Gmail and the like are web services. they aren't web software packages that you download and deploy on your own server. beta still means beta, and alpha means alpha.
if you RTFA, you'd see that the beta status means the web service hasn't met their metric for consumer products. so a beta label means that the product is still undergoing continual refinement--meaning if you sign up for this service now, you may see changes to functionality and features in the future.
a web service doesn't conform to iterative release cycles, thus normal versioning conventions and release stages are meaningless. you don't upgrade from Yahoo! Mail 1.0 to Yahoo! Mail 2.0. it's a seamless transition that's part of a continual development process.
i agree that it's confusing since Beta already has an established meaning in software development. but that's why Google has explained, via their spokesperson, what their usage of Beta means. and frankly their explanation makes a lot of sense. if after reading their explanations you're still confused then, well, i don't know what to say to you.
but they wouldn't have to tell you anything. if you ask them to submit the App, and it never shows up on the store, then you know it's been rejected. they didn't break the NDA, and you never signed the NDA.
yea, but that's not how the legal system works--it's how it should work, but not how it does in reality.
for instance, i used to work at an indie record label here in SoCal that i later left for personal reasons. a few days ago my boss dropped by my apartment to say hi and ask me to help him with a problem that recently arose. now, amongst the label's back catalog is a now defunct band called Acid Bath, and they have a popular song called Dr. Seuss is Dead. when the album containing this track (When the Kite String Pops) was originally published, the band spelled the title incorrectly as Dr. _Suess_ is Dead and that's what was printed on all the track listings. seeing as "Dr. Seuss" is a trademarked name, my boss decided to play it safe and keep the misspelling all these years (the album was released in 1994).
oddly enough, after i left the company, my boss decided to have the spelling mistake corrected. so what happened was that the estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), or their lawyers rather, found some Acid Bath merchandise being auctioned off on e-bay--we actually printed a Dr. Seuss is Dead t-shirt with original artwork by a friend of the band. the e-bay seller apparently rolled on the record label, and the lawyers came after my boss and demanded that he take all of the Dr. Seuss is Dead/When the Kite String Pops merchandise off the site, and also hand over all the leftover stocks of the albums/DVDs/hoodies/t-shirts/posters/etc.
despite the fact that this is a legal parody, and that the band really only makes a single reference to Dr. Seuss in in the actual lyrics, the Geisel estate has threatened to take legal action against my boss and his company if their demands aren't met. frankly, i don't see any legal basis for their claims. this is clearly a protected form of trademark fair use. but the reality of the matter is, the Geisel estate is a multi-billion-dollar corporation, and my boss, though a rich man, simply doesn't have the money to take them on in court. the legal feels alone would force him to settle out of court.
so it doesn't matter if a claim is legally grounded or not. it only matters that the party making the claim/demands is a multi-billion-dollar corporation and the defense is not. like most people facing a legal threat from a large corporation, your only real option is just to meet their demands unless you want to be bankrupted by court/lawyer fees.
well, the $3000 DSLR is an intentional hyperbole for the sake of illustrating my point. personally, i use a $1000 DSLR (Nikon D50) for my graphic design work or when i go on vacation, but i'm sure most people wouldn't need even that.
my point is, it's very convenient to have a digital camera built into your phone these days. heck, even i've used the 1.3MP camera on my phone to snap a few spur of the moment photos once or twice.
yes, you can get a decent quality standalone digicam for relatively cheap these days. and it'll probably have better quality than your camera phone. but i know very few people who would carry a digicam (even a cheap $100 one) on their person whenever they go out.
with girls, it's probably just as convenient to simply carry a camera in your purse when you go out with friends. but with guys, it's a lot more convenient to have a camera built into your cellphone. with camera phones you've always sacrificed quality/features for portability/convenience. but over the years, the quality/feature gap between mid-range camera-phones and mid-range digicams has shrunken considerably.
even people with standalone cameras find it more convenient to simply carry a camera phone rather than a camera + phone on them for recreational photos. basically, you use a camera phone when you don't anticipate the need for a camera, which for most people, is more often than they would actually use their standalone camera.
so instead of most low-end phones supporting bluetooth or USB, you'd need to get the smart phone connectivity package that costs over $2000?
even if we disregard the fact that you're still lumping together large feature sets, handset makers would still need to make 16 models for each phone.
currently, my phone supports:
MP3 playback
bluetooth
camera
web browser
e-mail
microSD
Java/games
organizer/calendar
voice memos
instant messenger
i really only need to use it for making/receiving calls, but i like having the calendar/organizer, bluetooth, and microSD slot. i've occasionally used the camera, but probably haven't taken a single photo with my phone in the past 2 years.
