I do it all the time. I either buy one directly from iTunes, if available. Or I choose a song/sound from my library, run it through with an iOS app or Garage Band (free app) and create it then drag it to my desktop iTunes and it is on my iOS device the next time I sync.
Really, did you try to screw up the process? It is very, very easy or at least should be for someone posting to/. I know 70 year-old men (marketing types if you can believe it) that do this all the time, as well.
Google bashing and blind iPhone praise? You are too much into the religion. I was simply commenting on the American wireless status where Google is not the "do no evil" company of old. And where in the world did I praise the iPhone?
As to the carriers and updates, they could have done updates, but that gets in the way of consumers buying new phones and restarting their 2 year contract commitments. They have had plenty of opportunities with several handsets to release phones that they could either update themselves or for another company (specifically Palm) to do a better job with the handset.
En_US is not a language? It's the language that kept most of the Europe relatively free for the past hundred years or so. If not for that En_US, you would be speaking Deutsch.
I think that you are wrong regarding the carrier's ceasing in delaying updates. In fact, the current trend is for the carriers to regress to how things were before the iPhone broke away from the traditional carrier controlled handsets. Take a look at how they are changing the UI on Android and how they are controlling the apps. Oh, you will see some flexibility, but unless something changes, they would all (every one of them) like to stuff that genie back into the bottle so they can go back to full control.
And here Google is actually helping them. Google does not mind the carriers screwing with the Android OS. And Google is supporting the idea of removing net neutrality regarding the wireless bandwidth. Google is certainly moving to support the carriers, at least for as long they the carriers don't interfere with Google's advertising business, which won't be for long once the carriers see how to get into it themselves.
Both Apple and IBM have survived the PC wars quite nicely. IBM sold their business to Lenevo for a tidy profit, and Apple continues to redefine itself.
As to being a fully proprietary system, most "devices" are proprietary. I'm not talking computers here, but even those somewhat. You don't switch out internal components of a Cusinart food processor with a Kenmore one. If you are talking OS proprietary position, then you are correct and yet now. You are correct in that it is mostly proprietary. You are not correct in implying that is a bad thing. As a developer, I know exactly what I can expect to have my stuff run on if it is an iOS device. I don't know what to expect for an Android project. I have to decide what hardware and Android OS version to target and that seems to change almost daily.
The contributor says, "That's what I don't like — deliberate devolution." He probably thinks the same thing about automatic transmissions in cars and timers on microwave ovens. Rather than saying, "Wow, about time someone got the masses to understand the benefits of a tablet." or "Wow, about time the geeks finally made a tablet that the millions of non-geeks would use." He'd rather decry is own personal little fiefdom - but then, I should remember that this is/.
If ground forces are clearing out the AA, that means that the grounds forces own the area and there is no need to bomb it! The US Air Force has specialized warcraft for taking out AA sites. Look up "Wild Weasels".
Hyper-reporting and politics did billions of dollars in damage to the tourism industries all through the Gulf states. The oil did very little damage. The administration needs to be apologizing to the thousands they put out of work for their illegal moratorium on drilling. But that is off-topic.
"Muiti-touch is cute, but it's really a gimmick,", man does that comment bring back memories (yes, I'm that old). That was when Apple (yes, they were leading the pack back then too, on real innovation) introduced thewait for itMOUSE! At that time, the IBM crowd (DOS people) were claiming that "real" computer didn't need mice. They were just a gimmick. People would eventually wake up and toss the mouse and get back to just the plain keyboard with text-only screens.
So your comment is hugely funny, from a historical perspective. I really wish I had the mod points to tag you as Funny - Hilarious even.
Also, question: How is a button configured as a Back button any better than a two-figer swipe? And do you realize that loupe type tools make selecting down to the pixel very easy when editing on gesture-based devices? Probably not. You sound as though you've never actually used the device you are deriding. Rather, you focus on what you know and can't imagine anything else.
The main reason that Microsoft settled this dispute had little to do with helping Apple, or the QT code theft. A huge reason, at the time, was that Microsoft was fighting a battle with the government over its monopoly abuse. This was an attempt to demonstrate that there was still viable competition in the market and that they would "graciously" help that competition to remain in the market.
