit excessive.
Anyway I braced myself for the onslaught of "you really need NEW gold plated HDMI cables" and harping about how the product is crap so I need a service ripoff contract etc etc. Its kind of like stage fright? When I was in the Army I never deployed to a combat zone, but I kind of felt a little like I imagine that feels, I know I'm gonna have to fight these guys and its going to be rough, just keep my mind on the mission and blow past these guys however I have to do it and just accomplish my goal while surviving.
And nothing happened. They must have been having an off day, or already reached their monthly sales quota, or something like that, because they didn't even ask me, much less bug or pester me, and it was OK. Frankly I was surprised, I've had some absolutely horrible experiences in the past at best buy over much lower value items. I was jubilant afterwords, bubbly, like I won a battle.
My advice is treat them like they treat you, if they treat you like a human being return the favor, if they're slathering psychopaths you give them hell right back. But always remember that no matter how bad their reputation, at least sometimes, Best Buy is not bad at all..
The most obvious comparison is its about 10 or so modern diesel electric locomotive engines, if you assume 2500 or so HP per engine, which is probably not a bad guess for your average generic engine... Spare me the anecdote that there exist like 4 Aclea Express engines in the USA that have 6000 HP, and I'm well aware coming from a three generation railroad family that there are some astounding coal haulers out there.
There are probably more than 10 diesels in my county right now... coal plant, despite the best efforts of the govt some industry still remains, multiple short range commuter rail and also some long range commuter rail, multiple intermodal transfer stations, a small but respectable great lakes "sea"port (which is admittedly frozen in right now)
The other issue, as a machinist, I can verify that accessories that a mill requires are about twice the cost of the mill, and the accessories a lathe requires are about the cost of a lathe. So, I bolt my $350 rotary table to my $500 mill, stick the $50 7/8 inch gearcutting arbor in the spindle, clamp a $50 expanding arbor into my $125 chuck attached to the rotab, supported on the other side by my semi-homemade tailstock that cost about $100, then stick a $25 involute gear cutter in the arbor, I'm not gonna add it up, but just to cut a simple gear out of a blank machined on my lathe, is gonna cost almost as much in accessories as the mill itself. Then add a bunch of clamps, a decent vise, a much of endmill holders unless you're one of those collet people, it adds up, man.
At least theoretically a "utilimaker" thing only requires the additional purchase of a power cord.
If you know the relationship of Ubuntu to Debian, then buildatron to reprap is a pretty close analogy. Not exact, but close enough. I like them. I'm still building my own Mendel by myself instead of getting an assembled model from buildatron, but not being one of their customers doesn't mean I can't think they're good people. (Am I too negative?)
I think I'll wait until 3D printers can 3D print other 3D printers.
Actually a RepRap can print 50% of a new RepRap. You just need the metal bits and circuit boards.
There is also a hack for the original makerbot involving many little printed bolt together pieces. So makerbots can more or less replicate themselves too.
If you allow "subtractive machining" as a 3d printer in addition to your "additive machining" then metal lathes and milling machines have been replicating themselves for well over a century...
people who steal a wallet and rack up $10,000 in charges get away with it in almost all cases (and likely would even if they used it for an Amazon purchase delivered to their real name and real home address).
Sometimes I wonder about that. Many years ago, well, about 20 years ago, I worked retail management at a locally owned supermarket and we received otherwise apparently serious job applications from juveniles who were busted for credit card fraud applying to be cashiers. Yes, we did take credit cards. Always wondered what those kids were thinking, if they thought they were criminal masterminds or if they thought we were idiots. Probably both.
They must have more business sense than Elop? We'll see who's still in business next year, ye olde cellphone shoppe or Nokia. I... would bet on the cellphone shop.
Exact details of Windows Phone sales numbers are being covered up by both Microsoft and Nokia, who refuse to state specifics
Must be extremely bad if its coverup time. Even the Zune figures weren't kept this well buried. Aren't there stats from "popular" apps like the facebook app or angry birds where you can assume 75% of owners have those 3rd party apps, therefore if they have 750K sales of AB or FB on the MS app store or whatever, they would probably therefore have about 1M phones out in the wild?
