"Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said in a research report Sunday that Apple captured 75% of smartphone industry profits in the second quarter. But that's down from 84% in Q1 and 91% in Q2 2015, he said.
Apple's share of smartphone profits fell because of Samsung's improving profitability driven by streamlining its product lines along with strong demand for the Galaxy S7, Walkley said. Samsung's strong results are expected to continue in the third quarter ahead of the September launch of Apple's iPhone 7, he said."
"Samsung's share of smartphone industry profits improved to 31% in Q2, up from 22% in the first quarter and 19% in Q2 2015."
Apple's profit share of the smartphone market was in steady decline, and Samsung and others were in ascension. The ONLY reason Apple is back up to 90%+ in Q3 is that Samsung's profit share evaporated in Q3 due to the recall expense. It's that simple.
If 2 companies are splitting the profits taken in a market 50/50 and one does a recall that wipes out their profit for a quarter, then the other company is making the same amount of money... but now has "100%" of the profit.
This news is just a reflection of Samsung taking a giant loss on the Note7.
Spending all this effort to accurately measure the thrust is an utter waste of time if the moment you start to investigate the cause you find it is simply due to electron emission.
If your cellular connection isn't strong, a nearby Wi-Fi location can be a big help
Meh. I was travelling in Melbourne a while ago without a data roaming package, so i was relying on 'wifi' and it was a PITA.
A bunch of the free wifi spots I connected to weren't even routed to the internet; just an intranet advertising site for various stores around me.
A bunch more had various 'registration' processes to deal with; that needed to fill out forms and enter phone numbers etc to receive codes... and promos etc. Or i needed codes from inside the store... this last wasn't too bad but in theory, but in practice was more hassle than i wanted. I didn't want to be 'that guy' that goes in, gets in line, and then just asks for the wifi password...
A bunch more got me onto the basic web, but I guess various services and ports were blocked and, for example, I couldn't get a chat message out via skype etc.
A bunch more I was able to connect to but signal strength was too poor to do anything remotely useful, or they'd show up in my list but i wasn't able to connect at all.
A couple were usable. But it was an exercise in frustration. I guess once you know the lay of the land a bit better and know which companies run useful spots maybe.
I was right downtown and the number to sort through was overwhelming. A database of free wifi isn't a bad thing, but a database of useful free wifi sorted by how useless it is would be better -- but I'm not going to use a service from facebook anyway so... meh.
Now, if you want to make the argument that the electric cars are not worth it without the subsidy you might have a case,
I think it goes without saying that the "smart money" doesn't buy new cars at all. My last car was $7500. I've paid about $1100 in maintenance (the bulk of that was in the first 2 weeks just catching some work that needed to be done). And at 10 cents a mile for gas its double to triple the cost of an EV... but I'm starting several thousand dollars ahead of your purchase price, and the car isn't really depreciating. I'll lose 1500k in depreciation over the next 3-4 years. You lost that driving it off the lot; and will likely be down 30% after 3-4 years. ($4200). That buys me quite a bit of gas.
So for 1.5 years & 33,000 miles I'm out less than $330 in energy...[...] My other number prove themselves.
33,000 miles on $330, works out to 1 cent per mile. That's pretty suspect unless you are not paying for 3/4s of your electricty. You've already admitted you charge it at work. This is fine -- but you aren't paying for the electrity you are using and you've got to know that gravy train is going to end at some point. It might be valid right now but once the electric 'revolution' hits, you'll have to pay, and it'll probably be retail (e.g. marked up to cover the billing infrastructure and profit for impark or whatever outfit takes over running and maintaining the infrastructure).
Meanwhile, operating EVs in most of the country is closer to 3.5 to 6 cents a mile. An additional wrinkle, where I live at least is that my residential electricity pricing is tiered -- I get the first 1350kWH at 0.083 cents but then it jumps to 0.123. (And even the higher rate is cheap compared to major regions of the USA.) I generally sit within the threshold but there's not a lot of room, and adding an EV would be pretty much entirely at the higher rate. And again with the 'electric revolution' that is coming, I fully expect the price of electrity to go up, while the price of gasoline might actually even fall due to reduced demand... i don't really predict a fall, but i do think the negative pressure on demand may stop it from rising much.
ADDITIONALLY, electrics are currently exempt from fuel taxes, by virtue of not using fuel -- this is fine -- as it acts as an incentive to buy electrics which aligns with most urban planning -- BUT again, once the electric vehicle revolution hits, the need for the incentive will stop, and the tax authorities will be seeking to recover those taxes -- likely either via a tax on electrity itself, or a tax per mile driven from your odometer. In other words, that 'advantage' is going to disappear at some point.
but I'm counting on the price of the battery coming down in 5 years and there possibly being aftermarket choices. The is the only part that is a gamble. My other number prove themselves.
Maybe. It's hard to say. Maybe the current electrics are still early adopter vehicles and will not get the sort of mass market economies of scale in terms of replacement support (for example 'oh... you've got a '22; that was before the battery retrofit kits got standardized between manufacturers...yeah, we can service it, but we have to do a custom repack... so it'll cost more; your probably better off just scrapping it and getting a '29 that's had a recent retrofit; then you get the autonomous driving sensor kit upgrades too after the bugs were worked out in '27...). I do think as the electric revolution hits its stride the battery maintenance problem will largely take care of itself. But your "other numbers that prove themselves" are only valid today, and looking out with a 5-10 and longer you don't really account for the way the market is going to shift, as the majority of vehicles shift from gas to electricity, and the tax base shifts from gas to electricity.
There are quite a few gambles being made going electric, and while there is no question the cost to operate one is
Actually, It could be like antivirus or an adblocker where you subscribe to a service of your choice to provide you your device profiles from a database of devices... seeded by manufacturers, by volunteers, etc, etc... and not just IoT -- i think a system like this could work for mobile phone permissions and even desktop application firewalls.
What you seem to miss is that this is a one time cost,
Just like minidisplay port to hdmi, and my thunderbolt to ethernet,... except now i have to buy a bunch of new dongles; and i'll need to buy multiples so I can leave one at home, one at work, and one in my bag -- in some vain attempt not to have to babysit them like an obsessive compulsive. And I'll still need all my old dongles floating around because i'll still have my old laptop.
