I haven't used a Macs enough to complain about them, but I've been using an iPhone for a few weeks now. I'm not going to say the device is crap, it's not, but I definitely would not call the UI a gold standard. I'm still trying to figure out who's nephew they hired to make the decision that you should need to plug the phone into an entire computer to get audio onto this wifi device. I mean really. They shipped a wifi enabled, web surfing music player that cannot download PODCASTS from the internet. I do find it funny though that when Apple implemented a UI element that has been in Lotus Notes from the beginning, the UI element magically went from being the worst thing ever to being a gold standard.
You forgot to add:
*you: So your going to stop doing the insecure thing right?
*Him: Nah, it's not like there's anything important in there. I mean what are they gonna do, email someone in my name?
It's the same with my pet peeve, 'check cards'.
DRM stopped me from 'pirating' games. I used to 'pirate' about 80% of the games I would play, and buy about 20%. Which lead to me buying about 4 games a year. DRM has become enough of a pain that I just don't play games anymore. I have found new toys that are less of a hassle. So, while it is true that the DRM stopped ~16 cases of 'piracy' a year, it has not improved the game industries profits at all.
Of course, the continuing crappier and crappier packaging didn't help. Here is a hint. Put the game in a gem case. If you must put it in a paper sleeve, then at least include the proper art work so that when the customer puts the game in a gem case themselves, they have proper professionally printed spines that they can read. I know that if I have to do the manufacturing myself, I am far less inclined to pay someone else for it.
A very brave stance. It is much like complementing Hitlers shoes. Many will take any try to turn a well reason and thought out idea, and try to turn it into a statement in support of the lunatic fringe.
Well, since the abolition of slavery was inevitable whether the Civil War happened or not, the difference between what we live in today vs. what US slaves lived in vs. true individual autonomy is just shades of gray, as well as things like the Emancipation Proclamation that very specifically only freed slaves in the Confederacy while keeping slavery in the North legal on a federal level, means that slavery is a total non-issue as it applies to the Civil War. Slavery was a propaganda talking point. In fact Lincoln was quoted as saying "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it".
That doesn't challenge your quote, but your quote also implies that slavery was an issue concerning the Union invasion of the South.
Note: I consider the issue of who was right and who was wrong to be an intellectual curiosity only. I've just recently been explaining the Civil War to my 4 year old son, and when thinking about how best to explain it, it has occurred to me that the Union could easily be considered the bad guys. It takes some serious twisting of the information, lies of omission, or just plain out regular lies to come up with the traditional North=Good South=Bad conclusion.
Yes, the supped up nature of the controller is better. That is part of why I say that it is the implementation more than the idea. I would say that the software implementation is a factor also though. The silliness of the game makes it seem more like a... well... game, than a workout system. Yet, it is not so silly as to put off someone who wants to actually exercise. The pacing is also good, in that it breaks the exercises up into the right sized chunks to keep it from feeling like a time sink. I'm not saying that it doesn't eat up a bunch of time. Just that it doesn't FEEL like it does. Simple concepts can be implement well, and they can be implemented badly. I would say the Fit is implemented well.
My wife bought ours last week, so I have been doing my personal reviews of the game. At this point, I think that it is probably one of the best ways someone could spend their money if they want to buy home gym equipment. $90 for the WiiFit, $250 for the Wii, and $500 for a 32" LCD TV means that for $940, you can buy an exercise system that is better than a $1500 Treadmill, and for people like me who simply cannot stand the mindlessness of working out, is superior to things like a bowflex that costs $2000. Yes, you can get a treadmill for $500, but if you are going to go cheap, you can get the TV for $140 bucks, reducing the cost to under $500 for all new equipment.
We are considering turning our finished garage into a home gym, and if we do, we might just buy a Wii for exclusive use in the gym. I only say the Wii, because the WiiFit would be moved from the living room to the gym, and OBVIOUSLY we would already be buying a TV for the gym.
"The Georgians should support the staging of an independent binding plebiscite on independence in those regions where people have expressed a desire for it."
Would you support the same for the American South? Are you saying that the Union invasion of the Confederacy made the North the bad guys?
Being able to infer a wide range of information about a persons personality from a few letters that they specifically chose to describe themselves is not even close to shocking. This is the whole point of language. Now, it would be interesting if they found that you could accurately infer a wide range of information from your given name. But a study that determines you can infer information about people how people perceive themselves by seeing how they decided to describe themselves falls into the 'Lets do a study to see if circles are round!' category.