So I've got one of them gen-u-ine android phones. Which apps are supposedly hammering the network?
My guess is the GOOG latitude GPS plotting thingy must be updating fairly often. So in the big list of blacklisted apps, I've got one "i donno maybe guess".
This is important to me because my batteries life is very short... Enabling latitude position tracking thingy meant my battery died in about 10 hours (which is an issue for a guy who works 10 hour shift bracketed by a modest commute), so I shut it off, gaining me at least 6 more hours, making it very easy not go thru a working day without charging. I wonder if I disable "something else" if I'll magically gain yet another 6 hours... or more...
Put two of these cards next to eachother, and they won't read. Put them in an aluminium card case, and they won't read. Move more than about 5 cm away from the card and it won't read.
Stand in line at the convenience store behind victim. Tada, you just got owned.
There are numerous ways around this problem. It shouldn't stop people from using the technology.
Its about as secure as tatooing your social security number on your forehead, then telling people its safe because you need a telephoto lens from over 100 feet, or you can just wear a skimask all the time.
I know enough about India to know the forex "name" is INR which would presumably be completely inoffensive for all.
I don't know enough about India to avoid little cultural mistakes. Telling Irish people what their currency is will by definition offend either the northerners or the southerners unless you list both pound and euro, and probably once the EU inevitably breaks up, the Punt or whatever it was. The one true currency of the one true China is (oh wait do you mean mainland or what westerners call the independent separate country of Taiwan?). The one true currency of Tel Aviv is what, the recent israeli whatever (sheckl?) or 60 years ago palestianian whatever? So I donno if Rs is/was pre-bangladeshi or pre-pakistani or maybe there's colonial-era baggage. Or as a colonial era thing is it kind of like talking about US civil war era confederate money as if it were the "real money" of Alabama. Although given the response on/. by people who apparently seem to know, Rs is not a politically sensitive currency.
So forget about it, just an oddity that I've seen it abbreviated INR about a hundred times more often than I've seen it abbreviated Rs.
It's my own fault for hanging around Slashdot, computer part stores, and video game websites all the time. Apparently things like Bath & Body Works and Lane Bryant don't cancel it out.
As if a (formerly) "18-24 year old male" like myself didn't shop constantly at BBW and LB (and other "girly" places) for girlfriend gifts. I probably blew more money at BBW than compusa back in the day, a rather substantial sum of money. Think about it, what is a teenage boys greatest motivator, and which store on average is more likely to get him some, autozone or BBW? Well thats enough GOOG apologetics for now, but I had to literally LOL at your claim that being a big BBW customer somehow proves the existence of a XX chromosome. If anything a big spender there probably proves the reverse in a majority situation (let me guess than 75% of their sales profits are to men buying gifts not directly to women, yes the store is full of women window shopping who don't buy anything or get like one tiny little bottle, but the big spenders are mostly guys buying gifts)
To totally ruin your illusions about shopping, you know that guy at the scrapbooking store with the heart melting request to help him pick out scrapbooking supplies for his sick mother who is stuck at home with a cold, to help her feel better? Yeah I can't say I invented that line, but it sure works. Eventually the cashiers figure it out and tell the shoppers and it all turns into a big joke, but its fun for awhile. The eternally alone on friday night guys shop at Radio Shack and wonder why they can't find any wimmin, but some of us shopped at scrapbook and craft stores and fabric stores and we went out every friday night, with some pretty cool and interesting women.
Go shopping sometime. Also hedonistic corrections also happen in the shopping basket, not just made up govt imaginations. If I have to go to whole foods and pay seven bucks for a ball of lettuce because my local supermarket now only sells junk...
I think one of the reasons CB had as big of a share as it did, was the relative lack of other options.
Also it had a theoretical marketing purpose. At least you could tell yourself it was for reporting traffic accidents and finding out about traffic jams. It didn't really work well for that, which is why it rapidly went away. But at least during the boom it had a coherent and believable reason for existing.