This adds convenience by not having to worry about which way is up on those stupid USB-A connectors any more.
You know what would add convenience? Having a USBA port on the laptop itself. So don't try to sell be a bunch of bullshit about how having to buy a bunch of cables somehow adds convenience. It doesn't.
You are bitching about the loss of ports that *YOU* see as vital to have on a laptop. Apple does their research and they are not going to make a computer that people aren't going to buy
You might want to look at the mac pro (the trashcan in particular) but even the rest were just stupid, the cube was another fuckup...
You see the popularity of these adapters as "proof" that Apple fucked up. I see it as proof that people are quite willing to do away with their USB-A ports.
No In one pile I see a lot of people who buy shiny things, and don't even realize they need a bag of adapters until they get home. In another pile I see a lot of people who like OSX enough to put up with all kinds of Apple bullshit, because they've invested in the platform. The fact that USBC adapters are so popular is proof that USBA wasn't dead yet... and everybody would be happier if the laptop still had the ports. And even those are willing to put up with adapters would still, given a choice, have preferred at USBA port right on the laptop. Nobody "prefers" adapters.
I get the feeling that I've been trolled all this while and you've just been seeing how long you could get someone to argue with you. That and/or you had no intention to ever by an Apple product and you were just looking for a reason to justify your decision.
I can see why you'd think that, but no, I'm a long time mac laptop user. And I'm already sick of being inconvenienced by carrying around my "special" ethernet cable, and not being able to use ethernet if I leave it behind. I already consider it a big hassle and a waste of time dealing with it. And I usually just borrow someone else's laptop that has an damned ethernet port, because THAT is more convenient that a trip to a store and back.
This is the problem with the paper, apart from the sloppy uncertainties, there is no investigation as to the cause of the thrust. They focus only on measuring it.
How is that "the problem" ?
The first step in science is often to 'observe an effect' and then to start isolating it and measuring it.
By far the most likely outcome of this is that it will turn out to be particle emission of some sort which our existing physics can explain.
Perhaps, but then knowing precisely how much thrust is generated and along what vector etc will help us pinpoint the source and cause.
If they want to convince anyone of anything else they need to focus on investigating possible causes
So... are you still skeptical of gravity too? Because we haven't really pinned that down yet either. I mean... we know a lot about measuring it, and its relationship to mass, and we can make predictions based on it... but (to my knowledge at least) its mechanism isn't really understood yet. We don't know precisely WHY mass causes gravity... or how exactly.
But since we can clearly see and measure its effects we don't doubt it exists.
I think demonstrating that there really is an EM drive thrust that we can't explain is an important first step.
And right now, because the effect is small and not predicted by our existing physics -- the most logical causes are that it was measurement error, or a flaw in the implementation of the experiments leading to an accounted for source of energy/reaction mass/etc.
Logically the first angle of investigation will be to verify the experiment is reproducible, to start eliminate possible causes of measurement error, and to eliminate possible sources of energy in the experiment that weren't being accounted for.
At the same time though, a generic consumer doesn't really care whose fault it is they just care which one is more reliable.
If all you do is facebook and twitter, then if facebook and twitter crashes markedly less on platform A then on platform B, then you'll probably be happier with A. It doesn't matter whehter the issue is flaws of platform B, or if actual fault lies with facebook and twitter writing shitty code for platform B. Makes no difference.
The end result is the user of platform B puts up with more crashes using the phone, and would be happier on A.
Apple is making a device to sell for the next 18 months. Come back in 6 months and see if the same complaint holds.
Will everyone still have USBA devices in 6 months or even 18 months? Yes. Next question.
I used hardware stores as an example of the last place people would go to find things like this. Even the small town hardware stores carry them
If anything, that just tells you how many people need adapters, which just tells you what a FUCK UP it was not to include them on the laptop. It's not a small niche that need adapters, it's everybody. And if everybody needs these adapters, such that even backwards hardware stores are trying to cash in it... then the product is flawed for not having the ports.
QED
For every person like you that complains about the loss of the USB-A port there are a dozen people standing in line to buy a new MacBook Pro.
Which other apple laptop are they going to line up for? If you want even a half decently spec'd mac laptop there is only one to choose from. So you put up with its warts and flaws or you go without entirely.
Saying the "ENTIRE" market is somehow inconvenienced by this just does not show in Apple's sales results
You are looking in the wrong place. Remember that last-place-you'd-ever-look-hardware-store that you were giggling with delight at it carrying adapters?? That's your PROOF the entire market is inconvenienced. If it was just a small niche that needed adapters then they'd be special order or only carried in specialty shops.
Nobody wants adapters. They are a necessary but inconvenient reality. Except in this case, where there is no good reason for them being necessary. The laptop should have had the port built in.
Given when setting syncing up i generally have a list of checkboxes that say whether i want to sync A, B, or C then syncing something else without disclousure is definitely not 'implied'.
And the 918 spyder also made it to the end of the lap at the nurburgring with a time befitting a supercar while the Tesla's overheating protection kicked in early into the lap and limited its overall performance to that of a cube van.
The Tesla is quick off the line, but it handles like a boat; and it's not designed to be pushed to the edge for any lenght of time.
They might not have them in the store right now but they know how to get them in a few days or even overnight.
yeah, because when the guy next to you hands you a device, you think 'ubiquitous support' means go to a store and wait a few day to plug it in.
Are you even listening to yourself?
The town I live in is not "small" but not huge either. There is a hardware store near me that I know will carry some pretty obscure stuff if even one customer asks for it. If someone asks for one of something they'll buy a dozen knowing that more people will likely be asking for it in the future. If I ask for USB-C cables they'll likely carry them by next week.
That's great, if i'm ever in your town, guess which store you are thinking of, and am fortunate enough to go there at least a week after you've asked for one. Again... that's the oppositive of 'ubiquitous' availability. You know what ubiquitous is? rj45 ethernet and USBA flash drives and TVs with HDMI.
I've accepted that at some point the old must be replaced by the new. USB 1.1 devices took a while to become ubiquitous too. This current rarity of USB-C devices will pass soon enough.
Sure. But I live in the present. When the odds of being handed a USBA device is substantially less than the odds of being handed a USBC device we can start thinking about dropping USBA.
