The only dire consequence of eliminating these is that great Green boogeyman of more humans surviving tropical diseases. Mosquito-eating species can easily switch to other, similar, bugs:
http://www.nature.com/news/201...
That very article, midway through, discusses the potential pitfalls that would result. It openly says that Arctic tundra (which is very fragile) would definitely be seriously affected. It then quotes a study noting that one species of birds reduces egg laying by one third just in reaction to dropped mosquito populations.
The article repeatedly says "yes, mosquitos serve important niches, but other species will step up to the plate" while steadfastly to reflect on how the changes in those populations will spiral out. It admits that human populations will benefit both in health (which is undeniable) and growth, but doesn't bother to bring up the consequences of either. It closes out with a quote from an entomologist from a mosquito control association, admitting that it's entirely possible something worse could spring out of it.
Sure, the article tries to make it sound like mosquitos being gone would be an unassailable net good for the earth, but it refuses to back it up.
Software isn't a hammer. If we're going to find some sort of analogous fit, let me offer: software is a car. It should be rock-steady reliable, it should perform as expected, but it's still a complex piece of machinery that ultimately is going to require tune-ups, overhauls, and replacements if you want to keep it running like new.
And the world around it is going to change: new fuel types are going to render old ones obsolete, spare parts are going to become increasingly rare and/or expensive, and structural failure is inevitable in the long run without serious care. Some cars are worth that effort, but a lot aren't.
I find it sad that they remove the camera from they watch. I love my old Gear, but I won't "upgrade" to a watch with less feature.
Having a feature isn't the same as having a feature worth having. Getting rid of a low-quality, poorly-placed camera gives Samsung the space to add features like NFC and LTE. These offer immediate, tangible benefits to the user by enabling a greater number of features and options through software, and by improving the Gear's independence. Smartwatches have to sacrifice some features to be more useful overall, and Samsung absolutely made the right call.
I know one person's already done this, but I'm gonna jump in too, because why not!:)
1. Self-Driving Cars will destroy one of the few low-skill-high-paying career tracks left. On top of the unemployment created by this, self-driving cars will reduce the need for car ownership, and in turn centralizes the routine upkeep vehicles require. From an environmental perspective this is wonderful, but imagine every single gas station, car parts manufacturer and retailer, and auto-service station going out of business. Consider the ramifications of the entire secondary industry tied to the automobile collapsing entirely.
2. Clean Energy will require a complete restructuring of the electrical grid. While homes will be more self-sufficient, our current grids are not designed for the decentralized nature that solar and wind production introduce. Existing energy (read: oil and gas) companies will pivot- they already are- to maintain their grip on energy production. They have the resources to do so.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality won't make us any less social than before, despite naysayers, but they'll separate the idea of "experience" from "real experience". This in turn will price live attendance of events out of the range of most people. Sure, I could afford to get "front-row seats" at a concert now, but that experience will be shared between thousands of people, and leads to the homogenization and commodification of experience for a significant percentage of the population. An experience inequality, if you will (beyond what exists today).
4. Drones and Flying Cars are a security nightmare. Flying cars- if they ever get off the ground- will be a safety hazard that will require a complete redefinition of current air control laws. Drones are already proving their potential to cause harm in wars being fought in Syria and Iraq, and it's only a matter of time before we see more drone-based terrorism elsewhere in the world. Beyond that, privacy and security concerns have already been raised today, and will only magnify as the technology gets even cheaper and more robust.
5. Artificial Intelligence will wipe out a significant majority of white-collar jobs, full stop. Algorithms that are unconsciously biased will create significant hardships for large percentages of local populations, and the system will now be even more systemic, because hey, "it's a computer". And while I don't buy into it at all, let's throw in the Singularity for good measure.;)
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone means pocket surveillance devices for everyone. As the economics of Software as a Service plays out, we'll probably find those pocket supercomputers turning into pocket ball-and-chains. Vendor lock-in. And malware is only going to get worse on the very devices that know more about us than any other.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains will mean a sustained, untraceable black-market, despite the eventual phasing out of physical currency. Blockchains create paper trails that provide proof-of-purchase, and can and will be use as a means to enforce DRM.
