I was just in China for a month and I couldn't even access my personal website. I don't want to say china uses a whitelist only method or anything, but I don't even have any content there yet besides a web email browser via google apps. Lots of other stuff was difficult, to say the least. Maybe someone persistent and knowledgeable can work their way through/around it, but I think it is largely effective.
To be fair, apple dropped the price of the iphone 33% today. $400 for a smart phone of that caliber ain't bad.
You're right though. Very few people would want the ipod touch as an ipod: too big for too little space. Why not use a nano for cheaper or the new 160GB ipod "class" for storage? The touchscreen is nice, but the only think I see the device offering that makes it worth the extra money and size is the large screen and internet (given, that is pretty nice). But once you're here, for $400 you may as well buy the iphone...
I would have been much happier with a heavier HD based ipod touch with 80/160GB of space, personally.
I don't know yet, though the firmware seems to be just a lighter version of the iphone and you can get all sorts of 3rd party applications working for that. You need to unlock it first using, e.g., iBrickr for windows or AppTapp for Mac (don't know one for linux). After that you can install a bunch of stuff, though my might want to just go with a program called installer.app which basically is a package management system sorta like apt for linux; itcan install, uninstall, update, etc all kinds of programs. I believe you can add "repositories" of a sort too. Again, I don't know if you can do this with the ipod touch, though I imagine it can't be too far off.
immediately learn the phone's location I've seen 24, and I assure you, it's not immediate. It takes just a little longer then you have to get a precise location, but just short enough to narrow the area sufficiently to find them at the exact end of the hour.
The problem with gradual improvement is that there is frequently an upper bound on functionality. Think typewriters: There was gradual improvement for decades, and although we succeeded in producing very good typewriters, a new groundwork was needed before we had the word processing power we do today. Oh the days when "cut-and-paste" meant cut and paste.
I know it's really expensive to upgrade infrastructure to provide extra bandwidth, but I can't believe people would pay for slow internet and I can't believe some company wouldn't put in the investment if it meant stealing all those millions of angry people whose ISP is outdated with clogged pipes.
If the battery works the way they claim it does for as cheap, etc., then they stand to make much more money letting the company flourish then selling it to Shell. Even if they did sell it, Shell would have the wits not to destroy the technology; they would just become a more diverse (and profitable) energy company as a result of the accusation.
Apologies for having the numbers wrong, I was citing Mr. Hastings (father of co-founder Sean Hastings) lecture from 5 years ago and couldn't remember exactly. But I'd like to note that what they say on their website reflects how things are now, not exactly as they happened. They (according to Mr. Hastings) had some to-do in the process because (although having won their sovereignty in British court) weren't widely recognized as a independent principality, nor was the platform recognized as "land". There wasn't much fallout, however, the UK didn't really care enough.
One of my teachers in high school taught us about Sealand because his son was one of the co-founders. Didn't think I'd see it come up on slashdot. Funny story about the country: after it was founded, many of the world's nations extended their borders into sea from (I think about) 5 miles to 10 miles. Sealand viewed this as an aggressive action by the UK since Sealand was now entirely within UK borders and was considered by the British to be UK soil. Sealands response was to extend their borders to 10 miles as well and claim the respective British coastal areas as Sealand soil.
I don't think we should classify the IPCC's (or others) results as evidence from conducted experiments, nor conclusions developed from sound mathematical and scientific theory. Indeed, the overwhelming bulk of conclusions have been drawn from regressions and computer models. As a fellow/.er I tend to put a great deal of faith in these methods, but the level of uncertainty surrounding the parameters used in these models and regressions is staggering. For example, until recently the use of aerosols was believed to contribute to the greenhouse effect, however it has now been shown that, as they reflect a great deal of incoming solar radiation, aerosols actually have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. Simply put, there is a great deal of assumption in these models, much of which has little, if any, scientific foundation.
Case in point is the infamous "hockey stick" produced by Mann for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). While this graph seems to conclusively show a global warming trend, the structure of the model used to create this "scientific result" is fundamentally flawed. For example, when fed random data the model tends to produce hockey-stick-shaped results, and the strongest weighted (by far) parameters were tree ring thicknesses, a measurement that has been shown to depend greatly on CO2 levels (which all agree have increased) and not just temperature. Mann does not correct for this. See McIntyre and McKitrick (note: not Lomborg and still significant counter-claimists) for more information.