I'd like to buy a laptop with a real serial port, not these USB devices that are lacking in some active pins and often run at non-standard voltages. I also know I'm not likely to find one. You and I are a very small market and Apple simply cannot cater to us and stay in business.
This is a strawman and you know it. USBA is ubiquitous; apple is isn't dropping support for a 'very small market' apple is giving the middle finger to pretty much the ENTIRE market.
I don't know what the color of the sky is on your world but on this planet the sky is blue and Ethernet ports have been disappearing from laptops for a long time. It was only a matter of time for them to disappear from the high end laptops too.
They're only diappearing on the ultra-portables - which makes sense. Nothing in the portable workstation / performance oriented class is giving them up at all.
I'll need to pack adapters. That has been the rule for a very long time.
It doesn't need to be. It could 'just work'. I have plenty of PC laptops that have all the ports I routinely need.
That's really off topic, but since you bring it up...
ALL 15" MBPs come with 16 GB of RAM. and Skylake only allows a max of 16 GB for LPDDR3,
is a circular argument.
To make a car analogy, your argument is equivalent to saying the new Ford truck can only carry 1/8th ton cargo because they made the engine really small, and underspec'd the suspension to get the fuel economy up. And that's great if fuel economy is your top priority... but most people's first priority with a truck is that it be able to carry things, and if they need to compromise a bit on fuel... so be it. If their top priority was fuel economy and they didn't need cargo carrying... they wouldn't be buying a truck.
IOW maybe the MBP shouldn't (only) come with skylake then. Maybe it should come with a different chipset, a bigger battery, and more ram. The people looking for pro laptops are willing to compromise a bit on size and weight to get the extra power and capabilities. Apple meanwhile is obsessed with how thin they can make it.
You say you need USB-A ports? A pack of 3 USB 2.0 adapters cost $6. A USB 3.1 adapter costs maybe $12. Keep in mind this is for a $2000 laptop. Is an extra $20 going to break you?
Wait? You think this is about the money? It's not about the money. This is about convenience. This is about having something that just works. This is about getting the job done anywhere. I'd gladly pay $500 more for a laptop that gave me 12+ hours of battery and the most common ports just so that I don't have to babysit a bag of dongles and cables.
That adapter costs maybe $30 and is the size of a pack of chewing gum.
If I forget or lose or break the ehternet cable in my bag, I can rely on practically every office I might be in having one. I can rely on all of my peers having one I can borrow. I can rely on my clients having one I can borrow. The average hotel lobby has one I can borrow even in a 3rd world country. But If I lose, break, or forget my thunderbolt to ethernet adapter, I'm basically helpless. That's already happened several times over the last 2 years because nobody just has them. USBC to ethernet is the same thing. Nobody has them. The only place they are ubiquitous is INSIDE an apple store. I can't even rely on getting them at the walmart in small town X.
When I pack my laptop I pack the cables I need,
And that is why you don't get it. You've accepted that as something you should actually have to do with a $2000 pro series laptop. I want an all-in-one device. I shouldn't have to pack a bag of things to go with it.
The adapters you require are ubiquitous, inexpensive, standardized, and tiny
I don't think you know what ubiquitous means. My neighbor has hdmi, ethernet, and a USB-A flash drive in their home. So do my parents. Even my grandmother. Every office on the continent has them too. You can go to your hotel lobby or concierge anywhere from Turkey to China to Haiti and they'll probably have an Ethernet cable you can buy or borrow somewhere on the premises. Got an RJ45 on your laptop... you are good to go.
But USB-C adapters? Practically nobody just has those. Those aren't ubiquitous. They aren't even widespread. Maybe one day, and USBC support is something I'd look for in new devices... but to go USBC-only in a laptop that I need to take anywhere and have it work? That's just idiotic.
I agree that's not the feature I'd have led with or even care about, but there were lots of other things mentioned in the summary (nevermind the release notes) that are worthwhile.
And Apple isn't necessarily wrong to do so, either. Speed isn't everything, otherwise we'd all be driving Ferraris.
Funny you should say that because the new macbook pro really is more like a ferrari than anything else; in the sense that the way the ferrari gives up everything else... towing, trunk, passengers, rear visibility in exchange for performance and sex appeal; the macbook pro gives up everythning else... ports, upgradeability, performance in exchange for thinness and sex appeal.
"Speed isn't everything"
Thin isn't everything either. I need a USBA and HDMI port and more RAM a lot more than i needed it thinner than last years macbook pro. If I'd wanted something thinner I'd buy an air.
My old macbook pro was almost perfect. The only real joke on it was the mini-displayport instead of a full size HDMI port. It had gigabit ethernet, it had an easily replacable battery, it had usb ports and with an SSD upgrade it got a nice performance boost.
My next macbook pro wasn't really progress -- it got thinner for no real reason -- the previous one was fine and I'd have preferred more battery and ram etc to "thinner". Plus it lost the gigabit port which was a real irritant, but it at least it picked up HDMI... so I ended up traded one dongle for another.
The new macbook pro... WTF... it got thinner again... buy a macbook air if you want thinner. Still no ethernet, but my ethernet - thunderbolt dongle would need to be replaced with a new dongle. It loses HDMI too... so another dongle. It loses usbA so... another dongle. It loses Magsafe -- one of the selling points of the macbook pro. It loses the escape key... which I use....
I'm not asking for a "luggable"... I"m asking for a 2010 macbook pro form factor with modern parts. USBC, USBA, HDMI, and ethernet...
Someone should build a whole mac laptop into one of the docks, then we could carry around that and not bother buying a new macbook.
Apple is completely neurotic here.
They make an all-in-one desktop -- that is pointless because for a device that just sits on my desk there is really no functional advantage to having everything built into the screen, and as a result its woefully underpowered, and impossible to upgrade.
Yet as soon as I want something portable, where all-in-oneness, and having everything built in is the holy grail of actual convenience they want me to carry around a bag of cables, adapters, and docks.