Ultimately the charade failed (on many levels). The $150 million was useful, but not the huge impact that you continue to push. The huge impact, for Apple, was the commitment from Microsoft to keep making Office for five years. At the time, those of us working close with Apple felt that as soon as Microsoft could, they would be dropping Office – 12:01 AM on the day the agreement ended. And in the meantime, Office would be getting 2nd rate treatment so that it would not be as good as the Office on Windows.
We were right on one of the two. During that time, Office for the Mac was easily subpar, when compared to Office for Windows. However, the surprising (to Microsoft) success of Apple forced them to keep the Mac Business Unit open and to keep making Office.
I guess the level must have gone up 175 mm in the first 50 years, because in the last 50 years, I can't see a difference – that is from living on the coast. From the anecdotal stories I've read - islands disappearing from rising sea levels, etc. - you'd think I would have seen some rising. But, no. Nothing.
I've been looking for evidence for years. The Mississippi coast, where I am has no report of rising or sinking. The Louisiana coast you mention is really sinking so much as eroding due to man-made canals keeping the normal sediment deposits from the Mississippi River from doing its normal build-ups.
And, you can show reports (many very debatable as is the one you linked) all day long. Facts are, sea levels rise evenly just like all water does in the same container. The sea level is affected by gravity (tides), but that is not the issue here.
By the way, you should have read the rest of that article you linked and not just the headline. Quotes like:
"But tide gauges are notoriously unreliable, Anderson said."
"The tide gauge is mounted on a pier, and geologists agree that unnatural compaction, which would cause the gauge to slowly sink, is common where piers are installed, he said."
“You can’t just take one data point and extrapolate sea level rise from that,” he said. “It’s been done, but it’s not acceptable.”
Again, I've been living with this same level of sea level for fifty years and I'm still waiting for the rise. I'm not saying it won't come. It will, but it is questionable about whether it is going to be a rise or a fall and when for either.
From where I'm sitting on the beach (and have for 50 years), shouldn't I be able to see the levels rise? With all the melted glaciers and polar ice, surely there is enough additional water in the world's seas for me to see that-right? The problem is that I don't. What gives?
I'll ask this againWhat sea level rise? I live on the damn beach (Gulf Of Mexico to be exact). I have for 50 years. Unless the seas are somehow negating physics, why isn't the level of the water on my beach going up with all the reported warming?
Mind you, I'm not saying that the world's water levels haven't gone up and down over the world's history. I'm just not seeing the evidence of the sea level rise that I read is supposed to be happening right now. Where is it?
I keep waiting, at my beach house, for the water levels to rise. And waiting. And waiting. I thought that with the reported rise in global temperatures due to human activity, that I would see it. I guess that water levels rising due to human caused global warming has its own physics and does not rise in all places around the world. Just those out of the way places where false reports cannot be verified by little ol' me sitting on my local beach for the past fifty years and watching the water at the same level. There has been one recent change on my beach–an occasional tar ball from that little leak off-shore.
I'm saying that CO2 emissions are not enough of a player to worry about it. Can you say that you are 100% sure that there is human made global warming? If you can say that, you're either a liar or planning on getting deep pockets from the hoax. Either way, good day, sir.
First, I'll combat you the whole way with more government bureaucracy. Too many issues to go into in a short text response. I'll side with with lessons of history and the Declaration of Independence that makes the individual –not the government– the center of control and makes that a good idea.
Some centralization is important, but within very limited reason.
What are the costs associated with the emissions? I didn't know there was such a thing?
* The piddly cap-and-trade bills are far more aggressive than I can support.
We agree and disagree. We agree that we don't know which approach or mix of approaches will be best. Who knows, there might be a new energy source off our radar screens that end up being "the" energy source for the world. My point about buying the solar instead of subsidizing it is that it is a more practical and useful way to keep bureaucracy down and to directly impact alternative energy sources. If the money is used to purchase sources other than solar, then that is fine by me.
However, decentralized rooftop solar has less of a negative impact on nature than does geothermal generators and wind driven generators. The solar panels do not have moving parts to kill birds, as an example.
Energy efficiency is one of those things that a free market can readily address. If the government gives preference to panels that are more efficient, then company research labs will be running at a high pitch to increase their efficiency so that their companies can sell more panels.
