Sure, but the freedom a platform offers has a knock-on effect on more consumer-relevant stuff. There will be better software, more empowering capabilities, more competition on the hardware side, and that will lead to better feature support and cheaper phones.
Well, Apple's developer subscription plan also allows you to execute code, so technically the same goes for iPhone. The only thing I'm interested in is whether or not there is an officially sanctioned way for users to run programs on their device without having to pay a subscription. Putting your faith in Jailbreaks is awfully dangerous, as many an iPhone user has found out.
What you do miss though is the accessibility. My time is precious, so I want to be able to watch or read what I want without having to worry about how or where to get it. Large media collections help with that. I could never hope to consume all the media that I have. With the huge capacities and cheap prices of hard drives there's practically no downside.
There are only three categories in your list: music, video and books.
Just google it. There is more video / music management software out there than could hope to mention, both free and unfree. For books I use Calibre.
The problem I suppose is that while CDs and music files are mostly tagged correctly, the TV shows and comic books from, ahem, questionable sources, are less likely to have as useful metadata.
Longer battery life extends the time before you need to find a wall socket. Even if you don't play for longer than 30 minutes, a shorter battery life will mean less flexibility and more instances of it running out when you really wanted it.
For a child, just for starters kids are advised to have, at a maximum, no more than 2 hours of screentime a day.
OMG. You must either be over 40 or be very delusional.
Their only competitor has demonstrated a machine that's supposed to be as powerful as a PS3, the system that could heat your entire house. I think it's safe to assume Nintendo will still have the upper hand.
If that is so, you obviously are current on the state of what is "really" happening, and from that we must conclude that information isn't being withheld.
Nope. Anybody with the least bit of technical knowledge can conclude that TEPCO's has totally screwed up and wasn't properly prepared for emergencies. That's readily apparent.
Witholding information requires that one has information.
Not having information, or not sharing the information you do have is also a telltale sign of having totally screwed up.
You would have the prime minister interrupt them to get up to speed on the situation (while it might spiral out of control) rather than let them do their job?
When nuclear meltdown is a real possibility, then yes, I expect them to tell people what the shit is going on and what they are going to do about it. As for your proposition that all engineers are completely maxed out and releasing more information would cause catastrophic distraction, that's just ridiculous.
So you're defending bad information policy, with bad information policy? From 25 years ago? In an authoritarian regime?
The parallels are there: Withholding information information from the public, in no small part due to the botched handling of the situation and the baffled and desperate response.
There are actually members of the public with enough technical knowledge to decide for themselves you know. Public disclosure would expose more people to the information help asses the situation, particularly considering TEPCO's seemingly botched handling of the incident.
Every news network already has "experts" weighing in on the reporting without having to explain their speculations.
Certainly not. Services like these target kids, but paradoxically require credit cards which only adults have. Not only that, but they actually save the credit card information and tie it to an account. If you're a parent that's not a usability feature, it's a serious design flaw. Any product targeted at kids in such a way should have the ability for parents to determine exactly what they buy and what they don't. The update doesn't even start to address the problem.
It's like Apple running a candy store. Only the candy store won't let your kids buy candy unless they have your entire wallet an $500 in cash.
Looking at those Video, it seems that the problem is more to do with the functionality of the screen reader, which seems unsuited to interactive web apps. I suppose the only real way to avoid this is to have the functionality interface with desktop software that the user is used to. But Google actually does this remarkably well. Gmail can be accessed via IMAP and POP3, Docs can be shared easily via links and downloaded as in standard formats, you can use Google groups with plain old email and Google calendar can also be synchronized with desktop applications. Hotmail didn't even support POP3 until about two years ago.
I guess I'd have preferred a comparison and an explanation of how it should have been done. I would also be more convinced if they mentioned why outsourcing email is a problem when the mail server can be accessed entirely the same way as a university mail server.
The toxicity of Cs-137 is actually higher than that of I-131. It is also more common and has a longer half life. The thing about I-131 is that it specifically causes an increased risk of Thyroid cancer. But this is different from acute radiation poisoning.