this phone definitely has more features than i need, but it only cost me $40 with a contract. when it first came out, it was a mid-ranged phone, and probably cost around $120 without a contract. so even though there are superfluous features, they don't get in my way, and it's still a very compact phone, so what do i care?
but if i were to purchase a phone from your ideal handset maker, i would need to get a phone + connectivity package just so i can use a bluetooth headset and do bluetooth file transfers on my phone. i would still end up with a phone that exceeds my needs, but this time i would have to pay much more for my phone to get what are essentially basic features. do you have any idea how much EV-DO & GPS adds to the cost of a cellphone, not to mention HSDPA/HSUPA?
perhaps NASA conducts so much peripheral research because there's no dedicated government agency for general scientific research.
i know that we have the NOAA for atmospheric research, but perhaps there needs to be an overarching government agency for scientific research in general. NASA, NOAA, and probably NIST would be branches or departments under such an agency. and all research that is pertinent to our societal advancement, but does not have a dedicated agency such as NASA or NOAA, would be conducted under this umbrella agency.
after all, we should be funding public research into general science, not just space/weather/nuclear energy. if we want to continue to be scientifically & technologically relevant, then we need a broader scientific research strategy, as well as a government agency to coordinate this strategy between the various existing research agencies.
well, if it gets in your way so much then surely it'd be worth the extra money to not have that camera in your way all the time.
i mean, my phone came with a camera too. i don't take recreational photos very often and haven't used the camera feature since i got the phone. like the mp3 playback feature, calendar, organizer, voice memos, internet access, instant messenger, e-mail, etc., i only have them on my phone because they came with the handset.
all i really use my phone for is to make & receive calls or text messages. but those other features don't get in the way of what i use the phone for. not using the features i don't need has never been a problem for me. unless you're technologically incompetent, i don't see how having non-essential features on your phone would be a problem. and if it really is a problem, there are an abundance of other phones for you to choose from.
so anyone complaining about camera-phones is just bitching to seem like a non-conformist.
In the Greek mathematical Forum
Young Euclid was present to bore'em.
He spent most of his time
Drawing circles sublime
And crossing the pons asinorum.*
so i guess handset makers need to make phones with just single features--one that only has a speaker function, one that only has an mp3 playback function, one that only has a camera, and one that only displays text messages without opening the phone, etc.?
oh, but wait, you want a phone that both has a speaker _and_ allows you to receive text messages/pages easily. so i guess in addition to one model per feature, they also need a model for each permutation of features (any 2 features, any 3 features, any 4 features, any 5 features, any 6 features,..., etc.).
so if Nokia wanted to provide a line of phones with just 4 different features, they would need to make 15 models, plus 1 without any of those features. if they want to let consumers choose from 6 different features, they'd need to make 64 models--and that's not even counting product options that require calculating non-binary permutations (ie. color schemes).
now let's see how many features the average smart phone might have:
so i guess each handset maker needs at least 17,179,869,184 models to encompass all these features. but even then i'm sure you'll still complain that your phone comes with 64MB of internal memory when all you need is 56MB, or that it runs Symbian OS when you want Android or Windows Mobile.
this banal argument crops up in _every_ single/. article about cellphones.
and the answer is the same every single time. as icydog and countless others have replied, there are tons of cheap phones with minimal features.
the only reason camera phones are so visible and common is because they're popular with consumers. it's useful having a camera on your person at all times, and most people don't need a $3000 DSLR for their uses. with point and shoot cameras becoming smaller and cheaper, it's simply more convenient to incorporate this feature into a device that people carry with them most of the time, such as a cellphone.
if you work somewhere where camera-phones aren't allowed (like a court house) then just select a phone without a camera. how hard is that? certain handset makers, such as Nokia, even have models that have a no-camera option. this CNET article even compares 5 popular big brand phones that are camera-free (or have the option of being so). so stop complaining.
i just might take you up on that suggestion. that book sounds fascinating.
another sci-fi novel in a similar vein is the Solaris. i've only seen the movie starring George Clooney (i actually quite liked it), but i think the gist of the story surrounds the futile attempts by two very different species--humans and a large amorphous life form which covers the surface of an alien planet--to communicate with each other. their efforts are in vain due to the fact that, though both species are clearly intelligent, the two forms of intelligence are too different from one another for successful interspecies communication.
i guess what kind of intelligence a species evolves into depends largely on their physical existence. thus a non-corporeal being would probably be unable to communicate with a corporeal species such as ourselves. likewise, we would not be able to successfully communicate with a hive-minded intelligence because its consciousness is so alien to ours.
