sad that so many Slashdot readers are so financially strapped that they can't conceive of the possibility of owning a device that doesn't fit 100% of their computing needs, even though it may be an ideal fit for many of them.
Personally, I own both a netbook AND an iPad. I've been using the netbook as my primary computing device for over two months now while traveling on business and it's been great. I use the iPad for sitting on the couch websurfing, and ebook reading...tasks that any laptop format device sucks at.
So I guess my response to the question of "why would I want a device that doesn't do everything" is twofold:
1. No device does everything well, so I'm using devices that are best suited for the tasks at hand.
2. I can afford it. Seriously, are you people so strapped for cash that $399 is a completely outrageous sum of money? Get a job hippie!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the rather obvious problem of people being held accountable for the 100% accurate function of technology that is outside of their control, or possibly even feedback.
Imagine being told at the end of term that you missed too many classes, when in fact you attended every one. All due to your RFID card being defective, broken, accidentally shielded, or other malfunction.
Note that the article said "using sensors to detect students cards", which implies a passive scan, rather than an active swipe. The fact that journalism is a dead art form and you can't trust a person to write a story using words that actually convey the facts of the situation COULD be misleading in this case.
Funny how no Muslims gave a crap that south Park already showed Muhammed in full face glory, and conversed with him during the Super Best Friends episode...but that was years before the Dutch cartoon crisis that made us all "sensitive".
Frankly, the idea that Muslims are being portrayed as irrational, murderous, religious fanatics is more disturbing than any insult SP might offer. Muslims should be pissed that everyone thinks they'll flare up into terrorism at every sideways glance at their faith.
or conversely, if Muslims really ARE that prone to murderous violence, that's kind of important to know too, and we should do something about it.
yes, I am actually saying that if a group of people are one off color joke away from committing murder, we need to "do something" about them.
I know its stated in TFA, but such regulations only effect on campus students, and at a school like mine, that's only about 5-10% of the total student body. So this regulation most likely has absolutely no effect on 90% of the students. And even the freshmen on campus know the ways around it, one of my friends always just uses the wireless of his off campus fraternity house to do all of his illegal downloading.
Before reading this article, and your post as well, I had no idea that college students were so F'ing clueless and helpless. For even 10% of the student body to feel in any way limited by these regulations baffles me to no end.
Class action = no time spent, a little money
Small claims = lots of time spent, possibly a full refund. Maybe.
Given the crazy lives people lead, I'm not surprised so many choose the 'no time spent' route.
Except that I'm aware of only a VERY few cases of class action lawsuits filed for consumers that resulted in cash settlements of any kind. Typically the result is a coupon for a discount off another product from the same company that just admitted to screwing you, but only if purchased at full retail price. Resulting in another sale for them, and a net HIGHER price for you.
Class action lawsuits only make money for the lawyers, the "plaintiffs" just get the opportunity to be screwed for a second time.
So indentured servitude is OK so long as it's mentioned in advance?
While "mentioning it in advance" IS a key component of indentured servitude, that's where the similarity to this situation ends (making it a very poor analogy).
Being able to leave a job you don't like at any time, for any reason, without any notice, is kind of the exact opposite of indentured servitude.
Re:He didn't address suitability of it as a ereade
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 1
I don't understand the ad hominem attacks and I can't keep evidence for every scrap of information I pick up in life. You are free to reject the evidence if it doesn't meet your standards or match up with your observations.
It's true, you don't understand ad hominem attacks. It's not a synonym for "insult", I suggest you familiarize yourself with the definition before trotting it out again.
can anyone cite an example of a law passed while being claimed "it's not a primary offense, you can't be pulled over for JUST 'x' " that wasn't subsequently made into a primary offense a handful of years later?
Here in washington state, we've suffered that bit of legislative dishonesty in both the seatbelt AND now the cell phone laws.
The facts are undeniable. Using a cell phone is a distraction, and we can pretend it puts a person on the level of Nazi deathcamp guards, but in the real world it's LESS of a distraction than the myriad of other things people do in the car.