As to the government artificially increasing the costs of carbon production, that is where we really disagree. There are so many levels where that is just a bad idea. As you pointed out, prediction is not something that is a very strong skill set. That is also true of predicting unintended consequences. With the American economy (in fact the world economy) being so fragile, additional taxation on businesses will probably be a huge blow. Add in the additional government agencies and laws, the development of more criminal laws to cover those that don't comply, etc., etc., etc. It is just plain a bad idea. I used to work with a "green energy" company that had begun selling carbon neutralization credits to companies that wanted to demonstrate how green they were becoming. The research that we did (and was not publicly made known – bad for their business model) covered a lot of these issues. Because they are not making the money they hoped for with just offering and promoting this credits, they began dumping money into lobbying efforts to promote cap and trade, in spite of the problems that they know will result for the country. And that is just with the known knowns. We also had grave indications of the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.
SoI'll stand in complete opposition to cap and trade. More laws in this direction are not helpful although they may seem to be.
Yes, the free market is very resilient, however I don't think you'll like the resulting free markets. Take the illegal drug market, for example. There is a very regulated industry, and there is a market that adjusted–by going black market.
By the way, to me bringing the Republicans or Democrats into this discussion is the same thing. They both want more government control and power. They both swing to "moderate" positions when they think it will get votes, then promptly ignore campaign commitments and do exactly what they want. For both parties, power is the goal, not a strong effective America. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but that is just that–exceptions.
If the government is buying panels, that is easy to address. Just instruct the purchasing agents to give preference to those panels that have the most American involvement in the R&D, design, component manufacturing, and assembly.
Here's the thing, if the money is going to subsidize R&D, then that really only pays for the high-end engineers. It does not stimulate demand and manufacturing. However, if they start actually buying huge quantities of panels and getting them installed, then the entire chain is stimulated from installation right up through to R&D. Again, with the companies that have the highest involvement of Americans gets more of the business.
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I do it all the time. I either buy one directly from iTunes, if available. Or I choose a song/sound from my library, run it through with an iOS app or Garage Band (free app) and create it then drag it to my desktop iTunes and it is on my iOS device the next time I sync.
Really, did you try to screw up the process? It is very, very easy or at least should be for someone posting to /. I know 70 year-old men (marketing types if you can believe it) that do this all the time, as well.
Everyone has their own issues and needs. Specifically, where did you find the iPhone lacking as compared to the whichever Android phone you purchased?
Google bashing and blind iPhone praise? You are too much into the religion. I was simply commenting on the American wireless status where Google is not the "do no evil" company of old. And where in the world did I praise the iPhone?
As to the carriers and updates, they could have done updates, but that gets in the way of consumers buying new phones and restarting their 2 year contract commitments. They have had plenty of opportunities with several handsets to release phones that they could either update themselves or for another company (specifically Palm) to do a better job with the handset.
En_US is not a language? It's the language that kept most of the Europe relatively free for the past hundred years or so. If not for that En_US, you would be speaking Deutsch.
I think that you are wrong regarding the carrier's ceasing in delaying updates. In fact, the current trend is for the carriers to regress to how things were before the iPhone broke away from the traditional carrier controlled handsets. Take a look at how they are changing the UI on Android and how they are controlling the apps. Oh, you will see some flexibility, but unless something changes, they would all (every one of them) like to stuff that genie back into the bottle so they can go back to full control.
And here Google is actually helping them. Google does not mind the carriers screwing with the Android OS. And Google is supporting the idea of removing net neutrality regarding the wireless bandwidth. Google is certainly moving to support the carriers, at least for as long they the carriers don't interfere with Google's advertising business, which won't be for long once the carriers see how to get into it themselves.
Dude, if the 80's had been about the most capable computers, we would be running UNIX workstations still. 80's PC were crap for power and capability.
Both Apple and IBM have survived the PC wars quite nicely. IBM sold their business to Lenevo for a tidy profit, and Apple continues to redefine itself.
As to being a fully proprietary system, most "devices" are proprietary. I'm not talking computers here, but even those somewhat. You don't switch out internal components of a Cusinart food processor with a Kenmore one. If you are talking OS proprietary position, then you are correct and yet now. You are correct in that it is mostly proprietary. You are not correct in implying that is a bad thing. As a developer, I know exactly what I can expect to have my stuff run on if it is an iOS device. I don't know what to expect for an Android project. I have to decide what hardware and Android OS version to target and that seems to change almost daily.