Twitter? Well, without twitter, I'd, um,... use email which is free instead of expensive SMS? Or without twitter, I'd... I donno. It seems to serve no unique purpose, or even any useful purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
Is this that creationist place I heard about?
A often over looked factor is attrition in WWII. Made up numbers:
Lets say the US had zero elite level tankers but millions of noobs and we didn't start the land war until, well, frankly pretty much d-day 1944. Solution, make millions of noob-tanks. We didn't have any elite combat veteran tankers anyway to make use of elite level tanks.
Lets say the Germans had a hundred thousand elite combat vet tankers, but a quarter of them die in combat every year starting in 1939, so by 1945 you've got 12 year olds with hunting rifles "defending" Berlin at the last stand. Solution, make tens of thousands of elite-tanks and hope each elite-tank blows up more than 10 noob-tanks. Eventually you end up with dudes from the assembly line trying to be tankers, that didn't work out so well.
They darn near won, despite the attrition, so I wouldn't harsh their strategy too much.
Or if you're going to intentionally violate international standards of assembly, management needs to hire a QA/QC guy who's sole job is to make sure things are put together the wrong way. Unless of course he failed in this case, but he was someone important's son, so he can't be blamed...
There's always a way to design something the "right" way. If clearances are that tight, g-loading of the frame would have screwed it up eventually, or a tiny piece of shrapnel could take down a plane... A "combat" style repair during an emergency on a distant island could cause the loss of a plane, this isn't just a manufacturing problem.
This incident was an hour long seminar in class and at the end of class, there's no way around it, it was an engineering failure but some lowly peon took the hit, with a sub-text esoteric or whatever meaning that even when engineering "wins" in a corporate BS scenario, everyone else really "loses".
We came up with all manner of solutions like "shorter bolts everywhere not just one shorter bolt", "rivets not bolts", "reroute the cable". One unpopular one was "well, in wartime, you're gonna take losses, just deal with it".
The funniest, yet best human factors solution, which won the award for the best solution, was to work with human nature, not against it, and make the build fixture upside down. So the plant workers install the bolts right side up, from their perspective. Don't even tell the bolt installer plant workers that they're working upside down. I wish I could say that was my bright idea, but mine was a crappy solution involving spray painting bolt heads and spray painting the holes on the bolt side using a fixture, which got shot down, something about F-ing up corrosion control chromate primer or whatever.
Sounds like a great case for RFID inventory control ; tag every tool, log them out of the toolbox with a loop mounted on the side, log them back in again when you return them.
Who fills out the ISO9000 report paperwork documenting the RFID hasn't fallen off the tool and remains in the bottom of the toolbox? You could generate an exception report of tools that were supposed to be used but haven't been used in "X" months, but then someone needs to review that and follow up and most importantly, document it and get a sign off from their boss.
If the RFID falls off a $125000 radar spectrum analyzer, does that make it non-compliant and eligible to be sold to techs buddy for $50 govt surplus or ... just what level of corruption is allowable here WRT to compliance?
You know the govt contracted to a contractor, but the contractor probably contracted to a subcontractor 1099'd A/P freelancer. Who tags his tools? Or should only subs who charge twice as much per hour because they "are in the system" be hired? Looking at total airforce annual labor costs, It could be cheaper to buy a new airframe once in a while rather than pay twice as much for labor.
Those RFIDs... can't work on planes without them... so they're not a strategic national asset and require domestic second sourcing... bye bye to 2000 tags for $100.
Those RFIDs... merely commercial/industrial temp range or aerospace grade? What works for walmart in Georgia isn't going to work in Alaska.
She knows clearance issues are why you install a shorter bolt Again, engineering design failed, miserably, so a way to blame the peon.
If you insist on putting the brake pedal on the right foot and accelerator on the left, it doesn't matter how loudly you blame the driver, its still a design failure.