hrmm... i've never heard of this. aside from contrast ratio and luminance what other monitor specs would have an impact on professional design work? shouldn't saturation be adjustable via software? a high-saturation monitor can always be set to display with a lower saturation level, but a lower saturation monitor can't be set to display higher saturation than it's capable of producing.
it seems to me that for color-matching the only thing you should be concerned about is choosing the right color profile in your graphics application. for print ads you'd obviously want to use a CMYK profile, but regardless of the profiles or monitor you use you won't be able to reproduce the CMYK colorspace on a computer screen because of the disparate gamuts of each system.
yea, but that was a social protest about segregation. the boycott was a very visible form of protest that drew media attention to the issue.
whereas, not buying music isn't a visible form of protest. it's weight relies on economic sanctions rather than visibility. it doesn't promote public discourse about the issue of DRM. and the effect of the sanctions could simply be attributed to "piracy" by the pro-DRM camp.
i'm still in support of boycotting major labels and companies who use DRM, but i don't think you can draw that analogy.
so if we hide this info then no one can build ICBMs without our consent? that's a rather ignorant way of trying to promote national security.
i mean, where do you stop? should we keep nuclear physics from being taught/researched because it can be applied to nuclear weapons? or put a ban on the export of biology/chemistry research because they could aid in the development of bio/chemical weapons?
because the novel is satirical in nature, the 2007 film adaptation was able to play off the sexist elements as intentional satire. but in the original novel this was not so.
i'm sure that making all women shrill, 1-dimensional, emotionally volatile beings easily given to bouts of uncontrollable hysteria was meant as some sort of social commentary on the difference between the genders. but it was certainly not conveying a progressive attitude about women.
but information isn't traveling faster than light. we are observing the influenced object, which is within our light cone. we can only see its movements by information traveling at the speed of light.
our indirect observation of the influencing object is done by extrapolating our knowledge of that particular region of space with the belief that there is nothing within the observable universe capable of creating such an influence on the directly-observed objected. no information is reaching us from the dark flow object. all our speculations about it are based on logical deduction.
it's just like if you were to calculate and line up shots in your head when shooting pool. a good pool player can know where every ball will end up even before he takes the shot. has information from the balls traveled back in time to him? no, because he's simply using his cognitive abilities to deduce/predict the movement of the balls for any given shot.
or to use another analogy, you might be talking to your best friend on instant messenger and know what he's going to say even before he says it. that's not FTL information propagation. technically the information hasn't been sent to you yet, but you are still able to use other pieces of information from the past and from the current situation to reliably predict what your friend is likely to say next.
you should check out the book (or better yet, the movie) Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott. it's basically a sci-fi satire about a hypothetical 2D universe. Isaac Asimov himself endorsed the novella as "the best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions."
it discusses how 2D universe beings would perceive 3D beings and goes into great detail about how life in the 2D universe would be different from ours. for instance, a 3D being would be able to look directly at the insides of a 2D being, and if we tried to enter the 2D universe the native 2D beings would simply perceive us as a changing 2D shape.
the book makes a lot of interesting observations about the relationship between 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D. it also gives one insight on how we might perceive 4D beings/objects.
the book itself is a bit culturally outdated, as evidenced by its misogynistic attitudes, but the 2007 movie (not the Martin Sheen short film, but the feature-length indie film) does a pretty good job updating it for contemporary audiences while retaining the original spirit of the book.
anyway, i just wanted to respond to the claim that this would somehow lump kids in the middle/low end with the kids at the bottom.
i don't see how that could happen unless you're saying that middle/low end students are consistently getting E/Fs. D students would still be getting 60% at the very least with this scheme, which would still be a semi-passing grade compared to a 50% failing grade.
yea, the 50% students might be lumped with the 0% students, but that's the whole idea. someone with 50% mid-semester is much more likely to pull their grade up to a C- than someone with 0%.
maybe my perspective is different because i used to tutor other students in high school, but not all poor students are "pisspots" who did not study. some lack studying skills, some simply need a little extra attention or different teaching methods. it's hard to say why students do poorly.
besides, what's a warranted grade is subjective. this simply changing the grading scale. there's still the top percentile and bottom percentile. it's just more forgiving for struggling students.
good students will be good students regardless. i don't think it's wrong to try out a system that attempts to reach out to struggling students. that seems like the most important area of focus for primary and secondary schools.