For what it's worth docks are suitable for people who want to leave the dock at their desk and take the laptop home with them. Docks are an idiotic joke for people who want the functionality to actually be in their laptop so that they can go from place to place and use different connections at each place. I, for example, need ethernet and hdmi and USB-A ports pretty much where-ever I go. If im at a client branch site... I need those ports. If I'm at a trade show. I need those ports. If I'm in a board room I need those ports. I'd like them built into the laptop. I don't care if it weighs a few oz more, or is a bit thicker as a result. I don't want to carry around a bag of dongles or a big super-dongle (dock) everywhere. The entire purpose of the laptop is to be a convenient portable mobile all-in-one solution.
Hell the one place I don't need a dock is at my actual desk, because that's the one place I don't use my laptop. I've got a desktop computer there, with 32GB RAM, and dual screens, and a GTX 1080, and 4 hard drives, mouse, mechanical keyboard, headset, speakers... it would be a complete pain in the ass to move it 5 feet but i don't need to move it 5 feet because its a desktop that stays on a desk. It's when I need to go somewhere ELSE that'd I'd like to pickup an all-in-one self-contained laptop.
You should respond with awe in the large number of choices in docks available, from so many different vendors, and at such low prices.
Instead I respond with awe at the absolutely miserable set of choices in Apple laptops available, such that I would even need to look at all this shit from other vendors to fix the short-comings of the one device I buy that I actually want everything built in, the one device I buy where the fewer things I need to accessorize it with is it's number one selling point.
I understand that's not everyone's priority... lots of people want their laptop thin and light as possible and rarely attach it to anything. And I respect that. I don't think the macbook air line is a bad product at all. But wake up apple, there is more than exactly one demographic, and the macbook air market is the only one you even acknowledge now.
Maybe if they shouldn't make it so thin then? That way it could support performance parts.
Basically I've said it before -- the new macbook pro is the very best macbook air they could make. And if you want a really nice macbook air you are in luck... but if you wanted something that could actually perform in the same league as a Dell Precision, and were willing to carry around a little extra size and weight to get that performance... well... tough.
Apple doesn't make design compromises to meet performance targets... apple just makes performance compromises until it fits into their design targets. Just be happy... no be *delighted*... that the new macbook pro is faster than the one they made 4 years ago... because based on Ars Technica this is a somehow an achievement.
However, the issue i have with drunks in the stats is essentially that the addition of autonomous cars into the system makes the human statistics better; as the 'least able humans' would avail themselves of the autonomous option to get home.
This really counts as a point FOR autonomous cars; but it needs to be noted because it suggests the autonomous systems in some sense don't need to be better than the average human drivers... they just need to be better than the worst human drivers (drunks and people who are half asleep, as examples) to be a net gain for society.
That said, I have a lot of misgivings... from surveillance capabilties (ugh), remote hacking (remote theft - not just of the car... but of the contents... even remote kidnapping); not to mention the chaos you could create with a botnet of compromised vehicles...or hell even just a few well placed stalls could bring a city to its knees.
And then those cars are going to age out; you look around today and you'll see some 35 year old driving a 1996 Hyundai Tiburon beater he paid $1000 for; the cars seen better days... but the drive train and the supension are maintained... and it can still be perfectly safe because the driver is perfectly competent.
Would you trust that car to drive itself? With 20 year old software and 20 year old sensors? Is it still going to be ok? Is it even going to know how not ok it is if its not ok? If one of the sensors is cockeyed will it know? What will 20 years of dirt, moisture, temperature changes, condensation, insects and rodents, acid rain and UV exposure do to the performance of the autonomous sensors and electronic systems? What gremlins will that car have?
Is the autonomous performance of a test car meticulously maintained by a team of engineers even relevant to what the real world is going to be like? Even Tesla's today are all upper class status cars owned by enthusiasts... will you trust its autopilot the same in 20 years when the car is being hawked on craigslist as a beater for $1,200 by a guy who tells you that the big gouge down the side should buff out and is trying to avoid admitting that the car was written off at least once and has 'rebuilt status'
This is something that can be easily figured out with statistics.
It's not easily figured out without data. And we have no data.
Accident rates and serious injuries per miles driven in autopilot vs human.
On the one hand, human drivers with a couple hundred million people driving billions of miles in the USA, rack up on average 1.08 death per 100 million miles. all miles. all weather. all types of driving. includes drunks. includes iced up roads. includes stolen cars. includes accidents caused by poorly maintained vehicles losing a wheel. it even includes suicides.
On the other hand, you have autonomous vehicles that haven'tracked up remotely enough miles to even be statistically significant. 1.08 death per 100 million... you are going to need billions of miles to get the error bars into a reasonable place.
But on top of that those autonomous vehicles are predominantly driven on the highway in mostly ideal circumstances in vehicles maintained by a team of engineers, with drivers who TAKE over if & when the situation gets complicated.
When you've got a billion miles racked up dropping kids at school in rush hour, with stop lights, crosswalks, pedestrians, cyclists, roundabouts, crossing guards, double parked cars unloading kids in heavy rain, sleet, snow, and fog.... etc...
Then take the human statistics and factor out accidents where the vehicles were in poor shape contributing to the accident (e.g. where an old worn tire comes apart on the highway, or stopping distance is impacted by brakes that are past due for service, or some idiot is running summer tires on snow... because google/tesla autopilot isn't coping with any of that right now. ).
THEN maybe we'll have something statisically valid to compare.
** as for drunks and suicides and stolen vehicles... clearly that doesn't represent human driving ability; so having it count against the human driving stats isn't really representative of the human accident rate.
On the one hand automous cars might nevertheless eliminate those sorts of accidents. Drunks at least. suicides will find a way.
And we havent even considered the new failure modes of autonomous cars -- poorly maintained malware ridden IoT cars of the future, with remote hacks, and dirty 15 year sensors... are a far cry from the meticulously maintained test cars google / tesla etc running.
Actually, between education, economics, and so forth, yeah they do. Several countries already have negative or neutral birthrates and are only net positive due to immigration.
There is no reason to beleive humans could not acheive equilibrium.
Slashdot Mirror
If Trump's weather is so imaginary, why are so many liberals concerned about the real estate he owns all over the world as a conflict of interest?
If I have 3 billion but imagine I have 10 billion that's still a lot of imagined wealth.
"Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said in a research report Sunday that Apple captured 75% of smartphone industry profits in the second quarter. But that's down from 84% in Q1 and 91% in Q2 2015, he said.
