As far as I can tell, the researcher is comparing clusters of bacteria with individual (human) choice. Surely he should be comparing clusters of bacteria with clusters of people...
I'm not sure why. They're comparing a cluster of bacteria cells to a cluster of human cells. An individual person is still a cluster of cells.
Re:Israel is an interesting exercise in Game Theor
on
Gambling On Bacteria
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· Score: 1
However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side. If the Palestinians stop and Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies, the Palestinians will lose what little they have.
I'm not sure it's a simple as that. I'm no expert on the subject, but it often seems like each side is going beyond the point of defending themselves and antagonizing the other side. There's a lot of revenge and hatred and contempt going on, which often results in sub-optimal outcomes for everyone involved.
Yeah, it depends on what you're protecting against. If the purpose of online passwords is primarily to prevent other online users from accessing your account, then writing the password down in a notebook on your desk is safe. Insofar as the purpose is to protect your account from someone who has access to your desk, it's not safe.
It's important to remember that security depends on context.
Yeah, I know it was a joke, and I thought a good one.
But people get so sensitive sometimes, and every time someone says something they disagree with, they'll accuse you of bias. I think I have been accused of being a FOSS fanboy, a Mac fanboy, and a Windows apologist.
From my point of view, I'm just trying to be fair.
Yeah, but if you go back through my post history, you'll see that I'm a Microsoft-hater and Mac-fanboy (or at least that's what I usually get accused of. I still prefer OSX to Windows 7, and I refuse to buy Windows 7 or Office 2010 because I won't buy any product that required "activation".
Still, for the sake of fairness I'll admit that Windows 7 and Office 2010 are both pretty good. Neither ads many features that are terribly compelling. I can do most of the same things using FOSS. Still... my personal opinion...? I'll grant them that Outlook 2010 might be my favorite mail client that I've tried.
Yeah, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but Windows 7 is pretty decent. It doesn't seem spectacular to me, and sometimes when I see people trying to hype it I suspect it's astroturfing, but it is fairly solid and fast and the UI is improved. Office 2010 is also very good. I wish I could get Outlook 2010 on other platforms, but alas Outlook 2011 for Mac doesn't seem to be as good.
Re:Wish Apple put some work on OSX
on
The Hackintosh Guide
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· Score: 5, Informative
Is this a troll? The platform has been stagnant since 2008? Wikipedia says OSX 10.6 was released in August 2009, just over a year ago. Even if it had been 2 years, taking 2 years to release a major new OS release is not strange.
As far as all the poor performance and memory problems, those don't seem common to me. Maybe one of your installed apps has a memory leak?
The only thing is, I have a Mac running Windows. I have another Mac running Linux. They're Apple Macintosh computers, but that really only tells you the manufacturer, in that you could say, "This is an Apple Macintosh," in about the same way as you could say, "This is a Dell Optiplex."
Meh, I really don't think it's a big deal. There has been an HTML render built into their OS that has been used in iTunes for a while. My understanding is the "social network" built into iTunes is still HTML, and therefore it's not like you're adding a lot of code to iTunes itself. So yeah, it's "bloated" in the sense that it has features that many people won't really want, but on the other hand it probably didn't add a lot of "bloat" in terms of new code or inefficient code.
Meanwhile they just released an update a year ago that stripped out a lot of legacy code, optimized the rest, and added few new features. I'm not sure it makes sense to call their software "bloated", at least not in a general context. At most, I'd probably say that iTunes could use some refocusing and reorganizing.
And he listed a few reasons for that, one of which is that for current Verizon customers to switch, they will have to pony up the full price of the phone.
Right, and that's a silly point to make, since some Verizon customers will be eligible for an upgrade, while the will become eligible for an upgrade at some point. All of them will eventually have the option of upgrading.
The only thing it points to is the fact that the iPhone likely won't make a huge splash on Verizon
Yeah... except you could have said the same thing about any previous phone release-- "it won't make a big splash because some people will be locked into contracts when the new device comes out." Maybe there's enough truth to that to say no cell phone is ever capable of "making a big splash".
However, that doesn't really say whether an iPhone on Verizon would or wouldn't steal Android customers. It just means that if it does steal a lot of Android customers, some of those customers are likely to wait some amount of time (months or years) to be stolen, while others might be stolen immediately.
I doubt that regular Joes really give a crap about where a device sits, be it between the wall plug and the TV, or as an accessory to the side.
I don't think the author was concerned with whether the device was *literally* plugged into input 1 or input 2. I think the issue is more whether it alters your normal TV watching habits or whether it's an alternate device/service. In other words, if the device is confusing or problematic, will it interfere with your normal TV-watching?