Exactly. WiiFit is not a new or innovative idea. It is an idea that was executed better than any previous version. In fact, if I was the suspicious type, I could call WiiFit a total ripoff. The XBox had Yourself!Fitness. Only the most hard core of fanboys are going to be able to claim that WiiFit isn't the same kind of game as Yourself!Fitness. And the WiiFit controller is just a supped up version of the Amiga JoyBoard. It was well reported that the JoyBoard had a meditation game, which is not far off from Yoga, and the skiing game IS Mogul Maniac. Puzzle games are just not something new. I haven't tried we music, so I cannot comment on it, but it seems clear that there these cames are not innovative. They are just very well implemented.
Religion is simply the attempt to explain the world around us when our knowledge is so far below what is needed to understand it properly. What you are seeing is people who are not willing to change their behaviour after new facts are presented. So, unless you are saying that there are no other animals that will continue to do the same thing over and over again, even when it they should be able to see that it is pointless, then you are wrong.
The iPhone that I got from work has really crappy 3G reception. I just assumed that the terrible reception was par for the course. Of course, I've also had the phone stall on me for 30 or 40 seconds at a time, had the browser app crash numerous times, and had one full phone crash that required a hard reboot. I'm not saying that the phone is crap, but there is definitely a wide margin for improvement.
While, I didn't get a religious wacko vibe from people in the short time I was doing work in AZ, using a self description is a poor way to decide whether people are religious wackos or not. After all, if you lived in a community that burned people as witches, you might not consider yourself religious if you only go to church 3 times a week, and disown your daughter if she has premarital sex.
I agree with you, and will not own in an HOA either, but to be fair, there are places were it is getting harder and harder to get a home HOA free. Here in CA, it seems that HOA is becoming the norm. I attribute it to two things. 1) developers getting city governments to let them build houses so close together that you have to have an HOA, and 2) It works as an end run around prop 13. As they say... A penny saved is a penny earned. They cannot raise property taxes, so they simply require new development to have an HOA, and this moves things that used to be supplied by the city like street lights and parks, onto the shoulders of the homeowners directly.
I'm trying to figure out how you DON'T do scientific research and development in your home. Maybe it's because I am one of thouse 'homeschool nuts', but we do scientific research and development with our child almost every single day.
I don't know that the performance is any better. I watched a Mythbusters on the subject, and the lack of performance was one of the big problems they mentioned. I've heard the 'death trap' comment about the Geo before, but I haven't found anything that indicates it's got any real issues with safety. It seems to be more that the Geo was popular at the same time that everyone wanted as big of a car as possible for 'safety'.
While looking for info on the safety comparison between the Prius and the Metro, I did find that the Prius actually has way worse gas mileage than the Metro. Go figure. The people claiming that they can get the 50 MPG that the Geo got, also recommend 'hyperdriving', you know, things like tailgating semi-trucks. So, given the actual MPG that people are claiming on the Prius sites of ~40-45MPG. So, a decade and a half later, by massively increasing the price, you get a little bit more room, a little bit more acceleration, a lot more complexity, and less gas mileage. Throw some safety features into a Metro, and you would likely have a similar car safety/mileage wise.
If the car manufacturers wanted to get us off of oil, they would be making ALL electric cars with a mount and plug in the trunk for dropping in a generator for power. Then, with small effort you could convert your vehicle between all electric, hydrogen, gasoline, or any other fuel. Yes, I know the Volt is supposed to do this, but I have yet to see a Volt in the real world.
Hybrid gas mileage is a joke. My 1992 Geo Metro got 52 miles to the gallon in the real world. Yes, a Prius is a little bigger, but we are talking over a decade and a half later. The current build of hybrids are clearly designed to KEEP us on oil. It's a way for poser environmentalists to feel good about themselves.
To seriously ask that question without being a hypocrite, you have to dismiss all negative aspects of drug use, as not one drug user, nor one non drug user has ever met there counterpart self. It is no better than asking if we really exist, or if we are just a dream of some higher being. You know, the kind of question people ask each other when they are sitting around hopped up on dope.
I'm sorry, but any device that already has wifi capabilities and can surf the web, but requires me to boot a full computer just to download a podcast fails the "easy to use" test by a wide margin. I'm not saying that the iPhone is a piece of crap, but it is slow, crashes, and has UI hurdles that we erected in an attempt to use their clout in the PMP player market to push their products in other markets.
