>> Sure it does, provided that you nail the compass to your eye so that you always see it in the same position. The important thing here is that the same information gets always mapped to the same nerves.
Wow. I wasn't aware of that requirement for sensory organs.
>> Technically this is a computer-brain interface. The device is just using convenient, pre-existing inputs to the brain.
So, does that mean that reading a regular compass in the old-fashioned way, say, by using your eyes, qualifies as a computer-brain interface, since the device (the compass) is just using a convenient, pre-existing input mechanism to the brain (the eyes)?
>> So what the difference if this relies on someone's sense of touch?
The difference then is that the actual "sensoring" is done by the body's old hardware, so nothing new. Would you say then that a pager set on "vibrate" is a "new sensory organ" just because it communicates alerts via stimulation of touch sensors?
No, the real problem is not reading the source directly and assuming that Apple deliberately used a loaded and ambiguous term. As a matter of fact, the term used by Apple was "an external force", not "external forces":
"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone."
That's actually what their press release says. From a quote of the statement in the BBC:
"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone."
Of course, it is more fun to blame the Eveel Apple and accuse them of being disingenuous, than to actually read what they said.
I'm not assuming they would never lie; God knows I don't have much trust of corporations. However, I'm also sceptical of users complaining loudly about Apple just because it is the fashionable thing to do; especially in Slashdot, where Apple has turned into the new evil empire, and Google is the messiah incarnate, as if the world was just so black and white. Besides, other than some very few allegations, there is really no indication that the phones actually exploded, and Apple is denying such allegations.
They are not claiming that there are absolutely no problems with these devices, as others seem to imply. As a matter of fact, they say they are currently investigating the allegations on a number of devices (a single digit number, they claim). They are just claiming that there does not seem to be any evidence of overheating or battery problems with the devices in question. Their suggestion is that the devices were dropped and the screen cracked, not exploded. Of course, this could be a lie to avoid bad press, but have you already judged them and are unwilling to even consider the possibility of them telling the truth?
Sure, they could be lying, but at this point we have little to go by but their word and the word of a (very) few complainants--that's it, anything else is just noise: I would not be putting too much stock on all those bloggers that have jumped in the Apple-bashing bandwagon, echoing (rather loudly) the complaints from third-hand comments they read somewhere, overstating the issue as if any iPhone is just a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode.
Yes. My guess is that there are at most a very few number of strange incidents which warranted genuine investigation by Apple (perhaps just a couple), but since the anomalies were touted all over the web as "OMGBBQWTF!!! exploding iPodz!!1one! FAIL!", some people have tried to take advantage of the bad press to extort a refund from Apple.
In any case, if Apple is to be given the benefit of the doubt, the incidents have been much over-stated.
According to the BBC, Apple has analysed the reports and the returned iPhones and concluded that in all cases, "external force" caused the breakage, and that there is no indication of batteries overheating or internal explosions.
He did not mean that there would be five years from its release until someone could create something that compared to the iPhone. He meant that the device they were going to release then, in 2007, was going to contain technology that would have taken five years for any other competitor to bring to market.
Had the iPhone not been released by Apple, Jobs posited, it would had taken about five years for the industry to get its act together and create a workable touch-screen, multi-finger-gesture-driven phone.
Obviously, once they released the iPhone, competitors could copy it faster than having to come up with the original concept and design from scratch.
I did learn touch-typing on a mechanical typewriter in high-school. However, I actually practiced and honed my skills on an IBM PC later on. I guess that's why I never had the problem you mentioned of wearing off the keyboard by pounding it hard.
I'll admit that it did take some time to adjust between the effort needed to slam on the mechanical keys and the softer computer keyboards, but I don't remember it being a very big deal, at least to me.
I eventually forgot touch-typing for a while and kept using my already proficient skills in hunt-and-pecking I acquired during my C=64 days. I could be faster than most, as long as I didn't have to take my eyes off the keyboards or the screen. Keying in programs from magazines, books, or my own hand-written notes was a bitch, though, which is why a few years later, when I got an IBM PC, I decided to go back to touch-typing and re-trained myself. By the time I was in university, I was more used to the PC keyboard than the mechanical typewriters, though I could (and did) use both.