Apple's share of smartphone profits fell because of Samsung's improving profitability driven by streamlining its product lines along with strong demand for the Galaxy S7, Walkley said. Samsung's strong results are expected to continue in the third quarter ahead of the September launch of Apple's iPhone 7, he said."
"Samsung's share of smartphone industry profits improved to 31% in Q2, up from 22% in the first quarter and 19% in Q2 2015."
http://www.investors.com/news/...
Apple's profit share of the smartphone market was in steady decline, and Samsung and others were in ascension. The ONLY reason Apple is back up to 90%+ in Q3 is that Samsung's profit share evaporated in Q3 due to the recall expense. It's that simple.
"Sorry, yes."
If 2 companies are splitting the profits taken in a market 50/50 and one does a recall that wipes out their profit for a quarter, then the other company is making the same amount of money... but now has "100%" of the profit.
This news is just a reflection of Samsung taking a giant loss on the Note7.
Spending all this effort to accurately measure the thrust is an utter waste of time if the moment you start to investigate the cause you find it is simply due to electron emission.
http://scitation.aip.org/conte...
It seems to me they ARE looking into causes. I mean, if it were something obvious that we already knew about they'd have found it already.
If your cellular connection isn't strong, a nearby Wi-Fi location can be a big help
Meh. I was travelling in Melbourne a while ago without a data roaming package, so i was relying on 'wifi' and it was a PITA.
A bunch of the free wifi spots I connected to weren't even routed to the internet; just an intranet advertising site for various stores around me.
A bunch more had various 'registration' processes to deal with; that needed to fill out forms and enter phone numbers etc to receive codes... and promos etc. Or i needed codes from inside the store... this last wasn't too bad but in theory, but in practice was more hassle than i wanted. I didn't want to be 'that guy' that goes in, gets in line, and then just asks for the wifi password...
A bunch more got me onto the basic web, but I guess various services and ports were blocked and, for example, I couldn't get a chat message out via skype etc.
A bunch more I was able to connect to but signal strength was too poor to do anything remotely useful, or they'd show up in my list but i wasn't able to connect at all.
A couple were usable. But it was an exercise in frustration. I guess once you know the lay of the land a bit better and know which companies run useful spots maybe.
I was right downtown and the number to sort through was overwhelming. A database of free wifi isn't a bad thing, but a database of useful free wifi sorted by how useless it is would be better -- but I'm not going to use a service from facebook anyway so ... meh.
Now, if you want to make the argument that the electric cars are not worth it without the subsidy you might have a case,
I think it goes without saying that the "smart money" doesn't buy new cars at all. My last car was $7500. I've paid about $1100 in maintenance (the bulk of that was in the first 2 weeks just catching some work that needed to be done). And at 10 cents a mile for gas its double to triple the cost of an EV... but I'm starting several thousand dollars ahead of your purchase price, and the car isn't really depreciating. I'll lose 1500k in depreciation over the next 3-4 years. You lost that driving it off the lot; and will likely be down 30% after 3-4 years. ($4200). That buys me quite a bit of gas.
So for 1.5 years & 33,000 miles I'm out less than $330 in energy...[...] My other number prove themselves.
33,000 miles on $330, works out to 1 cent per mile. That's pretty suspect unless you are not paying for 3/4s of your electricty. You've already admitted you charge it at work. This is fine -- but you aren't paying for the electrity you are using and you've got to know that gravy train is going to end at some point. It might be valid right now but once the electric 'revolution' hits, you'll have to pay, and it'll probably be retail (e.g. marked up to cover the billing infrastructure and profit for impark or whatever outfit takes over running and maintaining the infrastructure).
Meanwhile, operating EVs in most of the country is closer to 3.5 to 6 cents a mile. An additional wrinkle, where I live at least is that my residential electricity pricing is tiered -- I get the first 1350kWH at 0.083 cents but then it jumps to 0.123. (And even the higher rate is cheap compared to major regions of the USA.) I generally sit within the threshold but there's not a lot of room, and adding an EV would be pretty much entirely at the higher rate. And again with the 'electric revolution' that is coming, I fully expect the price of electrity to go up, while the price of gasoline might actually even fall due to reduced demand... i don't really predict a fall, but i do think the negative pressure on demand may stop it from rising much.
ADDITIONALLY, electrics are currently exempt from fuel taxes, by virtue of not using fuel -- this is fine -- as it acts as an incentive to buy electrics which aligns with most urban planning -- BUT again, once the electric vehicle revolution hits, the need for the incentive will stop, and the tax authorities will be seeking to recover those taxes -- likely either via a tax on electrity itself, or a tax per mile driven from your odometer. In other words, that 'advantage' is going to disappear at some point.
but I'm counting on the price of the battery coming down in 5 years and there possibly being aftermarket choices. The is the only part that is a gamble. My other number prove themselves.
Maybe. It's hard to say. Maybe the current electrics are still early adopter vehicles and will not get the sort of mass market economies of scale in terms of replacement support (for example 'oh... you've got a '22; that was before the battery retrofit kits got standardized between manufacturers...yeah, we can service it, but we have to do a custom repack... so it'll cost more; your probably better off just scrapping it and getting a '29 that's had a recent retrofit; then you get the autonomous driving sensor kit upgrades too after the bugs were worked out in '27...). I do think as the electric revolution hits its stride the battery maintenance problem will largely take care of itself. But your "other numbers that prove themselves" are only valid today, and looking out with a 5-10 and longer you don't really account for the way the market is going to shift, as the majority of vehicles shift from gas to electricity, and the tax base shifts from gas to electricity.
There are quite a few gambles being made going electric, and while there is no question the cost to operate one is
Actually, It could be like antivirus or an adblocker where you subscribe to a service of your choice to provide you your device profiles from a database of devices... seeded by manufacturers, by volunteers, etc, etc... and not just IoT -- i think a system like this could work for mobile phone permissions and even desktop application firewalls.
What you seem to miss is that this is a one time cost,
Just like minidisplay port to hdmi, and my thunderbolt to ethernet, ... except now i have to buy a bunch of new dongles; and i'll need to buy multiples so I can leave one at home, one at work, and one in my bag -- in some vain attempt not to have to babysit them like an obsessive compulsive. And I'll still need all my old dongles floating around because i'll still have my old laptop.