This specific incident was hashed out in one of those freshman "intro to engineering ethics" classes I had to take a long time ago. Still remember it. It was a huge design failure, although you could claim it was also a huge management and PR success to put all the blame on some poor chick. Was used as an object lesson for how management picks the winner and loser, sometimes engineering gets it, sometimes operations/factory floor gets it, and part of being an engineer is "toughening up" that you're going to be involved in corporate BS like that, so get used to thinking about it.
Remember that the airframe for this airplane (a KC-135) is basically a late 50s-early 60s design/build.
Whatever. Back then engineers had to be smarter because they couldn't rely on computers. The days of iron men, not heavy iron mainframes... Age is no excuse for poor design, assuming thats what you meant.
More likely, since this has not been a popular failure mode over the past half century, the cost of designing it out probably exceeds the cost of just eating an airframe every century or two.
It is ass-covering of the lowest order to blame a lowly mechanic for what is obviously a design flaw. A simple sensor to monitor the presence of a plug
Terrible design mistake because now someone needs to maintain, replace, test, and probably F-up that sensor. Also its heavy. The better design involves multiple permanently installed frangible disks on extra vent piping.
See how hard design is? Finding incompetence is always easier than designing around it. First guess is usually wrong. That's probably what happened to the A+P mechanic, too.
what if it had been a bullet instead of a mistake?
LOL this model of vehicle is the ultimate REMF machine. If it eats a bullet we've already lost our entire military and been completely and totally utterly overrun. Like that plane contains the last living airmen in the entire USAF.
Also from an engineering perspective its very easy to design something to take a bullet from the outside, but an overpressure failure from the inside? That is uneconomical to design for.
He's all oh the thumbwheel broke off my micrometer: I'll print a new thumbwheel bracket. The windshield mount on my recumbent broke, so I'll print a new one. He's printed plumbing parts, cookie cutters, centering adapters for optics, replacement bar handle clamps, you name it
Has he printed any foundry patterns yet? That's the idea that I'm hot for, but no one else seems to like or try that idea, as far as I know.
I want to print a pattern, cast it in Aluminum or maybe advanced zinc alloy (or maybe someday I'll afford the fancier safety gear to cast brass) and then machine my new "whatever" casting on the mill to get a finished part.
I can already do that with lost foam, by making a foam pattern on the cnc mill, but my god the pillar of smoke from burning styrofoam is an instant EPA superfund site, and having to make a new pattern for each casting is a drag.
Its not always bad.
I needed to buy a replacement TV (well, technically its just a really freaking huge monitor hooked up to my mythtv box, but "they" don't sell 42 inch monitors so I had to buy a TV which is a monitor with a ATSC tuner that I'll never use, etc)
I went to best buy because the TV is big and heavy and I want to inspect the carton and make sure I don't purchase a box of broken glass. I have purchased monitors online for years (decades now?) but the giant TV shipping cost would be a bit excessive.
Anyway I braced myself for the onslaught of "you really need NEW gold plated HDMI cables" and harping about how the product is crap so I need a service ripoff contract etc etc. Its kind of like stage fright? When I was in the Army I never deployed to a combat zone, but I kind of felt a little like I imagine that feels, I know I'm gonna have to fight these guys and its going to be rough, just keep my mind on the mission and blow past these guys however I have to do it and just accomplish my goal while surviving.
And nothing happened. They must have been having an off day, or already reached their monthly sales quota, or something like that, because they didn't even ask me, much less bug or pester me, and it was OK. Frankly I was surprised, I've had some absolutely horrible experiences in the past at best buy over much lower value items. I was jubilant afterwords, bubbly, like I won a battle.
My advice is treat them like they treat you, if they treat you like a human being return the favor, if they're slathering psychopaths you give them hell right back. But always remember that no matter how bad their reputation, at least sometimes, Best Buy is not bad at all..
The most obvious comparison is its about 10 or so modern diesel electric locomotive engines, if you assume 2500 or so HP per engine, which is probably not a bad guess for your average generic engine... Spare me the anecdote that there exist like 4 Aclea Express engines in the USA that have 6000 HP, and I'm well aware coming from a three generation railroad family that there are some astounding coal haulers out there.
