And for anyone claiming that the iPhone is a tech/techie/nerdy news story, please stop pretending to be a geek and go to the mac forums or cnet or some other consumer tech site.
I think you underestimate the sheer bling this piece of gadgetry represents, not just for the "style-obsessed apple-fanboys", but for the idealistic geek in all of us that sees the iPhone and thinks... I must have a Star Trek PaDD.
I'm in that camp. Plus, I lost my iPod several months ago, and have been month-to-month with my current carrier for about half a year now...
So, I'm happy it's getting so much press on Slashdot. While I agree that the hype is getting stale, seeing people's reactions to the release (whether owners, zealots, or trolls) has helped me make an informed decision. A decision I feel I can trust, coz I browsed these articles at -1!
Ah, I stand corrected. I didn't know that MS differentiated their products in that manner. Regardless, I have no idea why my original statement got modded troll...
You know, nerds can think stuff other than "Linux, Computers, Science, or Technology" matter. Furthermore, while we nerds tend to be of a technical bend, nothing precludes one from being a political science buff, either. I guess my point is shit or get off the pot, and (either way) leave us to our discussion.
If it's any help, not mentioning the 64-bit requirements is, in that case, a mistake according to contract law. The contract of sale is voidable, meaning you can return the iPhone (with a good lawyer, it may even be fraud). It's a raw deal, I agree.
1. Apple's ROKR Flop; 2. Multitouch Musings.
on
All Things iPhone
·
· Score: 1
This is gonna sound a bit like a conspiracy theory, but here goes...
My friends and I came up with a theory explaining just this event. We believe that Apple flopped the ROKR for marketing purposes. They designed & built the ROKR, letting Motorola do most of the work, to make it less expensive. They took the profits (or losses?) from the ROKR and used it to conceal development on the iPhone.
Rumors had begun to fly around that point in time, and Apple didn't want anyone to know about the iPhone, particularly their competitors on the market. They also used the media coverage to dispel the rumors surrounding Phone-iPod "fusion" products, further masking the development of the product. Furthermore, they could approach Intel, AT&T & Verizon with development services & contractual offers, respectively, without looking too suspicious.
After the ROKR flop, Apple-branded phones died down for at least a year. Then, last August, Steve Jobs unmasks the iPhone for the first time. Multiple years of development were spent on that phone, from multi-touch to UI studies. Additional research went into the form factor, the interaction system, the integrated Safari browser. Apple was likely developing the iPhone alongside (or directly after) their OSX x86 port and the ROKR itself. In either case, they definitely learned what not to do with a phone.
So, yeh. Our guess is they flopped the ROKR to hide the iPhone from competing manufacturers including, it seems, Motorola.
--
And now for something related, but completely different: Looking forward, what does a design like the iPhone enable? Multitouch displays on standard computing! We could finally get Star Trek interfaces!! That's the real news, folks. Multitouch & small form factor FTW. (POS displays, controls for stereos & such, remotes for your TV...:D).
an article that tries to infer intelligence from choice of "social-networking sites" while using the wrong words to try and sound intelligent is ironic at best
Ah, but the article doesn't attempt to do that. This article discusses social privilege & stratification. Intelligence is only one of many indicators of the social ladder; the article also discusses social expectations, political cliques, ethnicity, and a host of other qualifiers. The inference between intelligence and scholarship was made somewhere a bit more private than the Internet.
If Facebook is "extremely popular" then it would be used by the "grunts" and not just the officers as the author claims is how it really works in the military.
I'm interested in replying to your comment, as you seem to be misinterpreting the article. Unfortunately, I have no clue what you're saying here.
I know plenty of intellectuals that love hiding their dirty little MySpace secret.
I know many intellectuals that use MySpace as well, but that's not what the article discusses. Hence my statement, above.
The original article was interesting but probably read a little too much into the organization of socio-economic and educational differences and probably didn't look sufficiently at the "why" or purpose of the SNSes, which is probably more benign than some plot by the Man to hold us down as was hinted.
In my studies of sociology, I have yet to find a paper that doesn't hint the way this article does. Sociology started as a series of studies of "How 'The Man' keeps us down". Thus, the focus tends to shift to that perspective naturally.
