The iPad i(and in general iOS devices) are actually more "hackable" in the classic sense of the word.
Just because it has to be hacked to enable basic functionality does not make it more hackable, it just makes it more hacked.
If you like to write software, either is fine. But the spirit of hacking is also partly in altering what is there to suit a need you have.
Realistically, the two are separate concepts. You should be able to write software without the requirement to hack, you should also be able to hack without expressly wanting to write software.
Because jailbreaking enables use of the MobileSubstrate, and most applications are written in Objective-C, you can not only write your own applications but very easily add hooks and modifications into existing applications
You mean what Android and Windows Mobile do without the need to void the warranty?
Stylus input "tablets" have been around for over a decade and they've been a niche market.
There, fixed that for you.
Plenty of tablets out there, they are normally pretty expensive as they tend to be used by specialised industries such as Medical, GIS/Geology and exploration. The tablets I could buy when I worked at a GIS outfit started A$6K when a decent lappy was A$1.5K. They had very responsive resistive screens (expensive resistive screens are better then capacitive, they're just expensive). They all ran Windows XP so that things like ArcGIS could run on them.
The market has spoken, and it's pretty much disproven everything you said.
The consumer market works in fads. How's that tamagotchi working out for you these days. I'm still not convinced tablets are anything more then the latest craze. In either case the Ipad is stuffed in the long term, if tablets are a fad they'll die with the rest of them. If tablets succeed then they'll be ousted by superior offerings just like IBM almost killed off Apple back in the 80's.
Whether you choose to accept these facts is an entirely different matter.
Here's a prediction for you - there will be an Apple stylus tablet within 3 years.
I doubt it.
Apple have set a course here and are unable to deviate from it, first due to their own stubbornness second from the hole that stubbornness has gotten themselves into.
Take multi-tasking for example. Steve made such a racket about task managers that when he demanded that the Iphone have multitasking he found he couldn't do it without one, so Iphones got what I term "I wish it was multi-tasking". There is not true multitasking on the iphone, you get application switching with hooks into existing services. You cannot process data in the background on IOS.
The same will happen again but not with stylus's. I don't imaging that there will a cheap enough resistive screen out that can be accurate enough, you can get highly accurate resistive screens now but they cost a fortune.
Except when was the last time you actually paid the sticker price in a Harvey Norman, Retravision, etc?
Hardly Normal defenders coming out of the woodwork here.
I never referred to the list price, I referred to the final quoted price. Every time I try to buy something from Hardly Normal I end up being quoted more then at Retravision or the Good Guys. They simply wont budge below a certain point where as Retravision will.
I have almost always found that you're actually better off looking up an on-line price, then popping into your nearest shop and mentioning it to the salesperson.
Just bought an aircon from retravision on Thursday, did the exact same thing although you should be careful when quoting online RRP's. They are not always accurate or up to date. As always when negotiating you should react to what is actually happening.
and it's usually within about $10-15 bucks of the online price
Bollocks. You'll never get a HN or Retravision product down to what you'd pay online, certainly never for a grey import (if the product was under A$1000) but the whole point of paying that premium is so you can have it now.
Now you're having a lend of us. With heavy whitegoods it's cheaper then the goods and delivery but never cheaper then the goods on their own unless you've got a "Vietnamese connection" or it's "fallen off the back of a truck". HN bets that you wont shop around, trains their sales droids to push you against shopping around ("sure, but I cant guarantee this 'fantastic' deal will be here when you get back") because you can almost always get the same product elsewhere for less.
I prefer shopping at Retravision or the Good Guys because their salespeople tend to be less overbearing and don't try to push crap like overpriced extended warranties onto you.
"Retail giants Myer, David Jones and Target also want the threshold removed, saying the Government has a responsibility to keep profits and jobs in Australia."
So it's the governments job to keep profits in Oz, when these are the retailers who sold manufacturing to China.
All this aside, what Harvey and co are proposing is nothing less then protectionism, which has never been proven to be economically beneficial.
So... your an all caps mocking poster then.
Sarcasm is just one of the services I offer.
But please, I'm sure you can explain how it was Gerry Harvey that kills local competition and manufacturing
See what me and the AC wrote. Also, check your house for things that are Australian made. Doing a quick inventory of the room I'm in, my PC is from Korea, Japan and Taiwan, my fan and A/C are from China, My monitor and TV are from Korea (Samsung, top quality IMHO), Bicycle helmet from Hong Kong, Hard Drive and several tailored shirts from Thailand, Adidas deodorant made in UK, Motorola phone from China, LTD M10 guitar made in China, Colgate toothpaste from Mexico. Need I go on, I'm just glad the meat I've got in the fridge comes from Aussie farms (oblig, best farms in the world) although the milk is shipped from the other side of the bloody country.