There are probably more than 10 diesels in my county right now... coal plant, despite the best efforts of the govt some industry still remains, multiple short range commuter rail and also some long range commuter rail, multiple intermodal transfer stations, a small but respectable great lakes "sea"port (which is admittedly frozen in right now)
To some extent you can bolt an extruder onto your existing CNC mill. That is my "rep-strapping" plan. Lots of details at this link.
Most of the time and money is in the 3-d robot part that does all the positioning. An extruder is actually pretty cheap.
http://reprap.org/wiki/EMCRepStrap
The other issue, as a machinist, I can verify that accessories that a mill requires are about twice the cost of the mill, and the accessories a lathe requires are about the cost of a lathe. So, I bolt my $350 rotary table to my $500 mill, stick the $50 7/8 inch gearcutting arbor in the spindle, clamp a $50 expanding arbor into my $125 chuck attached to the rotab, supported on the other side by my semi-homemade tailstock that cost about $100, then stick a $25 involute gear cutter in the arbor, I'm not gonna add it up, but just to cut a simple gear out of a blank machined on my lathe, is gonna cost almost as much in accessories as the mill itself. Then add a bunch of clamps, a decent vise, a much of endmill holders unless you're one of those collet people, it adds up, man.
At least theoretically a "utilimaker" thing only requires the additional purchase of a power cord.
the lego keyboard doesn't suck anymore than the original.
Lets be honest here, I got to use one when it was new, and it... wasn't that good.
Sorry guys my 3d printer made three copies of bennomatic, now look what happens.
Either way, stay far the fuck away from any 3D printer made by HP, Epson, or any other major manufacturer...
The main problem with the HP 3-d printer driver, is its 12315 gigabytes, and is bundled with the yahoo toolbar.
(I'm 99% sure its HP that has 350 meg printer drivers, but aren't they also the yahoo toolbar people?)
Looks a lot like someone put a RepRap Prusa Mendel in a box, and pretended it was a new product.
Hilariously, that's how they self describe themselves, more or less
http://buildatron.com/about-buildatron
If you know the relationship of Ubuntu to Debian, then buildatron to reprap is a pretty close analogy. Not exact, but close enough. I like them. I'm still building my own Mendel by myself instead of getting an assembled model from buildatron, but not being one of their customers doesn't mean I can't think they're good people. (Am I too negative?)
I think I'll wait until 3D printers can 3D print other 3D printers.
Actually a RepRap can print 50% of a new RepRap. You just need the metal bits and circuit boards.
There is also a hack for the original makerbot involving many little printed bolt together pieces. So makerbots can more or less replicate themselves too.
If you allow "subtractive machining" as a 3d printer in addition to your "additive machining" then metal lathes and milling machines have been replicating themselves for well over a century...
people who steal a wallet and rack up $10,000 in charges get away with it in almost all cases (and likely would even if they used it for an Amazon purchase delivered to their real name and real home address).
Sometimes I wonder about that. Many years ago, well, about 20 years ago, I worked retail management at a locally owned supermarket and we received otherwise apparently serious job applications from juveniles who were busted for credit card fraud applying to be cashiers. Yes, we did take credit cards. Always wondered what those kids were thinking, if they thought they were criminal masterminds or if they thought we were idiots. Probably both.
tend to only show phones they think might sell
They must have more business sense than Elop? We'll see who's still in business next year, ye olde cellphone shoppe or Nokia. I... would bet on the cellphone shop.
Exact details of Windows Phone sales numbers are being covered up by both Microsoft and Nokia, who refuse to state specifics
Must be extremely bad if its coverup time. Even the Zune figures weren't kept this well buried. Aren't there stats from "popular" apps like the facebook app or angry birds where you can assume 75% of owners have those 3rd party apps, therefore if they have 750K sales of AB or FB on the MS app store or whatever, they would probably therefore have about 1M phones out in the wild?
So I've got one of them gen-u-ine android phones. Which apps are supposedly hammering the network?