911 Operator 1:Hello? Hello?? is anybody there? 911 Operator 2:What's going on...? 911 Operator 1:There's nobody on the line, but there's this intermittent beeping, almost like... like some sort of signal. It's annoying! 911 Operator 1:Hello!? 911 Operator 2:Probably someone sat on his phone, or the cat's walking all over it. I'd hang up. 911 Operator 1:K *CLICK*
That's strange. I'm in my late thirties and I learned to type in a mechanical typewriter (in high-school). I took the elective (which was popular among low-achievers) so that I could type faster on my Commodore-64. You see I used to hunt-and-peck, and thought that touch-typing would help (it did). But I distinctly remember having to hand-in term papers, book reports, monographs, and other reports in typed paper; some for high school, but mostly for university. And in the late 80s through early 90s that meant using typewriters with carbon paper copies.
I'm confused, how does that realization change the spirit of the comments made by other posters regarding the fluid?
Are you just upset about the use of the word fuel itself? Granted, the movie did not specifically call it fuel, but so what? No offence, but it seems like you are splitting hairs for no apparent reason.
But no worries, let's correct the misnomer: It's a fluid, which is a required component for the operation of the shuttle. This fluid (used to operate machinery), just happens to turn humans into prawns when injested, really?
Too bad they're going to think that most of your society is comprised of intolerant and violent people and run by evil corporations, and surrounded by shanty towns replete with thugs prone to voodoo and superstition.
I don't think it was the right model for the Johannesburg tourism industry.
Other than that, you are right, I did not see any lions wandering the streets.
In the novelization and radio play, which expanded the story considerably, they explained that part in a convincing way. The reasoning is that, since they are being tracked by the Death Star itself (the most awesome weapon in the galaxy), and perhaps even by the entire star fleet, laying over somewhere and hiding would just delay the final confrontation which, they admit, the Millennium Falcon would not be able to avert on its own.
Therefore they decided that their best chances lie in delivering the plans of the battle station to the rebel base in the hopes that an exploitable vulnerability would be discovered before the Empire catches up with them, and before it is able to amass its full attack forces.
Just because a facet of someone's personality (which one would likely normally keep a secret) comes to the surface later in a story does not mean there's no apparent reason for it. Besides, the reason for the father-in-law's action was apparent: greed (and the fact that he didn't much care for his son-in-law).
Signing someone's death warrant, or plotting against their safety or security, all while sitting behind a desk, far removed from the target of your actions is pretty easy to rationalize and accept as the proper course of action. There is a reason why people in such positions build bureaucracies to isolate themselves from the real emotional consequences of their actions.
But it takes a special kind of callous, deep-sitted hatred or psychotic misalignment to actually face your vitim--whom you know personally, and familiarly--look him in the eye while he is desperately crying, pleading with you--and invoking the love and compassion of your own daughter--and simply ignore him; and move on with your plan as if nothing has happened. It takes more than greed to internalize and rationalize that kind of behaviour.
There is a big gap between a man who dislikes his son-in-law, and a man who will actively and very much personally seek his destruction, and participate in person, for his own gain; and I don't buy it.
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
Except that most of them revolted and reacted violently when accosted by the mercenaries during the eviction, and many showed signs of being aggressive and very violent towards the first hint of confrontation from humans. It is inconsistencies of this kind that distracted me, in general.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Sure it does, provided that you nail the compass to your eye so that you always see it in the same position. The important thing here is that the same information gets always mapped to the same nerves.
Wow. I wasn't aware of that requirement for sensory organs.
-dZ.
>> Technically this is a computer-brain interface. The device is just using convenient, pre-existing inputs to the brain.
So, does that mean that reading a regular compass in the old-fashioned way, say, by using your eyes, qualifies as a computer-brain interface, since the device (the compass) is just using a convenient, pre-existing input mechanism to the brain (the eyes)?
>> So what the difference if this relies on someone's sense of touch?
The difference then is that the actual "sensoring" is done by the body's old hardware, so nothing new. Would you say then that a pager set on "vibrate" is a "new sensory organ" just because it communicates alerts via stimulation of touch sensors?
