Do you see many [men/women] walking around looking at [magazines], period? I don't. I do see many, many people walking around with their eyes glued to their cellphones, though (and this is common sense, it's difficult to carry around something as large as a magazine as compared to a phone which fits right in your pocket).
It's tangential, but I actually have seen people looking at porn on a plane. What, you thought they stocked those magazines in the airport store for the fun of it? I'm sure if they had been sitting next to a woman/child rather than another young man they wouldn't have, but I don't really care either way since I don't really care about porn like I said. Overall, I don't even think these apps need to be banned, I'm just glad I don't have to be bothered to filter through such crap on the app store.
Maybe an analogy illustrating the point/difference I was trying to make would help. Take an office setting: a guy looking at porn in his private office, while a waste of company time and should probably be disciplined along those lines, is not creating a sexually hostile environment that's "degrading to women." Contrast that with two guys cracking sexual jokes objectifying women in plain earshot of their female coworkers. That is creating a sexually hostile environment and they should be disciplined/sued for sexual harassment. Save it for later when they get drunk at one or the other's place and think about touching each other since they can't get a real woman.
Similarly, I would not have a problem with some guy watching (with headphones) porn on his phone while sitting on a train. I would have a problem with a couple of drooling idiots laughing about manipulating a virtual woman for their pleasure on their phone. One is the act(s) recorded between consenting adults, the other is treating the focus of your sexual desire as your puppet. I'm totally cool with you doing this with computer programs/dolls in a private space, but don't bring it into a public one where it is degrading to women.
In case it's still not clear (and I admit it's a little fuzzy): I'm responding to two different things here; the apps that were banned, and the idea that "anything" that appeals to "heterosexual male sexuality" is degrading to women. Personally, I'd argue that non-consensual sexual manipulation is not part of "heterosexual male sexuality," or at least not healthy sexuality, but that's an entirely different converstation.
He was most likely referring to CO2, which you pretended to address but then ignored.
Each year since global measurements of CO2 began, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased.
Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice, called ice cores, indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between 1000 and 1800 A.D.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378 ppm at the end of 2004, which means human activities have increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm or 36 percent.
Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth's greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!
Yeah! It's a small number so it has to be of small significance! My maths learnin' proves it!
The average swimming pool holds 20,000 gallons of water. A full human bladder only holds 500 mL of urine, or 0.132 gallons. That means me peeing in a pool will only result in a urine concentration of 0.00066%! That's so low that it must be a-oh-kay!
How to do we stop cold symptoms from inconveniencing us?
Suppress the cough, stop the runny nose?...
The CO2 is caused by burning fossil fuels, just like the cold symptoms are caused by a rhinovirus. What you call "penalizing" is an attempt at a cure (i.e. kill the rhinovirus/fossil fuel burning industry). What you're suggesting is treating the symptoms.
You didn't get it right in your car analogy, either. Motor vehicle collisions are (mostly) a symptom of a poorly designed transportation system. Better public transportation, stricter licensing procedures, and better driver education (as off-putting as all of those are to Americans) would all be attempts at a cure for the underlying problem. Stuffing a car with air bags is treating the symptom.
Of course, there's always money to be made in treating symptoms so I can't say I'm surprised (though the bigger issue in my mind is fear of change).
Really? You can't see the difference between women having to "deal" (read: I think they should get over it) with men viewing porn in their private time, and having to walk around in public seeing men fondling women on their phones?
Even putting aside that aspect, I'm glad that I won't have to worry about the "top apps" list being cluttered with ridiculous and immature "rub her clit" apps. If I wanted to do that, it's really not all that hard to convince a real-life woman to let you. Hell, you'd probably make your wife/girlfriend's week.
Is there *any* evidence of real pedophilia, or are you just mudding the waters for your own ends?
The laptop in question was not one that was under investigation for being stolen, therefore they were either randomly or systematically collecting at least still photos, and possibly video. Given the other evidence I've seen in this case (people mentioning software that automatically takes a picture every x number of minutes--the kind a school system is likely to invest in-- and reports of students being told the green camera light coming on frequently was a "glitch"), it seems systematic photographing of the students is more likely.
Given that the photography was frequent and non-targeted, the probability that at least one student was photographed in a nude or semi-nude state is quite high (whether that be while changing, masturbating, sleeping, having sex, etc). So while, officially, no hard evidence (copies, digital or otherwise, of such photographs) appears to have surfaced yet (and it may never), there is plenty of circumstantial evidence.
While in general I also hate everyone jumping on pedofear immediately, in this case if they go down for child pornography, I don't see any downsides. People who are so morally corrupt and mentally handicapped have no business being involved in the education of young people, or the administration of anyone in general. CP charges immediately and forever remove them from this role and society wins. Additionally, it may bring the overuse of CP/sexual offender rules into the media spotlight. Perhaps that will draw enough public outrage that such laws will be restricted in their scope so that people who get drunk and urinate outside of a building while occupying the same planet as a child aged 17 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds will not be forever tarred as sexual deviants; society wins.
The IEEE, ISO, and MPEG groups do license the codecs they develop, but only for the benefit of human beings (so there's a single standardized format), not to get rich.
If it's only for the "benefit of human beings," wouldn't more benefit result from free (i.e. no-cost) licensing? Then anyone and everyone could use it and all experience the benefit!
Incoming boilerplate retort: But they spent their time to develop that product, they deserve be paid for their efforts! Yes, sure, fair enough. If someone is going to use your work to generate a profit for themselves, absolutely you should get your cut. However, if it's for the benefit of human beings and not to make money, why not extend an open hand to others trying to do the same? That is, why not provide a free license to use the software to open source/non-profits/whatever floats your boat?
Awesome, a perfect example of the crap insurance companies try to pull.