Unless you want eating, talking to passengers, using a radio, looking at things off the side of the roadway, all to be illegal too, then you should seriously have second thoughts about these laws.
Re:He didn't address suitability of it as a ereade
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
I've read about studies indicating that only 10% of people who buy books read them to the end. I read almost all my books to the end. I like to read, thus I am in the minority of readers.
I don't understand why Best Buy and other retailers keep trying to charge $35 for a BluRay movie, when Amazon.com has tons for $15-$20 or less. Blame retailers and studios for jacking up prices.
Sony doesn't set movie prices? So who sets the prices for Sony Pictures releases then? If you think Sony doesn't have a vested interest in high BD prices, you're wrong.
That being said, they're just plain stupid for not realizing there's a LOT more money to be made by selling a lot of BD disks at LOW prices than there is at selling fewer at high prices.
The Article was dated 1st April - so we don't really know it's true.
Which is part of the reason why I object to serious news outlets participating in April Fool's jokes.
No shit. I love how everyone says "oh just lighten up, it's only one day for jokes". Except that the Internet doesn't work that fucking way. Everything released into the wild on April 1 stays out there forever, it doesn't just evaporate on April 2.
Not to mention the fact that on April 1, you have no damn idea what stories are real, or just clever fakes.
This isn't actually true, the iPhone has AGPS which will work perfectly fine without a cell signal - it just takes a little longer to lock on. "
That statement is factually untrue. I tried this in the colorado rocky mountains where I had ZERO cell phone signal, but 360 sky view. The only thing the iphone GPS returned was "no signal"
That's "dead cat bounce". A term I first heard from the financial industry,...We should be more sensitive, I think... Cats can take care of themselves, and most don't really care about us anyways.
No I mean "dead man bounce" a term referring to suicide jumpers off of buildings, which is far more applicable to the vinyl market than financial metaphors.
I'm sure you'll be sensitive enough for both of us.
Vinyl is rising because it bottomed out and is doing the proverbial "dead man bounce".
The reason some people like vinyl better than digital, is because it sounds "warmer", which is just a positive spin on "muddled" or "lower dynamic range". They complain that digital sounds too harsh.
The unpleasant truth though is LIVE music is harsh, that's the sound you don't like. You just won't find self-proclaimed audiophiles proudly saying "I don't like how live music sounds, so I prefer it run through a distortion filter first".
all it really took to accomplish "Invisibility Cloak Created In 3D", was to redefine the terms "invisibility", "cloak" and "created" in new, creative ways that fit what they actually did.
iPod-ers can't seem to understand thought why someone would want a device dedicated JUST to reading though.
You've missed my point entirely.
Personally, I DO own a device dedicated to just reading because my iphone screen is smaller than I like, and there's no page turn button.
The point of contention is the ridiculous claims that come from the e-ink people about how unusable LCD is for ebooks, and wildly exaggerating the benefits of e-ink.
The entire e-book industry is on the verge of stillbirth due to corporate politics and greed on the BOOK side. The readers are a non issue in my opinion.
Unless you're reading on the beach in the sun. Or in low light situations where a glowing screen can be a strain. I'm going to guess that the 10 hours a day you spend looking at an LCD do not include such activities. The hour or two a day you may spend reading a book might.
Try reading a kindle in the dark. Now try reading it with the clip on book light they want you to use, constantly adjusting the position because of glare is not a great experience.
And I'm not sure how much you paid for an LCD that doesn't have adjustable brightness, but it was probably too much. When I read on my iphone at night, I use the inverted screen (white txt on black) and it's not only very nice at night, it works well in bright sunlight too.
I don't understand why people don't just TRY these things instead of parroting this nonsense about LCD's being no good for reading.
"Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading. "
LCD's aren't suitable for digital reading? You mean the LCD's I read off of 10 hours a day at work are completely unacceptable for reading now? I have a Kindle which uses the wonderful to read e-ink display and the low contrast, washed out grey text on lighter grey background, with no backlighting, slow page draws, and previous page ghosting, is NOT a superior reading experience to a decent LCD. Not even close. To claim otherwise is just bald faced LYING.