Somewhat related to this are the pejorative meanings attached to words used within ethnography & sociology. For instance, the word "power" has a (generally) negative meaning. Sociology notes, however, that power is much like a hammer--it has no intrinsic morality or ethics. The application of power, however, does, and since the most memorable uses of power are negative, power is generally characterized as unpleasant at best. Similar phenomena occur across the board, particularly when discussing social class.
The social sciences (as a whole) deal with people, and generally treat them the same way a chemist views water. However, the means of characterizing elementary phenomenon requires that the observer use inductive logic, which intrinsically relies on classification. Unfortunately discussion of and reference to societal stratification & class relationships carries a certain taboo in American culture. Indeed, the idea of classifying people at all is seen as negative. Thus, those of this persuasion implicitly add a negative tone when sociology is discussed.
As an aside: While writing this post, I watched the offending clip, which sparked an interesting observation. Has anyone else noticed that the second graph--the one that compares Safari to IE--lacks percentages for either browsers' market share? This, combined with a brief display time, leads me to believe the second chart is presented rhetorically, not literally.
My response to the parent:
Albeit the graphs were displayed at the WWDC, one must also remember that Jobs' keynote isn't only for developers. For several years now, the media has used material from the WWDC keynote to publicize Apple's activities.
While Apple concentrates on developers during the keynote, their presentation is tailored to be understandable to the layman. At the same time, your rhetorical question:
Are you implying that the people that develop for Apple-based systems can't understand that there are other browsers in [existence]?
is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Obviously, developers understand that a plethora of browsers exist. So, because of this, they are more likely to understand a complicated graph. However, they are also more likely to disregard the absence of other browsers on the second chart--it can be assumed that the other browsers aren't actually dead. I cannot speak for other developers, but when I saw the keynote, the absence of other browsers never crossed my mind. I saw a small market share, then a bigger one. The slide wasn't displayed long enough for me to consider anything else.
When I switched to a Mac, I used FF because it kept the familiarity of Windows/Linux/etc for me. However, about 3 to 6 months ago, I started using Safari. The user experience, in my opinion, is far better than FF (on the Mac). I particularly enjoy the following features:
Bookmark organization: Your bookmarks aren't all stored in the bookmarks menu. The Bookmarks bar is separate from the bookmarks menu. History is integrated into the bookmarks list.
RSS integration: the presentation is better than other browsers, IMHO. I also appreciate the way feeds are bookmarked: you add the feed, and it displays a number next to the link to the feed. Compare to FireFox: the feed becomes a bookmark menu.
Minimal context menus
Download integration: I enjoy watching the complete bar walk across file icons
That said, I have issues with a few things, particularly tab support. I can't rip tabs off the window, can't duplicate a tab, can't reorganize tabs, can't open a group of bookmarks in multiple tabs, etc. (I know extensions exist. I don't care. I highly disfavor browser extensions.)
In theory, it denotes that you have leadership potential. In other cases it could mean that you are a crook. You could be considered to have expert knowledge of your company & business processes. You may be able to get away with expert knowledge of your company's core competency, depending on how you acquired said responsibilities.
This includes that, actually. Here, I discuss that the initials are useful. One can always be an expert without a field or education. The difficult part is proving you are such an expert.
That's what the "overrated" moderation is for. I was going for the other way around: get him out of flamebait zone, coz he didn't deserve it. The mistaken post gets modded up as "collateral damage". Modding you down would remove the applicability of my response anyway.;)
The two parties and their many wings now exist to cover the gamut of opinions we, the little folk, might have.
Unfortunately, you are misinformed. The main purpose of our dual-political system is to limit the opinions of the people. Our two parties stifle opinion by projecting the diversity of public opinion into a false dichotomy: democrat or republican.
As with Plato's Allegory of the Cave, we lose information when it's presented in this manner. Instead of electing our candidates based on issues of importance (political corruption, economic stability, social welfare, etc), our parties discuss talking points before each debate, then blather about themselves and how awesome they are. The controversial topics are just that--controversial, with lines already drawn and sides chosen. Rhetoric: fabricated, heated and served to the citizen between the flickers of their television screens.
On occasion, they hit upon something truly worth discussing: healthcare, the Iraq war, social security. But, even then, they rarely change anything.
