No seriously, what exactly are the "ethical considerations" of a face transplant? What makes it more ethically significan't than a skin transplant anywhere else?
And the "psychological impact" to the patient of looking different?? Looking different from a hideously scarred accident victim? Isn't that why they want surgery in the first place?
This seems to me like a story desperately in search of sensationalism.
I apologize if you've already tried it, but I'd suggest running a "pslist -m" (sysinternals utility) to identify what process is hogging the memory, then kill that bastard.
If I couldn't get the Java program author to fix his memory leak, I might script a check/kill/restart based on a memory threshold, assuming that it's practical or appropriate for the given program.
Rebooting is usually pretty effective at clearing out memory leaks, but shouldn't be "required".
Needless to say we have had way fewer problems with the new Linux server; the old Microsoft server crashed or had to be rebooted on a regular basis; the people before me actually had a planned "weekly reboot every Friday evening".
Dude, no offense but if you don't know how to fix broken shit you're an amateur who has no business being paid for the job you're (not) doing.
If you have to reboot a server every week, windows or linux, it's broken. Fix it, or find someone who can. I'm sure that will look great on your resume "rebooted servers that I didn't know how to fix because I just assumed that was normal".
Unless you're complaining about the reliability of the hardware, in which case the OS seems to be a red herring.
Ah, so the the dick throws his hands in the air, claims the moral highground, and victory with it. Sorry, doesn't work that way.
dude, you have GOT to work on those communication skills if you ever expect people to take you seriously.
They used a thinner coating that leads to the screen being scratched more easily.
The argument that there is a "thinner coating of resin" came from the attorney leading the class action charge, and I'm sorry you believe in it but it's simply not credible. He's trying to make an argument to get a case into court, then they can use discovery to try to build a case. The resin argument is utterly ridiculous at face value if you took a few seconds to think about it.
First off the face of the Nano doesn't have a "screen". The face of the unit is a single piece of polycarbonate plastic, it's the same covering on the "screen" and the rest of the unit. So how exactly could the screen scratch, but not the rest? The irony is that hairline scratches show up better against the black portion than they do against the clear screen.
Try this little test, do a google search for pictures of scratched Nanos so you can see an example. Funny thing is the problem is so widespread, and so egregious that you won't find a single picture of it, not one.
Even Apple has acknowledged this to be a problem, although they claim it has occured on only 1% of the Nanos
Can you provide a source for that statement beyond your imagination? I think you're confusing Apple saying "fewer than 1% of Nano owners are complaining" with Apple acknowledging the mythical "thinner resin" line.
And despite your rambling about how screen gaurds are necessary, any product that can be easily damaged in the first day of normal use is defective.
"damage" is a very relative term. Normal wear and tear starts the instant you touch something. If you can't accept that something made of shiny plastic will only look brand new for a very short time, buy a iPod mini, I have one and it's got an annodized aluminum case. and know what? it's SCRATCHED...the horror...
More so when you consider this wasn't a problem with the previous 16 million iPods.
You seem to be overlooking the fact, or simply ignoring it, that the Nano is an entirely new product, with a new design. None of the previous models had a monolithic polycarbonate face, or the glassy shiny finish that the nano has. Nor were they small enough to carry in a pocket in the same fashion as the Nano. So you end up with a different form factor, a different construction material, and a different usage pattern. They're not going to wear the same because they're simply not going to be used the same.
The primary problem here is Apple has stumbled over their own "nose in the air" marketing. They've made an extremely successful business out of marketing a series of devices to people who value style and appearance over function. Now they've released a unit that due to it's styling will show wear and tear at an exponentially higher rate, and their fashion conscious market is freaking out about it.
I might also mention that I actually own a Nano, so this isn't idle speculation on my part, I actually know what the issue is all about. My girlfriend had been slobbering over my mini, so I got the Nano for her. And yes, it started to show wear almost immediately. I was immediately struck by the fact that the Nano is a delicate toy of a player. It's very thin, and very shiny. You have to treat it accordingly. In fact, it's extremely similar to a CD or DVD (which is made of the same material as the Nano face). You can rub it with the softest thing you own and you'll still see hairline scratches left because it's a shiny surface.