This adds convenience by not having to worry about which way is up on those stupid USB-A connectors any more.
You know what would add convenience? Having a USBA port on the laptop itself. So don't try to sell be a bunch of bullshit about how having to buy a bunch of cables somehow adds convenience. It doesn't.
You are bitching about the loss of ports that *YOU* see as vital to have on a laptop. Apple does their research and they are not going to make a computer that people aren't going to buy
You might want to look at the mac pro (the trashcan in particular) but even the rest were just stupid, the cube was another fuckup...
You see the popularity of these adapters as "proof" that Apple fucked up. I see it as proof that people are quite willing to do away with their USB-A ports.
No In one pile I see a lot of people who buy shiny things, and don't even realize they need a bag of adapters until they get home. In another pile I see a lot of people who like OSX enough to put up with all kinds of Apple bullshit, because they've invested in the platform. The fact that USBC adapters are so popular is proof that USBA wasn't dead yet ... and everybody would be happier if the laptop still had the ports. And even those are willing to put up with adapters would still, given a choice, have preferred at USBA port right on the laptop. Nobody "prefers" adapters.
I get the feeling that I've been trolled all this while and you've just been seeing how long you could get someone to argue with you. That and/or you had no intention to ever by an Apple product and you were just looking for a reason to justify your decision.
I can see why you'd think that, but no, I'm a long time mac laptop user. And I'm already sick of being inconvenienced by carrying around my "special" ethernet cable, and not being able to use ethernet if I leave it behind. I already consider it a big hassle and a waste of time dealing with it. And I usually just borrow someone else's laptop that has an damned ethernet port, because THAT is more convenient that a trip to a store and back.
This is the problem with the paper, apart from the sloppy uncertainties, there is no investigation as to the cause of the thrust. They focus only on measuring it.
How is that "the problem" ?
The first step in science is often to 'observe an effect' and then to start isolating it and measuring it.
By far the most likely outcome of this is that it will turn out to be particle emission of some sort which our existing physics can explain.
Perhaps, but then knowing precisely how much thrust is generated and along what vector etc will help us pinpoint the source and cause.
If they want to convince anyone of anything else they need to focus on investigating possible causes
So... are you still skeptical of gravity too? Because we haven't really pinned that down yet either. I mean ... we know a lot about measuring it, and its relationship to mass, and we can make predictions based on it... but (to my knowledge at least) its mechanism isn't really understood yet. We don't know precisely WHY mass causes gravity... or how exactly.
But since we can clearly see and measure its effects we don't doubt it exists.
I think demonstrating that there really is an EM drive thrust that we can't explain is an important first step.
And right now, because the effect is small and not predicted by our existing physics -- the most logical causes are that it was measurement error, or a flaw in the implementation of the experiments leading to an accounted for source of energy/reaction mass/etc.
Logically the first angle of investigation will be to verify the experiment is reproducible, to start eliminate possible causes of measurement error, and to eliminate possible sources of energy in the experiment that weren't being accounted for.
This is precisely what they've been doing.
At the same time though, a generic consumer doesn't really care whose fault it is they just care which one is more reliable.
If all you do is facebook and twitter, then if facebook and twitter crashes markedly less on platform A then on platform B, then you'll probably be happier with A. It doesn't matter whehter the issue is flaws of platform B, or if actual fault lies with facebook and twitter writing shitty code for platform B. Makes no difference.
The end result is the user of platform B puts up with more crashes using the phone, and would be happier on A.
Apple is making a device to sell for the next 18 months. Come back in 6 months and see if the same complaint holds.
Will everyone still have USBA devices in 6 months or even 18 months? Yes. Next question.
I used hardware stores as an example of the last place people would go to find things like this. Even the small town hardware stores carry them
If anything, that just tells you how many people need adapters, which just tells you what a FUCK UP it was not to include them on the laptop. It's not a small niche that need adapters, it's everybody. And if everybody needs these adapters, such that even backwards hardware stores are trying to cash in it... then the product is flawed for not having the ports.
QED
For every person like you that complains about the loss of the USB-A port there are a dozen people standing in line to buy a new MacBook Pro.
Which other apple laptop are they going to line up for? If you want even a half decently spec'd mac laptop there is only one to choose from. So you put up with its warts and flaws or you go without entirely.
Saying the "ENTIRE" market is somehow inconvenienced by this just does not show in Apple's sales results
You are looking in the wrong place. Remember that last-place-you'd-ever-look-hardware-store that you were giggling with delight at it carrying adapters?? That's your PROOF the entire market is inconvenienced. If it was just a small niche that needed adapters then they'd be special order or only carried in specialty shops.
Nobody wants adapters. They are a necessary but inconvenient reality. Except in this case, where there is no good reason for them being necessary. The laptop should have had the port built in.
but it's implied by the very act of syncing.
Given when setting syncing up i generally have a list of checkboxes that say whether i want to sync A, B, or C then syncing something else without disclousure is definitely not 'implied'.
And the 918 spyder also made it to the end of the lap at the nurburgring with a time befitting a supercar while the Tesla's overheating protection kicked in early into the lap and limited its overall performance to that of a cube van.
The Tesla is quick off the line, but it handles like a boat; and it's not designed to be pushed to the edge for any lenght of time.
Your argument amounts to: the reason it can't accept more ram is because apple designed it with components that can't accept more ram.
That's circular.
They might not have them in the store right now but they know how to get them in a few days or even overnight.
yeah, because when the guy next to you hands you a device, you think 'ubiquitous support' means go to a store and wait a few day to plug it in.
Are you even listening to yourself?
The town I live in is not "small" but not huge either. There is a hardware store near me that I know will carry some pretty obscure stuff if even one customer asks for it. If someone asks for one of something they'll buy a dozen knowing that more people will likely be asking for it in the future. If I ask for USB-C cables they'll likely carry them by next week.
That's great, if i'm ever in your town, guess which store you are thinking of, and am fortunate enough to go there at least a week after you've asked for one. Again... that's the oppositive of 'ubiquitous' availability. You know what ubiquitous is? rj45 ethernet and USBA flash drives and TVs with HDMI.