8. High-Quality Online Education is, no matter what its proponents say, a fancy way of saying "books", and we've had books for a while now. Online education does not replace proper pedagogy, but it will syphon enough dollars away to further hurt actual education providers. And who says knowledge should be free when your courses are proprietary?
9. Better Food through Science means better food control through patents and litigation.
10. Computerized Medicine means another attack vector for hackers (gonna out and out give props to HeckRuler for that one). In case we weren't done wiping out white collar jobs, let's get rid of doctors and medical researchers too, while we're at it. And while breakthroughs will be disseminated quicker than they are now, that also means that incorrect results mistaken as break
What real world work can be done in Photoshop but not GIMP?
It isn't that GIMP lacks features Photoshop has, it's that Adobe has focused on making work easier at the professional level. It simply has smarter tools and systems that are designed to help streamline workflows. Content aware fill is a decent example: GIMP has a plugin that can do the same task, but it's slower, not as effective, and doesn't come out-of-the-box. Sure, content aware fill isn't a necessary tool, and GIMP has its own version, but Photoshop's is faster and better. And in the real world, that matters more than straightforward feature parity.
I'm absolutely no fan of GIMP*, but for most people's needs it's absolutely got the tools necessary to do the job needed. But when your entire career is working with digital images** having that extra power and efficiency in your workflow makes a huge difference. And some of those benefits happen to pan out for everybody.
*I'm no pro, and Photoshop would mostly be wasted on me. I use Pixelmator for image editing.
**Print support is a red herring, since GIMP isn't concerned with it, so it's not worth bringing up beyond this footnote.
A whole lot of things:
1. As the summary mentioned, the various parts of Jun Li were mailed to political parties and schools, which means that at least some time would have to be taken ensuring everything "matched"
2. At the same time, if I recall, there was another dismembered body (or just regular body) being found in the Montreal area, so the police had to determine whether or not that was tied to the other crime
3. Magnotta fled the country and was eventually caught in Germany (which is an interesting story in and of itself).
4. Pre-trial hearing
5. Magnotta's been under psychiatric care while the courts decide whether or not he's fit for trial
That's some of the big reasons, off the top of my head.
I can't think of anything worse than a bulb that's at the mercy of your WiFi router. My router falls over roughly twice a week and needs rebooting.
Congratulations, you just took one of the most reliable appliances in the home and made it grotesquely unreliable.
I have a set of the Philips Hue bulbs, and just to clear things up, they're not "at the mercy" of my router- sort of.
By default, all the lights are designed to "turn on" when the power is restored to the bulb. It's a full-brightness, slightly-warm light, about as close to an incandescent 60W as it can manage. Right now my lights are "off", but the power's still flowing. They revert to the default state whenever the power is turned off and then back on, meaning even if the router is down you still get "dumb" functionality. It also means you don't get a bulb stuck in a less-than-useful state (for example, I have a low red setting for when I watch movies. Great then, not at all useful anytime else).
Obviously, that's a lot of money to spend on a dumb bulb. If the router's down you lose the more useful features, like scheduling or colours, but the bulbs aren't rendered useless. The bulbs don't revert to the default state if the router goes down but power remains consistent, meaning no sudden colour changes.
I've been using the bulbs since their release, and I haven't had any issue with the router being a problem. My biggest complaint is that the default app is pretty crap. Fortunately, Philips has freely released the API, so hopefully a better app will get out soon.
Don't make multi-player games that can't be played on a LAN or which can't be hosted by players.
So how would you go about making an MMO?
Don't do in-game advertising, purchases of virtual crap for real money and assorted bullshit.
Guaranteed income from non-POS sources ultimately means more money for developers. As for "virtual crap", let's use me as an example: I'm slowly getting older, with less time for gaming. I still enjoy it, but I straight up do not like grinding for gear. My time is definitely worth more to me than my money, and spending a couple dollars to avoid playing for hours to get the same item seems like a decent trade-off. Gamers should never be obligated to pay beyond a game's initial buy-in (unless it's subscription-based), absolutely, but having the option there is great.
Don't install spyware or otherwise contact the mothership unless required to fullfill the users request.
Agreed, although some people's definition of "spyware" is a little interesting.
Don't do CD keys, limited activations, professor zorgs guides to alien etiquette or any other such anti-piracy garbage that treats the purchaser as a suspect.