Kids nowadays, they are so easily amused.
-dZ.
No, the real problem is not reading the source directly and assuming that Apple deliberately used a loaded and ambiguous term. As a matter of fact, the term used by Apple was "an external force", not "external forces":
"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone."
(Emphasis mine)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8227028.stm
-dZ.
That's actually what their press release says. From a quote of the statement in the BBC:
"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone."
Of course, it is more fun to blame the Eveel Apple and accuse them of being disingenuous, than to actually read what they said.
-dZ.
Exactly. I believe that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is also investigating the allegations in the U.S.A.
-dZ.
I'm not assuming they would never lie; God knows I don't have much trust of corporations. However, I'm also sceptical of users complaining loudly about Apple just because it is the fashionable thing to do; especially in Slashdot, where Apple has turned into the new evil empire, and Google is the messiah incarnate, as if the world was just so black and white. Besides, other than some very few allegations, there is really no indication that the phones actually exploded, and Apple is denying such allegations.
They are not claiming that there are absolutely no problems with these devices, as others seem to imply. As a matter of fact, they say they are currently investigating the allegations on a number of devices (a single digit number, they claim). They are just claiming that there does not seem to be any evidence of overheating or battery problems with the devices in question. Their suggestion is that the devices were dropped and the screen cracked, not exploded. Of course, this could be a lie to avoid bad press, but have you already judged them and are unwilling to even consider the possibility of them telling the truth?
Sure, they could be lying, but at this point we have little to go by but their word and the word of a (very) few complainants--that's it, anything else is just noise: I would not be putting too much stock on all those bloggers that have jumped in the Apple-bashing bandwagon, echoing (rather loudly) the complaints from third-hand comments they read somewhere, overstating the issue as if any iPhone is just a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode.
-dZ.
Yes. My guess is that there are at most a very few number of strange incidents which warranted genuine investigation by Apple (perhaps just a couple), but since the anomalies were touted all over the web as "OMGBBQWTF!!! exploding iPodz!!1one! FAIL!", some people have tried to take advantage of the bad press to extort a refund from Apple.
In any case, if Apple is to be given the benefit of the doubt, the incidents have been much over-stated.
-dZ.
According to the BBC, Apple has analysed the reports and the returned iPhones and concluded that in all cases, "external force" caused the breakage, and that there is no indication of batteries overheating or internal explosions.
-dZ.
Lunar cows?
-dZ.
Ren & Stimpy killed my dog, burned my homework, and ran away with my girlfriend, you insensitive clod!
-dZ.
Or even better, hum, opt-out? What if I reaaaally don't want the feature?
-dZ.
>> 5 years ahead of anything else
I don't think that means what you think it does.
He did not mean that there would be five years from its release until someone could create something that compared to the iPhone. He meant that the device they were going to release then, in 2007, was going to contain technology that would have taken five years for any other competitor to bring to market.
Had the iPhone not been released by Apple, Jobs posited, it would had taken about five years for the industry to get its act together and create a workable touch-screen, multi-finger-gesture-driven phone.
Obviously, once they released the iPhone, competitors could copy it faster than having to come up with the original concept and design from scratch.
-dZ.
I did learn touch-typing on a mechanical typewriter in high-school. However, I actually practiced and honed my skills on an IBM PC later on. I guess that's why I never had the problem you mentioned of wearing off the keyboard by pounding it hard.
I'll admit that it did take some time to adjust between the effort needed to slam on the mechanical keys and the softer computer keyboards, but I don't remember it being a very big deal, at least to me.
I eventually forgot touch-typing for a while and kept using my already proficient skills in hunt-and-pecking I acquired during my C=64 days. I could be faster than most, as long as I didn't have to take my eyes off the keyboards or the screen. Keying in programs from magazines, books, or my own hand-written notes was a bitch, though, which is why a few years later, when I got an IBM PC, I decided to go back to touch-typing and re-trained myself. By the time I was in university, I was more used to the PC keyboard than the mechanical typewriters, though I could (and did) use both.
-dZ.
