Look at it like "free" SMS. You can SMS anyone on your contact list and they can all SMS you.
Moreover, marketing companies and people you never met can SMS you as well.
WhatsApp doesn't allow that, so in a way it's just cheaper (for us), with better (not perfect) checks against unsolicited messages than traditional SMS.
Agreed, we pay for each SMS, and BBM got us hooked on near-limitless chatting for cents, but was platform exclusive. With whatsapp no such problem.
But also: Sending media/voice-notes is much slicker than MMS. WhatsApp is a central place I can contact 99% of my contacts, they're not spread accross bbm/facebook/msn/hangouts/jabber/skype/blah blah blah. Around here, everyone has whatsapp, including my mom, dad, and grandfather... they have none of the others above. With this kind of penetration and ease-of-use, group chats are a doddle. I'm on a friend-group that has been going for years.
Most importantly though: I don't have to "add" people via some other means, invite them, know their username/bbm code/etc. This imho is what makes WhatsApp so pervasive (at least around here). If you add a number to your phone, you get the whatsapp user for free. No muss, no fuss. Yes I could use some other IM thing, persuade a lot of friends to use it too, but my contact list would be a fraction of what it is right now in WA, because I'd have to take the effort to "re-add" everyone that I already have saved in my phone.
"Yes your honour, but have you considered that by arresting me for killing peadophiles you're actually helping the peadophiles? You should set me free immediately so I can carry on breaking the law.... for the children".
Kids should really be taught both. TFA states that IF a school has to choose, the case can be made for programming over foreign languages. But IMHO that is by no means the ideal.
I grew up in a dual-medium environment: Some of my earliest memories are of playing with English kids and learning their language (I'm Afrikaans). I was also taught to program quite early, basically as I started to learn how to read (6 or 7 years old). I've managed to do both quite successfully. As one can hopefully confirm by reading this post or the fact that I'm a software developer. Often when I'm programming I can "switch languages" in my head: I can think in a foreign language while writing code in a programming language. I've also played multiple instruments throughout my adolescent and adult life.
Thus I see no reason for this to be an either-or situation. As TFA states: At that age the brain is like a sponge.
So, I may be living under a rock or something, or maybe it's because I don't really dig Game Of Thrones, or I'm horribly misinformed about the Hugo awards...
Years ago I stumbled a hideous flaw in a clients website after being asked to retrieve a file from it: Directory listings turned on and folders filled with customer accounts, details, histories, etc.
Luckily I had read enough Slashdot to understand I shouldn't just bang an email out to them explaining that I'd just perused thousands of customer files by simply chopping the filename off. No, instead I reported to my superiors and warned them to let the CEO himself "gently" suggest this little oversight to the other company and keep my name out of it. So it was, and nothing nefarious came of it.
As IT pro's we must understand that what sounds trivial to us sounds like (car analogy ahead) this to a customer: "Oh hey, that lock on your garage is useless, I mean I picked it in like 5 seconds. Then I unlocked your car too, and started it, and drove it around the block. Just wanted to let you know you should be more careful".
It is not like that, but it sounds like that. S'all I'm sayin.
This just in: A new "study" shows correlation between small penis size and whale meat consumption! When compared to the rest of the world, the japanese have the highest intake of whale meat AND the smallest penises! Coincidence? We think not! Stop eating whale meat today and prevent further package shrinkage before it's too late!
(Hey correlation vs. causation gets flouted so much in the press we might as well use it for good)
Honest question: If it works on a small scale couldn't we just build lots of them all in one location? We already have the distribution network.
That would give you economies of scale in maintenance on production, but you'd still sit with the maintenance of the distribution network, which you could perhaps eliminate if you rather sell individual units. I can also imagine that companies would not mind shifting the burden of maintenance cost onto the individual, even if it is more expensive overall. In fact maybe _because_ it's more expensive overall.
Only if you fail 100% of the time. Idiocy is not necessarily a permanent state: if you can convince just a section of the idiot population that they're being idiots, you're already winning.
Note that I don't mean idiot as in "low intelligence", often smart people believe stupid things because they've never encountered the counter-argument. They're _being_ idiots but aren't actually idiots. When you show them a solid argument, the lights do go on.