Since these wonderful parties exist to serve all our needs, why would we need a Web 2.0 solution? Likewise, since the masses all subscribe to and participate in said system, why even vote? If it appears as though your party will win the election, only a minimum effort is required.
I see where you're coming from here. However, we need the "Internet solution" to counter the sarcasm I detect dripping from your words. Using the Internet to condemn their stance in public, and subsequently offering your own solution leaves them without an out. It happens in pocketed communities, but the potential grows each day. Look at NewYorkCountyLawyer, Larry Lessig, Open Source, the EFF, etc...
Ah, but there's another problem: Assuming that this strategy works, you'll be swapping congressman every 2 and 6 years. That makes it harder to track down the persons (biological or legal) causing the damage--you get to sort through disparate archives, ask more people for data, etc. It effectively decreases the accountability of any politician to the public. Why please your constituents when you're out next term anyway?
As far as the "permanent ruling class" is concerned: we were, in fact, supposed to have politicians. However, instead of the gutless, pandering politicians we have now, the "ideal" ruling class implied by the US Constitution and outlined by the federalist papers was highly educated, well respected, and capable of rational thought (deliberation).
Exhibit A: The Federal Senate. Term: 6 years
Elected by: state legislature (original constitution)
Qualifications: identical to the most stringent legislative requirements of the state they represent.
Exhibit B: The President Term: 4 years
Elected by: electors chosen by each state legislature
Qualifications: 35 years of age, citizen of the US since birth.
Special note: No term limit in original constitution. General Washington merely set a precedent of 2 terms.
Exhibit C: The Supreme Court Term: Lifetime
Elected by: No one. Appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate.
Qualifications: None.
Even if each position is elected, it sure looks like it was designed to keep the same people ruling--unless each state legislature experiences a rapid upheaval, and even then you have to wait up to 4 years to see a change in politicians. It's a bit different now, as legislatures don't appoint Senators, but the concept is still the same.
We could use a new system. Perhaps if we pushed more of the decisions to the people it would become too expensive to 'buy' support? Or perhaps we could ban parties names from anything printed by/endorsed by the government? Or perhaps merely instituting a 'removal-by-popular-constituant-vote' system would do...
That used to be my opinion too, but it turns out that the American Founding Fathers were rather intelligent folk. The system they created is, to date, one of the best in the world. Changing the system disrupts the delicate balance required for it to work properly. Unfortunately, that balance was disrupted long ago. Honestly, I think a clean sweep of the government (Lessig & Gore's schtick), returning to state-elected senators (my schtick), and changing the electoral college to handle a partied system (mathematicians' schtick) would be enough to get the US on the right track, as far as "management" is concerned.
The real concern is how to motivate & educate the citizenry. According to Gore, that disease is twofold: TV and the current state of public education.
So, how do we get that dealt with? Attack both at the same time. The internet is a disruptive technology, and it has given us the opportunity to speak out. Innovations such as YouTube, Wikipedia, blogging, and "community content" leveraged by Web 2.0 grant us the perfect opportunity to actually motivate changes and communicate our plans. It's pitiful that my generation's apathy (and, in your case, despair) stifles their want to accomplish anything with our era's 'printing press'.
They typically qualify as an expert within the field that the degree applies to. A PhD denotes that you are an expert in the general sense. Philosophically, you are well grounded with the norms and established theory of your specialized field, with concentrated knowledge within your region of research.
The main reason specialized degrees (MD, JD, etc) exists is largely historical and political (see the politics of the Church & University circa 15th century, and the history of professional organizations), rather than practical. Even so, the work required to be esteemed as an expert is far from attending college for 10 years.
The degrees you discuss above--DDS, MD, PE, CPA, (also: JD = Juris Doctorate)--are each fields of specialized expertise. The difference between being an MD and a PhD is merely the specialization noted in the title. It is important to note an analogy here:
A PhD in chemistry doesn't make me an expert in sociology.
An MD in pediatrics doesn't make me an expert in virology.
A PhD vs. MD in virology communicate different specialization as well. While the PhD focuses on science, the MD focuses on medicine. (Note: the only virologist I knew earned both degrees, incidentally).
As one can see, each of these titles denote expertise. The difficulty stems from determining what field said expertise applies to.