Not that I'm entirely deriding this, I do enjoy the cheaper prices from imported goods but for HN, Myer et al who not only made this possible but promoted it to turn around and demand protection from the government now their business is facing competition it more then a bit hypocritical. I'm not a liberatard but this is one of those times where I'll let the free market sort it out.
Ahh the joy of an internet cafe.
Cmon mate, the s/z thing should be second nature for anyone who's past year 5 (and I'm bit on the dyslexic side myself) but this is like leaving the u out of favourite.
I can give you concrete examples of how he killed it. MY parents used to own a furniture store, Gerry's minions used to turn up in the store once a week to get prices so he could undercut there stuff and arranged for exclusive deals with manufacturers to lock them out of selling certain items. They hung on until retirement but only barely, Gerry may be a nice guy, but their are no nice guys when it comes to business and he is as big a bastard as the rest of them when it comes to making money.
A lot of this happened in the 80's and 90's in OZ,
My Uncle used to own an independent supermarket until Foodland started using standover tactics until he sold it to them (basically became a franchisee, but a bit more comlpex, he sold the store but remained manager in the service of Foodland which I believe are now part of IGAD, the least evil of the three big supermarket chains). This was two decades ago, there are damn few indies left in the entire country.
First off, when you pretend to be Australian, step number one is use En_AU
I'd say Gerry Harvey understands that everything is going to online shopping, and also realizes that for him (and others) to stay competitive is to go offshore for warehousing via holding companies.
Flat out wrong. Gerry does understand that a lot of retail is going online, what he doesn't realise is his business model needs to change in order to remain competitive. Already most Australian's would rather shop at other retailers like JB Hifi or Retravision (where I bought an A$500 air conditioner last night) who are at least semi-competitive with online retailers and don't try to push you into predatory "interest free" credit deals (actual interest is quiet high).
Harvey wants online trading to change to suit him rather then changing to be competitive. Complete opposite of what you are saying.
Gerry Harvey is a very nice guy, and very patriotic.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,
You're talking about the man who played a huge part in killing local competition and manufacturing. He is now part of the retail oligopoly which strangles independent brick and mortar competitors in the infancy.
... the price difference was not typically more than 150% markup [harveynorman.com.au] (without shipping) on the same product [ozgameshop.com] (with free shipping) as opposed to the 10% GST.
To be 100% fair. Video Game prices in OZ are set by the distributors, not Harvey Norman, JB Hifi or EB games (but JB Hifi is consistently $10-20 cheaper then HN or EB). OzGameShop does grey imports (legal) on a case by case basis (I.E. per order, which is also legal). Basically they order the games from Asia/UK/US when a customer orders it from them (again, quiet legal as it's under the A$1000 threshold).
The distributors (and publishers) contempt for the Aussie public in their pricing is why I buy from Play-Asia.com as much as possible. Seeing as the developers have already been paid (no matter how much I pay) I know I'm not ripping off the people who did the work.
It seems unfair to have one set of rules for online retailers and another for brick and mortar retailers.
but there isn't. Online Australian retailers operate under the same rules and laws as brick and mortar retailers.
The Australian government realises it does not have power over foreign retailers. The tax free threshold was established to allow cheaper imports and create competition in our stagnant, monopoly dominated retail market.
Read this blog entry of Rulsan Kogan who runs an online store within Australia. Kogan.com.au pays the same taxes and import duties as Harvey Norman but does a much lower volume of sales then HN yet manages a much better price on equivalent (no-name brand) goods.
This is Gerry Harvey and others attempting to foist an artificial barrier to consumer choice and the free market in general. It wont stop at 10% (the GST) because Harvey cant compete with Aussie online retailers, let alone Chinese or US ones.
The problem Gerry Harvey and co have is not that their goods are 10% more expensive then the equivalent goods online, the problem Harvey and co have is that their goods are 50% more expensive then the equivalent online.
Gerry Harvey's store, Harvey Norman (AKA Hardly Normal [prices]) is one of the stores I refuse to shop at due to it's high prices, incredibly annoying ads and now this. What Harvey really wants is for the government to step in and protect his profits (most of which come from predatory "interest free" deals which have something along the lines of 30% interest applied) by artificially making it more expensive to buy online.