They won't pay if you don't follow the manufacturer's instructions (which will include "routine servicing, inspection, maintenance, and cleaning"). However, they also won't pay if the damage occurs as a result of said "routine servicing, inspection, maintenance, or cleaning." Wonderful.
You can do this on the iPhone. The limitation is that it only works while playing music through the "iPod" functionality. I'm on the fence about services like Pandora. On the one hand, it kinda sucks that you have to stop your music to do something else. On the other hand though, Pandora is using your cell radio and maybe you closed the app because you wanted it to stop running up your bill. You could chalk this up to a user interface problem though... either Apple would need to provide more than one way to close an app (kill or background), or you'd need to push "stop" in your Pandora app before you close (background) it.
Running an SSH client for a port forward while web browsing through said forward.
Practical? On your phone?
Downloading updates while texting
The iPhone does this too...
The iPhone already does a number of multitasking operations (you'll see in every discussion about this people saying "we already *know* the kernel can do it, so why won't it let us?"). The discussion is rather about allowing third-party apps to run in the background. I continue to question just how important (yes I know geeks will continue to whine that they can't run their mail server through SSH forwards) this is for a smartphone.
What I'm asking for is (and this will require you to step back from your preconceived notion that every computing device must also be a general-purpose computing device): what are some practical tasks that fulfill the device's goal of being a personal information gadget that require third-party applications to run in the background?
Sure helps when I have an SSH client open and need to get something from a text file.
See there's a good example, thank you. Only useful for a fraction of a single percent of iPhone users, though. I've never needed to look at a text file on my iPhone (text files, where?) while using my SSH client so it's even a fraction of the fraction of a single percent of people that are using SSH clients on their iPhones.
Global Copy and Paste? Pasting that public key from the text file into my ssh connection is sure a blessing.
Sure that's useful, but how often do you do that? Like I said, it's stupid that it took Apple so long to get copy and paste, but at the same time it's really a minor feature in the grand scheme of things as it's used very infrequently (though certainly the times when you really do *need* it, it's incredibly frustrating not to have it).
Bottom line here is I think there are a very small number of us actually using a phone *something* like a desktop computer. I don't do it all the time, but it is an enormous value when the situation arises.
Your ignorance in this regard can be easily generalized to a much broader population of iPhone users.
Well, yes, you're right. I too have found enormous value in being able to administer my servers right from my iPhone. You're also right that there are only a "very small number of us." Is it at all practical for Apple to potentially harm the satisfaction of 99.99% of iPhone users to let the 10 of us running SSH on our phones keep that connection open while we fish around for text files?
Nevermind though, I'm just an ignorant iPhone user so I guess we can't have a real discussion.
So I can google something while composing an E-mail. So I can text someone while browsing. So I can look over my contacts list while on a phone call.
How does the iPhone prevent you from doing any of those things? For the first two, you have to switch apps, but would you not anyway? How would you possible manage two application windows on a screen the size of the iPhone? When you switch, your state is saved. If you want to google something halfway through an email, just push the home button and open Safari. When you get back to Mail, your email is still waiting there for you. Phone calls have been a "background task" since version 1 as far as I know. Just push the home button and you can open other applications while continuing to talk; a green bar is added to the top of the screen displaying basic call info. See this iPhone ad for a video example (it's called "Multi-people" in case the link doesn't load the right video for some reason).
We're talking about a Smartphone, which is effectively a miniature, handheld PC.
I disagree. I admit to not being an expert in the field of smartphones, but it seems to me that all of the major players in the smartphone market are not general-purpose PCs. They're a phone first that integrates personal information management (contacts, calendars, mail, etc) with Internet and media access.
I think that most users *want* to run more than one app at a time, but for those who don't, they could turn it off.
Again, I disagree. "Most people" is not you and me. Most people do nothing more complex with their desktops than check their email, update their Facebook/blog, and occasionally play a browser-based game. A mobile device which does those things and lets them call their friends already does everything they want. Humans do not multitask and there is no way to type a text and an email simultaneously, so what does it matter to them if they have to switch their phone between "text mode" and "email mode"? Their brain is already doing that.
Even worse, and as absurd as it sounds to people like us who love computers and work on them everyday, people hate their computers because they're too complex as it is. I think it's quite a stretch to say that people want to run multiple apps at the same time. If you've ever seen a "luser" user their desktop, everything is always run at full screen and they don't really understand the concept of "windows." Believe me, they don't care if their word processor still has CPU time schedule for it's threads while they look at their web browser. As long as their document is still there when they "come back from the web," they're as happy as can be. You think any of these people have wandered into the system settings on their iPhone?
What I'm getting at is that backgrounding apps adds almost nothing of value to the average user, but would significantly add to the complexity of their user experience. Complexity is bad for user experience. Even as someone who could handle the complexity, who could crack open the source and bend it to my will, I don't want to. It's actually a relief to me that it's one device that I don't have to manage. It just lets me manage what I want to manage which is my personal information. If I click the home button, the app closes, end of story. None of this "well I'll pretend to close by hiding my UI with the default system transition while I save my data, upload usage statistics, check for updates, keep a hot connection open" nonsense. You might think that's really cute and clever but it's frustrating for users. They (we) hit close because they wanted the application to close. Try to put yourself in their shoes and imagine what it would be like for something that is completely beyond your understanding to say that it will do one thing if you push this button but then do something else.
Any sufficiently advanced workaround - such as instantaneous state saves, in many cases - is indistinguishable from multitasking. If you're telling me that's what it has, then fine.
I don't know about "instantaneous" but I'm pretty sure that the iPhone SDK documentation advises application developers that their software should expect a quit notification at any time. In fact, I think they advocate a "save as you go" policy since the OS isn't going to wait around while you tidy yourself up.
There's likely to be just as valid a case for wanting to switch between arbitrary third party app A and arbitrary third party app B.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but you can. For example, if you browse to Google maps on your iPhone's Safari, it will close and the Maps application will open.