IMO school isn't there to punish those who are lazy or unmotivated--the consequences of such attitudes will be self-evident later in life. school is there to provide students willing to learn with a good education. if a more forgiving grading system does that then who cares whether lazy students go home with a 50% or 0%? doesn't seem like either would affect an unmotivated student, and it should affect good students even less. whom it might effect are borderline students who are genuinely trying but are struggling.
to go back to the welfare analogy. it's like being more concerned with not letting anyone freeload off the system than actually helping those in need. personally, i'd rather tolerate the occasional freeloader than allowing people to starve. that would seem to me to benefit society more.
i think it's kinda cool. the idea that there are even more massive structures out there than what's in our observable universe is really quite mind-boggling. but without stars and galaxies i wonder what kind of emergent structures or phenomena could exist beyond our observable bubble.
i'm guessing it's probably not possible for biological life to form in such a radically different environment, but then again maybe i just lack the imagination to conceive of such possibilities. it seems like within our observable universe for any biological life to evolve it must follow certain patterns dictated by the laws of physics/chemistry. but if space-time in these regions is so different from our observable universe then who knows? our level of consciousness compared to what exists out there might be like comparing an amoeba with a blue whale. even the time scales experienced by other life forms could be drastically different from ours. entire civilizations could spring forth and flicker out of existence all in the blink of an eye.
but since we can't even observe what is out there maybe this is all pointless speculation.
those are mockups not in-game screen shots. and the 3d models look pretty legit to me. if they're fake then someone with a lot of talent wasted a lot of time and effort to make such an elaborate fake.
well, a failing grade isn't exactly sliding by. you can slide by with an F for doing nothing as well.
students who don't want to make an effort to learn won't learn regardless. this simply allows those who change their mind or simply had a rough start to actually catch up.
making a passing grade more attainable would convince more "poor" students to turn over a new leaf rather than just give up hope completely. either way it really doesn't punish anyone for actually studying.
how does it punish students for not gaming the system? that's like saying welfare punishes those who aren't impoverished.
school is meant to help students learn. it's about social welfare, not commerce. when a student studies hard and turns in their homework, they're not simply trading labor for a good grade. doing homework and studying hard have inherent value to a student. it's not like a job where you work simply to get paid.
so when a student who doesn't study gets 50% by default while another student studies and receives 100%, the non-studying student isn't getting a better deal because there's no economic value being exchanged here. he hasn't gained an advantage from not studying.
giving poor students a better chance of catching up doesn't lessen the inherent value a good student gains from his hard work. either way good students can still receive just as good of an education from the school.
well, first off, all of NASA's research and technology should be freely available in the public domain. that would make it much easier for commercial space travel to take off. i mean, why are we funding public research if it's not going to be public?
i wonder if the patents NASA is auctioning, or has auctioned, off would make SpaceX's task easier. i mean, i don't care if private corporations start taking over space exploration or if space travel is commercialized. it doesn't even matter if private corporations profit from tax-funded research--so long as _everyone_ has access to that research and is allowed to do the same.
but now it's like if we'd taken all the money used to fund NASA over the past few decades and instead just given it to a handful of private corporations. they alone get to profit from research paid for by the American public and then charge everyone else for access to the technology that our tax dollars already paid for. it's almost like the situation with the telecoms where the infrastructure we paid for is being privately controlled and we're charged extortionate rates to use.
i feel the same way about the Sony PSP. personally, i think the PSP is an excellent piece of hardware. it's really quite an impressive feat of engineering in that respect. for someone like me, who likes traditional console-type games but prefers a portable platform and also wants a general portable entertainment device (not just a gaming system) it's absolutely perfect.
however, the tact that Sony has taken to maximize profits from the PSP by screwing over their customers is really unconscionable IMO. i mean, the PSP was advertised as a portable entertainment system that not only played PSP games, but also played PSX games. that was a huge selling point for me personally. unfortunately, PS1 games for the PSP were only legally available from the PSN store. and, despite the fact that the PSP has wi-fi capabilities and a built-in web browser (another widely advertised feature), Sony insisted on requiring the PSP to be hooked up to a PS3 in order to access PSN content.
so in essence, Sony was telling PSP owners that if they wanted to access one of the main entertainment features of the PSP they needed to also buy a $600 PS3. there was absolutely no reason for this restriction other than to milk PSP owners for more money in a bait-n-switch tactic.
of course, this strategy often backfired and many people just turned to homebrew and CFW which allowed them to convert their own PSX games to POPS format. although Sony has finally realized their mistake and is gradually working to bring the PSN store to the PSP directly--or at least let PSP owners access the PSN via their desktop computer (though only with Internet Explorer on Windows)--most people have already grown accustomed to just downloading pre-converted PSX off of the internet since it's so much more convenient than the legal route.