Fortunately our assistant treasurer Bill Shorten has already shot the idea down saying it would be too expensive to implement.
For all the users who don't type much (that is for about 95% of all users)
Try 0.95%.
The average user types quite a bit. This is why QWERTY keybards came about on phones and why the BB/Nokia E71's are so popular with users who do a lot of emailing and messaging.
On computers it's even worse. Just typing out this comment would be painful, if not impossible. Touchscreens are slower, more inefficient and error prone than keyboards and this is readily evident to the average user.
Devices without keyboards have less buttons (good),
Quick explain.
Thought not. Just because Steve says it's better does not make it so.
Physical buttons provide many advantages over on screen buttons. they are tactile, responsive, don't move and their function never changes. The last one is important, on my PC the Delete button does what it needs to, the F1 key too. On my Android phone the back button always takes me back to the last application/page I used and terminates the application as opposed to backgrounding it (which is what the home button does). Believe it or not, but such simple things are not beyond the capacity of the average user to figure out on their own.
you can press, drag and touch where you're looking (good)
Ye gads,
Where did you learn to type, The ministry of silly computing habits.
All typing tutors and instruction I have received tells me you're meant look at the screen (output) not where your hands are. This does make typing faster and allows you to pick up on those annoying typo's so much earlier.
Typing at 30 WPM+, moving keys are not a feature anyone will find useful.
there are no moving parts (good),
Because mechanical KB's are breaking left, right and centre. NOT.
My keyboard has to be the most reliable one of things in my house. I have a 20 yr old KB's that are still in perfect working order (albeit not AT ports on my gaming rig). My last KB died after 9 years of service, a victim of a poorly placed Jacks and Coke.
Moving parts != unreliable. On the other hand software frequently breaks due to bad code.
For the typical user
A physical keyboard is much easier to use, faster, more ergonomic, more responsive and a lot more accurate. Considerably less stress on the users wrists and not having to look at the keyboard to find a key makes typing much faster.
Where do you get your idea's about HCI and HMI from?
The Germans produced less than 1350 of the legendary Tiger tank, and less than 500 of the King Tiger). I think we saw how that turned out for the Germans. Americans and Russians just kept churning out Shermans and T-34's, and simply overwhelmed them
Compared to the Tiger and King Tiger, the T34/76 was the superior tank. It was faster, lighter, more reliable, better armoured (sloping armour provided better penetration protection whilst reducing mass) and had a good high velocity gun. The Tigers were slow, heavy, overbuilt and had too many technical problems, the engine was too powerful for the gearbox, so much so the Nazi's had to install speed governors to limit it to 35 Mph (IIRC), the tank was too heavy for many conditions (mud) and used fuel at a phenomenal rate. The Panther was a much better tank, if the Nazi's put the same resources into the Panther as they did to the Tiger they would have bloodied Stalin's nose a lot more.
Americans and Russians just kept churning out Shermans and T-34's, and simply overwhelmed them.
By that time the German industrial base was under siege, day and night from three enemies.
The weakness in the German strategy was not the fact that they relied on fewer numbers but the fact Hitler had to take a personal hand in everything. Hitler was obsessed with heavy tanks, artillery and bombers. The ME262 was a classic case of Hitler screwing it up. The original 262 was a fighter, Hitler said no, make it a bomber so ME changed the airframe to support bombs decreasing speed and manoeuvrability to a point where the ME262 could be effectively intercepted by Allied propeller driven escort fighters, a fact that many Allied owe their lives to. The amount of marks Hitler poured into his ultimately ineffective V weapons, massive channel guns, the list goes on.
The failing in the German strategy was that no-one questioned Hitler and Hitler kept screwing up.
Not that German mass production was ever lacking, Factories produced tank parts just as fast as ours (between Russia, England, Canada, Australia and the US we had many times the capacity) and in many cases was more efficient. The Nazi's stamped out MP40's and MG42's faster then we ever could get out Bren's, Sten's and Browning 30 cal's. The US was still using wood in the stocks of it's front line SMG when the Nazi's were producing all metal MP44 assault rifles.
In the English language context is more important then wording. For example, I'd say you'd be an absolute _orange_ not to understand what I just said.
Basic logic lesson,
GP caught a disambiguation, not damning evidence of my falsehood. Trying to claim my entire post is false on the basis of one word is at best, a strawman. A strawman that you cant seem to let go. I know/. is full of pendants, but they generally have a higher standard then yourself and the GP.
BA, BMI and Lufthansa, who I have flown on in the last 6 months, do NOT "require" you to have your seatbelt on, but *suggest* that you do.