I'm something of an Apple fanboi as well (and not rabidly anti-Microsoft either; I happen to enjoy using Windows 7 while coding C# at work...) and I just don't see it. I think the iPhone is far from the perfect UI but it is consistent and functional. This thing appears to me to be neither.
I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt (my first thought was "wow, that looks like shit... well maybe this is a very early preview of their UI"), but then I saw your post and someone else saying it reminds them of the Zune... so that's really how they intend it to look? Just as one example, is having "lists with text cut off on the sides of the phone" actually a desirable feature to someone? It's one thing to be minimalistic, but I don't think it needs to look messy to be so.
Here's another serious question: why is multitasking support really that important on a phone? Like many people these days, my only personal phone line is my cell phone so I'd like it to run for a minimum of two days without charging (in case I forget to charge it one night or something). I've used Windows Mobile devices before, and it's absurd that a user should have to be frequently checking their "running programs" list to make sure stuff isn't draining their battery/CPU/memory resources. That's assuming the user is even aware that there is such a list. There's the obvious negatives, so where are the positives? What are some examples of practical tasks to perform on a phone that require multitasking?
Same thing with copy and paste. I actually agree that it was kinda stupid that it took so long for Apple to get copy and paste into the iPhone. Then it came out and I said, "cool I like the implementation..." and then never used it again (ok, maybe I use it once a week, usually because some assbag couldn't be bothered to make a proper anchor tag for the URL they're referring to). Point being, everyone (read: on Slashdot) was moaning about how the iPhone was useless without cut and paste, when in reality it was the feature that was with few uses.
So it's not so much that I'm questioning whether there is a use at all as I'm sure there are some cool ideas out there that can only be implemented with some level of multitasking support ("background tasks"). I'm just wondering if there is a real, practical purpose for multitasking and if the benefits of which will outweigh the costs. Or will it just be an overhyped feature that ends up pissing me off when every application decides it should have a background auto-update task, a background notification task, and a background task to keep its data cached?
I think you and msclrhd are conflating unit testing and integration testing. In order to test components as a single unit (at least for components with dependencies), mocks are critical. If component A fails when working with component B, did it fail because of a bug in A or because B is not behaving according to its contract? In other words, without mocking, unit tests end up being integration tests which are very important to verify the overall function of your application, but tell you nothing about your individual components (other than that one or more of them failed, somewhere).
Unit tests allow you to clearly define your expected behavior for a single component and allow you to quickly (speed is important) verify that the implementation behaves.
Integration tests allow you to verify the broader functionality of your application that arises from the combination of two or more components. That is, making sure that the application is in the state you expect after one widget garbles or foos another.
I guess what I'm saying is, I don't see how mocks are wasteful or dangerous unless you're using them to avoid testing part of your application because it's too hard/boring/whatever. In that case, poor testing is poor testing, mocks or no.
Glenn Beck is clearly delusional and probably "bat-shit crazy"
Probably? You're being too kind, sir. He's an alcoholic druggy who converted to Mormonism and before he stumbled into politics, built his radio career making racist, tasteless, and insensitive jokes. How he became the poster child for the neo-conservative movement remains a mystery to me.
I feel your pain about what these people have done to family life though. My own mother has recently been busying herself with preparing for the complete collapse of civilization (which apparently is scheduled for any day now). Instead of, oh I don't know saving for retirement, she's buying water filtration systems, a crank-operated milling machine (although she grows no cereal grains...), installing a wood-burning stove in the basement, stocking up on guns and ammo (presumably to keep at bay the deranged liberal masses wandering the broken streets looking for handouts), etc. The sad thing is that she used to be slightly liberal. I remember growing up listening to her argue about women's rights and things, and my parents even had a hard time finding a church when they moved to the South where conservative religious ideals reign. I guess 8 years of watching and listening to "FEAR, FEAR, HATE, FEAR" just makes some people snap.
Because touchscreens are expensive? It's only recently imo that credit card machines can take a decent signature. And those card swipers at the supermarket can cost upwards of $1000. A full-size touchscreen (no software, no computer) can be $500, easily $2-300 more than a plain vanilla monitor.
What's your point? If I could get a device that would let me write as if I was using a 0.7mm pen and an A4 sheet of paper, I'd happily pay $2000. Maybe more. The combination of writing like pen-and-paper and the organizational capabilities of an electronic system would be... invaluable.
Mmmk. Feel free to continue this non-argument style but it's pretty boring. If you disagree with my position, instead of just saying "Huh?" maybe you could provide some counterexamples to mine.
I maintain my position that when Americans refer to "Europe" in a debate over "which country is better," they're referring to Western Europe. For example, the person I was responding to referenced the "measures of best country" (i.e. the HDI) which places Western European countries at the top of the list. Indeed, he was more specific and named Scandinavia in particular. I already admitted that I should have been at least as specific, despite the tendency of myself and others to refer to Western Europe as simply "Europe" when comparing the success of "European liberalism" vs "American conservatism."
This has nothing to do with excluding countries that make Europe look worse, and everything to do with relevant comparisons. For example, in debates within the US over things like public health care and education, liberals will often point to (again) Europe and say "look at some of these European countries that put us to shame; why aren't we emulating them?" (referring, again, to Western Europe/Scandinavia which, as I've pointed out a couple times now rank higher than the US in these measurements--it would make no sense for them to point to a country doing worse than the US as a role model). Similarly, if someone was arguing over education that Massachusetts (88.4% high school graduates) should perhaps emulate Wyoming (91.2%), it would make no sense for you to come in and say "Huh? Massachusetts ranks better than a wide variety of states." (which it does, including the national average of 84.5%). While you are technically correct, it's not relevant because the discussion is not about whether Massachusetts is the worst state or not, but why it is not as good as Wyoming.