My man, you cannot believe how hard this is to get into a homeopathy freak's head. I've tried in vain to explain this: For now I don't care whether "science can explain it", but it must at least work!
Was it the buds or the volume, what gave you the Tinnitus?
I ask because my mother has been no fan of earphones her entire life and has Tinnitus, so just wondering which variable here caused the problem so I can prevent it for myself. At home I sometimes use buds at a reasonable volume, at work I use ear-covering earphones to block out sound, but it gets too hot and I'm actually planning on using buds there too.
I agree with every point here, and it's all gung-ho to say "to hell with the world!", but that makes acquiring and keeping friends quite difficult.
Never had your lines of conversation at parties shut down because 1/2 the people in the room didn't understand a word of it? "But how about that game last night! Right?!". Isn't this article essentially about the same thing?
They're not bullies in the "wedgie" sense of the word, but in the end your adult friends can also be "bullies" in more subtle ways, and then there's the spouses. You and Bob from work can relate about that interface design you're working on, but his wife is standing there bored to death because she has no clue what you're on about.
Yeah, that's right, as much as talk about the Lakers game may bore you, your droning on about NAS's has the same effect on other people. And they like it just as little as you do. Social situations require some give-and-take. I'm not surprised "bullies" start to feel alienated by people who insist on talking down to them. I'm even less surprised that smarter people react by adjusting. They *are* smart after all!
Now we just need to allow more used cars to be imported....
Oh my, South Africans _love_ to complain about how cars manufactured in SA (esp. Toyota) can possibly sell for less in Aus. than in SA. If you think you get a bad deal on cars, imagine how we feel. We have huge taxes on imported cars (a US$30k car gets ~70% import duty) to prevent outside competition with domestic manufacturers, so they charge what they want... because imported (by distributors) brands are even more expensive.
The companies lining their pockets are gonna keep it that way.
Stuff like this is especially maddening when they require you to ship digital products.
I had an experience recently where I got a gift voucher for Amazon. I went there knowing a game I wanted would be about the value of the voucher. To my delight I found a digital-only version for the right price.
"Sweet, I'll be playing this puppy in an hour or so!". No beans. Digital copy not available in my country.
WHAT?! Why?! I can go down the road and buy this title legitimately in my country for the same price!
Then I was going: OK, I'll buy the frikkin physical thing then. Only to find shipping the damn disc to my country was going to cost the entire price of the game. So to use my voucher I was going to have to pay the entire price of the voucher for shipping. Something I could, once again, just go do at my corner store.
Finally I contacted a US-based friend and just shipped the disc to him for no shipping charge, and had him email me the serial. Then I found a digital copy of the data myself.
Hint: Never give foreigners vouchers for online retailers. It's a burden to the recipient.
Well apparently your shower knows who you are, your clock radio knows if you're awake, a security gate knows what your neural pathways react like at a distance..... But your computer has no idea and needs a card. And worse, your house locks by RFID!
Geek BMW driver here: I only go to work in T-shirts with game logo's on them and jeans. I can't tell you how priceless the looks are when I get out sometimes. This unruly looking nerd?
BUT, Pro tip: Since driving a 5 I've had multiple job approaches from strangers on the street. I'd go so far as to call it an investment in your career (even if you buy a cheaper 2nd hand one like I did).
That's not the way it's supposed to be, but my RL experience bears it out. Typical convo (I swear on my grandma's grave, this has really happened to me. Even at a funeral - no relation to grandma): "Hey, that's a nice car you have there" "Uhh, hi, yeah, thanks" "What do you do?" "I'm a software developer" "Looking for a job? My name is X and I work for...." I've verified that those I didn't immediately blow off were indeed mgmt at software companies.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at it like "free" SMS. You can SMS anyone on your contact list and they can all SMS you.
Moreover, marketing companies and people you never met can SMS you as well.
WhatsApp doesn't allow that, so in a way it's just cheaper (for us), with better (not perfect) checks against unsolicited messages than traditional SMS.
Here's a map of developing countries for your edification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
I think this more-or-less destroys your assertion, boet.