Excessive DRM is poison, absolutely. But pretending that piracy doesn't exist isn't going to help the industry either. It's far more complicated than "no DRM ever", no matter how much you'd like to pretend otherwise, and I'm not even going to pretend I have anything approaching an answer..
Don't require the user to wade thru a bunch of bullshit screens before starting the game.
Yeah, no argument here.
Never lobobotomize gameplay in order to give noobs a fighting chance.
When you sit down and look at it, this argument doesn't even make any sense. Are you angry at tutorials? If you're worried that it's too easy, turn up the difficulty. Gameplay decisions are made for any number of reasons, and complicating a game doesn't automatically make it more better.
Stop making games that are impossible to lose.
You can lose at any game. Call of Duty, for all its faults, doesn't somehow bestow god mode on the player right at the beginning. If what you mean by "lose" is a "game over, start from the beginning" screen, here's what you can do: restart the game yourself.
Never remove language or funny shit for political reasons.
This might shock you, but international sales matter.
Basically make games that are fun to play again. Things have "evolved" to where this has simply become impossible to do so I no longer bother.
Maybe it's that your definition of what's "fun" doesn't match up with some of the high-profile games out there, because the pickings have never been richer.
And since nobody who matters any more gives a flying monkey about Linux,/. is forced to poke at the only company that's showing real innovation and growth over the past five years.
The whole platform falls on its face as an event organization platform if even one key person refuses to sign up to having their personal lives data mined.
The event was doomed to fail anyway, if the organizers can't figure out how to keep one "hold-out" (for lack of a better word) in the loop through other means.
Yeah, the far right will never vote for Obama. But if they think they're being ignored they might not vote at all.
There's also the matter of mending fences with the party leadership and other power brokers, who control money, volunteers, etc. All of them are solid far right these days. They were the ones that wouldn't let McCain have a moderate running mate.
Those are all good reasons, and I just want to add one more: Ryan looks like he has a plan.
I might think that Ryan's policies would be about as effective as literally setting fire to the entire United States, but the fact remains that he's worked hard at outlining his plan and putting it out there. Romney has been on the defence his entire campaign, ever since he came out as the "one to beat" in the Republican primary. Bringing Ryan into the fold might make it look like he has an actual vision for his presidency now, and puts something up that Obama will have to respond to.
Hahahahahahahahahaha oh. You were serious. Right after saying:
The bankers at Morgan Stanley applied all the lessons of the last 15 years and priced the IPO at $38, which was very aggressive, in an attempt to avoid leaving any money on the table and the embarrassment that a huge IPO pop would represent.
It's just became some sort of Apple dogma that thinner is better and thinnest is best.
And yet the latest iPad is actually thicker than the iPad 2, but I doubt you'd find anyone in Cupertino calling the iPad 2 "the best".
As the Gizmodo article pointed out, the smaller connector gives Apple the opportunity to either add more internal space to the currently-existing iPhone footprint, or shrink the device down further. Both of those are beneficial to the device's design (especially since the next iPhone will probably have LTE, and will need all the battery it can get). And when all other things are equal, in mobile computing smaller and lighter is straight-up better. It's the whole point of mobile. "Fits in pocket" is nice, but "fits well in pocket" is even better. "Can be easily fished out of the pocket when you really need it but you're sitting down and your jean pockets are small in the first place" is best.
Thinner also means "dissipates heat easier", which matters when you cram your electronics as tightly together as you can, which is what Apple does. (If I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct me. I'm no materials engineer)
Addendum:
They switched to displayport because VGA/DVI ports were too thick,
And ugly. They were big and ugly. And obsolete (VGA, anyway). So they were big and ugly and obsolete. Pretty good reason to ditch something, if you ask me.
Do "Android revenues" include advertising, e.g. ads shown in apps?
Yes. That's where the gross majority of Google's revenue from Android comes from. The Asymco link breaks it down, and points out that Google also makes between four and five times that much per iDevice, since Google is the default search engine on iOS. Google's ad-based revenue lets it worry about revenue per smartphone, not just per Android smartphone.
"It [Apple] also asks that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity."
I don't read that as Apple asking the other tech companies to free up their licenses (lord knows Apple won't open up theirs), but asking the other patent holders on the nanoSIM design to do the same. Basically: "we're not making a dime in order to push this through, guys, you should be doing the same." Just because Apple is the designer doesn't mean they're the sole patent-holder.