As for acute radiation poisoning, as long as the equivalent dose stays low there will be no effects (actually determining the equivalent dose is another matter). Even if the dose comes from direct exposure to radioactive material, which don't forget can be easily detected in trace amounts. Of course if significant amounts of material are released, then it is very easy to receive large and dangerous doses.
However, to take all of the background radiation one is exposed to over a year or two and give it as a single concentrated dose does not have the same effect on cells.
Yes it does. Like I said there is a distinction between on the one hand reparable cell damage which has acute effects and irreparable somatic and genetic damage on the other hand, which increases the likelihood of developing malign tumours.
Anyway, the first detectable medical effects of high radiation doses start at around 250mSv or about 100 times the average annual background radiation. (That is the individual instantly receives the same dose of radiation). Noticeable sickness starts at about 500 times the annual dose. Less than that and there are no noticable acute effects on the body.
Sunburn is the perfect example. Say you get the first sunburn after 30 minutes. If your dose of radiation is much lower than that, say 3 seconds you will completely avoid the acute effect of sunburn. Even if your dose is 100 times that, it's still only 5 minutes which will not cause you sunburn. It does on the other hand still increase the likelyhood of developing cancer by a small amount.
The reason why x-rays are regulated is because some types of exams can give off a surprising amount of radiation, something like 10 annual doses. Combine this with the medical industry's tendency to sometimes over-use some types of exams and unnecessarily repeat others, and you have a dangerous mix.
And yet, those few extra hours in the sun that led to the sun burn is only a fraction of the radiation one is exposed to in a year.
The problem with sun's radiation is that almost all the energy is dissipated within the first.5 of a millimeter, which results in huge doses for the affected cells.
And then the type of radiation released from the nuclear plant was also significantly more damaging than x-rays are.
That's why the absorbed doses are generally corrected to yield an equivalent dose.
It's not bullshit. There are many orders of magnitude of difference between background radiation and the doses that cause radiation poisoning via somatic cell damage. Background radiation is very low. Get an x-ray exam and you get years of dose within milliseconds.
That assumes that torrents are a good indicator. I don't think they are.
Ubuntu encourage people to download from the main server and don't show the torrent links on the front page, wheras SUSE do. Also, Ubuntu's standard distro is a 600MB CD, wheras SUSE have a 4.5GB DVD, so there's more incentive to use the faster Bittorrent option.
The maximum bitrate isn't of much concern. Certainly in the realm of 3G and 4G wireless the petty 20 or so kb/s it takes to make a voice call is pretty negligable, especially considering what Bandwidth evildoers are pushing over the airwaves, like Youtube videos or farting apps. In fact, doing so would be generally more efficient than older technologies like GSM phones.
Obama basically got the prize for the new START treaty. Of course his actions since then have been very unconvincing and many would like to be able to retract the prize after so many U-turns.
The quests were always the right length IMO. You were able to complete most of them with enough time to spare. I do remember running out of time seconds before the clock ran out on a few occasions. But on the second run you were more familiar with the quest and was able to do it much quicker, and some parts of the story became clearer. Sometimes it's good when a game lets you fail. The challenge in Zelda games is relatively limited, particularly for sidequests the trading sequence. I think the countdown added to the experience in that way.
The unique feature that sets the kindle apart from the rest is the ability to wirelessly grab a book from anywhere in the world. As you point out you can connect it to a computer and transfer ebooks you got off the internet. But that requires the devices and connections to support that infrastructure. If you don't already have a laptop and an internet connection all you have is Amazon's store, and then you're pretty limited.
BTW why are so many public domain books impossible to find on Amazon for free? Has nobody submitted them or is it some policy of theirs? I'll be damed if I pay more for a digital copy of Frankenstein than I would for the paperback versions they sell at every book store.
How much support do you need? Computers are disposable. They are very robust, but mostly unrepairable if they do break. If you do take it back to a store they'll usually just replace it anyway. I can safely say that I've never take a piece of electronics anywhere to be repaired or serviced, in the same way that you would say a car.
Just as long as you replace as many devices as do fail you should be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but the freedom a platform offers has a knock-on effect on more consumer-relevant stuff. There will be better software, more empowering capabilities, more competition on the hardware side, and that will lead to better feature support and cheaper phones.