I really, really tried to build a media PC. I tried it with generic XP and a variety of add on apps, and I tried it with XP MCE also.
The deal killer was I already had a Tivo. The reason I wanted a Media PC was ease of burning stuff to DVD to archive, and by the time I was done I had an extremely convoluted method to do what should have been simple. Most of all however, the $1500 or so that I sunk into it ended up wtih a really shitty picture quality, far inferior to the $100 Tivo I already had.
My final compromise was to use the Media pc I'd built for music and DVD copyi...uh...I mean "archiving", and bought a new Tivo with a built in DVD burner.
I honestly have no idea why TV tuner picture quality in a $400 tuner card sucks so badly compared to the tuner in a $50 (now) Tivo, but that is a MAJOR sticking point for this whole idea.
When most people are casually web browsing, they're not poised with one hand on the keyboard. So Alt+click involves moving off hand to keyboard, visually locating the alt key, press and hold ALT, then click.
once I move my off hand to the keyboard, what is going to hold my head up? So there's also the need to stop and manufacture a stick/pillow assemlby, at least the first time.
This 1-click software is quite useful and others should be informed about it. Anytime I see a word that's unfamiliar I just alt+click and I get the wiki.
Maybe I'm just a nitpicker, but how is "alt+click" 1-click? That sounds like key+click to me, and something that I'd rather do with right-click+click rather than using two hands.
Could the original Walkman perform all of the functions I listed with the same thumb? Without changing your grip on the device at all? What are the other devices I haven't heard about?
If you're old enough to have kids, you surely must have owned a walkman (or clone) at some point. Of course you could do all the functions with the same thumb, what portable device scatters the buttons around requiring multiple fingers to be used? I can't provide an inclusive lise of "the other" devices, because I honestly don't know ANY that you can't operate with a single finger. If you want a topical example, look at this google search of the Rio 300,, the FIRST real portable MP3 player (before anyone calls BS on that, I know there were theoretically earlier ones, but they never emerged as viable market products).
What is it about the DRM that is so incredibly painful, aside from the "it's DRM, therefore it's evil" argument that geeks like us always make?
I don't personally subscribe to the "DRM is evil" argument, in fact I'm largely indifferent to it as long as it's transparent to me. However, in the iPod world it's a long way from transparent: 1. you are required to use Itunes as the app to load music. 2. you can't pull music OFF the iPod. 3. You're limited to syncing with one "music collection" (i.e. it will DELETE everthing if you try to sync another "collection").
Are any of these things overly onerous? No, and there are workarounds, but they are annoying. And it's not like it's a level playing field, the iPod is the ONLY MP3 player that has any of these issues. So sure you can deal with these, but why would you want to?
Have I done extensive, week-long tests of other MP3 players? No, but before I bought the first iPod, I tried out just about everything that I could buy commercially, and nothing else was as easy to use.
Ok, I gotta ask then: What was hard to use about the others you tried? I own an iPod mini right now, and it's the 5th portable player i've owned. Every single one of them has used an almost identical menu interface. There's just not much you can do differently with a list of music. So what makes the iPod "easy to use"? I personally think the clickwheel is cool, but a circular motion with no tactile feedback to traverse a vertical list makes for poor accuracy. It also drives me nuts that the iPod only catalogs by ID tags and not by directory structure. This makes absolute butchery of multiple artist collection albums.
You've kind of illustrated my point. Apple has so successfully marketed the iPod that to a HUGE percentage of the population there is an assumption that nothing else out there is worth even looking at, and the iPod is simply accepted as the defacto "must have" device.
Give it a few seconds thought, and you'll realize that just about every portable music player ever made , including the original Walkman (not to mention portable devices in general i.e. cell phone), was designed to be operated with one hand, and usualy with the thumb.
I actually found the integration with iTunes to be a serious mark AGAINST the iPod, not a mark in its favor. I'm not a fan of requiring special apps to load music, and don't care for the DRM (both active and passive) that Apple has forced into the iPod experience.