Slashdot Mirror
Gmail and the like are web services. they aren't web software packages that you download and deploy on your own server. beta still means beta, and alpha means alpha.
if you RTFA, you'd see that the beta status means the web service hasn't met their metric for consumer products. so a beta label means that the product is still undergoing continual refinement--meaning if you sign up for this service now, you may see changes to functionality and features in the future.
a web service doesn't conform to iterative release cycles, thus normal versioning conventions and release stages are meaningless. you don't upgrade from Yahoo! Mail 1.0 to Yahoo! Mail 2.0. it's a seamless transition that's part of a continual development process.
i agree that it's confusing since Beta already has an established meaning in software development. but that's why Google has explained, via their spokesperson, what their usage of Beta means. and frankly their explanation makes a lot of sense. if after reading their explanations you're still confused then, well, i don't know what to say to you.
but they wouldn't have to tell you anything. if you ask them to submit the App, and it never shows up on the store, then you know it's been rejected. they didn't break the NDA, and you never signed the NDA.
yea, but that's not how the legal system works--it's how it should work, but not how it does in reality.
for instance, i used to work at an indie record label here in SoCal that i later left for personal reasons. a few days ago my boss dropped by my apartment to say hi and ask me to help him with a problem that recently arose. now, amongst the label's back catalog is a now defunct band called Acid Bath, and they have a popular song called Dr. Seuss is Dead. when the album containing this track (When the Kite String Pops) was originally published, the band spelled the title incorrectly as Dr. _Suess_ is Dead and that's what was printed on all the track listings. seeing as "Dr. Seuss" is a trademarked name, my boss decided to play it safe and keep the misspelling all these years (the album was released in 1994).
oddly enough, after i left the company, my boss decided to have the spelling mistake corrected. so what happened was that the estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), or their lawyers rather, found some Acid Bath merchandise being auctioned off on e-bay--we actually printed a Dr. Seuss is Dead t-shirt with original artwork by a friend of the band. the e-bay seller apparently rolled on the record label, and the lawyers came after my boss and demanded that he take all of the Dr. Seuss is Dead/When the Kite String Pops merchandise off the site, and also hand over all the leftover stocks of the albums/DVDs/hoodies/t-shirts/posters/etc.
despite the fact that this is a legal parody, and that the band really only makes a single reference to Dr. Seuss in in the actual lyrics, the Geisel estate has threatened to take legal action against my boss and his company if their demands aren't met. frankly, i don't see any legal basis for their claims. this is clearly a protected form of trademark fair use. but the reality of the matter is, the Geisel estate is a multi-billion-dollar corporation, and my boss, though a rich man, simply doesn't have the money to take them on in court. the legal feels alone would force him to settle out of court.
so it doesn't matter if a claim is legally grounded or not. it only matters that the party making the claim/demands is a multi-billion-dollar corporation and the defense is not. like most people facing a legal threat from a large corporation, your only real option is just to meet their demands unless you want to be bankrupted by court/lawyer fees.
well, the $3000 DSLR is an intentional hyperbole for the sake of illustrating my point. personally, i use a $1000 DSLR (Nikon D50) for my graphic design work or when i go on vacation, but i'm sure most people wouldn't need even that.
my point is, it's very convenient to have a digital camera built into your phone these days. heck, even i've used the 1.3MP camera on my phone to snap a few spur of the moment photos once or twice.
yes, you can get a decent quality standalone digicam for relatively cheap these days. and it'll probably have better quality than your camera phone. but i know very few people who would carry a digicam (even a cheap $100 one) on their person whenever they go out.
with girls, it's probably just as convenient to simply carry a camera in your purse when you go out with friends. but with guys, it's a lot more convenient to have a camera built into your cellphone. with camera phones you've always sacrificed quality/features for portability/convenience. but over the years, the quality/feature gap between mid-range camera-phones and mid-range digicams has shrunken considerably.
even people with standalone cameras find it more convenient to simply carry a camera phone rather than a camera + phone on them for recreational photos. basically, you use a camera phone when you don't anticipate the need for a camera, which for most people, is more often than they would actually use their standalone camera.
i really only need to use it for making/receiving calls, but i like having the calendar/organizer, bluetooth, and microSD slot. i've occasionally used the camera, but probably haven't taken a single photo with my phone in the past 2 years.
this phone definitely has more features than i need, but it only cost me $40 with a contract. when it first came out, it was a mid-ranged phone, and probably cost around $120 without a contract. so even though there are superfluous features, they don't get in my way, and it's still a very compact phone, so what do i care?