How about keeping the division of tanks that are sitting right across the boarder from being spotted by the locals until you are ready to roll. Heck, when I am sleeping in a tent, I don't really need to see out. Everyone seems to immediately jump to the flashy conclusion that this would be worn by a person who was actively engaged in an activity. I would think that it would first be useful for camouflaging stationary objects. A mobile missile platform is going to be far more effective if you can make it invisible once you get it to it's destination.
"Suggestion: head to the beach, and watch a ship sail out towards the horizon. Note that it will "sink" as it disappears from view. Repeat as necessary."
Not really a good test, as it would only take a belief that light is affected by gravity. So, the reason the ship appears to disappear is because once the ship gets far enough away, the light gets pulled to the ground before you can see it. It would be no better proof than proving that things farther away are smaller. After all, you can just watch the ship sail into the horizon getting smaller and smaller.
"Suggestion 2: stand still, and check the duration of a sunset. Then compare this time to the duration of a sunset while driving East, and then, compare this to the duration of a sunset while heading West. Sunset will last longer when heading West, and not as long while headed East. The greater your speed, the more noticeable this change in duration will be."
This is a better suggestion, although I would probably simplify it by suggesting using a single clock to check the time of the sunset. Then drive east and check the time of the sunset. Then drive back west and check it's time. Do this as many times as necessary to confirm the time change of sunset is not a coincidence.
Sure, 'legitimate' businesses are constantly telling people that not only can they get things for very cheap, but that they can get things for "Free". How many offers have you received for a product that said it was "Free". Sure, there is always a catch that leads you to pay money. For example "buy one, get one FREE!". But, the companies that offer things like this, know that most people don't understand money well enough to understand that the object isn't really free. So, if you can get a "Free" cell phone, and "Free" groceries, and "Free" HBO, why wouldn't people think that they can get "Free" music.
In fact, companies like Coke, Pepsi, and AOL have spent millions advertising that you can get "Free" music, and it is not uncommon for bands to actually host tracks online that really are free (not just called free). It is perfectly reasonable for people to think that downloading music is legal.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoosh...
"As a side benefit, they cycle some revenue through Novell, who they currently aren't at war with."
MS$ has never been at war with Novell. MS$ has always been at war with IBM....
I haven't used a Macs enough to complain about them, but I've been using an iPhone for a few weeks now. I'm not going to say the device is crap, it's not, but I definitely would not call the UI a gold standard. I'm still trying to figure out who's nephew they hired to make the decision that you should need to plug the phone into an entire computer to get audio onto this wifi device. I mean really. They shipped a wifi enabled, web surfing music player that cannot download PODCASTS from the internet. I do find it funny though that when Apple implemented a UI element that has been in Lotus Notes from the beginning, the UI element magically went from being the worst thing ever to being a gold standard.
You forgot to add: *you: So your going to stop doing the insecure thing right? *Him: Nah, it's not like there's anything important in there. I mean what are they gonna do, email someone in my name? It's the same with my pet peeve, 'check cards'.
Really? Half of the difference between XP and Vista is the Video Driver changes and desktop graphics? That isn't saying much for Vista.
DRM stopped me from 'pirating' games. I used to 'pirate' about 80% of the games I would play, and buy about 20%. Which lead to me buying about 4 games a year. DRM has become enough of a pain that I just don't play games anymore. I have found new toys that are less of a hassle. So, while it is true that the DRM stopped ~16 cases of 'piracy' a year, it has not improved the game industries profits at all.
Of course, the continuing crappier and crappier packaging didn't help. Here is a hint. Put the game in a gem case. If you must put it in a paper sleeve, then at least include the proper art work so that when the customer puts the game in a gem case themselves, they have proper professionally printed spines that they can read. I know that if I have to do the manufacturing myself, I am far less inclined to pay someone else for it.
A very brave stance. It is much like complementing Hitlers shoes. Many will take any try to turn a well reason and thought out idea, and try to turn it into a statement in support of the lunatic fringe.
I by the way agree with your ENTIRE post.
Well, since the abolition of slavery was inevitable whether the Civil War happened or not, the difference between what we live in today vs. what US slaves lived in vs. true individual autonomy is just shades of gray, as well as things like the Emancipation Proclamation that very specifically only freed slaves in the Confederacy while keeping slavery in the North legal on a federal level, means that slavery is a total non-issue as it applies to the Civil War. Slavery was a propaganda talking point. In fact Lincoln was quoted as saying "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it".