It seems to me that most iPod fanatics have simply never used any other MP3 player, and simply assume the the iPod is the best thing out there because everyone else seems to think so.
You couldn't have made it easier to discount your opinion as irrelevant if you'd written it in chinese (which I can't read). Well done.
Eventually, when you grow up, you'll understand why it's better to deal with issues when you disagree, instead of calling names.
That being said, I guess I'll explain this issue to you since you seem to have an honest misunderstanding of it. Scratches on clear plastic appear "white" due to the scratch being opaque. On a shiny black object, tiny, even hairline scratches are very noticeable, where on a white background it's simply white on white and nearly invisible. That's why suddenly it's a big deal with a black Nano, as opposed to the previous white models. Apple did not in fact manage to invent a kind of plastic that's softer than cotton.
This is a non issue. It is a matter of buyers remorse in choosing a color that looks cool when new, but doesn't age well. Anyone who has ever owned a black car knows exactly what this is about.
no. in fact, the instant my iPod mini (I don't even have a nano, I suck) picked up it's first scratch, it stopped playing MP3's and now only transmutes lead into gold. Which of course makes it completely worthless to me.
I'm also considering suing BMW because my car has a door ding in it and they clearly manufactured a defective car. Come to think of it, I've also got some t-shirts that aren't as white as they were when new. Hanes probably knew they were defective.
I must begin suing people immediately. the only other alternative is to accept that using stuff makes it not look new any more. and that is simply not acceptable.
I guess I just don't understand this kind of thinking.
I own an assload of portable electronic devices. cellphone, blackberry, ipaq, ipod mini, digical camera, on and on we go...
Know what they have in common? The ones with screens likely to be scratched have screen protectors on them. Know where they came from? I freakin' put them on them because I know shit gets scratched in your pockets. I mean seriously here...what exactly is "defective"??? Plastic scratches. Are you suggesting Steve Jobs snuck into your house and put sand in your pants? Are you pissed that Apple didn't invent unscratchable plastic? Going back to my original post, you got to remember YOU have to scratch the damn thing, it doesn't do it to itself. There's an entire sub-industry devoted to screen protector devices...that might lead you to believe Apple doesn't have a monopoly on "scratches", although that probably won't stop them from applying for a patent on it to collect license fees.
News flash: iPod Nanos shiny surface will scratch.
In other news: It turns out that Apple customers are as big a bunch of whiners as we always suspected.
Since when has any consumer product been warrentied against scratching?
considering that it's not being scratched by the freakin' air, you have to do "something" to it to scratch it. Pay attention, find out what that it, stop doing that. problem solved.
I'm no apple fanboy, but not a big fan of idiots either.
I was with you until you went insane and decided the Nano changed the way humas listen to music. first of all, the nano hasn't been out long enough to do anything, unless you mean the iPod in general. Which in that case what has the iPod done other than copy other MP3 players that came before it?
Well, until the iPod Apple had a long history of introducing 'new' gadgets, which were basically stylised rehashes of PC equipment. Even the Ipod isn't an innovation, but its a slickly packaged device whose usability trumped its competitors.
Not an innovation? The iPod was in every meaningful way a direct copy of existing MP3 players. Usability isn't why the iPod has been astoundingly successful, the success is due to world class marketing in a market where nobody else is even TRYING to do any marketing. Ever seen a tv commercial for any other MP3 player?
The usability of the iPod is actually fairly second rate compared to many other units, the clickwheel is undeniably cool, but it's not a very good UI.
I initially picked a Creative Zen over an iPod. Twice the battery life and space for $50 less. This was 2 years ago, and I'm still happy with my decision despite the fact that I can't use iTunes.
I had a Zen before I got my iPod mini (still have it actually), and as far as usefulness as an MP3 player goes, the Zen beats the iPod hands down. But I couldn't get the same cool folding speaker set for it or car charger/FM transmitter rig that I could for the iPod. There's real benefits to going with the market leader, even if it's not the best choice on it's merits alone.