They could be, but this is mobile phone technology we're talking about. For every one concept there's at least eight patent holders.
"The system could still give an auditory warning for the next turn, but without being able to glance down at the map and see how close the next street is would likely lead to a lot of missed turns and resultant frustration."
Because it is literally imposible for someone to engineer an audio-only alert system for GPS units.
I've used standard GPS units, and I've still missed turn-offs. The only sure-fire way of doing things right is to study a map beforehand, plan ahead, and then pay attention to the road. You know, what we've been doing for the past century.
- UNIX with a pretty GUI (though KDE is pretty nice nowadays).
It's not "pretty", it's "well-designed", and just happens to look good. Until more Linux advocates start realizing the distinction (and props where props are due, there are plenty of design-centric Linux devs out there. Canonical, for example. Android is forcing a lot more to be), that will always be a massive hurdle for the OS.
I've always felt the Harper was one of the only things keeping the Conservatives in check, and the reason for his somewhat authoritarian style is that a lot of his MPs are pretty far off the deep end so he needs to keep them under reign.
I agree and I disagree. Harper certainly had to keep his MPs in check, but that seemed to matter more when he was running a minority government than now. You didn't hear a peep out of the fringe MPs up until the Conservatives had a majority. Without the need to appeal to Canadian moderates who would have voted for the Liberals otherwise, Harper is showing less interest in holding back the fringe MPs, and more interested in ramming his legislation down our throats. It was practical intra-party authoritarianism.
As for who might be responsible, I started writing up things and realized that I was probably sounding paranoid. I think that the Nixon comparisons being made in the Globe & Mail are warranted, but I admit I could be wrong, too.
So far one staffer has resigned as the allegations have landed, in what appears to be a case of falling-on-the-sword-itis. The scale of the scandal is actually pretty massive. As TFA points out, these calls have been confirmed to appear in 18 ridings, and others are being suspected. In those 18 ridings, the calls only hit households that were waffling Liberal (as per recent polling).
What this means is that someone had to plan the calls, get the party affiliation information on these 18 ridings (at least), hire RackNine, hire a bilingual voice actor, and see everything through. The likelihood of one person pulling all this off is next to nil, and it doesn't help that the Conservative party has a (rightly deserved) reputation for bullying and playing dirty pool with the rules.
And since it's going to come up, the Conservative Party of Canada is actually the result of a merger between two separate parties: the original Progressive Conservatives, who were the centre-right answer to the Liberal's centre-left, and the Canadian Alliance-née-Reform party, the country's (relatively)-far-right party. Prime Minister Harper was previously a member of the Canadian Alliance, and it's safe to say that his view, regardless of his party's, doesn't represent the overwhelming majority of Canadians. He's not all bad, but I will throw a party he is unceremoniously dumped from the Canadian political scene.
So you think because a few million people run Apps that the entire corporate infrastructure, the existing mainframe, unix, windows, and linux systems, and EVERYTHING ELSE is going to change to make ROOM for Apple in the enterprise?
Judging from the billion-dollar North American enterprise that I work for, yes. Unless replacing the company's entire "fleet" of Blackberries and Samsung devices with iPhones somehow doesn't count.
I travel a lot. I happen to have a netbook (HP Mini), and an iPad. The netbook has a third of the battery life, is heavier and bulkier, has worse controls, and because the screen is held further away than the iPad it's also harder on the eyes. The keyboards are miserable on both, but the thing is that I can (and do) hook up a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. I can't get rid of the netbook's keyboard. I have the iWork set for my iPad, and I'm productive enough with them. Browsing is completely superior on the iPad.
The netbook was bought because it was an experiment, and now it's collecting dust. I'm using the iPad all the time, even when I'm working on my regular computers. Between high-quality tablets and dirt-cheap, full-sized laptops, netbooks don't stand a chance.
Slashdot Mirror
The only dire consequence of eliminating these is that great Green boogeyman of more humans surviving tropical diseases. Mosquito-eating species can easily switch to other, similar, bugs: http://www.nature.com/news/201...
That very article, midway through, discusses the potential pitfalls that would result. It openly says that Arctic tundra (which is very fragile) would definitely be seriously affected. It then quotes a study noting that one species of birds reduces egg laying by one third just in reaction to dropped mosquito populations.