Some other examples:
Lisa is not as tall as John. "Huh? She's taller than Joe, the little person."
Bath water is not as hot as tea. "Huh? It's hotter than ice cubes."
White chocolate is not as good as dark chocolate. "Huh? It's better than dog shit."
Typically in discussions like this "Europe" refers to Western Europe, but fair enough I should have been more specific and indeed, the US is ranked above every Eastern European country (which is why they're not quite relevant in a pissing contest between "Europe" and the US). For example, 16/17 Western European countries (as defined by the NGS) are ranked above the US in life expectancy. Portugal (the 1/17) is just behind the US with an overall life expectancy of 78.1 years while the US is at 78.2.
My only point was that it's a bit ridiculous to claim that the indexes have been rigged to put Scandinavia on top. The HDI is a function of life expectancy (reflecting overall health and safety), education, and GDP (reflecting overall economic strength). I'd say these are fairly reasonable indexes to use in calculating the overall prosperity of a nation. Would it not be just as ridiculous to claim that an index that ranks military expenditure is rigged to put the US on top? It's simply a reflection of the data, and the data says the US accounts 40% of the world's military expenditures. If some other country doesn't like that, maybe they should spend more on their military. If the US doesn't like that it's behind in education, maybe it should reform its education system.
Mail is a public service; a utility of sorts. Sure, private entities are theoretically capable, but they continually fail. That is, their raison d'être is to provide the most efficient service to the widest audience possible. However, being profit-oriented business, they without fail place profits above their service requirements.
That said, "small-government advocates," in my experience (hell, I used to be one), take the Constitution to be their perfect document. Even in the limited scope of that venerable document, it is to the government to provide postal service:
Section 8
The Congress shall have power...
To establish post offices and post roads;
Yeah! I for one am sick and tired of these clearly biased reports that place European countries above the US just because they live longer and have a well educated populace. We shouldn't be punished for exercising our God-given right to eat, smoke, and drink ourselves to death and we all know that education is the tool of communism.
Short-term backwards compatibility is one thing, but when do you draw the line? If I remember my history correctly, Windows 95 was the first 32-bit Windows operating system, the last release of which was 12 years ago.
The problem is not that "we should have sat back and done nothing." Normal public health precautions absolutely should have been taken. Posting notices in workplaces to remind employees how to reduce the spread of viruses, opening small flu-shot clinics, etc. All normal things that we do every year, and a "healthy" response to a communicable disease.
The problem that I and others of a similar mindset had, is that there was no thinking involved; no presentation of a logical plan based on empirical evidence. Everyone was screaming that this is an epidemic, and much worse than the annual influenza. My small voice saying, "but wait, it's killed fewer people than the typical influenza does in a week" was ignored. People cried "omigad, this flu looks vaguely similar to the Spanish Flu, so 2 billion people are going to die!" Anyone that suggested that perhaps you can't extrapolate such a ridiculous idea without a least a shred of evidence were steamrolled. "Oh no, it's even worse," they said. "This flu targets healthy people, so we're doubly screwed because there will be no one left to take care of the young, sick, and the old!" The people with their heads on straight simply suggested we tone down the apocalypse predictions until we get some more evidence than a rumor that came out of Mexico.
If we were talking about some disease that presents no symptoms until 24 hours before death, with a 80% mortality rate, then yeah, all the hype would have been justified. Instead what we got were end-of-the-world predictions that, relatively speaking, is equivalent to predicting such due to water falling from the sky (THE SKY IS FALLING!!11eleven). My problem is not responding to a public health risk with logical things like vaccinations and education. My problem is the current trend to cast every minor problem as the next end-of-the-world scenario. An appalling level of scientific education is not the only reason NASA had to make a public statement about 2012; the fact that people are constantly trained to expect the apocalypse at any moment plays a part.
Your "Y2K was just a myth, honest" comment is a perfect example. Yeah, it was a real problem, that could have had some real, negative consequences if left unchecked. However, just like the swine flu, there were people working to fix the problem (with code instead of vaccines) saying "don't worry, it'll be fine." What was the media (and hence everyone without the knowledge to believe anything else) talking about? The banking system was going to collapse and take our economy and civilization with it. Remember? Of course I just walked downstairs at 11:58 to wish my parents a happy new year (and give them an "I told you so" smile). No lights went off, the national guard was not dispatched to reign in anarchy. I just went back to my (still-running) Internet-connected computer and played some more games with my friends.
I'm not suggesting that we just sit back and let the apocalypse come without fighting it, and I don't think anyone else is either. However, we're not going to succeed at anything by screaming at the top of our lungs "OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!" We're going to succeed the same way we always have, by using our intelligence to formulate a solution that will do the most good.
Great idea! And what if no solution pops up? What's with the unavoidable rest that cannot be reused?
Then you have the stuff in a "hole". And we are talking about significant amounts here, not just a handful. Those plants produce tons of stuff that has to be disposed safely for an eternity. Some of those things emit a lot of radiation for the next few thousand years.
We already have a number of solutions that work now, and more that are simply waiting for the engineering (and economic and political) aspects to catch up. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the nuclear problem is much more political than technical. As you demonstrate with Germany, some countries get so worked up into an anti-nuclear fervor that it's politically cheaper to shove "the problem" into a dark hole and pretend it doesn't exist.
Existing solutions include spent fuel reprocessing (taking the waste material from the core and removing the still viable fuel--a large portion of the waste--and putting it back into the reactor for another run). Future solutions include transmutation to turn the long-lived radioactive materials into short-lived or non-radioactive materials.
Ah, so the companies are allowed to make the big profit by running those plants (how is it safer to run a plant privately eludes me though) but the society has to pay for the costs attached.