And in 2003, they predicted that Windows Mobile would rule the mobile market. I see how accurate that is.
Why do you think that preferring the iOS over Android by a dominant margin is unreasonable?
...that what they are doing is not "realistic". Then maybe they'll stop watching those movies on those small screens.
Seriously, many, many people have no problem watching shows on the small screens. You do obviously, but you are not the millions that do.
Have you looked at the iPod touch?
The contributor says, "That's what I don't like — deliberate devolution." He probably thinks the same thing about automatic transmissions in cars and timers on microwave ovens. Rather than saying, "Wow, about time someone got the masses to understand the benefits of a tablet." or "Wow, about time the geeks finally made a tablet that the millions of non-geeks would use." He'd rather decry is own personal little fiefdom - but then, I should remember that this is /.
If ground forces are clearing out the AA, that means that the grounds forces own the area and there is no need to bomb it! The US Air Force has specialized warcraft for taking out AA sites. Look up "Wild Weasels".
Hyper-reporting and politics did billions of dollars in damage to the tourism industries all through the Gulf states. The oil did very little damage. The administration needs to be apologizing to the thousands they put out of work for their illegal moratorium on drilling. But that is off-topic.
"Muiti-touch is cute, but it's really a gimmick,", man does that comment bring back memories (yes, I'm that old). That was when Apple (yes, they were leading the pack back then too, on real innovation) introduced thewait for itMOUSE! At that time, the IBM crowd (DOS people) were claiming that "real" computer didn't need mice. They were just a gimmick. People would eventually wake up and toss the mouse and get back to just the plain keyboard with text-only screens.
So your comment is hugely funny, from a historical perspective. I really wish I had the mod points to tag you as Funny - Hilarious even.
Also, question: How is a button configured as a Back button any better than a two-figer swipe? And do you realize that loupe type tools make selecting down to the pixel very easy when editing on gesture-based devices? Probably not. You sound as though you've never actually used the device you are deriding. Rather, you focus on what you know and can't imagine anything else.
The main reason that Microsoft settled this dispute had little to do with helping Apple, or the QT code theft. A huge reason, at the time, was that Microsoft was fighting a battle with the government over its monopoly abuse. This was an attempt to demonstrate that there was still viable competition in the market and that they would "graciously" help that competition to remain in the market.
Ultimately the charade failed (on many levels). The $150 million was useful, but not the huge impact that you continue to push. The huge impact, for Apple, was the commitment from Microsoft to keep making Office for five years. At the time, those of us working close with Apple felt that as soon as Microsoft could, they would be dropping Office – 12:01 AM on the day the agreement ended. And in the meantime, Office would be getting 2nd rate treatment so that it would not be as good as the Office on Windows.
We were right on one of the two. During that time, Office for the Mac was easily subpar, when compared to Office for Windows. However, the surprising (to Microsoft) success of Apple forced them to keep the Mac Business Unit open and to keep making Office.
I guess the level must have gone up 175 mm in the first 50 years, because in the last 50 years, I can't see a difference – that is from living on the coast. From the anecdotal stories I've read - islands disappearing from rising sea levels, etc. - you'd think I would have seen some rising. But, no. Nothing.
I've been looking for evidence for years. The Mississippi coast, where I am has no report of rising or sinking. The Louisiana coast you mention is really sinking so much as eroding due to man-made canals keeping the normal sediment deposits from the Mississippi River from doing its normal build-ups.
And, you can show reports (many very debatable as is the one you linked) all day long. Facts are, sea levels rise evenly just like all water does in the same container. The sea level is affected by gravity (tides), but that is not the issue here.
By the way, you should have read the rest of that article you linked and not just the headline. Quotes like:
"But tide gauges are notoriously unreliable, Anderson said."
"The tide gauge is mounted on a pier, and geologists agree that unnatural compaction, which would cause the gauge to slowly sink, is common where piers are installed, he said."
“You can’t just take one data point and extrapolate sea level rise from that,” he said. “It’s been done, but it’s not acceptable.”
Again, I've been living with this same level of sea level for fifty years and I'm still waiting for the rise. I'm not saying it won't come. It will, but it is questionable about whether it is going to be a rise or a fall and when for either.
Gulf of Mexico.