As far as Tivo, I'm under the impression that Tivo isn't doing extremely well these days, and if people want a DVR they usually go with whatever box their cable company offers.
If the user experience is good enough, they'll go for it.
It's true, I didn't read his comment carefully enough at first to understand where he was getting the $500 price tag, but certainly part of the reason I didn't understand at first is because it's complete nonsense.
Of course the number of people who break their contract in order to buy an iPhone will be low. The number of people who break their contract to buy *any* phone is low. How many people do you think broke their contract to buy a Droid?
So the $500 number is irrelevant, and implying that iPhones cost $500 is misleading. Whenever a new phone comes out, there are some people who are under contract, some people who are not under contract, and some people who are about to fulfill their contract.
There's nothing special about the iPhone that makes it magically get released right after everyone in the world signs on for a 2 year contract, and then makes it get pulled from the market right before their contract expires. Getting a Verizon iPhone (should it be released) will not require breaking your contract. It will only require that you're patient enough to either (a) already have fulfilled your contract at some point without getting a new phone; or (b) wait until your current contract expires.
your cable box continues to work just like it always did, except now it's got the ability to surf the web, video chat, stream netflix/amazon/youtube/dlna stuff, search for tv shows using the google interface instead of the crappy one that came with your cable box, etc.
Right, so it have very different functionality and a different interface. Your cable box continues to work just like it always did, except totally different.
I guess so, except well supported by everyone and without problems. I want to be able to watch whatever TV shows and movies I want on any hardware device I want. I want multiple choices in "video service providers", being able to make decisions based on the price and the quality of service they provide rather than the hardware support they have available.
I want to be able to use my XBox to buy a movie from iTunes or use a AppleTV to buy a movie from Amazon without needing Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to have made prior deals (other than agreeing to use the same formats/protocols). I want to be able to watch Hulu shows on a iPad or a Zune or a set-top box without needing special permission and special software via Hulu Plus.
All of these companies keep crippling their own services, introducing artificial restrictions, and then asking for additional money to let you do the things you should have been able to do from the start. They need to get their shit together, or else we should find a way to bypass them.
A) I didn't say Android was going away anytime soon.
B) I don't disagree that many people with contracts expiring now are getting Droid phones. However, there will also be people with expired/expiring contracts when the iPhone 5 is released, and the question is more about what will happen then.
Claiming that iPhones cost $500 because you have to break your existing contract is a bit unfair. iPhones are basically no more expensive than Android phones.
Sort of. The problem is that Netflix and Hulu Plus and Amazon and iTunes all need support built into boxes individually rather than buying a set-top box and being able to choose your content provider independently of your choice in hardware.
Beyond that, all of these services lack content. I don't mean to say that Netflix doesn't have much content, but rather that it also lacks a lot of content. I have Netflix, but it doesn't have access to as many new episodes as Hulu or iTunes.
No, it's a little more like saying "An iPod nano costs $150". Sure, you have to buy albums from somewhere if you want to play music on it, but the device is $150, and you have no obligation to pay anything on top of that if you don't want to.
There is some rambling about input 1 and 2 and I'm not quite sure what he is getting at with that but the conclusion was Apple uses input 2 and that made it easier and therefore better.
The point he's trying to make is that Google seems to be trying to get in the middle of your primary TV viewing-- I gather from the article that it's supposed to sit between your cable box and your TV. He's saying that might be scary for some people, since part of the continued success of cable TV is that it's "the devil you know" and people are comfortable with it, so they may not want Google screwing around with that experience.
Meanwhile, the AppleTV (in the author's view, at least) is not supposed to screw with your cable TV experience. Instead, it's an additional device, perhaps taking the place of a DVD player. So the author is saying that this is less scary, and probably more likely to work.
So that's what the "input 1 vs. input 2" thing is about.
There is no technical content and no specs or options are even considered in his comparison of which is better.
In fairness, it's probably not the technical specs that are going to make these devices more or less successful. Qualitative experience and availability of content are much more important for most people.
The AppleTV can stream un-DRMed audio/video from iTunes. I think you need iTunes, though, unless there's an open-source project that can replicate iTunes sharing/streaming. Apple doesn't require that video content be DRMed in order to play, and the music they sell doesn't even contain DRM anymore.
You will need to have the audio/video be in a format that's supported. For now, that probably means H264 for video and AAC or MP3 for audio. However, the new AppleTVs are iOS devices, meaning that we may see VLC running on them at some point. (VLC is available for the iPad now)
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can tell, the researcher is comparing clusters of bacteria with individual (human) choice. Surely he should be comparing clusters of bacteria with clusters of people...