Agreed, we pay for each SMS, and BBM got us hooked on near-limitless chatting for cents, but was platform exclusive. With whatsapp no such problem.
But also:
Sending media/voice-notes is much slicker than MMS.
WhatsApp is a central place I can contact 99% of my contacts, they're not spread accross bbm/facebook/msn/hangouts/jabber/skype/blah blah blah. Around here, everyone has whatsapp, including my mom, dad, and grandfather... they have none of the others above.
With this kind of penetration and ease-of-use, group chats are a doddle. I'm on a friend-group that has been going for years.
Most importantly though:
I don't have to "add" people via some other means, invite them, know their username/bbm code/etc. This imho is what makes WhatsApp so pervasive (at least around here). If you add a number to your phone, you get the whatsapp user for free. No muss, no fuss. Yes I could use some other IM thing, persuade a lot of friends to use it too, but my contact list would be a fraction of what it is right now in WA, because I'd have to take the effort to "re-add" everyone that I already have saved in my phone.
"Yes your honour, but have you considered that by arresting me for killing peadophiles you're actually helping the peadophiles? You should set me free immediately so I can carry on breaking the law.... for the children".
And the "audit log" is something completely different.
> Rape, incest ...
So... no more bibles then.
Hah! And Dr. Dobb's thinks developers are "detail oriented" and "logical" and "very literal". I think this thread is a convincing counter-point.
Kids should really be taught both. TFA states that IF a school has to choose, the case can be made for programming over foreign languages. But IMHO that is by no means the ideal.
I grew up in a dual-medium environment: Some of my earliest memories are of playing with English kids and learning their language (I'm Afrikaans). I was also taught to program quite early, basically as I started to learn how to read (6 or 7 years old). I've managed to do both quite successfully. As one can hopefully confirm by reading this post or the fact that I'm a software developer. Often when I'm programming I can "switch languages" in my head: I can think in a foreign language while writing code in a programming language. I've also played multiple instruments throughout my adolescent and adult life.
Thus I see no reason for this to be an either-or situation. As TFA states: At that age the brain is like a sponge.
So, I may be living under a rock or something, or maybe it's because I don't really dig Game Of Thrones, or I'm horribly misinformed about the Hugo awards...
But how is Game of Thrones Sci-Fi?
There are no bugs, just undocumented features.
Years ago I stumbled a hideous flaw in a clients website after being asked to retrieve a file from it: Directory listings turned on and folders filled with customer accounts, details, histories, etc.
Luckily I had read enough Slashdot to understand I shouldn't just bang an email out to them explaining that I'd just perused thousands of customer files by simply chopping the filename off. No, instead I reported to my superiors and warned them to let the CEO himself "gently" suggest this little oversight to the other company and keep my name out of it. So it was, and nothing nefarious came of it.
As IT pro's we must understand that what sounds trivial to us sounds like (car analogy ahead) this to a customer:
"Oh hey, that lock on your garage is useless, I mean I picked it in like 5 seconds. Then I unlocked your car too, and started it, and drove it around the block. Just wanted to let you know you should be more careful".
It is not like that, but it sounds like that. S'all I'm sayin.
This just in: A new "study" shows correlation between small penis size and whale meat consumption! When compared to the rest of the world, the japanese have the highest intake of whale meat AND the smallest penises! Coincidence? We think not! Stop eating whale meat today and prevent further package shrinkage before it's too late!
(Hey correlation vs. causation gets flouted so much in the press we might as well use it for good)
Honest question: If it works on a small scale couldn't we just build lots of them all in one location? We already have the distribution network.
That would give you economies of scale in maintenance on production, but you'd still sit with the maintenance of the distribution network, which you could perhaps eliminate if you rather sell individual units. I can also imagine that companies would not mind shifting the burden of maintenance cost onto the individual, even if it is more expensive overall. In fact maybe _because_ it's more expensive overall.
Only if you fail 100% of the time. Idiocy is not necessarily a permanent state: if you can convince just a section of the idiot population that they're being idiots, you're already winning.
Note that I don't mean idiot as in "low intelligence", often smart people believe stupid things because they've never encountered the counter-argument. They're _being_ idiots but aren't actually idiots. When you show them a solid argument, the lights do go on.