My guess is the GOOG latitude GPS plotting thingy must be updating fairly often. So in the big list of blacklisted apps, I've got one "i donno maybe guess".
This is important to me because my batteries life is very short... Enabling latitude position tracking thingy meant my battery died in about 10 hours (which is an issue for a guy who works 10 hour shift bracketed by a modest commute), so I shut it off, gaining me at least 6 more hours, making it very easy not go thru a working day without charging. I wonder if I disable "something else" if I'll magically gain yet another 6 hours... or more...
Put two of these cards next to eachother, and they won't read. Put them in an aluminium card case, and they won't read. Move more than about 5 cm away from the card and it won't read.
Stand in line at the convenience store behind victim. Tada, you just got owned.
There are numerous ways around this problem. It shouldn't stop people from using the technology.
Its about as secure as tatooing your social security number on your forehead, then telling people its safe because you need a telephoto lens from over 100 feet, or you can just wear a skimask all the time.
I know enough about India to know the forex "name" is INR which would presumably be completely inoffensive for all.
I don't know enough about India to avoid little cultural mistakes. Telling Irish people what their currency is will by definition offend either the northerners or the southerners unless you list both pound and euro, and probably once the EU inevitably breaks up, the Punt or whatever it was. The one true currency of the one true China is (oh wait do you mean mainland or what westerners call the independent separate country of Taiwan?). The one true currency of Tel Aviv is what, the recent israeli whatever (sheckl?) or 60 years ago palestianian whatever? So I donno if Rs is/was pre-bangladeshi or pre-pakistani or maybe there's colonial-era baggage. Or as a colonial era thing is it kind of like talking about US civil war era confederate money as if it were the "real money" of Alabama. Although given the response on /. by people who apparently seem to know, Rs is not a politically sensitive currency.
So forget about it, just an oddity that I've seen it abbreviated INR about a hundred times more often than I've seen it abbreviated Rs.
It's my own fault for hanging around Slashdot, computer part stores, and video game websites all the time. Apparently things like Bath & Body Works and Lane Bryant don't cancel it out.
As if a (formerly) "18-24 year old male" like myself didn't shop constantly at BBW and LB (and other "girly" places) for girlfriend gifts. I probably blew more money at BBW than compusa back in the day, a rather substantial sum of money. Think about it, what is a teenage boys greatest motivator, and which store on average is more likely to get him some, autozone or BBW? Well thats enough GOOG apologetics for now, but I had to literally LOL at your claim that being a big BBW customer somehow proves the existence of a XX chromosome. If anything a big spender there probably proves the reverse in a majority situation (let me guess than 75% of their sales profits are to men buying gifts not directly to women, yes the store is full of women window shopping who don't buy anything or get like one tiny little bottle, but the big spenders are mostly guys buying gifts)
To totally ruin your illusions about shopping, you know that guy at the scrapbooking store with the heart melting request to help him pick out scrapbooking supplies for his sick mother who is stuck at home with a cold, to help her feel better? Yeah I can't say I invented that line, but it sure works. Eventually the cashiers figure it out and tell the shoppers and it all turns into a big joke, but its fun for awhile. The eternally alone on friday night guys shop at Radio Shack and wonder why they can't find any wimmin, but some of us shopped at scrapbook and craft stores and fabric stores and we went out every friday night, with some pretty cool and interesting women.
Go shopping sometime. Also hedonistic corrections also happen in the shopping basket, not just made up govt imaginations. If I have to go to whole foods and pay seven bucks for a ball of lettuce because my local supermarket now only sells junk ...
I think one of the reasons CB had as big of a share as it did, was the relative lack of other options.
Also it had a theoretical marketing purpose. At least you could tell yourself it was for reporting traffic accidents and finding out about traffic jams. It didn't really work well for that, which is why it rapidly went away. But at least during the boom it had a coherent and believable reason for existing.
Twitter? Well, without twitter, I'd, um, ... use email which is free instead of expensive SMS? Or without twitter, I'd... I donno. It seems to serve no unique purpose, or even any useful purpose.