Well, Apple's developer subscription plan also allows you to execute code, so technically the same goes for iPhone. The only thing I'm interested in is whether or not there is an officially sanctioned way for users to run programs on their device without having to pay a subscription. Putting your faith in Jailbreaks is awfully dangerous, as many an iPhone user has found out.
What you do miss though is the accessibility. My time is precious, so I want to be able to watch or read what I want without having to worry about how or where to get it. Large media collections help with that. I could never hope to consume all the media that I have. With the huge capacities and cheap prices of hard drives there's practically no downside.
There are only three categories in your list: music, video and books.
Just google it. There is more video / music management software out there than could hope to mention, both free and unfree. For books I use Calibre.
The problem I suppose is that while CDs and music files are mostly tagged correctly, the TV shows and comic books from, ahem, questionable sources, are less likely to have as useful metadata.
Longer battery life extends the time before you need to find a wall socket. Even if you don't play for longer than 30 minutes, a shorter battery life will mean less flexibility and more instances of it running out when you really wanted it.
For a child, just for starters kids are advised to have, at a maximum, no more than 2 hours of screentime a day.
OMG. You must either be over 40 or be very delusional.
That's what stuff costs these days. When parents are spending $100/mo on phones with fart apps, I can hardly blame kids.
The newer DS might, but the original system had a much shorter life than the GBA.
Their only competitor has demonstrated a machine that's supposed to be as powerful as a PS3, the system that could heat your entire house. I think it's safe to assume Nintendo will still have the upper hand.
Your comment makes no grammatical sense.
If that is so, you obviously are current on the state of what is "really" happening, and from that we must conclude that information isn't being withheld.
Nope. Anybody with the least bit of technical knowledge can conclude that TEPCO's has totally screwed up and wasn't properly prepared for emergencies. That's readily apparent.
Witholding information requires that one has information.
Not having information, or not sharing the information you do have is also a telltale sign of having totally screwed up.
You would have the prime minister interrupt them to get up to speed on the situation (while it might spiral out of control) rather than let them do their job?
When nuclear meltdown is a real possibility, then yes, I expect them to tell people what the shit is going on and what they are going to do about it. As for your proposition that all engineers are completely maxed out and releasing more information would cause catastrophic distraction, that's just ridiculous.
So you're defending bad information policy, with bad information policy? From 25 years ago? In an authoritarian regime?
The parallels are there: Withholding information information from the public, in no small part due to the botched handling of the situation and the baffled and desperate response.
There are actually members of the public with enough technical knowledge to decide for themselves you know. Public disclosure would expose more people to the information help asses the situation, particularly considering TEPCO's seemingly botched handling of the incident.
Every news network already has "experts" weighing in on the reporting without having to explain their speculations.
Certainly not. Services like these target kids, but paradoxically require credit cards which only adults have. Not only that, but they actually save the credit card information and tie it to an account. If you're a parent that's not a usability feature, it's a serious design flaw.
Any product targeted at kids in such a way should have the ability for parents to determine exactly what they buy and what they don't. The update doesn't even start to address the problem.
It's like Apple running a candy store. Only the candy store won't let your kids buy candy unless they have your entire wallet an $500 in cash.
Looking at those Video, it seems that the problem is more to do with the functionality of the screen reader, which seems unsuited to interactive web apps. I suppose the only real way to avoid this is to have the functionality interface with desktop software that the user is used to. But Google actually does this remarkably well. Gmail can be accessed via IMAP and POP3, Docs can be shared easily via links and downloaded as in standard formats, you can use Google groups with plain old email and Google calendar can also be synchronized with desktop applications. Hotmail didn't even support POP3 until about two years ago.
I guess I'd have preferred a comparison and an explanation of how it should have been done. I would also be more convinced if they mentioned why outsourcing email is a problem when the mail server can be accessed entirely the same way as a university mail server.
The toxicity of Cs-137 is actually higher than that of I-131. It is also more common and has a longer half life. The thing about I-131 is that it specifically causes an increased risk of Thyroid cancer. But this is different from acute radiation poisoning.