The article repeatedly says "yes, mosquitos serve important niches, but other species will step up to the plate" while steadfastly to reflect on how the changes in those populations will spiral out. It admits that human populations will benefit both in health (which is undeniable) and growth, but doesn't bother to bring up the consequences of either. It closes out with a quote from an entomologist from a mosquito control association, admitting that it's entirely possible something worse could spring out of it.
Sure, the article tries to make it sound like mosquitos being gone would be an unassailable net good for the earth, but it refuses to back it up.
Software should be built like a hammer.
Software isn't a hammer. If we're going to find some sort of analogous fit, let me offer: software is a car. It should be rock-steady reliable, it should perform as expected, but it's still a complex piece of machinery that ultimately is going to require tune-ups, overhauls, and replacements if you want to keep it running like new.
And the world around it is going to change: new fuel types are going to render old ones obsolete, spare parts are going to become increasingly rare and/or expensive, and structural failure is inevitable in the long run without serious care. Some cars are worth that effort, but a lot aren't.
I find it sad that they remove the camera from they watch. I love my old Gear, but I won't "upgrade" to a watch with less feature.
Having a feature isn't the same as having a feature worth having. Getting rid of a low-quality, poorly-placed camera gives Samsung the space to add features like NFC and LTE. These offer immediate, tangible benefits to the user by enabling a greater number of features and options through software, and by improving the Gear's independence. Smartwatches have to sacrifice some features to be more useful overall, and Samsung absolutely made the right call.
I know one person's already done this, but I'm gonna jump in too, because why not! :)
1. Self-Driving Cars will destroy one of the few low-skill-high-paying career tracks left. On top of the unemployment created by this, self-driving cars will reduce the need for car ownership, and in turn centralizes the routine upkeep vehicles require. From an environmental perspective this is wonderful, but imagine every single gas station, car parts manufacturer and retailer, and auto-service station going out of business. Consider the ramifications of the entire secondary industry tied to the automobile collapsing entirely.
2. Clean Energy will require a complete restructuring of the electrical grid. While homes will be more self-sufficient, our current grids are not designed for the decentralized nature that solar and wind production introduce. Existing energy (read: oil and gas) companies will pivot- they already are- to maintain their grip on energy production. They have the resources to do so.
3. Virtual and Augmented Reality won't make us any less social than before, despite naysayers, but they'll separate the idea of "experience" from "real experience". This in turn will price live attendance of events out of the range of most people. Sure, I could afford to get "front-row seats" at a concert now, but that experience will be shared between thousands of people, and leads to the homogenization and commodification of experience for a significant percentage of the population. An experience inequality, if you will (beyond what exists today).
4. Drones and Flying Cars are a security nightmare. Flying cars- if they ever get off the ground- will be a safety hazard that will require a complete redefinition of current air control laws. Drones are already proving their potential to cause harm in wars being fought in Syria and Iraq, and it's only a matter of time before we see more drone-based terrorism elsewhere in the world. Beyond that, privacy and security concerns have already been raised today, and will only magnify as the technology gets even cheaper and more robust.
5. Artificial Intelligence will wipe out a significant majority of white-collar jobs, full stop. Algorithms that are unconsciously biased will create significant hardships for large percentages of local populations, and the system will now be even more systemic, because hey, "it's a computer". And while I don't buy into it at all, let's throw in the Singularity for good measure. ;)
6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone means pocket surveillance devices for everyone. As the economics of Software as a Service plays out, we'll probably find those pocket supercomputers turning into pocket ball-and-chains. Vendor lock-in. And malware is only going to get worse on the very devices that know more about us than any other.
7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains will mean a sustained, untraceable black-market, despite the eventual phasing out of physical currency. Blockchains create paper trails that provide proof-of-purchase, and can and will be use as a means to enforce DRM.
8. High-Quality Online Education is, no matter what its proponents say, a fancy way of saying "books", and we've had books for a while now. Online education does not replace proper pedagogy, but it will syphon enough dollars away to further hurt actual education providers. And who says knowledge should be free when your courses are proprietary?