The GP is modded insightful, which is outright wrong. While the GP may be funny, he conflates a google search with google's opinion. The parent post points this out, and is modded flamebait? The parent should be modded insightful or interesting, not the GP.
The initials after your name are a "social shorthand" that (in the US, at least) symbolize expert knowledge of a subject. So, in a certain sense, they do denote expertise.;)
Have fun as your virtualized DB servers thrash their VM's & toss them about like so much tissue paper.
Also, your PHB's won't be sold on MS's consumer line. They'll be looking at the Business & Enterprise editions, which, AFAIK, both allow virtualization.
Synergize your information infrastructure by integrating Microsoft-brand cereals into your e-diet. Microsoft Business & Enterprise products are part of a well-balanced breakfast. The fiber you need; the software you trust. Eat Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you underestimate the sheer bling this piece of gadgetry represents, not just for the "style-obsessed apple-fanboys", but for the idealistic geek in all of us that sees the iPhone and thinks... I must have a Star Trek PaDD.
I'm in that camp. Plus, I lost my iPod several months ago, and have been month-to-month with my current carrier for about half a year now...
So, I'm happy it's getting so much press on Slashdot. While I agree that the hype is getting stale, seeing people's reactions to the release (whether owners, zealots, or trolls) has helped me make an informed decision. A decision I feel I can trust, coz I browsed these articles at -1!
Thanks slashdot!
Ah, I stand corrected. I didn't know that MS differentiated their products in that manner. Regardless, I have no idea why my original statement got modded troll...
You know, nerds can think stuff other than "Linux, Computers, Science, or Technology" matter. Furthermore, while we nerds tend to be of a technical bend, nothing precludes one from being a political science buff, either. I guess my point is shit or get off the pot, and (either way) leave us to our discussion.
If it's any help, not mentioning the 64-bit requirements is, in that case, a mistake according to contract law. The contract of sale is voidable, meaning you can return the iPhone (with a good lawyer, it may even be fraud). It's a raw deal, I agree.
This is gonna sound a bit like a conspiracy theory, but here goes...
My friends and I came up with a theory explaining just this event. We believe that Apple flopped the ROKR for marketing purposes. They designed & built the ROKR, letting Motorola do most of the work, to make it less expensive. They took the profits (or losses?) from the ROKR and used it to conceal development on the iPhone.
Rumors had begun to fly around that point in time, and Apple didn't want anyone to know about the iPhone, particularly their competitors on the market. They also used the media coverage to dispel the rumors surrounding Phone-iPod "fusion" products, further masking the development of the product. Furthermore, they could approach Intel, AT&T & Verizon with development services & contractual offers, respectively, without looking too suspicious.
After the ROKR flop, Apple-branded phones died down for at least a year. Then, last August, Steve Jobs unmasks the iPhone for the first time. Multiple years of development were spent on that phone, from multi-touch to UI studies. Additional research went into the form factor, the interaction system, the integrated Safari browser. Apple was likely developing the iPhone alongside (or directly after) their OSX x86 port and the ROKR itself. In either case, they definitely learned what not to do with a phone.
So, yeh. Our guess is they flopped the ROKR to hide the iPhone from competing manufacturers including, it seems, Motorola.
-- :D).
And now for something related, but completely different: Looking forward, what does a design like the iPhone enable? Multitouch displays on standard computing! We could finally get Star Trek interfaces!! That's the real news, folks. Multitouch & small form factor FTW. (POS displays, controls for stereos & such, remotes for your TV...
Hopefully Apple's next killer app is the iPaDD.
*ducks*
I enjoy slashdot memes, you insensitive clod!
Ah, but the article doesn't attempt to do that. This article discusses social privilege & stratification. Intelligence is only one of many indicators of the social ladder; the article also discusses social expectations, political cliques, ethnicity, and a host of other qualifiers. The inference between intelligence and scholarship was made somewhere a bit more private than the Internet.
I'm interested in replying to your comment, as you seem to be misinterpreting the article. Unfortunately, I have no clue what you're saying here.
I know many intellectuals that use MySpace as well, but that's not what the article discusses. Hence my statement, above.
In my studies of sociology, I have yet to find a paper that doesn't hint the way this article does. Sociology started as a series of studies of "How 'The Man' keeps us down". Thus, the focus tends to shift to that perspective naturally.