That doesn't challenge your quote, but your quote also implies that slavery was an issue concerning the Union invasion of the South.
Note: I consider the issue of who was right and who was wrong to be an intellectual curiosity only. I've just recently been explaining the Civil War to my 4 year old son, and when thinking about how best to explain it, it has occurred to me that the Union could easily be considered the bad guys. It takes some serious twisting of the information, lies of omission, or just plain out regular lies to come up with the traditional North=Good South=Bad conclusion.
Yes, the supped up nature of the controller is better. That is part of why I say that it is the implementation more than the idea. I would say that the software implementation is a factor also though. The silliness of the game makes it seem more like a... well... game, than a workout system. Yet, it is not so silly as to put off someone who wants to actually exercise. The pacing is also good, in that it breaks the exercises up into the right sized chunks to keep it from feeling like a time sink. I'm not saying that it doesn't eat up a bunch of time. Just that it doesn't FEEL like it does. Simple concepts can be implement well, and they can be implemented badly. I would say the Fit is implemented well.
My wife bought ours last week, so I have been doing my personal reviews of the game. At this point, I think that it is probably one of the best ways someone could spend their money if they want to buy home gym equipment. $90 for the WiiFit, $250 for the Wii, and $500 for a 32" LCD TV means that for $940, you can buy an exercise system that is better than a $1500 Treadmill, and for people like me who simply cannot stand the mindlessness of working out, is superior to things like a bowflex that costs $2000. Yes, you can get a treadmill for $500, but if you are going to go cheap, you can get the TV for $140 bucks, reducing the cost to under $500 for all new equipment.
We are considering turning our finished garage into a home gym, and if we do, we might just buy a Wii for exclusive use in the gym. I only say the Wii, because the WiiFit would be moved from the living room to the gym, and OBVIOUSLY we would already be buying a TV for the gym.
"The Georgians should support the staging of an independent binding plebiscite on independence in those regions where people have expressed a desire for it."
Would you support the same for the American South? Are you saying that the Union invasion of the Confederacy made the North the bad guys?
Being able to infer a wide range of information about a persons personality from a few letters that they specifically chose to describe themselves is not even close to shocking. This is the whole point of language. Now, it would be interesting if they found that you could accurately infer a wide range of information from your given name. But a study that determines you can infer information about people how people perceive themselves by seeing how they decided to describe themselves falls into the 'Lets do a study to see if circles are round!' category.
Exactly. WiiFit is not a new or innovative idea. It is an idea that was executed better than any previous version. In fact, if I was the suspicious type, I could call WiiFit a total ripoff. The XBox had Yourself!Fitness. Only the most hard core of fanboys are going to be able to claim that WiiFit isn't the same kind of game as Yourself!Fitness. And the WiiFit controller is just a supped up version of the Amiga JoyBoard. It was well reported that the JoyBoard had a meditation game, which is not far off from Yoga, and the skiing game IS Mogul Maniac. Puzzle games are just not something new. I haven't tried we music, so I cannot comment on it, but it seems clear that there these cames are not innovative. They are just very well implemented.
You think you are arguing against what I said, yet your entire reply is an anecdotal confirmation of it. Ahh... The irony.
Religion is simply the attempt to explain the world around us when our knowledge is so far below what is needed to understand it properly. What you are seeing is people who are not willing to change their behaviour after new facts are presented. So, unless you are saying that there are no other animals that will continue to do the same thing over and over again, even when it they should be able to see that it is pointless, then you are wrong.
The iPhone that I got from work has really crappy 3G reception. I just assumed that the terrible reception was par for the course. Of course, I've also had the phone stall on me for 30 or 40 seconds at a time, had the browser app crash numerous times, and had one full phone crash that required a hard reboot. I'm not saying that the phone is crap, but there is definitely a wide margin for improvement.
While, I didn't get a religious wacko vibe from people in the short time I was doing work in AZ, using a self description is a poor way to decide whether people are religious wackos or not. After all, if you lived in a community that burned people as witches, you might not consider yourself religious if you only go to church 3 times a week, and disown your daughter if she has premarital sex.
I agree with you, and will not own in an HOA either, but to be fair, there are places were it is getting harder and harder to get a home HOA free. Here in CA, it seems that HOA is becoming the norm. I attribute it to two things. 1) developers getting city governments to let them build houses so close together that you have to have an HOA, and 2) It works as an end run around prop 13. As they say... A penny saved is a penny earned. They cannot raise property taxes, so they simply require new development to have an HOA, and this moves things that used to be supplied by the city like street lights and parks, onto the shoulders of the homeowners directly.