9. Better Food through Science means better food control through patents and litigation.
10. Computerized Medicine means another attack vector for hackers (gonna out and out give props to HeckRuler for that one). In case we weren't done wiping out white collar jobs, let's get rid of doctors and medical researchers too, while we're at it. And while breakthroughs will be disseminated quicker than they are now, that also means that incorrect results mistaken as break
What real world work can be done in Photoshop but not GIMP?
It isn't that GIMP lacks features Photoshop has, it's that Adobe has focused on making work easier at the professional level. It simply has smarter tools and systems that are designed to help streamline workflows. Content aware fill is a decent example: GIMP has a plugin that can do the same task, but it's slower, not as effective, and doesn't come out-of-the-box. Sure, content aware fill isn't a necessary tool, and GIMP has its own version, but Photoshop's is faster and better. And in the real world, that matters more than straightforward feature parity.
I'm absolutely no fan of GIMP*, but for most people's needs it's absolutely got the tools necessary to do the job needed. But when your entire career is working with digital images** having that extra power and efficiency in your workflow makes a huge difference. And some of those benefits happen to pan out for everybody.
*I'm no pro, and Photoshop would mostly be wasted on me. I use Pixelmator for image editing.
**Print support is a red herring, since GIMP isn't concerned with it, so it's not worth bringing up beyond this footnote.
...and I didn't realize that Microsoft's war on Steam was so thorough and insidious that it was affecting the Mac version since version one.
...or that it crippled Valve's ability to make a useful, reliable interface for its Steam controller in Windows.
...or that it sabotaged SteamOS right out of the gate.
...or... well, you're getting the idea.
Peter "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" Thiel.
There's a man whose opinions I'm going to care about.
Because a startup is obligated to serve those who need help that it cannot provide, rather than those who make the best use of its technology?
When you make promises about radically upending education for everyone, it turns out you have to actually include everyone.
that it took more than a year to develop?
A whole lot of things:
1. As the summary mentioned, the various parts of Jun Li were mailed to political parties and schools, which means that at least some time would have to be taken ensuring everything "matched"
2. At the same time, if I recall, there was another dismembered body (or just regular body) being found in the Montreal area, so the police had to determine whether or not that was tied to the other crime
3. Magnotta fled the country and was eventually caught in Germany (which is an interesting story in and of itself).
4. Pre-trial hearing 5. Magnotta's been under psychiatric care while the courts decide whether or not he's fit for trial
That's some of the big reasons, off the top of my head.
I can't think of anything worse than a bulb that's at the mercy of your WiFi router. My router falls over roughly twice a week and needs rebooting. Congratulations, you just took one of the most reliable appliances in the home and made it grotesquely unreliable.
I have a set of the Philips Hue bulbs, and just to clear things up, they're not "at the mercy" of my router- sort of.
By default, all the lights are designed to "turn on" when the power is restored to the bulb. It's a full-brightness, slightly-warm light, about as close to an incandescent 60W as it can manage. Right now my lights are "off", but the power's still flowing. They revert to the default state whenever the power is turned off and then back on, meaning even if the router is down you still get "dumb" functionality. It also means you don't get a bulb stuck in a less-than-useful state (for example, I have a low red setting for when I watch movies. Great then, not at all useful anytime else).
Obviously, that's a lot of money to spend on a dumb bulb. If the router's down you lose the more useful features, like scheduling or colours, but the bulbs aren't rendered useless. The bulbs don't revert to the default state if the router goes down but power remains consistent, meaning no sudden colour changes.
I've been using the bulbs since their release, and I haven't had any issue with the router being a problem. My biggest complaint is that the default app is pretty crap. Fortunately, Philips has freely released the API, so hopefully a better app will get out soon.
Don't make multi-player games that can't be played on a LAN or which can't be hosted by players.
So how would you go about making an MMO?
Don't do in-game advertising, purchases of virtual crap for real money and assorted bullshit.
Guaranteed income from non-POS sources ultimately means more money for developers. As for "virtual crap", let's use me as an example: I'm slowly getting older, with less time for gaming. I still enjoy it, but I straight up do not like grinding for gear. My time is definitely worth more to me than my money, and spending a couple dollars to avoid playing for hours to get the same item seems like a decent trade-off. Gamers should never be obligated to pay beyond a game's initial buy-in (unless it's subscription-based), absolutely, but having the option there is great.
Don't install spyware or otherwise contact the mothership unless required to fullfill the users request.