I agree completely and I think the grandparent is, more or less, correct on the state of things in China. Ignoring obvious exceptions, China's wealthy are businessmen who are efficiently using the country's extraordinary human capital to out compete the rest of the world; they aren't rent seekers supporting the current regime to maintain their privileged position. A government which, as you elegantly stated, "[imposes] draconian controls on trade" garner these "rich, well-fed" ill favor, and some of these corporations have many thousands of employees. In the modern world, I can think of no one more likely and able to start and support a revolution than these rich and well-fed. It may boil down to the all-mighty dollar, but money does tend to push in the direction of more freedom, so, in this case, I'm not complaining.
After all, five days is just long enough for the documentry to teach Republicans how to eploit the "bugs", but not long enough to deal with the red tape of changing the voting devices. They'll have it rigged more than ever!
I love the mechanics of capitalism, but this is not the right form of competition. Companies' should win out because they improve their product or make it cheaper, not by getting the government to handicap the superior product.
Pre-orders are _not_ bad. I understand the desire to give the consoles to the "die hard" fans who camp out, but there are also those "have a job" fans who don't have that option. Fairness aside, pre-orders are a great way for store to measure the demand of a product before it is available. Without pre-orders it becomes much more difficult to figure out how many Wiis are needed. If you still want to be a die hard fan to retain your geek pride then be among the first to pre-order.
When I first read the headline I envisioned a hostile takeover by giant laptops with tuxeyes running fullscreen for laser shooting purposes. This is cool too though, I guess.
I'm not entirely sure you're thinking thing through correctly. I get that they're trying to compete in all these different technologies to make their shareholders money, but I don't get where that is a bad thing. I thought competition of this sort was a good thing. Google decided to make an email service and forced, e.g., Yahoo and Hotmail to greatly improve their services (MUCH more storage, POP, etc.) to compete. If they compete with PayPal, then who knows? Maybe they will PayPal will have to charge less for credit card transfers or pay higher interest rates.
My fear of Google overexteding itself is not that it might succeed, but that it might fail. If enough of their business ventures go bust, Google as a whole might as well and we'd lose good services. The more successful they become the less they are allowed to suck. As you suggested, if they stop being able to please us, we'll just switch to Yahoo!.
"[They] make $50/month, and have to pay half of that right back to the company for housing and food."
This is completely unfair! I wish I spent only $25/month on housing and food.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just in China for a month and I couldn't even access my personal website. I don't want to say china uses a whitelist only method or anything, but I don't even have any content there yet besides a web email browser via google apps. Lots of other stuff was difficult, to say the least. Maybe someone persistent and knowledgeable can work their way through/around it, but I think it is largely effective.
To be fair, apple dropped the price of the iphone 33% today. $400 for a smart phone of that caliber ain't bad. You're right though. Very few people would want the ipod touch as an ipod: too big for too little space. Why not use a nano for cheaper or the new 160GB ipod "class" for storage? The touchscreen is nice, but the only think I see the device offering that makes it worth the extra money and size is the large screen and internet (given, that is pretty nice). But once you're here, for $400 you may as well buy the iphone... I would have been much happier with a heavier HD based ipod touch with 80/160GB of space, personally.
I don't know yet, though the firmware seems to be just a lighter version of the iphone and you can get all sorts of 3rd party applications working for that. You need to unlock it first using, e.g., iBrickr for windows or AppTapp for Mac (don't know one for linux). After that you can install a bunch of stuff, though my might want to just go with a program called installer.app which basically is a package management system sorta like apt for linux; itcan install, uninstall, update, etc all kinds of programs. I believe you can add "repositories" of a sort too. Again, I don't know if you can do this with the ipod touch, though I imagine it can't be too far off.
Here
The problem with gradual improvement is that there is frequently an upper bound on functionality. Think typewriters: There was gradual improvement for decades, and although we succeeded in producing very good typewriters, a new groundwork was needed before we had the word processing power we do today. Oh the days when "cut-and-paste" meant cut and paste.
...China treats everything Seriously.
I know it's really expensive to upgrade infrastructure to provide extra bandwidth, but I can't believe people would pay for slow internet and I can't believe some company wouldn't put in the investment if it meant stealing all those millions of angry people whose ISP is outdated with clogged pipes.
If the battery works the way they claim it does for as cheap, etc., then they stand to make much more money letting the company flourish then selling it to Shell. Even if they did sell it, Shell would have the wits not to destroy the technology; they would just become a more diverse (and profitable) energy company as a result of the accusation.
Terrible idea. The Sylandro had one of them, and look what almost happened! Never trust a Melnorme.