911 Operator 1: Hello? Hello?? is anybody there?
911 Operator 2: What's going on...?
911 Operator 1: There's nobody on the line, but there's this intermittent beeping, almost like... like some sort of signal. It's annoying!
911 Operator 1: Hello!?
911 Operator 2: Probably someone sat on his phone, or the cat's walking all over it. I'd hang up.
911 Operator 1: K
*CLICK*
That's strange. I'm in my late thirties and I learned to type in a mechanical typewriter (in high-school). I took the elective (which was popular among low-achievers) so that I could type faster on my Commodore-64. You see I used to hunt-and-peck, and thought that touch-typing would help (it did). But I distinctly remember having to hand-in term papers, book reports, monographs, and other reports in typed paper; some for high school, but mostly for university. And in the late 80s through early 90s that meant using typewriters with carbon paper copies.
-dZ.
You had me until the last two. In my high-school, that guy would have have been beaten up and stuffed in a locker with his battery.
-dZ.
Some do indeed have a search feature. It's typically at the end of the file.
-dZ.
I'm confused, how does that realization change the spirit of the comments made by other posters regarding the fluid?
Are you just upset about the use of the word fuel itself? Granted, the movie did not specifically call it fuel, but so what? No offence, but it seems like you are splitting hairs for no apparent reason.
But no worries, let's correct the misnomer: It's a fluid, which is a required component for the operation of the shuttle. This fluid (used to operate machinery), just happens to turn humans into prawns when injested, really?
-dZ.
Whoooosh!
Chill out, it was a joke.
-dZ.
Too bad they're going to think that most of your society is comprised of intolerant and violent people and run by evil corporations, and surrounded by shanty towns replete with thugs prone to voodoo and superstition.
I don't think it was the right model for the Johannesburg tourism industry.
Other than that, you are right, I did not see any lions wandering the streets.
-dZ.
>> "Gears of War", as a friend pointed out, it feels like a shooter
The guns and mayhem reminded me of Ratchet and Clank.
-dZ.
In the novelization and radio play, which expanded the story considerably, they explained that part in a convincing way. The reasoning is that, since they are being tracked by the Death Star itself (the most awesome weapon in the galaxy), and perhaps even by the entire star fleet, laying over somewhere and hiding would just delay the final confrontation which, they admit, the Millennium Falcon would not be able to avert on its own.
Therefore they decided that their best chances lie in delivering the plans of the battle station to the rebel base in the hopes that an exploitable vulnerability would be discovered before the Empire catches up with them, and before it is able to amass its full attack forces.
As you may know, their gambit proved successful.
-dZ.
You mean, the FLUID that caused the shuttle to turn on and become active, without which it would not operate?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fuel
Fuel:
1. Something consumed to produce energy.
It may have been a bio-chemical substance, containing genetic material, but it was pretty evident that it served as fuel for the shuttle.
-dZ.
Just because a facet of someone's personality (which one would likely normally keep a secret) comes to the surface later in a story does not mean there's no apparent reason for it. Besides, the reason for the father-in-law's action was apparent: greed (and the fact that he didn't much care for his son-in-law).
Signing someone's death warrant, or plotting against their safety or security, all while sitting behind a desk, far removed from the target of your actions is pretty easy to rationalize and accept as the proper course of action. There is a reason why people in such positions build bureaucracies to isolate themselves from the real emotional consequences of their actions.
But it takes a special kind of callous, deep-sitted hatred or psychotic misalignment to actually face your vitim--whom you know personally, and familiarly--look him in the eye while he is desperately crying, pleading with you--and invoking the love and compassion of your own daughter--and simply ignore him; and move on with your plan as if nothing has happened. It takes more than greed to internalize and rationalize that kind of behaviour.
There is a big gap between a man who dislikes his son-in-law, and a man who will actively and very much personally seek his destruction, and participate in person, for his own gain; and I don't buy it.
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
Except that most of them revolted and reacted violently when accosted by the mercenaries during the eviction, and many showed signs of being aggressive and very violent towards the first hint of confrontation from humans. It is inconsistencies of this kind that distracted me, in general.
-dZ.
You are not the only one. My wife an I felt the same way.
-dZ.