Your claim is therefore false.
Dearest pendant,
The brilliant thing about the English language is that words have different meanings, You are using one definition of a word in order to falsify a claim, unfortunately for you I used the word in a different context which denotes a different meaning.
Require can be used as a request. On several airlines they've said "[when] the seatbelt sign has been switched off you are free to move about the cabin but we require you to have your seatbelt fastened whilst in your seat" which is for your safety.
Only bad thing about Air Asia is that their both check-in lines in Bangkok are almost always full of people and you have to wait, but that's understandable.
Thats not Air Asia, that's Bangkok Itnl. I've flown out on Thai and Singapore Air and both had ridiculous lines for check in and an even worse line for immigration. BKK is just a very poorly organised airport.
The baggage fees and nickling&diming for food are indefensible, but it seems they are standard practice in the US airline industry these days.
There, fixed that for you.
This seems to be an issue with US airlines only. Even QANTAS/BA treats people better then that (and I dont have kind things to say about QANTAS's service). From my city I can fly Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Malaysian Air Services, Cathay Pacific or Emirates, three of those are consistently in the worlds top 5 airlines. They don't really cost more then QANTAS and have top service. Even in the Low Cost Carrier class, there's Air Asia who really are the worlds best LC airline. Food is reasonable, especially if you pre book. Seats are a little small but it's often half the price of premium carriers.
Out here in Australia's most backwards cities if you pay premium carrier prices (A$700-1000 to most of SE Asia) you get premium service, free meal, free drinks, entertainment system OR you can choose from a variety of low cost carriers (A$300-600) if you'd rather go without.
we REQUIRE you to keep your seat belt fastened while seated
No shit.
You're in an oversized cigar tube travelling at 900 KM/h and you don't think that's prudent? Your safety be damned.
All airlines require you to keep your seatbelt fastened whilst seated. They'd rather you didn't move about the cabin unnecessarily so that you:
1. Dont hurt yourself when the plane hits a bit of turbulence.
2. Do not interfere with the operation of the flight staff.
3. Do not be a nuisance to other passengers.
You've never flown over the equator have you? I live in Australia so that means I do it quite a bit to get to other countries and every time we cross that line separating the hemisphere there is turbulence, often quiet violent turbulence and every 4 out of 5 flights someone who is stupid enough to be sitting without their seatbelt gets hurt (normally there is an announcement on the PA asking if there is a doctor on board).
It's not some giant conspiracy to make you uncomfortable, it's for your own safety and the COMFORT OF OTHER PASSENGERS. I cant stress this enough, I absolutely hate it when some idiot lets their crotchspawn run up and down the aisle or when some smelly retard has his hairy armpit slung over my chair so he can chin wag with his equally smelly mate.
Planes are not luxury cruse liners, they do not have roomy cabins, they are designed to get me to where I want to go within a matter of hours, for that time I can compress myself (not a small person) into a seat and be fucking courteous to other passengers. So please for the sake of everyone, sit down, shut up and put your belt on.
As MS got absolutely nothing to offer on Cloud (once you filter PR mess)
Microsoft BPOS, hosted Exchange and Crap^WSharePoint.
MS does not have any direct online services marketed to businesses but they have a fair few products that are designed to be hosted by someone else, no matter how crappy those products might be. That's the MS "cloud" strategy, get someone else to do it, you may recognise this as it seems to be identical MS's Support strategy.
On the consumer side they have Xbox Live, Games for Windows Live, Live Messenger and Hotmail (no, I will not call it Live Hotmail). As we've seen MS does a fantastic job of failing with these services.
The current industry standard today basically assumes the player is stupid and needs handholding, that is a sad fact, even though it opens up the games to a much wider audience than the one that played games back in the day of SMB3.
On the contrary, this is exactly what the article was talking about.
The earlier SMB 3 levels were easy, yet the later SMB 3 levels where phenomenally hard (World 8 and those ships), especially for younger audiences.
This is something that has been forgotten in game design, the gradual increase in difficulty. Now days it's a sudden increase (Crysis), start at max level (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) or don't even bother with it (Bioshock). SMB3 introduced you to the game mechanics slowly whilst allowing the player to still have fun (in case you've forgotten, that is why we play games).
I'd like to see more of the SMB 3 kind of gradual increase but unfortunately the big dev companies seem to hate it when things get to hard for the mouth breathers. Something about lost profits.
If I understand the intent of the law correctly, it'll have to be something provided out of the box for no extra charge
But must be enforced to the letter of the law... unfortunately. Apple have almost made an art of skirting the law.