Funny, I got it because it does a good job playing my music.
That's probably a good reason to get one. But I already had a perfectly good player that I actually like better, but there were a couple of iPod accessories that pushed it over the top for me.
...When used with a portable music player, then for any third-party accessory to match the ipod, they'd have to license Apple's patent...charge extra for the right to use Apple's "White Power certified" trademark on their accessory.
You may be joking (or maybe not), but keep in mind what Steve Jobbs said to the president of Sonos http://www.sonos.com/us/index.htm/ said when he asked Jobbs what he thought of their music player. Jobbs said "I think you might be infringing on apple patents".
Apple isn't a noble, white horse riding advocate of personal freedoms and the exchange of ideas, they're a cutthroat corporation looking to make money. Were they otherwise, they'd have been bankrupt years ago.
So basically yet AGAIN Apple is exploring ways to kill the golden goose.
For myself, the ONLY reason I own an iPod was the amazing plethora of accessories avaialable for it. It's simpy not a very impressive MP3 player (other than styling), but being able to choose from a bazillion accessories makes it pretty attractive.
If Apple tries too much of this, they're going to learn that holding a majority share of a market is NOT the same as a monopoly. Piss off the market enough, and Creative is going to sell a LOT more Zens.
This sounds extrmemly reminiscent of the ill fated "mac clone" fiasco a few years back.
this article totally misses the point of why digital photography is catching on so fast you'd think Apple was selling it.
Convenience. that is the magic word, not "cost".
Think about it, people are spending far MORE $$$ on digital cameras that have far LOWER quality than traditional film cameras. If it was all about cost, they'd stick with disposable 35mm funsavers.
People are paying more for digital because it's convenient. It's convenient because you don't need to go to the freakin 1hr photo to get pictures back. Printing them at home is just another extension of the same convenience factor.
Sure, it may not be as cheap, it may not be as high quality, but it's already been established by the market that these are NOT the primary considerations. This article is so far off the mark that it makes me wonder if the author even owns a camera.
You ask how the avian flu is being reported in the US, and to that I'd answer "badly".
There was a report a couple of weeks ago that the first fatalities due to the avian flu in the US had occured. Way into the report it came out that both victims were in their 80's. A stiff breeze would have finished them off.
It must really disappoint the media when stuff like this doesn't rack up the body coutn. Hell, you'd think they'd have learned a lesson when SARS made them look like assholes, but I guess not.
No, that is not what entrapment means at all. Legally entrapment does not occur simply by creating opportunity, it only occurs when someone is coerced into performing an illegal act that they would otherwise not have engaged in.
For example, in this case it would be entrapment if the screener copies were given out, then the studio sent out agents to try to convince people to sell them the copies. But simply preparing for the tracking of violators before the fact is no more entrapment than it is blackmail. The term simply doesn't apply.
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And the "psychological impact" to the patient of looking different?? Looking different from a hideously scarred accident victim? Isn't that why they want surgery in the first place?
This seems to me like a story desperately in search of sensationalism.
If I couldn't get the Java program author to fix his memory leak, I might script a check/kill/restart based on a memory threshold, assuming that it's practical or appropriate for the given program.
Rebooting is usually pretty effective at clearing out memory leaks, but shouldn't be "required".
If you have to reboot a server every week, windows or linux, it's broken. Fix it, or find someone who can. I'm sure that will look great on your resume "rebooted servers that I didn't know how to fix because I just assumed that was normal".
Unless you're complaining about the reliability of the hardware, in which case the OS seems to be a red herring.
First off the face of the Nano doesn't have a "screen". The face of the unit is a single piece of polycarbonate plastic, it's the same covering on the "screen" and the rest of the unit. So how exactly could the screen scratch, but not the rest? The irony is that hairline scratches show up better against the black portion than they do against the clear screen.
Try this little test, do a google search for pictures of scratched Nanos so you can see an example. Funny thing is the problem is so widespread, and so egregious that you won't find a single picture of it, not one.