I'm not sure why. They're comparing a cluster of bacteria cells to a cluster of human cells. An individual person is still a cluster of cells.
However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side. If the Palestinians stop and Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies, the Palestinians will lose what little they have.
I'm not sure it's a simple as that. I'm no expert on the subject, but it often seems like each side is going beyond the point of defending themselves and antagonizing the other side. There's a lot of revenge and hatred and contempt going on, which often results in sub-optimal outcomes for everyone involved.
Yeah, it depends on what you're protecting against. If the purpose of online passwords is primarily to prevent other online users from accessing your account, then writing the password down in a notebook on your desk is safe. Insofar as the purpose is to protect your account from someone who has access to your desk, it's not safe.
It's important to remember that security depends on context.
There are still a lot of services that use passwords but don't use (or at least don't force you to use) HTTPS.
Yeah, I know it was a joke, and I thought a good one.
But people get so sensitive sometimes, and every time someone says something they disagree with, they'll accuse you of bias. I think I have been accused of being a FOSS fanboy, a Mac fanboy, and a Windows apologist.
From my point of view, I'm just trying to be fair.
Yeah, but if you go back through my post history, you'll see that I'm a Microsoft-hater and Mac-fanboy (or at least that's what I usually get accused of. I still prefer OSX to Windows 7, and I refuse to buy Windows 7 or Office 2010 because I won't buy any product that required "activation".
Still, for the sake of fairness I'll admit that Windows 7 and Office 2010 are both pretty good. Neither ads many features that are terribly compelling. I can do most of the same things using FOSS. Still... my personal opinion...? I'll grant them that Outlook 2010 might be my favorite mail client that I've tried.
Yeah, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but Windows 7 is pretty decent. It doesn't seem spectacular to me, and sometimes when I see people trying to hype it I suspect it's astroturfing, but it is fairly solid and fast and the UI is improved. Office 2010 is also very good. I wish I could get Outlook 2010 on other platforms, but alas Outlook 2011 for Mac doesn't seem to be as good.
Is this a troll? The platform has been stagnant since 2008? Wikipedia says OSX 10.6 was released in August 2009, just over a year ago. Even if it had been 2 years, taking 2 years to release a major new OS release is not strange.
As far as all the poor performance and memory problems, those don't seem common to me. Maybe one of your installed apps has a memory leak?
But Macs are now also IBM PC clone/compatible, too.
The only thing is, I have a Mac running Windows. I have another Mac running Linux. They're Apple Macintosh computers, but that really only tells you the manufacturer, in that you could say, "This is an Apple Macintosh," in about the same way as you could say, "This is a Dell Optiplex."
Meh, I really don't think it's a big deal. There has been an HTML render built into their OS that has been used in iTunes for a while. My understanding is the "social network" built into iTunes is still HTML, and therefore it's not like you're adding a lot of code to iTunes itself. So yeah, it's "bloated" in the sense that it has features that many people won't really want, but on the other hand it probably didn't add a lot of "bloat" in terms of new code or inefficient code.
Meanwhile they just released an update a year ago that stripped out a lot of legacy code, optimized the rest, and added few new features. I'm not sure it makes sense to call their software "bloated", at least not in a general context. At most, I'd probably say that iTunes could use some refocusing and reorganizing.
And he listed a few reasons for that, one of which is that for current Verizon customers to switch, they will have to pony up the full price of the phone.
Right, and that's a silly point to make, since some Verizon customers will be eligible for an upgrade, while the will become eligible for an upgrade at some point. All of them will eventually have the option of upgrading.
The only thing it points to is the fact that the iPhone likely won't make a huge splash on Verizon
Yeah... except you could have said the same thing about any previous phone release-- "it won't make a big splash because some people will be locked into contracts when the new device comes out." Maybe there's enough truth to that to say no cell phone is ever capable of "making a big splash".
However, that doesn't really say whether an iPhone on Verizon would or wouldn't steal Android customers. It just means that if it does steal a lot of Android customers, some of those customers are likely to wait some amount of time (months or years) to be stolen, while others might be stolen immediately.
Care to explain? What were your problems, who did you switch to and why?
I know it's off-topic, but you brought it up and I'm curious.
I doubt that regular Joes really give a crap about where a device sits, be it between the wall plug and the TV, or as an accessory to the side.
I don't think the author was concerned with whether the device was *literally* plugged into input 1 or input 2. I think the issue is more whether it alters your normal TV watching habits or whether it's an alternate device/service. In other words, if the device is confusing or problematic, will it interfere with your normal TV-watching?