Point in short, there is already a disparity between Euro and US prices, who would notice an extra 30 Euro. Yes there'd be some outrage but in the end, enough fanboys will relent that it would not matter.
The claim that iPad 2 will have Micro-USB port in TFA hinges on this:
Apple will just throw in a proprietary connector to MicroUSB adapter to feign some sort of compliance whilst continuing to use it's own proprietary connector and charger.
Adapter will cost 0.50 Euro, Apple will charge an additional 30 Euro.
Even if it were based on kills, PC owners can't fight 360 owners directly on the system.
But it's based on number of actions, not number of cross platform kills.
If the typical PC player can rack up 30 kills in 20 minutes and it takes the typical Xbox player 45 minutes to do the same thing, is that not an accurate test?
The metric you're testing is the same, the variable is the platform. In gaming terms, it's like a time trial when each player competes after each other, not concurrently. That's how we did multi-player before the split screen. See that lawn you're standing on.
I had a Cowon Iaudio 7, You could plug that thing into a speaker and it would play perfectly at it's top volume, an Ipod or Ipod touch would distort at about 75% and I'm not an audiophile, A$30 for a pair of headphones is a lot for me, the distortion from the Ipod was quite noticeable at 80-90% vol.
The only thing Apple has is marketing and it's quickly losing that, the Iphone had the unintended side effect of convincing people they didn't need a separate MP3 player and started using the MP3 player on their Nokia, Sony-Eriksson and Samsung phones.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because it has to be hacked to enable basic functionality does not make it more hackable, it just makes it more hacked.
Realistically, the two are separate concepts. You should be able to write software without the requirement to hack, you should also be able to hack without expressly wanting to write software.
You mean what Android and Windows Mobile do without the need to void the warranty?
There, fixed that for you.
Plenty of tablets out there, they are normally pretty expensive as they tend to be used by specialised industries such as Medical, GIS/Geology and exploration. The tablets I could buy when I worked at a GIS outfit started A$6K when a decent lappy was A$1.5K. They had very responsive resistive screens (expensive resistive screens are better then capacitive, they're just expensive). They all ran Windows XP so that things like ArcGIS could run on them.
The consumer market works in fads. How's that tamagotchi working out for you these days. I'm still not convinced tablets are anything more then the latest craze. In either case the Ipad is stuffed in the long term, if tablets are a fad they'll die with the rest of them. If tablets succeed then they'll be ousted by superior offerings just like IBM almost killed off Apple back in the 80's.
Whether you choose to accept these facts is an entirely different matter.
I doubt it.
Apple have set a course here and are unable to deviate from it, first due to their own stubbornness second from the hole that stubbornness has gotten themselves into.
Take multi-tasking for example. Steve made such a racket about task managers that when he demanded that the Iphone have multitasking he found he couldn't do it without one, so Iphones got what I term "I wish it was multi-tasking". There is not true multitasking on the iphone, you get application switching with hooks into existing services. You cannot process data in the background on IOS.
The same will happen again but not with stylus's. I don't imaging that there will a cheap enough resistive screen out that can be accurate enough, you can get highly accurate resistive screens now but they cost a fortune.
Hardly Normal defenders coming out of the woodwork here.
I never referred to the list price, I referred to the final quoted price. Every time I try to buy something from Hardly Normal I end up being quoted more then at Retravision or the Good Guys. They simply wont budge below a certain point where as Retravision will.
Just bought an aircon from retravision on Thursday, did the exact same thing although you should be careful when quoting online RRP's. They are not always accurate or up to date. As always when negotiating you should react to what is actually happening.
Bollocks. You'll never get a HN or Retravision product down to what you'd pay online, certainly never for a grey import (if the product was under A$1000) but the whole point of paying that premium is so you can have it now.
Now you're having a lend of us. With heavy whitegoods it's cheaper then the goods and delivery but never cheaper then the goods on their own unless you've got a "Vietnamese connection" or it's "fallen off the back of a truck". HN bets that you wont shop around, trains their sales droids to push you against shopping around ("sure, but I cant guarantee this 'fantastic' deal will be here when you get back") because you can almost always get the same product elsewhere for less.
I prefer shopping at Retravision or the Good Guys because their salespeople tend to be less overbearing and don't try to push crap like overpriced extended warranties onto you.
His stated reasons are:
"Retail giants Myer, David Jones and Target also want the threshold removed, saying the Government has a responsibility to keep profits and jobs in Australia."