Agreed, although some people's definition of "spyware" is a little interesting.
Don't do CD keys, limited activations, professor zorgs guides to alien etiquette or any other such anti-piracy garbage that treats the purchaser as a suspect.
Excessive DRM is poison, absolutely. But pretending that piracy doesn't exist isn't going to help the industry either. It's far more complicated than "no DRM ever", no matter how much you'd like to pretend otherwise, and I'm not even going to pretend I have anything approaching an answer..
Don't require the user to wade thru a bunch of bullshit screens before starting the game.
Yeah, no argument here.
Never lobobotomize gameplay in order to give noobs a fighting chance.
When you sit down and look at it, this argument doesn't even make any sense. Are you angry at tutorials? If you're worried that it's too easy, turn up the difficulty. Gameplay decisions are made for any number of reasons, and complicating a game doesn't automatically make it more better.
Stop making games that are impossible to lose.
You can lose at any game. Call of Duty, for all its faults, doesn't somehow bestow god mode on the player right at the beginning. If what you mean by "lose" is a "game over, start from the beginning" screen, here's what you can do: restart the game yourself.
Never remove language or funny shit for political reasons.
This might shock you, but international sales matter.
Basically make games that are fun to play again. Things have "evolved" to where this has simply become impossible to do so I no longer bother.
Maybe it's that your definition of what's "fun" doesn't match up with some of the high-profile games out there, because the pickings have never been richer.
And since nobody who matters any more gives a flying monkey about Linux, /. is forced to poke at the only company that's showing real innovation and growth over the past five years.
(tee hee)
The whole platform falls on its face as an event organization platform if even one key person refuses to sign up to having their personal lives data mined.
The event was doomed to fail anyway, if the organizers can't figure out how to keep one "hold-out" (for lack of a better word) in the loop through other means.
Yeah, the far right will never vote for Obama. But if they think they're being ignored they might not vote at all.
There's also the matter of mending fences with the party leadership and other power brokers, who control money, volunteers, etc. All of them are solid far right these days. They were the ones that wouldn't let McCain have a moderate running mate.
Those are all good reasons, and I just want to add one more: Ryan looks like he has a plan.
I might think that Ryan's policies would be about as effective as literally setting fire to the entire United States, but the fact remains that he's worked hard at outlining his plan and putting it out there. Romney has been on the defence his entire campaign, ever since he came out as the "one to beat" in the Republican primary. Bringing Ryan into the fold might make it look like he has an actual vision for his presidency now, and puts something up that Obama will have to respond to.
Hahahahahahahahahaha oh. You were serious. Right after saying:
The bankers at Morgan Stanley applied all the lessons of the last 15 years and priced the IPO at $38, which was very aggressive, in an attempt to avoid leaving any money on the table and the embarrassment that a huge IPO pop would represent.
That sounds like a huge amount of discipline.
It's just became some sort of Apple dogma that thinner is better and thinnest is best.
And yet the latest iPad is actually thicker than the iPad 2, but I doubt you'd find anyone in Cupertino calling the iPad 2 "the best".
As the Gizmodo article pointed out, the smaller connector gives Apple the opportunity to either add more internal space to the currently-existing iPhone footprint, or shrink the device down further. Both of those are beneficial to the device's design (especially since the next iPhone will probably have LTE, and will need all the battery it can get). And when all other things are equal, in mobile computing smaller and lighter is straight-up better. It's the whole point of mobile. "Fits in pocket" is nice, but "fits well in pocket" is even better. "Can be easily fished out of the pocket when you really need it but you're sitting down and your jean pockets are small in the first place" is best.
Thinner also means "dissipates heat easier", which matters when you cram your electronics as tightly together as you can, which is what Apple does. (If I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct me. I'm no materials engineer)
Addendum:
They switched to displayport because VGA/DVI ports were too thick,
And ugly. They were big and ugly. And obsolete (VGA, anyway). So they were big and ugly and obsolete. Pretty good reason to ditch something, if you ask me.
Do "Android revenues" include advertising, e.g. ads shown in apps?
Yes. That's where the gross majority of Google's revenue from Android comes from. The Asymco link breaks it down, and points out that Google also makes between four and five times that much per iDevice, since Google is the default search engine on iOS. Google's ad-based revenue lets it worry about revenue per smartphone, not just per Android smartphone.