Can you provide a source for that statement beyond your imagination? I think you're confusing Apple saying "fewer than 1% of Nano owners are complaining" with Apple acknowledging the mythical "thinner resin" line. "damage" is a very relative term. Normal wear and tear starts the instant you touch something. If you can't accept that something made of shiny plastic will only look brand new for a very short time, buy a iPod mini, I have one and it's got an annodized aluminum case. and know what? it's SCRATCHED...the horror... You seem to be overlooking the fact, or simply ignoring it, that the Nano is an entirely new product, with a new design. None of the previous models had a monolithic polycarbonate face, or the glassy shiny finish that the nano has. Nor were they small enough to carry in a pocket in the same fashion as the Nano. So you end up with a different form factor, a different construction material, and a different usage pattern. They're not going to wear the same because they're simply not going to be used the same.The primary problem here is Apple has stumbled over their own "nose in the air" marketing. They've made an extremely successful business out of marketing a series of devices to people who value style and appearance over function. Now they've released a unit that due to it's styling will show wear and tear at an exponentially higher rate, and their fashion conscious market is freaking out about it.
I might also mention that I actually own a Nano, so this isn't idle speculation on my part, I actually know what the issue is all about. My girlfriend had been slobbering over my mini, so I got the Nano for her. And yes, it started to show wear almost immediately. I was immediately struck by the fact that the Nano is a delicate toy of a player. It's very thin, and very shiny. You have to treat it accordingly. In fact, it's extremely similar to a CD or DVD (which is made of the same material as the Nano face). You can rub it with the softest thing you own and you'll still see hairline scratches left because it's a shiny surface.
The deal killer was I already had a Tivo. The reason I wanted a Media PC was ease of burning stuff to DVD to archive, and by the time I was done I had an extremely convoluted method to do what should have been simple. Most of all however, the $1500 or so that I sunk into it ended up wtih a really shitty picture quality, far inferior to the $100 Tivo I already had.
My final compromise was to use the Media pc I'd built for music and DVD copyi...uh...I mean "archiving", and bought a new Tivo with a built in DVD burner.
I honestly have no idea why TV tuner picture quality in a $400 tuner card sucks so badly compared to the tuner in a $50 (now) Tivo, but that is a MAJOR sticking point for this whole idea.
When most people are casually web browsing, they're not poised with one hand on the keyboard. So Alt+click involves moving off hand to keyboard, visually locating the alt key, press and hold ALT, then click.
once I move my off hand to the keyboard, what is going to hold my head up? So there's also the need to stop and manufacture a stick/pillow assemlby, at least the first time.
Are any of these things overly onerous? No, and there are workarounds, but they are annoying. And it's not like it's a level playing field, the iPod is the ONLY MP3 player that has any of these issues. So sure you can deal with these, but why would you want to?
Ok, I gotta ask then: What was hard to use about the others you tried? I own an iPod mini right now, and it's the 5th portable player i've owned. Every single one of them has used an almost identical menu interface. There's just not much you can do differently with a list of music. So what makes the iPod "easy to use"? I personally think the clickwheel is cool, but a circular motion with no tactile feedback to traverse a vertical list makes for poor accuracy. It also drives me nuts that the iPod only catalogs by ID tags and not by directory structure. This makes absolute butchery of multiple artist collection albums.It only took him a couple of weeks to realized that a PC with no hard drive and no CD was "limited".
Give it a few seconds thought, and you'll realize that just about every portable music player ever made , including the original Walkman (not to mention portable devices in general i.e. cell phone), was designed to be operated with one hand, and usualy with the thumb.
I actually found the integration with iTunes to be a serious mark AGAINST the iPod, not a mark in its favor. I'm not a fan of requiring special apps to load music, and don't care for the DRM (both active and passive) that Apple has forced into the iPod experience.
It seems to me that most iPod fanatics have simply never used any other MP3 player, and simply assume the the iPod is the best thing out there because everyone else seems to think so.
You couldn't have made it easier to discount your opinion as irrelevant if you'd written it in chinese (which I can't read). Well done.
Eventually, when you grow up, you'll understand why it's better to deal with issues when you disagree, instead of calling names.