So it's the governments job to keep profits in Oz, when these are the retailers who sold manufacturing to China.
All this aside, what Harvey and co are proposing is nothing less then protectionism, which has never been proven to be economically beneficial.
Sarcasm is just one of the services I offer.
See what me and the AC wrote. Also, check your house for things that are Australian made. Doing a quick inventory of the room I'm in, my PC is from Korea, Japan and Taiwan, my fan and A/C are from China, My monitor and TV are from Korea (Samsung, top quality IMHO), Bicycle helmet from Hong Kong, Hard Drive and several tailored shirts from Thailand, Adidas deodorant made in UK, Motorola phone from China, LTD M10 guitar made in China, Colgate toothpaste from Mexico. Need I go on, I'm just glad the meat I've got in the fridge comes from Aussie farms (oblig, best farms in the world) although the milk is shipped from the other side of the bloody country. Not that I'm entirely deriding this, I do enjoy the cheaper prices from imported goods but for HN, Myer et al who not only made this possible but promoted it to turn around and demand protection from the government now their business is facing competition it more then a bit hypocritical. I'm not a liberatard but this is one of those times where I'll let the free market sort it out.
Cmon mate, the s/z thing should be second nature for anyone who's past year 5 (and I'm bit on the dyslexic side myself) but this is like leaving the u out of favourite.
A lot of this happened in the 80's and 90's in OZ,
My Uncle used to own an independent supermarket until Foodland started using standover tactics until he sold it to them (basically became a franchisee, but a bit more comlpex, he sold the store but remained manager in the service of Foodland which I believe are now part of IGAD, the least evil of the three big supermarket chains). This was two decades ago, there are damn few indies left in the entire country.
First off, when you pretend to be Australian, step number one is use En_AU
Flat out wrong. Gerry does understand that a lot of retail is going online, what he doesn't realise is his business model needs to change in order to remain competitive. Already most Australian's would rather shop at other retailers like JB Hifi or Retravision (where I bought an A$500 air conditioner last night) who are at least semi-competitive with online retailers and don't try to push you into predatory "interest free" credit deals (actual interest is quiet high).
Harvey wants online trading to change to suit him rather then changing to be competitive. Complete opposite of what you are saying.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,
You're talking about the man who played a huge part in killing local competition and manufacturing. He is now part of the retail oligopoly which strangles independent brick and mortar competitors in the infancy.
To be 100% fair. Video Game prices in OZ are set by the distributors, not Harvey Norman, JB Hifi or EB games (but JB Hifi is consistently $10-20 cheaper then HN or EB). OzGameShop does grey imports (legal) on a case by case basis (I.E. per order, which is also legal). Basically they order the games from Asia/UK/US when a customer orders it from them (again, quiet legal as it's under the A$1000 threshold).
The distributors (and publishers) contempt for the Aussie public in their pricing is why I buy from Play-Asia.com as much as possible. Seeing as the developers have already been paid (no matter how much I pay) I know I'm not ripping off the people who did the work.
but there isn't. Online Australian retailers operate under the same rules and laws as brick and mortar retailers.
The Australian government realises it does not have power over foreign retailers. The tax free threshold was established to allow cheaper imports and create competition in our stagnant, monopoly dominated retail market.
Read this blog entry of Rulsan Kogan who runs an online store within Australia. Kogan.com.au pays the same taxes and import duties as Harvey Norman but does a much lower volume of sales then HN yet manages a much better price on equivalent (no-name brand) goods.
This is Gerry Harvey and others attempting to foist an artificial barrier to consumer choice and the free market in general. It wont stop at 10% (the GST) because Harvey cant compete with Aussie online retailers, let alone Chinese or US ones.
The problem Gerry Harvey and co have is not that their goods are 10% more expensive then the equivalent goods online, the problem Harvey and co have is that their goods are 50% more expensive then the equivalent online.
Gerry Harvey's store, Harvey Norman (AKA Hardly Normal [prices]) is one of the stores I refuse to shop at due to it's high prices, incredibly annoying ads and now this. What Harvey really wants is for the government to step in and protect his profits (most of which come from predatory "interest free" deals which have something along the lines of 30% interest applied) by artificially making it more expensive to buy online.
Fortunately our assistant treasurer Bill Shorten has already shot the idea down saying it would be too expensive to implement.
Only the second will get you arrested.
The first will get you elected into parliament.
Try 0.95%.
The average user types quite a bit. This is why QWERTY keybards came about on phones and why the BB/Nokia E71's are so popular with users who do a lot of emailing and messaging.