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear enough the first time: It is stupid to put such a critical task into the hands for a company that is trying to make a profit (I'm agreeing with you here). Inevitably, corners will be cut on maintenance and safety measures in order to save money and improve the bottom line. With a resource like energy infrastructure, society has nothing to gain by free-market "competition" (of which there is almost none; a natural monopoly scenario), and potentially a lot to lose. Let a government agency run it and be done with it.
Yupp, and since reactors are so simple constructions that you can easily foresee any possible malfunction there is no possible way that those things ever blow up, ever. Harrisburg rings a bell? Was probably also an outdated, old reactor. But guess what? - I'm sure the people at that time were convince that it's safe too.
Yes, that was 1979. Reactor design has come a long way since then. For example, look at Canada's Advanced CANDU Reactor. Many layers of safety and cooling systems, with 2 independently acting SCRAM systems. They require no human intervention to activate and reduce heat output by 90% in less than 2 seconds.
How old are your modern plants? How many cracks does the concrete layers already have?
That's exactly the problem. The companies that manage these plants won't take proactive maintenance steps unless forced to, but the politics of the situation demand that no one in government talk about the problem. The politics also prevent new plants from being built to replace the aging ones. There are two causes of the current situation: greed and anti-nuclear whining.
Yes, you can shoot down a passenger plane if you notice that it deviates from the route. But how far is it from a standard route to any of the many (and soon probably even more) plants all over the country? Do you even have the chance to get a plane down in time?
Maybe not, but I don't really care. Like I said, the containment structure will probably prevent any major problem. However, even old reactors can be shut down in less than 5 seconds; newer ones in less than 2. Even if the plane sails right through the containment structure and manages to disable the cooling systems, the reactor isn't going to explode.
Oh, I should feel insulted.;)
You're free to take it as such, but it was not intended
Slashdot Mirror
Do you see many [men/women] walking around looking at [magazines], period? I don't. I do see many, many people walking around with their eyes glued to their cellphones, though (and this is common sense, it's difficult to carry around something as large as a magazine as compared to a phone which fits right in your pocket).
It's tangential, but I actually have seen people looking at porn on a plane. What, you thought they stocked those magazines in the airport store for the fun of it? I'm sure if they had been sitting next to a woman/child rather than another young man they wouldn't have, but I don't really care either way since I don't really care about porn like I said. Overall, I don't even think these apps need to be banned, I'm just glad I don't have to be bothered to filter through such crap on the app store.
Maybe an analogy illustrating the point/difference I was trying to make would help. Take an office setting: a guy looking at porn in his private office, while a waste of company time and should probably be disciplined along those lines, is not creating a sexually hostile environment that's "degrading to women." Contrast that with two guys cracking sexual jokes objectifying women in plain earshot of their female coworkers. That is creating a sexually hostile environment and they should be disciplined/sued for sexual harassment. Save it for later when they get drunk at one or the other's place and think about touching each other since they can't get a real woman.
Similarly, I would not have a problem with some guy watching (with headphones) porn on his phone while sitting on a train. I would have a problem with a couple of drooling idiots laughing about manipulating a virtual woman for their pleasure on their phone. One is the act(s) recorded between consenting adults, the other is treating the focus of your sexual desire as your puppet. I'm totally cool with you doing this with computer programs/dolls in a private space, but don't bring it into a public one where it is degrading to women.
In case it's still not clear (and I admit it's a little fuzzy): I'm responding to two different things here; the apps that were banned, and the idea that "anything" that appeals to "heterosexual male sexuality" is degrading to women. Personally, I'd argue that non-consensual sexual manipulation is not part of "heterosexual male sexuality," or at least not healthy sexuality, but that's an entirely different converstation.
--http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2412.htm
Yeah! It's a small number so it has to be of small significance! My maths learnin' proves it!
The average swimming pool holds 20,000 gallons of water. A full human bladder only holds 500 mL of urine, or 0.132 gallons. That means me peeing in a pool will only result in a urine concentration of 0.00066%! That's so low that it must be a-oh-kay!
The CO2 is caused by burning fossil fuels, just like the cold symptoms are caused by a rhinovirus. What you call "penalizing" is an attempt at a cure (i.e. kill the rhinovirus/fossil fuel burning industry). What you're suggesting is treating the symptoms.
You didn't get it right in your car analogy, either. Motor vehicle collisions are (mostly) a symptom of a poorly designed transportation system. Better public transportation, stricter licensing procedures, and better driver education (as off-putting as all of those are to Americans) would all be attempts at a cure for the underlying problem. Stuffing a car with air bags is treating the symptom.
Of course, there's always money to be made in treating symptoms so I can't say I'm surprised (though the bigger issue in my mind is fear of change).
Really? You can't see the difference between women having to "deal" (read: I think they should get over it) with men viewing porn in their private time, and having to walk around in public seeing men fondling women on their phones?
Even putting aside that aspect, I'm glad that I won't have to worry about the "top apps" list being cluttered with ridiculous and immature "rub her clit" apps. If I wanted to do that, it's really not all that hard to convince a real-life woman to let you. Hell, you'd probably make your wife/girlfriend's week.
The laptop in question was not one that was under investigation for being stolen, therefore they were either randomly or systematically collecting at least still photos, and possibly video. Given the other evidence I've seen in this case (people mentioning software that automatically takes a picture every x number of minutes--the kind a school system is likely to invest in-- and reports of students being told the green camera light coming on frequently was a "glitch"), it seems systematic photographing of the students is more likely.
Given that the photography was frequent and non-targeted, the probability that at least one student was photographed in a nude or semi-nude state is quite high (whether that be while changing, masturbating, sleeping, having sex, etc). So while, officially, no hard evidence (copies, digital or otherwise, of such photographs) appears to have surfaced yet (and it may never), there is plenty of circumstantial evidence.