As for acute radiation poisoning, as long as the equivalent dose stays low there will be no effects (actually determining the equivalent dose is another matter). Even if the dose comes from direct exposure to radioactive material, which don't forget can be easily detected in trace amounts. Of course if significant amounts of material are released, then it is very easy to receive large and dangerous doses.
However, to take all of the background radiation one is exposed to over a year or two and give it as a single concentrated dose does not have the same effect on cells.
Yes it does. Like I said there is a distinction between on the one hand reparable cell damage which has acute effects and irreparable somatic and genetic damage on the other hand, which increases the likelihood of developing malign tumours.
Anyway, the first detectable medical effects of high radiation doses start at around 250mSv or about 100 times the average annual background radiation. (That is the individual instantly receives the same dose of radiation). Noticeable sickness starts at about 500 times the annual dose. Less than that and there are no noticable acute effects on the body.
Sunburn is the perfect example. Say you get the first sunburn after 30 minutes. If your dose of radiation is much lower than that, say 3 seconds you will completely avoid the acute effect of sunburn. Even if your dose is 100 times that, it's still only 5 minutes which will not cause you sunburn.
It does on the other hand still increase the likelyhood of developing cancer by a small amount.
The reason why x-rays are regulated is because some types of exams can give off a surprising amount of radiation, something like 10 annual doses. Combine this with the medical industry's tendency to sometimes over-use some types of exams and unnecessarily repeat others, and you have a dangerous mix.
And yet, those few extra hours in the sun that led to the sun burn is only a fraction of the radiation one is exposed to in a year.
The problem with sun's radiation is that almost all the energy is dissipated within the first .5 of a millimeter, which results in huge doses for the affected cells.
And then the type of radiation released from the nuclear plant was also significantly more damaging than x-rays are.
That's why the absorbed doses are generally corrected to yield an equivalent dose.
It's not bullshit. There are many orders of magnitude of difference between background radiation and the doses that cause radiation poisoning via somatic cell damage. Background radiation is very low. Get an x-ray exam and you get years of dose within milliseconds.
That's because it's just debian with a few custom themes.
That assumes that torrents are a good indicator. I don't think they are.
Ubuntu encourage people to download from the main server and don't show the torrent links on the front page, wheras SUSE do. Also, Ubuntu's standard distro is a 600MB CD, wheras SUSE have a 4.5GB DVD, so there's more incentive to use the faster Bittorrent option.
The maximum bitrate isn't of much concern. Certainly in the realm of 3G and 4G wireless the petty 20 or so kb/s it takes to make a voice call is pretty negligable, especially considering what Bandwidth evildoers are pushing over the airwaves, like Youtube videos or farting apps. In fact, doing so would be generally more efficient than older technologies like GSM phones.
Yes. It's called word derivation.
Obama basically got the prize for the new START treaty. Of course his actions since then have been very unconvincing and many would like to be able to retract the prize after so many U-turns.
The quests were always the right length IMO. You were able to complete most of them with enough time to spare. I do remember running out of time seconds before the clock ran out on a few occasions.
But on the second run you were more familiar with the quest and was able to do it much quicker, and some parts of the story became clearer. Sometimes it's good when a game lets you fail. The challenge in Zelda games is relatively limited, particularly for sidequests the trading sequence. I think the countdown added to the experience in that way.
The unique feature that sets the kindle apart from the rest is the ability to wirelessly grab a book from anywhere in the world. As you point out you can connect it to a computer and transfer ebooks you got off the internet. But that requires the devices and connections to support that infrastructure. If you don't already have a laptop and an internet connection all you have is Amazon's store, and then you're pretty limited.
BTW why are so many public domain books impossible to find on Amazon for free? Has nobody submitted them or is it some policy of theirs?
I'll be damed if I pay more for a digital copy of Frankenstein than I would for the paperback versions they sell at every book store.
How much support do you need?
Computers are disposable. They are very robust, but mostly unrepairable if they do break. If you do take it back to a store they'll usually just replace it anyway. I can safely say that I've never take a piece of electronics anywhere to be repaired or serviced, in the same way that you would say a car.
Just as long as you replace as many devices as do fail you should be fine.