On computers it's even worse. Just typing out this comment would be painful, if not impossible. Touchscreens are slower, more inefficient and error prone than keyboards and this is readily evident to the average user.
Quick explain.
Thought not. Just because Steve says it's better does not make it so.
Physical buttons provide many advantages over on screen buttons. they are tactile, responsive, don't move and their function never changes. The last one is important, on my PC the Delete button does what it needs to, the F1 key too. On my Android phone the back button always takes me back to the last application/page I used and terminates the application as opposed to backgrounding it (which is what the home button does). Believe it or not, but such simple things are not beyond the capacity of the average user to figure out on their own.
Ye gads,
Where did you learn to type, The ministry of silly computing habits.
All typing tutors and instruction I have received tells me you're meant look at the screen (output) not where your hands are. This does make typing faster and allows you to pick up on those annoying typo's so much earlier.
Typing at 30 WPM+, moving keys are not a feature anyone will find useful.
Because mechanical KB's are breaking left, right and centre. NOT.
My keyboard has to be the most reliable one of things in my house. I have a 20 yr old KB's that are still in perfect working order (albeit not AT ports on my gaming rig). My last KB died after 9 years of service, a victim of a poorly placed Jacks and Coke.
Moving parts != unreliable. On the other hand software frequently breaks due to bad code.
A physical keyboard is much easier to use, faster, more ergonomic, more responsive and a lot more accurate. Considerably less stress on the users wrists and not having to look at the keyboard to find a key makes typing much faster.
Where do you get your idea's about HCI and HMI from?
Compared to the Tiger and King Tiger, the T34/76 was the superior tank. It was faster, lighter, more reliable, better armoured (sloping armour provided better penetration protection whilst reducing mass) and had a good high velocity gun. The Tigers were slow, heavy, overbuilt and had too many technical problems, the engine was too powerful for the gearbox, so much so the Nazi's had to install speed governors to limit it to 35 Mph (IIRC), the tank was too heavy for many conditions (mud) and used fuel at a phenomenal rate. The Panther was a much better tank, if the Nazi's put the same resources into the Panther as they did to the Tiger they would have bloodied Stalin's nose a lot more.
By that time the German industrial base was under siege, day and night from three enemies.
The weakness in the German strategy was not the fact that they relied on fewer numbers but the fact Hitler had to take a personal hand in everything. Hitler was obsessed with heavy tanks, artillery and bombers. The ME262 was a classic case of Hitler screwing it up. The original 262 was a fighter, Hitler said no, make it a bomber so ME changed the airframe to support bombs decreasing speed and manoeuvrability to a point where the ME262 could be effectively intercepted by Allied propeller driven escort fighters, a fact that many Allied owe their lives to. The amount of marks Hitler poured into his ultimately ineffective V weapons, massive channel guns, the list goes on.
The failing in the German strategy was that no-one questioned Hitler and Hitler kept screwing up.
Not that German mass production was ever lacking, Factories produced tank parts just as fast as ours (between Russia, England, Canada, Australia and the US we had many times the capacity) and in many cases was more efficient. The Nazi's stamped out MP40's and MG42's faster then we ever could get out Bren's, Sten's and Browning 30 cal's. The US was still using wood in the stocks of it's front line SMG when the Nazi's were producing all metal MP44 assault rifles.
Basic comprehension lesson,
/. is full of pendants, but they generally have a higher standard then yourself and the GP.
In the English language context is more important then wording. For example, I'd say you'd be an absolute _orange_ not to understand what I just said.
Basic logic lesson,
GP caught a disambiguation, not damning evidence of my falsehood. Trying to claim my entire post is false on the basis of one word is at best, a strawman. A strawman that you cant seem to let go. I know
Dearest pendant,
The brilliant thing about the English language is that words have different meanings, You are using one definition of a word in order to falsify a claim, unfortunately for you I used the word in a different context which denotes a different meaning.
Require can be used as a request. On several airlines they've said "[when] the seatbelt sign has been switched off you are free to move about the cabin but we require you to have your seatbelt fastened whilst in your seat" which is for your safety.
So your claim is false.
Thats not Air Asia, that's Bangkok Itnl. I've flown out on Thai and Singapore Air and both had ridiculous lines for check in and an even worse line for immigration. BKK is just a very poorly organised airport.
There, fixed that for you.