but if i were to purchase a phone from your ideal handset maker, i would need to get a phone + connectivity package just so i can use a bluetooth headset and do bluetooth file transfers on my phone. i would still end up with a phone that exceeds my needs, but this time i would have to pay much more for my phone to get what are essentially basic features. do you have any idea how much EV-DO & GPS adds to the cost of a cellphone, not to mention HSDPA/HSUPA?
perhaps NASA conducts so much peripheral research because there's no dedicated government agency for general scientific research.
i know that we have the NOAA for atmospheric research, but perhaps there needs to be an overarching government agency for scientific research in general. NASA, NOAA, and probably NIST would be branches or departments under such an agency. and all research that is pertinent to our societal advancement, but does not have a dedicated agency such as NASA or NOAA, would be conducted under this umbrella agency.
after all, we should be funding public research into general science, not just space/weather/nuclear energy. if we want to continue to be scientifically & technologically relevant, then we need a broader scientific research strategy, as well as a government agency to coordinate this strategy between the various existing research agencies.
well, if it gets in your way so much then surely it'd be worth the extra money to not have that camera in your way all the time.
i mean, my phone came with a camera too. i don't take recreational photos very often and haven't used the camera feature since i got the phone. like the mp3 playback feature, calendar, organizer, voice memos, internet access, instant messenger, e-mail, etc., i only have them on my phone because they came with the handset.
all i really use my phone for is to make & receive calls or text messages. but those other features don't get in the way of what i use the phone for. not using the features i don't need has never been a problem for me. unless you're technologically incompetent, i don't see how having non-essential features on your phone would be a problem. and if it really is a problem, there are an abundance of other phones for you to choose from.
so anyone complaining about camera-phones is just bitching to seem like a non-conformist.
In the Greek mathematical Forum
Young Euclid was present to bore'em.
He spent most of his time
Drawing circles sublime
And crossing the pons asinorum.*
wait, you said armchair mathemetrician, right?
*not my poem.
so i guess handset makers need to make phones with just single features--one that only has a speaker function, one that only has an mp3 playback function, one that only has a camera, and one that only displays text messages without opening the phone, etc.?
oh, but wait, you want a phone that both has a speaker _and_ allows you to receive text messages/pages easily. so i guess in addition to one model per feature, they also need a model for each permutation of features (any 2 features, any 3 features, any 4 features, any 5 features, any 6 features, ..., etc.).
so if Nokia wanted to provide a line of phones with just 4 different features, they would need to make 15 models, plus 1 without any of those features. if they want to let consumers choose from 6 different features, they'd need to make 64 models--and that's not even counting product options that require calculating non-binary permutations (ie. color schemes).
now let's see how many features the average smart phone might have:
so i guess each handset maker needs at least 17,179,869,184 models to encompass all these features. but even then i'm sure you'll still complain that your phone comes with 64MB of internal memory when all you need is 56MB, or that it runs Symbian OS when you want Android or Windows Mobile.
this banal argument crops up in _every_ single /. article about cellphones.
and the answer is the same every single time. as icydog and countless others have replied, there are tons of cheap phones with minimal features.
the only reason camera phones are so visible and common is because they're popular with consumers. it's useful having a camera on your person at all times, and most people don't need a $3000 DSLR for their uses. with point and shoot cameras becoming smaller and cheaper, it's simply more convenient to incorporate this feature into a device that people carry with them most of the time, such as a cellphone.
if you work somewhere where camera-phones aren't allowed (like a court house) then just select a phone without a camera. how hard is that? certain handset makers, such as Nokia, even have models that have a no-camera option. this CNET article even compares 5 popular big brand phones that are camera-free (or have the option of being so). so stop complaining.
i just might take you up on that suggestion. that book sounds fascinating.
another sci-fi novel in a similar vein is the Solaris. i've only seen the movie starring George Clooney (i actually quite liked it), but i think the gist of the story surrounds the futile attempts by two very different species--humans and a large amorphous life form which covers the surface of an alien planet--to communicate with each other. their efforts are in vain due to the fact that, though both species are clearly intelligent, the two forms of intelligence are too different from one another for successful interspecies communication.
i guess what kind of intelligence a species evolves into depends largely on their physical existence. thus a non-corporeal being would probably be unable to communicate with a corporeal species such as ourselves. likewise, we would not be able to successfully communicate with a hive-minded intelligence because its consciousness is so alien to ours.