I've accepted that at some point the old must be replaced by the new. USB 1.1 devices took a while to become ubiquitous too. This current rarity of USB-C devices will pass soon enough.
Sure. But I live in the present. When the odds of being handed a USBA device is substantially less than the odds of being handed a USBC device we can start thinking about dropping USBA.
I'd like to buy a laptop with a real serial port, not these USB devices that are lacking in some active pins and often run at non-standard voltages. I also know I'm not likely to find one. You and I are a very small market and Apple simply cannot cater to us and stay in business.
This is a strawman and you know it. USBA is ubiquitous; apple is isn't dropping support for a 'very small market' apple is giving the middle finger to pretty much the ENTIRE market.
I don't know what the color of the sky is on your world but on this planet the sky is blue and Ethernet ports have been disappearing from laptops for a long time. It was only a matter of time for them to disappear from the high end laptops too.
They're only diappearing on the ultra-portables - which makes sense. Nothing in the portable workstation / performance oriented class is giving them up at all.
I'll need to pack adapters. That has been the rule for a very long time.
It doesn't need to be. It could 'just work'. I have plenty of PC laptops that have all the ports I routinely need.
ALL 15" MBPs come with 16 GB of RAM.
That's really off topic, but since you bring it up...
ALL 15" MBPs come with 16 GB of RAM. and Skylake only allows a max of 16 GB for LPDDR3,
is a circular argument.
To make a car analogy, your argument is equivalent to saying the new Ford truck can only carry 1/8th ton cargo because they made the engine really small, and underspec'd the suspension to get the fuel economy up. And that's great if fuel economy is your top priority... but most people's first priority with a truck is that it be able to carry things, and if they need to compromise a bit on fuel... so be it. If their top priority was fuel economy and they didn't need cargo carrying ... they wouldn't be buying a truck.
IOW maybe the MBP shouldn't (only) come with skylake then. Maybe it should come with a different chipset, a bigger battery, and more ram. The people looking for pro laptops are willing to compromise a bit on size and weight to get the extra power and capabilities. Apple meanwhile is obsessed with how thin they can make it.
You say you need USB-A ports? A pack of 3 USB 2.0 adapters cost $6. A USB 3.1 adapter costs maybe $12. Keep in mind this is for a $2000 laptop. Is an extra $20 going to break you?
Wait? You think this is about the money? It's not about the money. This is about convenience. This is about having something that just works. This is about getting the job done anywhere. I'd gladly pay $500 more for a laptop that gave me 12+ hours of battery and the most common ports just so that I don't have to babysit a bag of dongles and cables.
That adapter costs maybe $30 and is the size of a pack of chewing gum.
If I forget or lose or break the ehternet cable in my bag, I can rely on practically every office I might be in having one. I can rely on all of my peers having one I can borrow. I can rely on my clients having one I can borrow. The average hotel lobby has one I can borrow even in a 3rd world country. But If I lose, break, or forget my thunderbolt to ethernet adapter, I'm basically helpless. That's already happened several times over the last 2 years because nobody just has them. USBC to ethernet is the same thing. Nobody has them. The only place they are ubiquitous is INSIDE an apple store. I can't even rely on getting them at the walmart in small town X.
When I pack my laptop I pack the cables I need,
And that is why you don't get it. You've accepted that as something you should actually have to do with a $2000 pro series laptop. I want an all-in-one device. I shouldn't have to pack a bag of things to go with it.
The adapters you require are ubiquitous, inexpensive, standardized, and tiny
I don't think you know what ubiquitous means. My neighbor has hdmi, ethernet, and a USB-A flash drive in their home. So do my parents. Even my grandmother. Every office on the continent has them too. You can go to your hotel lobby or concierge anywhere from Turkey to China to Haiti and they'll probably have an Ethernet cable you can buy or borrow somewhere on the premises. Got an RJ45 on your laptop... you are good to go.
But USB-C adapters? Practically nobody just has those. Those aren't ubiquitous. They aren't even widespread. Maybe one day, and USBC support is something I'd look for in new devices... but to go USBC-only in a laptop that I need to take anywhere and have it work? That's just idiotic.
I agree that's not the feature I'd have led with or even care about, but there were lots of other things mentioned in the summary (nevermind the release notes) that are worthwhile.
And Apple isn't necessarily wrong to do so, either. Speed isn't everything, otherwise we'd all be driving Ferraris.
Funny you should say that because the new macbook pro really is more like a ferrari than anything else; in the sense that the way the ferrari gives up everything else ... towing, trunk, passengers, rear visibility in exchange for performance and sex appeal; the macbook pro gives up everythning else ... ports, upgradeability, performance in exchange for thinness and sex appeal.
"Speed isn't everything"
Thin isn't everything either. I need a USBA and HDMI port and more RAM a lot more than i needed it thinner than last years macbook pro. If I'd wanted something thinner I'd buy an air.
My old macbook pro was almost perfect. The only real joke on it was the mini-displayport instead of a full size HDMI port. It had gigabit ethernet, it had an easily replacable battery, it had usb ports and with an SSD upgrade it got a nice performance boost.
My next macbook pro wasn't really progress -- it got thinner for no real reason -- the previous one was fine and I'd have preferred more battery and ram etc to "thinner". Plus it lost the gigabit port which was a real irritant, but it at least it picked up HDMI... so I ended up traded one dongle for another.
The new macbook pro... WTF... it got thinner again... buy a macbook air if you want thinner. Still no ethernet, but my ethernet - thunderbolt dongle would need to be replaced with a new dongle. It loses HDMI too... so another dongle. It loses usbA so ... another dongle. It loses Magsafe -- one of the selling points of the macbook pro. It loses the escape key... which I use....
I'm not asking for a "luggable"... I"m asking for a 2010 macbook pro form factor with modern parts. USBC, USBA, HDMI, and ethernet...
The new one
There are docks for the new MacBooks
Someone should build a whole mac laptop into one of the docks, then we could carry around that and not bother buying a new macbook.
Apple is completely neurotic here.
They make an all-in-one desktop -- that is pointless because for a device that just sits on my desk there is really no functional advantage to having everything built into the screen, and as a result its woefully underpowered, and impossible to upgrade.
Yet as soon as I want something portable, where all-in-oneness, and having everything built in is the holy grail of actual convenience they want me to carry around a bag of cables, adapters, and docks.