I'm trying to figure out how you DON'T do scientific research and development in your home. Maybe it's because I am one of thouse 'homeschool nuts', but we do scientific research and development with our child almost every single day.
I don't know that the performance is any better. I watched a Mythbusters on the subject, and the lack of performance was one of the big problems they mentioned. I've heard the 'death trap' comment about the Geo before, but I haven't found anything that indicates it's got any real issues with safety. It seems to be more that the Geo was popular at the same time that everyone wanted as big of a car as possible for 'safety'.
While looking for info on the safety comparison between the Prius and the Metro, I did find that the Prius actually has way worse gas mileage than the Metro. Go figure. The people claiming that they can get the 50 MPG that the Geo got, also recommend 'hyperdriving', you know, things like tailgating semi-trucks. So, given the actual MPG that people are claiming on the Prius sites of ~40-45MPG. So, a decade and a half later, by massively increasing the price, you get a little bit more room, a little bit more acceleration, a lot more complexity, and less gas mileage. Throw some safety features into a Metro, and you would likely have a similar car safety/mileage wise.
If the car manufacturers wanted to get us off of oil, they would be making ALL electric cars with a mount and plug in the trunk for dropping in a generator for power. Then, with small effort you could convert your vehicle between all electric, hydrogen, gasoline, or any other fuel. Yes, I know the Volt is supposed to do this, but I have yet to see a Volt in the real world.
Hybrid gas mileage is a joke. My 1992 Geo Metro got 52 miles to the gallon in the real world. Yes, a Prius is a little bigger, but we are talking over a decade and a half later. The current build of hybrids are clearly designed to KEEP us on oil. It's a way for poser environmentalists to feel good about themselves.
To seriously ask that question without being a hypocrite, you have to dismiss all negative aspects of drug use, as not one drug user, nor one non drug user has ever met there counterpart self. It is no better than asking if we really exist, or if we are just a dream of some higher being. You know, the kind of question people ask each other when they are sitting around hopped up on dope.
I'm sorry, but any device that already has wifi capabilities and can surf the web, but requires me to boot a full computer just to download a podcast fails the "easy to use" test by a wide margin. I'm not saying that the iPhone is a piece of crap, but it is slow, crashes, and has UI hurdles that we erected in an attempt to use their clout in the PMP player market to push their products in other markets.
How about keeping the division of tanks that are sitting right across the boarder from being spotted by the locals until you are ready to roll. Heck, when I am sleeping in a tent, I don't really need to see out. Everyone seems to immediately jump to the flashy conclusion that this would be worn by a person who was actively engaged in an activity. I would think that it would first be useful for camouflaging stationary objects. A mobile missile platform is going to be far more effective if you can make it invisible once you get it to it's destination.
"Suggestion: head to the beach, and watch a ship sail out towards the horizon. Note that it will "sink" as it disappears from view. Repeat as necessary."
Not really a good test, as it would only take a belief that light is affected by gravity. So, the reason the ship appears to disappear is because once the ship gets far enough away, the light gets pulled to the ground before you can see it. It would be no better proof than proving that things farther away are smaller. After all, you can just watch the ship sail into the horizon getting smaller and smaller.
"Suggestion 2: stand still, and check the duration of a sunset. Then compare this time to the duration of a sunset while driving East, and then, compare this to the duration of a sunset while heading West. Sunset will last longer when heading West, and not as long while headed East. The greater your speed, the more noticeable this change in duration will be."
This is a better suggestion, although I would probably simplify it by suggesting using a single clock to check the time of the sunset. Then drive east and check the time of the sunset. Then drive back west and check it's time. Do this as many times as necessary to confirm the time change of sunset is not a coincidence.
Sure, 'legitimate' businesses are constantly telling people that not only can they get things for very cheap, but that they can get things for "Free". How many offers have you received for a product that said it was "Free". Sure, there is always a catch that leads you to pay money. For example "buy one, get one FREE!". But, the companies that offer things like this, know that most people don't understand money well enough to understand that the object isn't really free. So, if you can get a "Free" cell phone, and "Free" groceries, and "Free" HBO, why wouldn't people think that they can get "Free" music.
In fact, companies like Coke, Pepsi, and AOL have spent millions advertising that you can get "Free" music, and it is not uncommon for bands to actually host tracks online that really are free (not just called free). It is perfectly reasonable for people to think that downloading music is legal.