From where I'm sitting on the beach (and have for 50 years), shouldn't I be able to see the levels rise? With all the melted glaciers and polar ice, surely there is enough additional water in the world's seas for me to see that-right? The problem is that I don't. What gives?
I'll ask this againWhat sea level rise? I live on the damn beach (Gulf Of Mexico to be exact). I have for 50 years. Unless the seas are somehow negating physics, why isn't the level of the water on my beach going up with all the reported warming?
Mind you, I'm not saying that the world's water levels haven't gone up and down over the world's history. I'm just not seeing the evidence of the sea level rise that I read is supposed to be happening right now. Where is it?
I keep waiting, at my beach house, for the water levels to rise. And waiting. And waiting. I thought that with the reported rise in global temperatures due to human activity, that I would see it. I guess that water levels rising due to human caused global warming has its own physics and does not rise in all places around the world. Just those out of the way places where false reports cannot be verified by little ol' me sitting on my local beach for the past fifty years and watching the water at the same level. There has been one recent change on my beach–an occasional tar ball from that little leak off-shore.
I'm saying that CO2 emissions are not enough of a player to worry about it. Can you say that you are 100% sure that there is human made global warming? If you can say that, you're either a liar or planning on getting deep pockets from the hoax. Either way, good day, sir.
So much to cover, so little time!
First, I'll combat you the whole way with more government bureaucracy. Too many issues to go into in a short text response. I'll side with with lessons of history and the Declaration of Independence that makes the individual –not the government– the center of control and makes that a good idea.
Some centralization is important, but within very limited reason.
What are the costs associated with the emissions? I didn't know there was such a thing?
* The piddly cap-and-trade bills are far more aggressive than I can support.
We agree and disagree. We agree that we don't know which approach or mix of approaches will be best. Who knows, there might be a new energy source off our radar screens that end up being "the" energy source for the world. My point about buying the solar instead of subsidizing it is that it is a more practical and useful way to keep bureaucracy down and to directly impact alternative energy sources. If the money is used to purchase sources other than solar, then that is fine by me.
However, decentralized rooftop solar has less of a negative impact on nature than does geothermal generators and wind driven generators. The solar panels do not have moving parts to kill birds, as an example.
Energy efficiency is one of those things that a free market can readily address. If the government gives preference to panels that are more efficient, then company research labs will be running at a high pitch to increase their efficiency so that their companies can sell more panels.
As to the government artificially increasing the costs of carbon production, that is where we really disagree. There are so many levels where that is just a bad idea. As you pointed out, prediction is not something that is a very strong skill set. That is also true of predicting unintended consequences. With the American economy (in fact the world economy) being so fragile, additional taxation on businesses will probably be a huge blow. Add in the additional government agencies and laws, the development of more criminal laws to cover those that don't comply, etc., etc., etc. It is just plain a bad idea. I used to work with a "green energy" company that had begun selling carbon neutralization credits to companies that wanted to demonstrate how green they were becoming. The research that we did (and was not publicly made known – bad for their business model) covered a lot of these issues. Because they are not making the money they hoped for with just offering and promoting this credits, they began dumping money into lobbying efforts to promote cap and trade, in spite of the problems that they know will result for the country. And that is just with the known knowns. We also had grave indications of the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.
SoI'll stand in complete opposition to cap and trade. More laws in this direction are not helpful although they may seem to be.
Yes, the free market is very resilient, however I don't think you'll like the resulting free markets. Take the illegal drug market, for example. There is a very regulated industry, and there is a market that adjusted–by going black market.
By the way, to me bringing the Republicans or Democrats into this discussion is the same thing. They both want more government control and power. They both swing to "moderate" positions when they think it will get votes, then promptly ignore campaign commitments and do exactly what they want. For both parties, power is the goal, not a strong effective America. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but that is just that–exceptions.
If the government is buying panels, that is easy to address. Just instruct the purchasing agents to give preference to those panels that have the most American involvement in the R&D, design, component manufacturing, and assembly.
Here's the thing, if the money is going to subsidize R&D, then that really only pays for the high-end engineers. It does not stimulate demand and manufacturing. However, if they start actually buying huge quantities of panels and getting them installed, then the entire chain is stimulated from installation right up through to R&D. Again, with the companies that have the highest involvement of Americans gets more of the business.