My man, you cannot believe how hard this is to get into a homeopathy freak's head. I've tried in vain to explain this: For now I don't care whether "science can explain it", but it must at least work!
Was it the buds or the volume, what gave you the Tinnitus?
I ask because my mother has been no fan of earphones her entire life and has Tinnitus, so just wondering which variable here caused the problem so I can prevent it for myself. At home I sometimes use buds at a reasonable volume, at work I use ear-covering earphones to block out sound, but it gets too hot and I'm actually planning on using buds there too.
> nobody takes anything anyone states on social media seriously
Until you put them in jail.
I agree with every point here, and it's all gung-ho to say "to hell with the world!", but that makes acquiring and keeping friends quite difficult.
Never had your lines of conversation at parties shut down because 1/2 the people in the room didn't understand a word of it? "But how about that game last night! Right?!". Isn't this article essentially about the same thing?
They're not bullies in the "wedgie" sense of the word, but in the end your adult friends can also be "bullies" in more subtle ways, and then there's the spouses. You and Bob from work can relate about that interface design you're working on, but his wife is standing there bored to death because she has no clue what you're on about.
Yeah, that's right, as much as talk about the Lakers game may bore you, your droning on about NAS's has the same effect on other people. And they like it just as little as you do. Social situations require some give-and-take. I'm not surprised "bullies" start to feel alienated by people who insist on talking down to them. I'm even less surprised that smarter people react by adjusting. They *are* smart after all!
You can bet your ass at some stage this will lead to your wife asking: "Why are you jerking off to C-SPAN?"
FAIL: You didn't use a Raspberry Pi.
Now we just need to allow more used cars to be imported....
Oh my, South Africans _love_ to complain about how cars manufactured in SA (esp. Toyota) can possibly sell for less in Aus. than in SA. If you think you get a bad deal on cars, imagine how we feel. We have huge taxes on imported cars (a US$30k car gets ~70% import duty) to prevent outside competition with domestic manufacturers, so they charge what they want... because imported (by distributors) brands are even more expensive.
The companies lining their pockets are gonna keep it that way.
Stuff like this is especially maddening when they require you to ship digital products.
I had an experience recently where I got a gift voucher for Amazon. I went there knowing a game I wanted would be about the value of the voucher. To my delight I found a digital-only version for the right price.
"Sweet, I'll be playing this puppy in an hour or so!". No beans. Digital copy not available in my country.
WHAT?! Why?! I can go down the road and buy this title legitimately in my country for the same price!
Then I was going: OK, I'll buy the frikkin physical thing then. Only to find shipping the damn disc to my country was going to cost the entire price of the game. So to use my voucher I was going to have to pay the entire price of the voucher for shipping. Something I could, once again, just go do at my corner store.
Finally I contacted a US-based friend and just shipped the disc to him for no shipping charge, and had him email me the serial. Then I found a digital copy of the data myself.
Hint: Never give foreigners vouchers for online retailers. It's a burden to the recipient.
Well apparently your shower knows who you are, your clock radio knows if you're awake, a security gate knows what your neural pathways react like at a distance..... But your computer has no idea and needs a card. And worse, your house locks by RFID!
Can't I just have one authentication device?
No. Grandma's grave. Really happens.
Geek BMW driver here: I only go to work in T-shirts with game logo's on them and jeans. I can't tell you how priceless the looks are when I get out sometimes. This unruly looking nerd?
BUT, Pro tip: Since driving a 5 I've had multiple job approaches from strangers on the street. I'd go so far as to call it an investment in your career (even if you buy a cheaper 2nd hand one like I did).
That's not the way it's supposed to be, but my RL experience bears it out. Typical convo (I swear on my grandma's grave, this has really happened to me. Even at a funeral - no relation to grandma):
"Hey, that's a nice car you have there"
"Uhh, hi, yeah, thanks"
"What do you do?"
"I'm a software developer"
"Looking for a job? My name is X and I work for...."
I've verified that those I didn't immediately blow off were indeed mgmt at software companies.
So, ya'll have fun bashing bmers!