For what it's worth docks are suitable for people who want to leave the dock at their desk and take the laptop home with them. Docks are an idiotic joke for people who want the functionality to actually be in their laptop so that they can go from place to place and use different connections at each place. I, for example, need ethernet and hdmi and USB-A ports pretty much where-ever I go. If im at a client branch site... I need those ports. If I'm at a trade show. I need those ports. If I'm in a board room I need those ports. I'd like them built into the laptop. I don't care if it weighs a few oz more, or is a bit thicker as a result. I don't want to carry around a bag of dongles or a big super-dongle (dock) everywhere. The entire purpose of the laptop is to be a convenient portable mobile all-in-one solution.
Hell the one place I don't need a dock is at my actual desk, because that's the one place I don't use my laptop. I've got a desktop computer there, with 32GB RAM, and dual screens, and a GTX 1080, and 4 hard drives, mouse, mechanical keyboard, headset, speakers... it would be a complete pain in the ass to move it 5 feet but i don't need to move it 5 feet because its a desktop that stays on a desk. It's when I need to go somewhere ELSE that'd I'd like to pickup an all-in-one self-contained laptop.
You should respond with awe in the large number of choices in docks available, from so many different vendors, and at such low prices.
Instead I respond with awe at the absolutely miserable set of choices in Apple laptops available, such that I would even need to look at all this shit from other vendors to fix the short-comings of the one device I buy that I actually want everything built in, the one device I buy where the fewer things I need to accessorize it with is it's number one selling point.
I understand that's not everyone's priority... lots of people want their laptop thin and light as possible and rarely attach it to anything. And I respect that. I don't think the macbook air line is a bad product at all. But wake up apple, there is more than exactly one demographic, and the macbook air market is the only one you even acknowledge now.
Maybe if they shouldn't make it so thin then? That way it could support performance parts.
Basically I've said it before -- the new macbook pro is the very best macbook air they could make. And if you want a really nice macbook air you are in luck... but if you wanted something that could actually perform in the same league as a Dell Precision, and were willing to carry around a little extra size and weight to get that performance... well ... tough.
Apple doesn't make design compromises to meet performance targets... apple just makes performance compromises until it fits into their design targets. Just be happy... no be *delighted*... that the new macbook pro is faster than the one they made 4 years ago... because based on Ars Technica this is a somehow an achievement.
First, I mostly agree with you.
However, the issue i have with drunks in the stats is essentially that the addition of autonomous cars into the system makes the human statistics better; as the 'least able humans' would avail themselves of the autonomous option to get home.
This really counts as a point FOR autonomous cars; but it needs to be noted because it suggests the autonomous systems in some sense don't need to be better than the average human drivers... they just need to be better than the worst human drivers (drunks and people who are half asleep, as examples) to be a net gain for society.
That said, I have a lot of misgivings... from surveillance capabilties (ugh), remote hacking (remote theft - not just of the car... but of the contents... even remote kidnapping); not to mention the chaos you could create with a botnet of compromised vehicles...or hell even just a few well placed stalls could bring a city to its knees.
And then those cars are going to age out; you look around today and you'll see some 35 year old driving a 1996 Hyundai Tiburon beater he paid $1000 for; the cars seen better days... but the drive train and the supension are maintained... and it can still be perfectly safe because the driver is perfectly competent.
Would you trust that car to drive itself? With 20 year old software and 20 year old sensors? Is it still going to be ok? Is it even going to know how not ok it is if its not ok? If one of the sensors is cockeyed will it know? What will 20 years of dirt, moisture, temperature changes, condensation, insects and rodents, acid rain and UV exposure do to the performance of the autonomous sensors and electronic systems? What gremlins will that car have?
Is the autonomous performance of a test car meticulously maintained by a team of engineers even relevant to what the real world is going to be like? Even Tesla's today are all upper class status cars owned by enthusiasts... will you trust its autopilot the same in 20 years when the car is being hawked on craigslist as a beater for $1,200 by a guy who tells you that the big gouge down the side should buff out and is trying to avoid admitting that the car was written off at least once and has 'rebuilt status'
This is something that can be easily figured out with statistics.
It's not easily figured out without data. And we have no data.
Accident rates and serious injuries per miles driven in autopilot vs human.
On the one hand, human drivers with a couple hundred million people driving billions of miles in the USA, rack up on average 1.08 death per 100 million miles. all miles. all weather. all types of driving. includes drunks. includes iced up roads. includes stolen cars. includes accidents caused by poorly maintained vehicles losing a wheel. it even includes suicides.
On the other hand, you have autonomous vehicles that haven'tracked up remotely enough miles to even be statistically significant. 1.08 death per 100 million... you are going to need billions of miles to get the error bars into a reasonable place.
But on top of that those autonomous vehicles are predominantly driven on the highway in mostly ideal circumstances in vehicles maintained by a team of engineers, with drivers who TAKE over if & when the situation gets complicated.
When you've got a billion miles racked up dropping kids at school in rush hour, with stop lights, crosswalks, pedestrians, cyclists, roundabouts, crossing guards, double parked cars unloading kids in heavy rain, sleet, snow, and fog.... etc...
Then take the human statistics and factor out accidents where the vehicles were in poor shape contributing to the accident (e.g. where an old worn tire comes apart on the highway, or stopping distance is impacted by brakes that are past due for service, or some idiot is running summer tires on snow... because google/tesla autopilot isn't coping with any of that right now. ).
THEN maybe we'll have something statisically valid to compare.
** as for drunks and suicides and stolen vehicles ... clearly that doesn't represent human driving ability; so having it count against the human driving stats isn't really representative of the human accident rate.
On the one hand automous cars might nevertheless eliminate those sorts of accidents. Drunks at least. suicides will find a way.
And we havent even considered the new failure modes of autonomous cars -- poorly maintained malware ridden IoT cars of the future, with remote hacks, and dirty 15 year sensors... are a far cry from the meticulously maintained test cars google / tesla etc running.
People don't stop breeding,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Actually, between education, economics, and so forth, yeah they do. Several countries already have negative or neutral birthrates and are only net positive due to immigration.
There is no reason to beleive humans could not acheive equilibrium.