While in general I also hate everyone jumping on pedofear immediately, in this case if they go down for child pornography, I don't see any downsides. People who are so morally corrupt and mentally handicapped have no business being involved in the education of young people, or the administration of anyone in general. CP charges immediately and forever remove them from this role and society wins. Additionally, it may bring the overuse of CP/sexual offender rules into the media spotlight. Perhaps that will draw enough public outrage that such laws will be restricted in their scope so that people who get drunk and urinate outside of a building while occupying the same planet as a child aged 17 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds will not be forever tarred as sexual deviants; society wins.
If it's only for the "benefit of human beings," wouldn't more benefit result from free (i.e. no-cost) licensing? Then anyone and everyone could use it and all experience the benefit!
Incoming boilerplate retort: But they spent their time to develop that product, they deserve be paid for their efforts! Yes, sure, fair enough. If someone is going to use your work to generate a profit for themselves, absolutely you should get your cut. However, if it's for the benefit of human beings and not to make money, why not extend an open hand to others trying to do the same? That is, why not provide a free license to use the software to open source/non-profits/whatever floats your boat?
Awesome, a perfect example of the crap insurance companies try to pull.
They won't pay if you don't follow the manufacturer's instructions (which will include "routine servicing, inspection, maintenance, and cleaning"). However, they also won't pay if the damage occurs as a result of said "routine servicing, inspection, maintenance, or cleaning." Wonderful.
You can do this on the iPhone. The limitation is that it only works while playing music through the "iPod" functionality. I'm on the fence about services like Pandora. On the one hand, it kinda sucks that you have to stop your music to do something else. On the other hand though, Pandora is using your cell radio and maybe you closed the app because you wanted it to stop running up your bill. You could chalk this up to a user interface problem though... either Apple would need to provide more than one way to close an app (kill or background), or you'd need to push "stop" in your Pandora app before you close (background) it.
Practical? On your phone?
The iPhone does this too...
The iPhone already does a number of multitasking operations (you'll see in every discussion about this people saying "we already *know* the kernel can do it, so why won't it let us?"). The discussion is rather about allowing third-party apps to run in the background. I continue to question just how important (yes I know geeks will continue to whine that they can't run their mail server through SSH forwards) this is for a smartphone.
What I'm asking for is (and this will require you to step back from your preconceived notion that every computing device must also be a general-purpose computing device): what are some practical tasks that fulfill the device's goal of being a personal information gadget that require third-party applications to run in the background?
See there's a good example, thank you. Only useful for a fraction of a single percent of iPhone users, though. I've never needed to look at a text file on my iPhone (text files, where?) while using my SSH client so it's even a fraction of the fraction of a single percent of people that are using SSH clients on their iPhones.
Sure that's useful, but how often do you do that? Like I said, it's stupid that it took Apple so long to get copy and paste, but at the same time it's really a minor feature in the grand scheme of things as it's used very infrequently (though certainly the times when you really do *need* it, it's incredibly frustrating not to have it).
Well, yes, you're right. I too have found enormous value in being able to administer my servers right from my iPhone. You're also right that there are only a "very small number of us." Is it at all practical for Apple to potentially harm the satisfaction of 99.99% of iPhone users to let the 10 of us running SSH on our phones keep that connection open while we fish around for text files?
Nevermind though, I'm just an ignorant iPhone user so I guess we can't have a real discussion.
I love how we're using the past tense to describe a future product.
How does the iPhone prevent you from doing any of those things? For the first two, you have to switch apps, but would you not anyway? How would you possible manage two application windows on a screen the size of the iPhone? When you switch, your state is saved. If you want to google something halfway through an email, just push the home button and open Safari. When you get back to Mail, your email is still waiting there for you. Phone calls have been a "background task" since version 1 as far as I know. Just push the home button and you can open other applications while continuing to talk; a green bar is added to the top of the screen displaying basic call info. See this iPhone ad for a video example (it's called "Multi-people" in case the link doesn't load the right video for some reason).
I disagree. I admit to not being an expert in the field of smartphones, but it seems to me that all of the major players in the smartphone market are not general-purpose PCs. They're a phone first that integrates personal information management (contacts, calendars, mail, etc) with Internet and media access.
Again, I disagree. "Most people" is not you and me. Most people do nothing more complex with their desktops than check their email, update their Facebook/blog, and occasionally play a browser-based game. A mobile device which does those things and lets them call their friends already does everything they want. Humans do not multitask and there is no way to type a text and an email simultaneously, so what does it matter to them if they have to switch their phone between "text mode" and "email mode"? Their brain is already doing that.
Even worse, and as absurd as it sounds to people like us who love computers and work on them everyday, people hate their computers because they're too complex as it is. I think it's quite a stretch to say that people want to run multiple apps at the same time. If you've ever seen a "luser" user their desktop, everything is always run at full screen and they don't really understand the concept of "windows." Believe me, they don't care if their word processor still has CPU time schedule for it's threads while they look at their web browser. As long as their document is still there when they "come back from the web," they're as happy as can be. You think any of these people have wandered into the system settings on their iPhone?
What I'm getting at is that backgrounding apps adds almost nothing of value to the average user, but would significantly add to the complexity of their user experience. Complexity is bad for user experience. Even as someone who could handle the complexity, who could crack open the source and bend it to my will, I don't want to. It's actually a relief to me that it's one device that I don't have to manage. It just lets me manage what I want to manage which is my personal information. If I click the home button, the app closes, end of story. None of this "well I'll pretend to close by hiding my UI with the default system transition while I save my data, upload usage statistics, check for updates, keep a hot connection open" nonsense. You might think that's really cute and clever but it's frustrating for users. They (we) hit close because they wanted the application to close. Try to put yourself in their shoes and imagine what it would be like for something that is completely beyond your understanding to say that it will do one thing if you push this button but then do something else.