That being said, I guess I'll explain this issue to you since you seem to have an honest misunderstanding of it. Scratches on clear plastic appear "white" due to the scratch being opaque. On a shiny black object, tiny, even hairline scratches are very noticeable, where on a white background it's simply white on white and nearly invisible. That's why suddenly it's a big deal with a black Nano, as opposed to the previous white models. Apple did not in fact manage to invent a kind of plastic that's softer than cotton.
This is a non issue. It is a matter of buyers remorse in choosing a color that looks cool when new, but doesn't age well. Anyone who has ever owned a black car knows exactly what this is about.
I'm also considering suing BMW because my car has a door ding in it and they clearly manufactured a defective car. Come to think of it, I've also got some t-shirts that aren't as white as they were when new. Hanes probably knew they were defective.
I must begin suing people immediately. the only other alternative is to accept that using stuff makes it not look new any more. and that is simply not acceptable.
I own an assload of portable electronic devices. cellphone, blackberry, ipaq, ipod mini, digical camera, on and on we go...
Know what they have in common? The ones with screens likely to be scratched have screen protectors on them. Know where they came from? I freakin' put them on them because I know shit gets scratched in your pockets. I mean seriously here...what exactly is "defective"??? Plastic scratches. Are you suggesting Steve Jobs snuck into your house and put sand in your pants? Are you pissed that Apple didn't invent unscratchable plastic? Going back to my original post, you got to remember YOU have to scratch the damn thing, it doesn't do it to itself. There's an entire sub-industry devoted to screen protector devices...that might lead you to believe Apple doesn't have a monopoly on "scratches", although that probably won't stop them from applying for a patent on it to collect license fees.
News flash: iPod Nanos shiny surface will scratch.
In other news: It turns out that Apple customers are as big a bunch of whiners as we always suspected.
considering that it's not being scratched by the freakin' air, you have to do "something" to it to scratch it. Pay attention, find out what that it, stop doing that. problem solved.
I'm no apple fanboy, but not a big fan of idiots either.
chill dude, it's just an mp3 player.
The usability of the iPod is actually fairly second rate compared to many other units, the clickwheel is undeniably cool, but it's not a very good UI.
No problem, that's what messageboards are for.
Apple isn't a noble, white horse riding advocate of personal freedoms and the exchange of ideas, they're a cutthroat corporation looking to make money. Were they otherwise, they'd have been bankrupt years ago.
For myself, the ONLY reason I own an iPod was the amazing plethora of accessories avaialable for it. It's simpy not a very impressive MP3 player (other than styling), but being able to choose from a bazillion accessories makes it pretty attractive.
If Apple tries too much of this, they're going to learn that holding a majority share of a market is NOT the same as a monopoly. Piss off the market enough, and Creative is going to sell a LOT more Zens.
This sounds extrmemly reminiscent of the ill fated "mac clone" fiasco a few years back.
Convenience. that is the magic word, not "cost".
Think about it, people are spending far MORE $$$ on digital cameras that have far LOWER quality than traditional film cameras. If it was all about cost, they'd stick with disposable 35mm funsavers.
People are paying more for digital because it's convenient. It's convenient because you don't need to go to the freakin 1hr photo to get pictures back. Printing them at home is just another extension of the same convenience factor.
Sure, it may not be as cheap, it may not be as high quality, but it's already been established by the market that these are NOT the primary considerations. This article is so far off the mark that it makes me wonder if the author even owns a camera.
There was a report a couple of weeks ago that the first fatalities due to the avian flu in the US had occured. Way into the report it came out that both victims were in their 80's. A stiff breeze would have finished them off.
It must really disappoint the media when stuff like this doesn't rack up the body coutn. Hell, you'd think they'd have learned a lesson when SARS made them look like assholes, but I guess not.
Sorry, but that one statement turned me against this guy.
For example, in this case it would be entrapment if the screener copies were given out, then the studio sent out agents to try to convince people to sell them the copies. But simply preparing for the tracking of violators before the fact is no more entrapment than it is blackmail. The term simply doesn't apply.