As far as Tivo, I'm under the impression that Tivo isn't doing extremely well these days, and if people want a DVR they usually go with whatever box their cable company offers.
If the user experience is good enough, they'll go for it.
I'd agree with that.
It's true, I didn't read his comment carefully enough at first to understand where he was getting the $500 price tag, but certainly part of the reason I didn't understand at first is because it's complete nonsense.
Of course the number of people who break their contract in order to buy an iPhone will be low. The number of people who break their contract to buy *any* phone is low. How many people do you think broke their contract to buy a Droid?
So the $500 number is irrelevant, and implying that iPhones cost $500 is misleading. Whenever a new phone comes out, there are some people who are under contract, some people who are not under contract, and some people who are about to fulfill their contract.
There's nothing special about the iPhone that makes it magically get released right after everyone in the world signs on for a 2 year contract, and then makes it get pulled from the market right before their contract expires. Getting a Verizon iPhone (should it be released) will not require breaking your contract. It will only require that you're patient enough to either (a) already have fulfilled your contract at some point without getting a new phone; or (b) wait until your current contract expires.
your cable box continues to work just like it always did, except now it's got the ability to surf the web, video chat, stream netflix/amazon/youtube/dlna stuff, search for tv shows using the google interface instead of the crappy one that came with your cable box, etc.
Right, so it have very different functionality and a different interface. Your cable box continues to work just like it always did, except totally different.
Sounds like you are describing DLNA.
I guess so, except well supported by everyone and without problems. I want to be able to watch whatever TV shows and movies I want on any hardware device I want. I want multiple choices in "video service providers", being able to make decisions based on the price and the quality of service they provide rather than the hardware support they have available.
I want to be able to use my XBox to buy a movie from iTunes or use a AppleTV to buy a movie from Amazon without needing Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to have made prior deals (other than agreeing to use the same formats/protocols). I want to be able to watch Hulu shows on a iPad or a Zune or a set-top box without needing special permission and special software via Hulu Plus.
All of these companies keep crippling their own services, introducing artificial restrictions, and then asking for additional money to let you do the things you should have been able to do from the start. They need to get their shit together, or else we should find a way to bypass them.
Sure, but in that sense, many of the popular Android phones are ~$500 too.
A) I didn't say Android was going away anytime soon.
B) I don't disagree that many people with contracts expiring now are getting Droid phones. However, there will also be people with expired/expiring contracts when the iPhone 5 is released, and the question is more about what will happen then.
Claiming that iPhones cost $500 because you have to break your existing contract is a bit unfair. iPhones are basically no more expensive than Android phones.
Sort of. The problem is that Netflix and Hulu Plus and Amazon and iTunes all need support built into boxes individually rather than buying a set-top box and being able to choose your content provider independently of your choice in hardware.
Beyond that, all of these services lack content. I don't mean to say that Netflix doesn't have much content, but rather that it also lacks a lot of content. I have Netflix, but it doesn't have access to as many new episodes as Hulu or iTunes.
No, it's a little more like saying "An iPod nano costs $150". Sure, you have to buy albums from somewhere if you want to play music on it, but the device is $150, and you have no obligation to pay anything on top of that if you don't want to.
There is some rambling about input 1 and 2 and I'm not quite sure what he is getting at with that but the conclusion was Apple uses input 2 and that made it easier and therefore better.
The point he's trying to make is that Google seems to be trying to get in the middle of your primary TV viewing-- I gather from the article that it's supposed to sit between your cable box and your TV. He's saying that might be scary for some people, since part of the continued success of cable TV is that it's "the devil you know" and people are comfortable with it, so they may not want Google screwing around with that experience.
Meanwhile, the AppleTV (in the author's view, at least) is not supposed to screw with your cable TV experience. Instead, it's an additional device, perhaps taking the place of a DVD player. So the author is saying that this is less scary, and probably more likely to work.
So that's what the "input 1 vs. input 2" thing is about.
There is no technical content and no specs or options are even considered in his comparison of which is better.
In fairness, it's probably not the technical specs that are going to make these devices more or less successful. Qualitative experience and availability of content are much more important for most people.
Not everyone is under contract, and people's contracts expire all the time.
The AppleTV can stream un-DRMed audio/video from iTunes. I think you need iTunes, though, unless there's an open-source project that can replicate iTunes sharing/streaming. Apple doesn't require that video content be DRMed in order to play, and the music they sell doesn't even contain DRM anymore.
You will need to have the audio/video be in a format that's supported. For now, that probably means H264 for video and AAC or MP3 for audio. However, the new AppleTVs are iOS devices, meaning that we may see VLC running on them at some point. (VLC is available for the iPad now)