I don't know about "instantaneous" but I'm pretty sure that the iPhone SDK documentation advises application developers that their software should expect a quit notification at any time. In fact, I think they advocate a "save as you go" policy since the OS isn't going to wait around while you tidy yourself up.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about here, but you can. For example, if you browse to Google maps on your iPhone's Safari, it will close and the Maps application will open.
I'm something of an Apple fanboi as well (and not rabidly anti-Microsoft either; I happen to enjoy using Windows 7 while coding C# at work...) and I just don't see it. I think the iPhone is far from the perfect UI but it is consistent and functional. This thing appears to me to be neither.
I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt (my first thought was "wow, that looks like shit... well maybe this is a very early preview of their UI"), but then I saw your post and someone else saying it reminds them of the Zune... so that's really how they intend it to look? Just as one example, is having "lists with text cut off on the sides of the phone" actually a desirable feature to someone? It's one thing to be minimalistic, but I don't think it needs to look messy to be so.
Here's another serious question: why is multitasking support really that important on a phone? Like many people these days, my only personal phone line is my cell phone so I'd like it to run for a minimum of two days without charging (in case I forget to charge it one night or something). I've used Windows Mobile devices before, and it's absurd that a user should have to be frequently checking their "running programs" list to make sure stuff isn't draining their battery/CPU/memory resources. That's assuming the user is even aware that there is such a list. There's the obvious negatives, so where are the positives? What are some examples of practical tasks to perform on a phone that require multitasking?
Same thing with copy and paste. I actually agree that it was kinda stupid that it took so long for Apple to get copy and paste into the iPhone. Then it came out and I said, "cool I like the implementation..." and then never used it again (ok, maybe I use it once a week, usually because some assbag couldn't be bothered to make a proper anchor tag for the URL they're referring to). Point being, everyone (read: on Slashdot) was moaning about how the iPhone was useless without cut and paste, when in reality it was the feature that was with few uses.
So it's not so much that I'm questioning whether there is a use at all as I'm sure there are some cool ideas out there that can only be implemented with some level of multitasking support ("background tasks"). I'm just wondering if there is a real, practical purpose for multitasking and if the benefits of which will outweigh the costs. Or will it just be an overhyped feature that ends up pissing me off when every application decides it should have a background auto-update task, a background notification task, and a background task to keep its data cached?
I think you and msclrhd are conflating unit testing and integration testing. In order to test components as a single unit (at least for components with dependencies), mocks are critical. If component A fails when working with component B, did it fail because of a bug in A or because B is not behaving according to its contract? In other words, without mocking, unit tests end up being integration tests which are very important to verify the overall function of your application, but tell you nothing about your individual components (other than that one or more of them failed, somewhere).
Unit tests allow you to clearly define your expected behavior for a single component and allow you to quickly (speed is important) verify that the implementation behaves.
Integration tests allow you to verify the broader functionality of your application that arises from the combination of two or more components. That is, making sure that the application is in the state you expect after one widget garbles or foos another.
I guess what I'm saying is, I don't see how mocks are wasteful or dangerous unless you're using them to avoid testing part of your application because it's too hard/boring/whatever. In that case, poor testing is poor testing, mocks or no.
Probably? You're being too kind, sir. He's an alcoholic druggy who converted to Mormonism and before he stumbled into politics, built his radio career making racist, tasteless, and insensitive jokes. How he became the poster child for the neo-conservative movement remains a mystery to me.
I feel your pain about what these people have done to family life though. My own mother has recently been busying herself with preparing for the complete collapse of civilization (which apparently is scheduled for any day now). Instead of, oh I don't know saving for retirement, she's buying water filtration systems, a crank-operated milling machine (although she grows no cereal grains...), installing a wood-burning stove in the basement, stocking up on guns and ammo (presumably to keep at bay the deranged liberal masses wandering the broken streets looking for handouts), etc. The sad thing is that she used to be slightly liberal. I remember growing up listening to her argue about women's rights and things, and my parents even had a hard time finding a church when they moved to the South where conservative religious ideals reign. I guess 8 years of watching and listening to "FEAR, FEAR, HATE, FEAR" just makes some people snap.
What's your point? If I could get a device that would let me write as if I was using a 0.7mm pen and an A4 sheet of paper, I'd happily pay $2000. Maybe more. The combination of writing like pen-and-paper and the organizational capabilities of an electronic system would be... invaluable.
I maintain my position that when Americans refer to "Europe" in a debate over "which country is better," they're referring to Western Europe. For example, the person I was responding to referenced the "measures of best country" (i.e. the HDI) which places Western European countries at the top of the list. Indeed, he was more specific and named Scandinavia in particular. I already admitted that I should have been at least as specific, despite the tendency of myself and others to refer to Western Europe as simply "Europe" when comparing the success of "European liberalism" vs "American conservatism."
This has nothing to do with excluding countries that make Europe look worse, and everything to do with relevant comparisons. For example, in debates within the US over things like public health care and education, liberals will often point to (again) Europe and say "look at some of these European countries that put us to shame; why aren't we emulating them?" (referring, again, to Western Europe/Scandinavia which, as I've pointed out a couple times now rank higher than the US in these measurements--it would make no sense for them to point to a country doing worse than the US as a role model). Similarly, if someone was arguing over education that Massachusetts (88.4% high school graduates) should perhaps emulate Wyoming (91.2%), it would make no sense for you to come in and say "Huh? Massachusetts ranks better than a wide variety of states." (which it does, including the national average of 84.5%). While you are technically correct, it's not relevant because the discussion is not about whether Massachusetts is the worst state or not, but why it is not as good as Wyoming.
Some other examples:
Hopefully that's enough...