Somewhat related to this are the pejorative meanings attached to words used within ethnography & sociology. For instance, the word "power" has a (generally) negative meaning. Sociology notes, however, that power is much like a hammer--it has no intrinsic morality or ethics. The application of power, however, does, and since the most memorable uses of power are negative, power is generally characterized as unpleasant at best. Similar phenomena occur across the board, particularly when discussing social class.
The social sciences (as a whole) deal with people, and generally treat them the same way a chemist views water. However, the means of characterizing elementary phenomenon requires that the observer use inductive logic, which intrinsically relies on classification. Unfortunately discussion of and reference to societal stratification & class relationships carries a certain taboo in American culture. Indeed, the idea of classifying people at all is seen as negative. Thus, those of this persuasion implicitly add a negative tone when sociology is discussed.
As an aside: While writing this post, I watched the offending clip, which sparked an interesting observation. Has anyone else noticed that the second graph--the one that compares Safari to IE--lacks percentages for either browsers' market share? This, combined with a brief display time, leads me to believe the second chart is presented rhetorically, not literally.
My response to the parent:
Albeit the graphs were displayed at the WWDC, one must also remember that Jobs' keynote isn't only for developers. For several years now, the media has used material from the WWDC keynote to publicize Apple's activities.
While Apple concentrates on developers during the keynote, their presentation is tailored to be understandable to the layman. At the same time, your rhetorical question:
is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Obviously, developers understand that a plethora of browsers exist. So, because of this, they are more likely to understand a complicated graph. However, they are also more likely to disregard the absence of other browsers on the second chart--it can be assumed that the other browsers aren't actually dead. I cannot speak for other developers, but when I saw the keynote, the absence of other browsers never crossed my mind. I saw a small market share, then a bigger one. The slide wasn't displayed long enough for me to consider anything else.
Let's introduce a fourth Safari user: me.
When I switched to a Mac, I used FF because it kept the familiarity of Windows/Linux/etc for me. However, about 3 to 6 months ago, I started using Safari. The user experience, in my opinion, is far better than FF (on the Mac). I particularly enjoy the following features:
That said, I have issues with a few things, particularly tab support. I can't rip tabs off the window, can't duplicate a tab, can't reorganize tabs, can't open a group of bookmarks in multiple tabs, etc. (I know extensions exist. I don't care. I highly disfavor browser extensions.)
The Article compliments of nyud.net
I think andrewd18 was actually referring to "a man" in that joke.
In theory, it denotes that you have leadership potential. In other cases it could mean that you are a crook. You could be considered to have expert knowledge of your company & business processes. You may be able to get away with expert knowledge of your company's core competency, depending on how you acquired said responsibilities.
This includes that, actually. Here, I discuss that the initials are useful. One can always be an expert without a field or education. The difficult part is proving you are such an expert.
That's what the "overrated" moderation is for. I was going for the other way around: get him out of flamebait zone, coz he didn't deserve it. The mistaken post gets modded up as "collateral damage". Modding you down would remove the applicability of my response anyway. ;)
In which case, I guess I stand corrected.
Unfortunately, you are misinformed. The main purpose of our dual-political system is to limit the opinions of the people. Our two parties stifle opinion by projecting the diversity of public opinion into a false dichotomy: democrat or republican.
As with Plato's Allegory of the Cave, we lose information when it's presented in this manner. Instead of electing our candidates based on issues of importance (political corruption, economic stability, social welfare, etc), our parties discuss talking points before each debate, then blather about themselves and how awesome they are. The controversial topics are just that--controversial, with lines already drawn and sides chosen. Rhetoric: fabricated, heated and served to the citizen between the flickers of their television screens.
On occasion, they hit upon something truly worth discussing: healthcare, the Iraq war, social security. But, even then, they rarely change anything.
I see where you're coming from here. However, we need the "Internet solution" to counter the sarcasm I detect dripping from your words. Using the Internet to condemn their stance in public, and subsequently offering your own solution leaves them without an out. It happens in pocketed communities, but the potential grows each day. Look at NewYorkCountyLawyer, Larry Lessig, Open Source, the EFF, etc...