I do a LOT of ebook reading on my iphone, and on my kindle, so I actually do know the difference. e-ink displays excel in battery life and that is the ONLY category they are better than modern LCD
fast server assembly? BFD. Servers come already assembled. If you want to wow me, show me a challenge where the guy racks, cables it per standards, labels the server properly, labels the cables, sets the switch port vlans, updates the CMDB, etc. You know, does the WHOLE thing, not just the easy part.
"Also (and related): battery life. Get an iPad, watch it run out of power partway through your flight. Get an eBook reader, watch it run out of power a couple of weeks later."
How far are you flying? I regularly watch movies on my iphone while flying and have yet to run out of battery mid flight. So battery life has not been an issue in the slightest for me.
Now get an FAA exemption from the stupid "electronic device" ban for ebook readers and THEN you have a serious win.
multipurpose devices will undoubtedly replace single purpose GPS units for anything except very special cases, but for the reasons you say it's not going to happen any time soon. True GPS has to be incorporated into the phones, not the hybrid stuff used now.
try using your iphone Google Maps feature in a dead cell zone. you get el zilcho, nothing, not a thing. Plain old GPS loves wide open spaces, cell phones...not so much.
"when I consider that there are soon going to be literally dozens of cheaper, Linux-powered iPad devices on the market"
Ok, find I'm sold. can I order one today? Tomorrow? 6 months?
No, well FU then. I've been waiting for a slate computing device like this for YEARS and someone is shipping one next month, that someone happens to be Apple. If something better comes along, fine I'll take one of those too, then ReBay the iPad. If the market floods with them and nothing is any better, I'll keep it.
I can't sit down on the couch with Vaporware, so how long are we supposed to wait? And frankly I'm not poor enough to worry about waiting to save a couple $$ to buy the exact best thing at the exact best time.
Slashdot Mirror
sad that so many Slashdot readers are so financially strapped that they can't conceive of the possibility of owning a device that doesn't fit 100% of their computing needs, even though it may be an ideal fit for many of them.
Personally, I own both a netbook AND an iPad. I've been using the netbook as my primary computing device for over two months now while traveling on business and it's been great. I use the iPad for sitting on the couch websurfing, and ebook reading...tasks that any laptop format device sucks at.
So I guess my response to the question of "why would I want a device that doesn't do everything" is twofold:
1. No device does everything well, so I'm using devices that are best suited for the tasks at hand. 2. I can afford it. Seriously, are you people so strapped for cash that $399 is a completely outrageous sum of money? Get a job hippie!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the rather obvious problem of people being held accountable for the 100% accurate function of technology that is outside of their control, or possibly even feedback.
Imagine being told at the end of term that you missed too many classes, when in fact you attended every one. All due to your RFID card being defective, broken, accidentally shielded, or other malfunction.
Note that the article said "using sensors to detect students cards", which implies a passive scan, rather than an active swipe. The fact that journalism is a dead art form and you can't trust a person to write a story using words that actually convey the facts of the situation COULD be misleading in this case.
Funny how no Muslims gave a crap that south Park already showed Muhammed in full face glory, and conversed with him during the Super Best Friends episode...but that was years before the Dutch cartoon crisis that made us all "sensitive". Frankly, the idea that Muslims are being portrayed as irrational, murderous, religious fanatics is more disturbing than any insult SP might offer. Muslims should be pissed that everyone thinks they'll flare up into terrorism at every sideways glance at their faith. or conversely, if Muslims really ARE that prone to murderous violence, that's kind of important to know too, and we should do something about it. yes, I am actually saying that if a group of people are one off color joke away from committing murder, we need to "do something" about them.
I know its stated in TFA, but such regulations only effect on campus students, and at a school like mine, that's only about 5-10% of the total student body. So this regulation most likely has absolutely no effect on 90% of the students. And even the freshmen on campus know the ways around it, one of my friends always just uses the wireless of his off campus fraternity house to do all of his illegal downloading.
Before reading this article, and your post as well, I had no idea that college students were so F'ing clueless and helpless. For even 10% of the student body to feel in any way limited by these regulations baffles me to no end.