Apologies for having the numbers wrong, I was citing Mr. Hastings (father of co-founder Sean Hastings) lecture from 5 years ago and couldn't remember exactly. But I'd like to note that what they say on their website reflects how things are now, not exactly as they happened. They (according to Mr. Hastings) had some to-do in the process because (although having won their sovereignty in British court) weren't widely recognized as a independent principality, nor was the platform recognized as "land". There wasn't much fallout, however, the UK didn't really care enough.
One of my teachers in high school taught us about Sealand because his son was one of the co-founders. Didn't think I'd see it come up on slashdot. Funny story about the country: after it was founded, many of the world's nations extended their borders into sea from (I think about) 5 miles to 10 miles. Sealand viewed this as an aggressive action by the UK since Sealand was now entirely within UK borders and was considered by the British to be UK soil. Sealands response was to extend their borders to 10 miles as well and claim the respective British coastal areas as Sealand soil.
I don't think we should classify the IPCC's (or others) results as evidence from conducted experiments, nor conclusions developed from sound mathematical and scientific theory. Indeed, the overwhelming bulk of conclusions have been drawn from regressions and computer models. As a fellow /.er I tend to put a great deal of faith in these methods, but the level of uncertainty surrounding the parameters used in these models and regressions is staggering. For example, until recently the use of aerosols was believed to contribute to the greenhouse effect, however it has now been shown that, as they reflect a great deal of incoming solar radiation, aerosols actually have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. Simply put, there is a great deal of assumption in these models, much of which has little, if any, scientific foundation.
Case in point is the infamous "hockey stick" produced by Mann for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). While this graph seems to conclusively show a global warming trend, the structure of the model used to create this "scientific result" is fundamentally flawed. For example, when fed random data the model tends to produce hockey-stick-shaped results, and the strongest weighted (by far) parameters were tree ring thicknesses, a measurement that has been shown to depend greatly on CO2 levels (which all agree have increased) and not just temperature. Mann does not correct for this. See McIntyre and McKitrick (note: not Lomborg and still significant counter-claimists) for more information.
I agree completely and I think the grandparent is, more or less, correct on the state of things in China. Ignoring obvious exceptions, China's wealthy are businessmen who are efficiently using the country's extraordinary human capital to out compete the rest of the world; they aren't rent seekers supporting the current regime to maintain their privileged position. A government which, as you elegantly stated, "[imposes] draconian controls on trade" garner these "rich, well-fed" ill favor, and some of these corporations have many thousands of employees. In the modern world, I can think of no one more likely and able to start and support a revolution than these rich and well-fed. It may boil down to the all-mighty dollar, but money does tend to push in the direction of more freedom, so, in this case, I'm not complaining.
I already own all the seasons of the West Wing on a hard drive the size of a deck of cards (read ipod).
After all, five days is just long enough for the documentry to teach Republicans how to eploit the "bugs", but not long enough to deal with the red tape of changing the voting devices. They'll have it rigged more than ever!
Not a chance (of having read it, not of admiting it).
I love the mechanics of capitalism, but this is not the right form of competition. Companies' should win out because they improve their product or make it cheaper, not by getting the government to handicap the superior product.
The least they could do is make a corny teleportation pun, like, "In a sudden jump forward..." or something. Such a waste.
Pre-orders are _not_ bad. I understand the desire to give the consoles to the "die hard" fans who camp out, but there are also those "have a job" fans who don't have that option. Fairness aside, pre-orders are a great way for store to measure the demand of a product before it is available. Without pre-orders it becomes much more difficult to figure out how many Wiis are needed. If you still want to be a die hard fan to retain your geek pride then be among the first to pre-order.
So long as you ignore the xbox, though that seems to be what Sony is hoping for, so why not?
When I first read the headline I envisioned a hostile takeover by giant laptops with tuxeyes running fullscreen for laser shooting purposes. This is cool too though, I guess.
Anyone try it to form their own compairisons to Gmail?
I'm not entirely sure you're thinking thing through correctly. I get that they're trying to compete in all these different technologies to make their shareholders money, but I don't get where that is a bad thing. I thought competition of this sort was a good thing. Google decided to make an email service and forced, e.g., Yahoo and Hotmail to greatly improve their services (MUCH more storage, POP, etc.) to compete. If they compete with PayPal, then who knows? Maybe they will PayPal will have to charge less for credit card transfers or pay higher interest rates.
My fear of Google overexteding itself is not that it might succeed, but that it might fail. If enough of their business ventures go bust, Google as a whole might as well and we'd lose good services. The more successful they become the less they are allowed to suck. As you suggested, if they stop being able to please us, we'll just switch to Yahoo!.
"[They] make $50/month, and have to pay half of that right back to the company for housing and food." This is completely unfair! I wish I spent only $25/month on housing and food.