Ah, but there's another problem: Assuming that this strategy works, you'll be swapping congressman every 2 and 6 years. That makes it harder to track down the persons (biological or legal) causing the damage--you get to sort through disparate archives, ask more people for data, etc. It effectively decreases the accountability of any politician to the public. Why please your constituents when you're out next term anyway?
As far as the "permanent ruling class" is concerned: we were, in fact, supposed to have politicians. However, instead of the gutless, pandering politicians we have now, the "ideal" ruling class implied by the US Constitution and outlined by the federalist papers was highly educated, well respected, and capable of rational thought (deliberation).
Exhibit A: The Federal Senate.
Term: 6 years
Elected by: state legislature (original constitution)
Qualifications: identical to the most stringent legislative requirements of the state they represent.
Exhibit B: The President
Term: 4 years
Elected by: electors chosen by each state legislature
Qualifications: 35 years of age, citizen of the US since birth.
Special note: No term limit in original constitution. General Washington merely set a precedent of 2 terms.
Exhibit C: The Supreme Court
Term: Lifetime
Elected by: No one. Appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate.
Qualifications: None.
Even if each position is elected, it sure looks like it was designed to keep the same people ruling--unless each state legislature experiences a rapid upheaval, and even then you have to wait up to 4 years to see a change in politicians. It's a bit different now, as legislatures don't appoint Senators, but the concept is still the same.
That used to be my opinion too, but it turns out that the American Founding Fathers were rather intelligent folk. The system they created is, to date, one of the best in the world. Changing the system disrupts the delicate balance required for it to work properly. Unfortunately, that balance was disrupted long ago. Honestly, I think a clean sweep of the government (Lessig & Gore's schtick), returning to state-elected senators (my schtick), and changing the electoral college to handle a partied system (mathematicians' schtick) would be enough to get the US on the right track, as far as "management" is concerned.
The real concern is how to motivate & educate the citizenry. According to Gore, that disease is twofold: TV and the current state of public education.
So, how do we get that dealt with? Attack both at the same time. The internet is a disruptive technology, and it has given us the opportunity to speak out. Innovations such as YouTube, Wikipedia, blogging, and "community content" leveraged by Web 2.0 grant us the perfect opportunity to actually motivate changes and communicate our plans. It's pitiful that my generation's apathy (and, in your case, despair) stifles their want to accomplish anything with our era's 'printing press'.
They typically qualify as an expert within the field that the degree applies to. A PhD denotes that you are an expert in the general sense. Philosophically, you are well grounded with the norms and established theory of your specialized field, with concentrated knowledge within your region of research.
The main reason specialized degrees (MD, JD, etc) exists is largely historical and political (see the politics of the Church & University circa 15th century, and the history of professional organizations), rather than practical. Even so, the work required to be esteemed as an expert is far from attending college for 10 years.
The degrees you discuss above--DDS, MD, PE, CPA, (also: JD = Juris Doctorate)--are each fields of specialized expertise. The difference between being an MD and a PhD is merely the specialization noted in the title. It is important to note an analogy here:
- A PhD in chemistry doesn't make me an expert in sociology.
- An MD in pediatrics doesn't make me an expert in virology.
- A PhD vs. MD in virology communicate different specialization as well. While the PhD focuses on science, the MD focuses on medicine. (Note: the only virologist I knew earned both degrees, incidentally).
As one can see, each of these titles denote expertise. The difficulty stems from determining what field said expertise applies to.That's not conspiracy. It's life, and it's sad.
The GP is modded insightful, which is outright wrong. While the GP may be funny, he conflates a google search with google's opinion. The parent post points this out, and is modded flamebait? The parent should be modded insightful or interesting, not the GP.
The initials after your name are a "social shorthand" that (in the US, at least) symbolize expert knowledge of a subject. So, in a certain sense, they do denote expertise. ;)
Have fun as your virtualized DB servers thrash their VM's & toss them about like so much tissue paper.
Also, your PHB's won't be sold on MS's consumer line. They'll be looking at the Business & Enterprise editions, which, AFAIK, both allow virtualization.
Synergize your information infrastructure by integrating Microsoft-brand cereals into your e-diet. Microsoft Business & Enterprise products are part of a well-balanced breakfast. The fiber you need; the software you trust. Eat Microsoft.