WTF does that mean? Sounds like college students are still as arrogant and clueless about life in the real world as when I was one 20+ years ago.
There's no shortage of file sharing outside of college campus networks, life in the real world just doesn't spoon feed you.
Class action = no time spent, a little money Small claims = lots of time spent, possibly a full refund. Maybe.
Given the crazy lives people lead, I'm not surprised so many choose the 'no time spent' route.
Except that I'm aware of only a VERY few cases of class action lawsuits filed for consumers that resulted in cash settlements of any kind. Typically the result is a coupon for a discount off another product from the same company that just admitted to screwing you, but only if purchased at full retail price. Resulting in another sale for them, and a net HIGHER price for you.
Class action lawsuits only make money for the lawyers, the "plaintiffs" just get the opportunity to be screwed for a second time.
So indentured servitude is OK so long as it's mentioned in advance?
While "mentioning it in advance" IS a key component of indentured servitude, that's where the similarity to this situation ends (making it a very poor analogy).
Being able to leave a job you don't like at any time, for any reason, without any notice, is kind of the exact opposite of indentured servitude.
I don't understand the ad hominem attacks and I can't keep evidence for every scrap of information I pick up in life. You are free to reject the evidence if it doesn't meet your standards or match up with your observations.
It's true, you don't understand ad hominem attacks. It's not a synonym for "insult", I suggest you familiarize yourself with the definition before trotting it out again.
can anyone cite an example of a law passed while being claimed "it's not a primary offense, you can't be pulled over for JUST 'x' " that wasn't subsequently made into a primary offense a handful of years later?
Here in washington state, we've suffered that bit of legislative dishonesty in both the seatbelt AND now the cell phone laws.
The facts are undeniable. Using a cell phone is a distraction, and we can pretend it puts a person on the level of Nazi deathcamp guards, but in the real world it's LESS of a distraction than the myriad of other things people do in the car.
Unless you want eating, talking to passengers, using a radio, looking at things off the side of the roadway, all to be illegal too, then you should seriously have second thoughts about these laws.
I've read about studies indicating that only 10% of people who buy books read them to the end. I read almost all my books to the end. I like to read, thus I am in the minority of readers.
Citation needed.
Also, self-important narcissistic jackass filter needed.
Sony doesn't set movie prices.
I don't understand why Best Buy and other retailers keep trying to charge $35 for a BluRay movie, when Amazon.com has tons for $15-$20 or less. Blame retailers and studios for jacking up prices.
Sony doesn't set movie prices? So who sets the prices for Sony Pictures releases then? If you think Sony doesn't have a vested interest in high BD prices, you're wrong.
That being said, they're just plain stupid for not realizing there's a LOT more money to be made by selling a lot of BD disks at LOW prices than there is at selling fewer at high prices.
The Article was dated 1st April - so we don't really know it's true.
Which is part of the reason why I object to serious news outlets participating in April Fool's jokes.
No shit. I love how everyone says "oh just lighten up, it's only one day for jokes". Except that the Internet doesn't work that fucking way. Everything released into the wild on April 1 stays out there forever, it doesn't just evaporate on April 2.
Not to mention the fact that on April 1, you have no damn idea what stories are real, or just clever fakes.
This isn't actually true, the iPhone has AGPS which will work perfectly fine without a cell signal - it just takes a little longer to lock on. "
That statement is factually untrue. I tried this in the colorado rocky mountains where I had ZERO cell phone signal, but 360 sky view. The only thing the iphone GPS returned was "no signal"
That's "dead cat bounce". A term I first heard from the financial industry,...We should be more sensitive, I think... Cats can take care of themselves, and most don't really care about us anyways.
No I mean "dead man bounce" a term referring to suicide jumpers off of buildings, which is far more applicable to the vinyl market than financial metaphors.
I'm sure you'll be sensitive enough for both of us.
Vinyl is rising because it bottomed out and is doing the proverbial "dead man bounce".