hrmm... i've never heard of this. aside from contrast ratio and luminance what other monitor specs would have an impact on professional design work? shouldn't saturation be adjustable via software? a high-saturation monitor can always be set to display with a lower saturation level, but a lower saturation monitor can't be set to display higher saturation than it's capable of producing.
it seems to me that for color-matching the only thing you should be concerned about is choosing the right color profile in your graphics application. for print ads you'd obviously want to use a CMYK profile, but regardless of the profiles or monitor you use you won't be able to reproduce the CMYK colorspace on a computer screen because of the disparate gamuts of each system.
yea, but that was a social protest about segregation. the boycott was a very visible form of protest that drew media attention to the issue.
whereas, not buying music isn't a visible form of protest. it's weight relies on economic sanctions rather than visibility. it doesn't promote public discourse about the issue of DRM. and the effect of the sanctions could simply be attributed to "piracy" by the pro-DRM camp.
i'm still in support of boycotting major labels and companies who use DRM, but i don't think you can draw that analogy.
so if we hide this info then no one can build ICBMs without our consent? that's a rather ignorant way of trying to promote national security.
i mean, where do you stop? should we keep nuclear physics from being taught/researched because it can be applied to nuclear weapons? or put a ban on the export of biology/chemistry research because they could aid in the development of bio/chemical weapons?
because the novel is satirical in nature, the 2007 film adaptation was able to play off the sexist elements as intentional satire. but in the original novel this was not so.
i'm sure that making all women shrill, 1-dimensional, emotionally volatile beings easily given to bouts of uncontrollable hysteria was meant as some sort of social commentary on the difference between the genders. but it was certainly not conveying a progressive attitude about women.
i mean, the book was written in 1884, after all.
but information isn't traveling faster than light. we are observing the influenced object, which is within our light cone. we can only see its movements by information traveling at the speed of light.
our indirect observation of the influencing object is done by extrapolating our knowledge of that particular region of space with the belief that there is nothing within the observable universe capable of creating such an influence on the directly-observed objected. no information is reaching us from the dark flow object. all our speculations about it are based on logical deduction.
it's just like if you were to calculate and line up shots in your head when shooting pool. a good pool player can know where every ball will end up even before he takes the shot. has information from the balls traveled back in time to him? no, because he's simply using his cognitive abilities to deduce/predict the movement of the balls for any given shot.
or to use another analogy, you might be talking to your best friend on instant messenger and know what he's going to say even before he says it. that's not FTL information propagation. technically the information hasn't been sent to you yet, but you are still able to use other pieces of information from the past and from the current situation to reliably predict what your friend is likely to say next.
you should check out the book (or better yet, the movie) Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott. it's basically a sci-fi satire about a hypothetical 2D universe. Isaac Asimov himself endorsed the novella as "the best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions."
it discusses how 2D universe beings would perceive 3D beings and goes into great detail about how life in the 2D universe would be different from ours. for instance, a 3D being would be able to look directly at the insides of a 2D being, and if we tried to enter the 2D universe the native 2D beings would simply perceive us as a changing 2D shape.
the book makes a lot of interesting observations about the relationship between 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D. it also gives one insight on how we might perceive 4D beings/objects.
the book itself is a bit culturally outdated, as evidenced by its misogynistic attitudes, but the 2007 movie (not the Martin Sheen short film, but the feature-length indie film) does a pretty good job updating it for contemporary audiences while retaining the original spirit of the book.
wow, i think you misread the tone of my post.
anyway, i just wanted to respond to the claim that this would somehow lump kids in the middle/low end with the kids at the bottom.
i don't see how that could happen unless you're saying that middle/low end students are consistently getting E/Fs. D students would still be getting 60% at the very least with this scheme, which would still be a semi-passing grade compared to a 50% failing grade.
yea, the 50% students might be lumped with the 0% students, but that's the whole idea. someone with 50% mid-semester is much more likely to pull their grade up to a C- than someone with 0%.
maybe my perspective is different because i used to tutor other students in high school, but not all poor students are "pisspots" who did not study. some lack studying skills, some simply need a little extra attention or different teaching methods. it's hard to say why students do poorly.
besides, what's a warranted grade is subjective. this simply changing the grading scale. there's still the top percentile and bottom percentile. it's just more forgiving for struggling students.
good students will be good students regardless. i don't think it's wrong to try out a system that attempts to reach out to struggling students. that seems like the most important area of focus for primary and secondary schools.