"It [Apple] also asks that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity."
I don't read that as Apple asking the other tech companies to free up their licenses (lord knows Apple won't open up theirs), but asking the other patent holders on the nanoSIM design to do the same. Basically: "we're not making a dime in order to push this through, guys, you should be doing the same." Just because Apple is the designer doesn't mean they're the sole patent-holder.
They could be, but this is mobile phone technology we're talking about. For every one concept there's at least eight patent holders.
"The system could still give an auditory warning for the next turn, but without being able to glance down at the map and see how close the next street is would likely lead to a lot of missed turns and resultant frustration."
Because it is literally imposible for someone to engineer an audio-only alert system for GPS units.
I've used standard GPS units, and I've still missed turn-offs. The only sure-fire way of doing things right is to study a map beforehand, plan ahead, and then pay attention to the road. You know, what we've been doing for the past century.
- UNIX with a pretty GUI (though KDE is pretty nice nowadays).
It's not "pretty", it's "well-designed", and just happens to look good. Until more Linux advocates start realizing the distinction (and props where props are due, there are plenty of design-centric Linux devs out there. Canonical, for example. Android is forcing a lot more to be), that will always be a massive hurdle for the OS.
I've always felt the Harper was one of the only things keeping the Conservatives in check, and the reason for his somewhat authoritarian style is that a lot of his MPs are pretty far off the deep end so he needs to keep them under reign.
I agree and I disagree. Harper certainly had to keep his MPs in check, but that seemed to matter more when he was running a minority government than now. You didn't hear a peep out of the fringe MPs up until the Conservatives had a majority. Without the need to appeal to Canadian moderates who would have voted for the Liberals otherwise, Harper is showing less interest in holding back the fringe MPs, and more interested in ramming his legislation down our throats. It was practical intra-party authoritarianism.
As for who might be responsible, I started writing up things and realized that I was probably sounding paranoid. I think that the Nixon comparisons being made in the Globe & Mail are warranted, but I admit I could be wrong, too.
And that also means that The Harper Government would also be out.
So far one staffer has resigned as the allegations have landed, in what appears to be a case of falling-on-the-sword-itis. The scale of the scandal is actually pretty massive. As TFA points out, these calls have been confirmed to appear in 18 ridings, and others are being suspected. In those 18 ridings, the calls only hit households that were waffling Liberal (as per recent polling).
What this means is that someone had to plan the calls, get the party affiliation information on these 18 ridings (at least), hire RackNine, hire a bilingual voice actor, and see everything through. The likelihood of one person pulling all this off is next to nil, and it doesn't help that the Conservative party has a (rightly deserved) reputation for bullying and playing dirty pool with the rules.
And since it's going to come up, the Conservative Party of Canada is actually the result of a merger between two separate parties: the original Progressive Conservatives, who were the centre-right answer to the Liberal's centre-left, and the Canadian Alliance-née-Reform party, the country's (relatively)-far-right party. Prime Minister Harper was previously a member of the Canadian Alliance, and it's safe to say that his view, regardless of his party's, doesn't represent the overwhelming majority of Canadians. He's not all bad, but I will throw a party he is unceremoniously dumped from the Canadian political scene.
So you think because a few million people run Apps that the entire corporate infrastructure, the existing mainframe, unix, windows, and linux systems, and EVERYTHING ELSE is going to change to make ROOM for Apple in the enterprise?
Judging from the billion-dollar North American enterprise that I work for, yes. Unless replacing the company's entire "fleet" of Blackberries and Samsung devices with iPhones somehow doesn't count.
I travel a lot. I happen to have a netbook (HP Mini), and an iPad. The netbook has a third of the battery life, is heavier and bulkier, has worse controls, and because the screen is held further away than the iPad it's also harder on the eyes. The keyboards are miserable on both, but the thing is that I can (and do) hook up a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. I can't get rid of the netbook's keyboard. I have the iWork set for my iPad, and I'm productive enough with them. Browsing is completely superior on the iPad.
The netbook was bought because it was an experiment, and now it's collecting dust. I'm using the iPad all the time, even when I'm working on my regular computers. Between high-quality tablets and dirt-cheap, full-sized laptops, netbooks don't stand a chance.