The reason some people like vinyl better than digital, is because it sounds "warmer", which is just a positive spin on "muddled" or "lower dynamic range". They complain that digital sounds too harsh.
The unpleasant truth though is LIVE music is harsh, that's the sound you don't like. You just won't find self-proclaimed audiophiles proudly saying "I don't like how live music sounds, so I prefer it run through a distortion filter first".
all it really took to accomplish "Invisibility Cloak Created In 3D", was to redefine the terms "invisibility", "cloak" and "created" in new, creative ways that fit what they actually did.
iPod-ers can't seem to understand thought why someone would want a device dedicated JUST to reading though.
You've missed my point entirely.
Personally, I DO own a device dedicated to just reading because my iphone screen is smaller than I like, and there's no page turn button.
The point of contention is the ridiculous claims that come from the e-ink people about how unusable LCD is for ebooks, and wildly exaggerating the benefits of e-ink.
The entire e-book industry is on the verge of stillbirth due to corporate politics and greed on the BOOK side. The readers are a non issue in my opinion.
Unless you're reading on the beach in the sun. Or in low light situations where a glowing screen can be a strain. I'm going to guess that the 10 hours a day you spend looking at an LCD do not include such activities. The hour or two a day you may spend reading a book might.
Try reading a kindle in the dark. Now try reading it with the clip on book light they want you to use, constantly adjusting the position because of glare is not a great experience.
And I'm not sure how much you paid for an LCD that doesn't have adjustable brightness, but it was probably too much. When I read on my iphone at night, I use the inverted screen (white txt on black) and it's not only very nice at night, it works well in bright sunlight too.
I don't understand why people don't just TRY these things instead of parroting this nonsense about LCD's being no good for reading.
Yes, people with a different opinion than you are lying.
Yes, thank you for agreeing.
DVD didn't really have any competition...
So VCD and Divx weren't competition to DVD?
that's not a real question, is it?
"Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading. "
LCD's aren't suitable for digital reading? You mean the LCD's I read off of 10 hours a day at work are completely unacceptable for reading now? I have a Kindle which uses the wonderful to read e-ink display and the low contrast, washed out grey text on lighter grey background, with no backlighting, slow page draws, and previous page ghosting, is NOT a superior reading experience to a decent LCD. Not even close. To claim otherwise is just bald faced LYING.
I do a LOT of ebook reading on my iphone, and on my kindle, so I actually do know the difference. e-ink displays excel in battery life and that is the ONLY category they are better than modern LCD
fast server assembly? BFD. Servers come already assembled. If you want to wow me, show me a challenge where the guy racks, cables it per standards, labels the server properly, labels the cables, sets the switch port vlans, updates the CMDB, etc. You know, does the WHOLE thing, not just the easy part.
"Also (and related): battery life. Get an iPad, watch it run out of power partway through your flight. Get an eBook reader, watch it run out of power a couple of weeks later."
How far are you flying? I regularly watch movies on my iphone while flying and have yet to run out of battery mid flight. So battery life has not been an issue in the slightest for me.
Now get an FAA exemption from the stupid "electronic device" ban for ebook readers and THEN you have a serious win.
multipurpose devices will undoubtedly replace single purpose GPS units for anything except very special cases, but for the reasons you say it's not going to happen any time soon. True GPS has to be incorporated into the phones, not the hybrid stuff used now.
try using your iphone Google Maps feature in a dead cell zone. you get el zilcho, nothing, not a thing. Plain old GPS loves wide open spaces, cell phones...not so much.
"when I consider that there are soon going to be literally dozens of cheaper, Linux-powered iPad devices on the market"
Ok, find I'm sold. can I order one today? Tomorrow? 6 months?
No, well FU then. I've been waiting for a slate computing device like this for YEARS and someone is shipping one next month, that someone happens to be Apple. If something better comes along, fine I'll take one of those too, then ReBay the iPad. If the market floods with them and nothing is any better, I'll keep it.
I can't sit down on the couch with Vaporware, so how long are we supposed to wait? And frankly I'm not poor enough to worry about waiting to save a couple $$ to buy the exact best thing at the exact best time.