IMO school isn't there to punish those who are lazy or unmotivated--the consequences of such attitudes will be self-evident later in life. school is there to provide students willing to learn with a good education. if a more forgiving grading system does that then who cares whether lazy students go home with a 50% or 0%? doesn't seem like either would affect an unmotivated student, and it should affect good students even less. whom it might effect are borderline students who are genuinely trying but are struggling.
to go back to the welfare analogy. it's like being more concerned with not letting anyone freeload off the system than actually helping those in need. personally, i'd rather tolerate the occasional freeloader than allowing people to starve. that would seem to me to benefit society more.
i think it's kinda cool. the idea that there are even more massive structures out there than what's in our observable universe is really quite mind-boggling. but without stars and galaxies i wonder what kind of emergent structures or phenomena could exist beyond our observable bubble.
i'm guessing it's probably not possible for biological life to form in such a radically different environment, but then again maybe i just lack the imagination to conceive of such possibilities. it seems like within our observable universe for any biological life to evolve it must follow certain patterns dictated by the laws of physics/chemistry. but if space-time in these regions is so different from our observable universe then who knows? our level of consciousness compared to what exists out there might be like comparing an amoeba with a blue whale. even the time scales experienced by other life forms could be drastically different from ours. entire civilizations could spring forth and flicker out of existence all in the blink of an eye.
but since we can't even observe what is out there maybe this is all pointless speculation.
those are mockups not in-game screen shots. and the 3d models look pretty legit to me. if they're fake then someone with a lot of talent wasted a lot of time and effort to make such an elaborate fake.
well, a failing grade isn't exactly sliding by. you can slide by with an F for doing nothing as well.
students who don't want to make an effort to learn won't learn regardless. this simply allows those who change their mind or simply had a rough start to actually catch up.
making a passing grade more attainable would convince more "poor" students to turn over a new leaf rather than just give up hope completely. either way it really doesn't punish anyone for actually studying.
how does it punish students for not gaming the system? that's like saying welfare punishes those who aren't impoverished.
school is meant to help students learn. it's about social welfare, not commerce. when a student studies hard and turns in their homework, they're not simply trading labor for a good grade. doing homework and studying hard have inherent value to a student. it's not like a job where you work simply to get paid.
so when a student who doesn't study gets 50% by default while another student studies and receives 100%, the non-studying student isn't getting a better deal because there's no economic value being exchanged here. he hasn't gained an advantage from not studying.
giving poor students a better chance of catching up doesn't lessen the inherent value a good student gains from his hard work. either way good students can still receive just as good of an education from the school.
well, first off, all of NASA's research and technology should be freely available in the public domain. that would make it much easier for commercial space travel to take off. i mean, why are we funding public research if it's not going to be public?
i wonder if the patents NASA is auctioning, or has auctioned, off would make SpaceX's task easier. i mean, i don't care if private corporations start taking over space exploration or if space travel is commercialized. it doesn't even matter if private corporations profit from tax-funded research--so long as _everyone_ has access to that research and is allowed to do the same.
but now it's like if we'd taken all the money used to fund NASA over the past few decades and instead just given it to a handful of private corporations. they alone get to profit from research paid for by the American public and then charge everyone else for access to the technology that our tax dollars already paid for. it's almost like the situation with the telecoms where the infrastructure we paid for is being privately controlled and we're charged extortionate rates to use.
i feel the same way about the Sony PSP. personally, i think the PSP is an excellent piece of hardware. it's really quite an impressive feat of engineering in that respect. for someone like me, who likes traditional console-type games but prefers a portable platform and also wants a general portable entertainment device (not just a gaming system) it's absolutely perfect.
however, the tact that Sony has taken to maximize profits from the PSP by screwing over their customers is really unconscionable IMO. i mean, the PSP was advertised as a portable entertainment system that not only played PSP games, but also played PSX games. that was a huge selling point for me personally. unfortunately, PS1 games for the PSP were only legally available from the PSN store. and, despite the fact that the PSP has wi-fi capabilities and a built-in web browser (another widely advertised feature), Sony insisted on requiring the PSP to be hooked up to a PS3 in order to access PSN content.
so in essence, Sony was telling PSP owners that if they wanted to access one of the main entertainment features of the PSP they needed to also buy a $600 PS3. there was absolutely no reason for this restriction other than to milk PSP owners for more money in a bait-n-switch tactic.
of course, this strategy often backfired and many people just turned to homebrew and CFW which allowed them to convert their own PSX games to POPS format. although Sony has finally realized their mistake and is gradually working to bring the PSN store to the PSP directly--or at least let PSP owners access the PSN via their desktop computer (though only with Internet Explorer on Windows)--most people have already grown accustomed to just downloading pre-converted PSX off of the internet since it's so much more convenient than the legal route.