Typically in discussions like this "Europe" refers to Western Europe, but fair enough I should have been more specific and indeed, the US is ranked above every Eastern European country (which is why they're not quite relevant in a pissing contest between "Europe" and the US). For example, 16/17 Western European countries (as defined by the NGS) are ranked above the US in life expectancy. Portugal (the 1/17) is just behind the US with an overall life expectancy of 78.1 years while the US is at 78.2.
My only point was that it's a bit ridiculous to claim that the indexes have been rigged to put Scandinavia on top. The HDI is a function of life expectancy (reflecting overall health and safety), education, and GDP (reflecting overall economic strength). I'd say these are fairly reasonable indexes to use in calculating the overall prosperity of a nation. Would it not be just as ridiculous to claim that an index that ranks military expenditure is rigged to put the US on top? It's simply a reflection of the data, and the data says the US accounts 40% of the world's military expenditures. If some other country doesn't like that, maybe they should spend more on their military. If the US doesn't like that it's behind in education, maybe it should reform its education system.
That said, "small-government advocates," in my experience (hell, I used to be one), take the Constitution to be their perfect document. Even in the limited scope of that venerable document, it is to the government to provide postal service:
Yeah! I for one am sick and tired of these clearly biased reports that place European countries above the US just because they live longer and have a well educated populace. We shouldn't be punished for exercising our God-given right to eat, smoke, and drink ourselves to death and we all know that education is the tool of communism.
ProTip: Not everything that Andrew Wilkow says is true.
Short-term backwards compatibility is one thing, but when do you draw the line? If I remember my history correctly, Windows 95 was the first 32-bit Windows operating system, the last release of which was 12 years ago.
The problem is not that "we should have sat back and done nothing." Normal public health precautions absolutely should have been taken. Posting notices in workplaces to remind employees how to reduce the spread of viruses, opening small flu-shot clinics, etc. All normal things that we do every year, and a "healthy" response to a communicable disease.
The problem that I and others of a similar mindset had, is that there was no thinking involved; no presentation of a logical plan based on empirical evidence. Everyone was screaming that this is an epidemic, and much worse than the annual influenza. My small voice saying, "but wait, it's killed fewer people than the typical influenza does in a week" was ignored. People cried "omigad, this flu looks vaguely similar to the Spanish Flu, so 2 billion people are going to die!" Anyone that suggested that perhaps you can't extrapolate such a ridiculous idea without a least a shred of evidence were steamrolled. "Oh no, it's even worse," they said. "This flu targets healthy people, so we're doubly screwed because there will be no one left to take care of the young, sick, and the old!" The people with their heads on straight simply suggested we tone down the apocalypse predictions until we get some more evidence than a rumor that came out of Mexico.
If we were talking about some disease that presents no symptoms until 24 hours before death, with a 80% mortality rate, then yeah, all the hype would have been justified. Instead what we got were end-of-the-world predictions that, relatively speaking, is equivalent to predicting such due to water falling from the sky (THE SKY IS FALLING!!11eleven). My problem is not responding to a public health risk with logical things like vaccinations and education. My problem is the current trend to cast every minor problem as the next end-of-the-world scenario. An appalling level of scientific education is not the only reason NASA had to make a public statement about 2012; the fact that people are constantly trained to expect the apocalypse at any moment plays a part.
Your "Y2K was just a myth, honest" comment is a perfect example. Yeah, it was a real problem, that could have had some real, negative consequences if left unchecked. However, just like the swine flu, there were people working to fix the problem (with code instead of vaccines) saying "don't worry, it'll be fine." What was the media (and hence everyone without the knowledge to believe anything else) talking about? The banking system was going to collapse and take our economy and civilization with it. Remember? Of course I just walked downstairs at 11:58 to wish my parents a happy new year (and give them an "I told you so" smile). No lights went off, the national guard was not dispatched to reign in anarchy. I just went back to my (still-running) Internet-connected computer and played some more games with my friends.
I'm not suggesting that we just sit back and let the apocalypse come without fighting it, and I don't think anyone else is either. However, we're not going to succeed at anything by screaming at the top of our lungs "OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!" We're going to succeed the same way we always have, by using our intelligence to formulate a solution that will do the most good.
We already have a number of solutions that work now, and more that are simply waiting for the engineering (and economic and political) aspects to catch up. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the nuclear problem is much more political than technical. As you demonstrate with Germany, some countries get so worked up into an anti-nuclear fervor that it's politically cheaper to shove "the problem" into a dark hole and pretend it doesn't exist.
Existing solutions include spent fuel reprocessing (taking the waste material from the core and removing the still viable fuel--a large portion of the waste--and putting it back into the reactor for another run). Future solutions include transmutation to turn the long-lived radioactive materials into short-lived or non-radioactive materials.
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear enough the first time: It is stupid to put such a critical task into the hands for a company that is trying to make a profit (I'm agreeing with you here). Inevitably, corners will be cut on maintenance and safety measures in order to save money and improve the bottom line. With a resource like energy infrastructure, society has nothing to gain by free-market "competition" (of which there is almost none; a natural monopoly scenario), and potentially a lot to lose. Let a government agency run it and be done with it.
Yes, that was 1979. Reactor design has come a long way since then. For example, look at Canada's Advanced CANDU Reactor. Many layers of safety and cooling systems, with 2 independently acting SCRAM systems. They require no human intervention to activate and reduce heat output by 90% in less than 2 seconds.
That's exactly the problem. The companies that manage these plants won't take proactive maintenance steps unless forced to, but the politics of the situation demand that no one in government talk about the problem. The politics also prevent new plants from being built to replace the aging ones. There are two causes of the current situation: greed and anti-nuclear whining.
Maybe not, but I don't really care. Like I said, the containment structure will probably prevent any major problem. However, even old reactors can be shut down in less than 5 seconds; newer ones in less than 2. Even if the plane sails right through the containment structure and manages to disable the cooling systems, the reactor isn't going to explode.
You're free to take it as such, but it was not intended