This seems to be an issue with US airlines only. Even QANTAS/BA treats people better then that (and I dont have kind things to say about QANTAS's service). From my city I can fly Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Malaysian Air Services, Cathay Pacific or Emirates, three of those are consistently in the worlds top 5 airlines. They don't really cost more then QANTAS and have top service. Even in the Low Cost Carrier class, there's Air Asia who really are the worlds best LC airline. Food is reasonable, especially if you pre book. Seats are a little small but it's often half the price of premium carriers.
Out here in Australia's most backwards cities if you pay premium carrier prices (A$700-1000 to most of SE Asia) you get premium service, free meal, free drinks, entertainment system OR you can choose from a variety of low cost carriers (A$300-600) if you'd rather go without.
No shit. You're in an oversized cigar tube travelling at 900 KM/h and you don't think that's prudent? Your safety be damned.
All airlines require you to keep your seatbelt fastened whilst seated. They'd rather you didn't move about the cabin unnecessarily so that you:
1. Dont hurt yourself when the plane hits a bit of turbulence.
2. Do not interfere with the operation of the flight staff.
3. Do not be a nuisance to other passengers.
You've never flown over the equator have you? I live in Australia so that means I do it quite a bit to get to other countries and every time we cross that line separating the hemisphere there is turbulence, often quiet violent turbulence and every 4 out of 5 flights someone who is stupid enough to be sitting without their seatbelt gets hurt (normally there is an announcement on the PA asking if there is a doctor on board).
It's not some giant conspiracy to make you uncomfortable, it's for your own safety and the COMFORT OF OTHER PASSENGERS. I cant stress this enough, I absolutely hate it when some idiot lets their crotchspawn run up and down the aisle or when some smelly retard has his hairy armpit slung over my chair so he can chin wag with his equally smelly mate.
Planes are not luxury cruse liners, they do not have roomy cabins, they are designed to get me to where I want to go within a matter of hours, for that time I can compress myself (not a small person) into a seat and be fucking courteous to other passengers. So please for the sake of everyone, sit down, shut up and put your belt on.
Microsoft BPOS, hosted Exchange and Crap^WSharePoint.
MS does not have any direct online services marketed to businesses but they have a fair few products that are designed to be hosted by someone else, no matter how crappy those products might be. That's the MS "cloud" strategy, get someone else to do it, you may recognise this as it seems to be identical MS's Support strategy.
On the consumer side they have Xbox Live, Games for Windows Live, Live Messenger and Hotmail (no, I will not call it Live Hotmail). As we've seen MS does a fantastic job of failing with these services.
On the contrary, this is exactly what the article was talking about.
The earlier SMB 3 levels were easy, yet the later SMB 3 levels where phenomenally hard (World 8 and those ships), especially for younger audiences.
This is something that has been forgotten in game design, the gradual increase in difficulty. Now days it's a sudden increase (Crysis), start at max level (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) or don't even bother with it (Bioshock). SMB3 introduced you to the game mechanics slowly whilst allowing the player to still have fun (in case you've forgotten, that is why we play games).
I'd like to see more of the SMB 3 kind of gradual increase but unfortunately the big dev companies seem to hate it when things get to hard for the mouth breathers. Something about lost profits.
But must be enforced to the letter of the law... unfortunately. Apple have almost made an art of skirting the law.
Point in short, there is already a disparity between Euro and US prices, who would notice an extra 30 Euro. Yes there'd be some outrage but in the end, enough fanboys will relent that it would not matter.
Apple will just throw in a proprietary connector to MicroUSB adapter to feign some sort of compliance whilst continuing to use it's own proprietary connector and charger.
Adapter will cost 0.50 Euro, Apple will charge an additional 30 Euro.
But it's based on number of actions, not number of cross platform kills.
If the typical PC player can rack up 30 kills in 20 minutes and it takes the typical Xbox player 45 minutes to do the same thing, is that not an accurate test?
The metric you're testing is the same, the variable is the platform. In gaming terms, it's like a time trial when each player competes after each other, not concurrently. That's how we did multi-player before the split screen. See that lawn you're standing on.
The only issue with that is that you're on the Opt-arse network.
GP's fanboi-ism.
I had a Cowon Iaudio 7, You could plug that thing into a speaker and it would play perfectly at it's top volume, an Ipod or Ipod touch would distort at about 75% and I'm not an audiophile, A$30 for a pair of headphones is a lot for me, the distortion from the Ipod was quite noticeable at 80-90% vol.
The only thing Apple has is marketing and it's quickly losing that, the Iphone had the unintended side effect of convincing people they didn't need a separate MP3 player and started using the MP3 player on their Nokia, Sony-Eriksson and Samsung phones.