Queue up the Dr. Ferris speech about the real purpose of the law.
Controlling people. Not even for their own good, but merely for the sake of weilding control.
That is politics in America today.
No, i really disagree. You may want to complain about every piece of legislation being just so "the man" can "keep us down", but however misguided or stupid this legislation may be, I can at least understand that the people making it weren't just trying to control us, they actually believe this is helpful. You ought to be able to see that.
When you claim the government has evil intent when they're obviously just being stupid, no one is going to listen to you. -Taylor
California may as well be a whole 'nother country.
I know, let's not bother with that thing known as personal responsibility, let's legislate EVERYTHING!
Hey parents, your kids wouldn't be so fat if you didn't feed them crap food and let them sit on their butts in front of the t.v. all day and night.
Well, the sad truth is, we're all being so fucking stupid that it actually makes *sense* for them to do this. Parents *should* take care of their kids, but they're not and our whole country is getting fucking fat. We keep trying fitness promotion and all kinds of shit, but everyone just keeps getting fatter.
I'm not sure if its better to legislate us when we're being this fucking stupid, or let us all just kill ourselves. I don't approve of unnecessary legislation like this, but you sure have to wonder how the hell we're going to solve our fat fucking problem! -Taylor
That is not leveling the playing field, that is a protection racket. Leveling the playing field would be making WinCE cost near nothing.
Well, it is still leveling the playing field. I certainly wasn't trying to imply that what they're doing is okay, and although it boils down to a protection racket, i feel like their real plan is to make android cost the same as WinMo, not just get protection money. The point isn't the money (which is normally why people collect protection funds), its promoting winmo. -Taylor
As Engadget points out (or maybe just theorizes), the licencing fee for android patents is about the same as the regular licence fee for Windows Mobile (aka Windows Phone 7), thereby making it a wash for phone developers.
They're really just trying to level the playing field (in a shitty way). -Taylor
Wow, by midnight you have half left (most of the time)... so you might almost get TWO days of battery life! That is *really* selling me on the phone....
You're obviously not a smartphone user.
I've been one for years. Not one of the phones I've had lasted much longer than a day and a half max. But why does it matter? Just charge it every night. If you're seriously not home nearly every night, carry a charger with you. My girlfriend has a regular phone and only needs to charge every couple of days, but all that means is that some nights it sits on the nightstand *not* plugged in. I don't see how that's much better than me having to place my phone in the cradle when i go to bed.
And my phone charges via USB, so if I'm at a friend's house, i just find a computer to plug it in.
Guess I'd better write "JOURNALIST" in huge block letters on my tinfoil hat then.
Now the cops won't be able to arrest me for buying stolen goods anymore.
Well, I'm not suggesting the press should be given the right to steal, but they don't have that right and that's not my point. I have no idea if the Gizmodo case really boils down to freedom of the press or not, I'm only saying that "Freedom of the Press" as it stands is a good thing. -Taylor
Journalists have *more* rights than the rest of us. This is a good thing.
So a select group of people having *more* rights than the rest of the population is "a good thing"?
Doesn't that mean the rest of the population had some of their rights taken away?
Uh, yeah.
If you actually think about it, instead of blindly clamoring for all the rights you can get (unless you're an Anarchist, in which case, go ahead), it would be really tough for our legal system to work if everyone was immune from search warrants, etc.
The press however, is the first to get neutered when an oppressive government is trying to take over, so giving *them* extra rights ensures that that's really hard to do.
What about his obsession for mushrooms, flowers, and jumping on turtles.
Haha, yeah, seriously! My GF was playing a lot of Mario 1 and 3 lately, and we were blown away by how NONE of it makes any sense!
Like, it is seriously one of the most cracked-out video games I've ever seen. Sure, there's probably been crazier stuff, but for something so mainstream and popular, its surprisingly nonsensical! -Taylor
>Many functions require a press of the menu button to bring up a list of >options, whereas on the iPhone there would be a button on the screen. >This extra step makes the Desire feel a little cumbersome.
The thing is, on the Desire you have a widget for almost everything, so you don't even need to open the application. It's just there. You just need to navigate to the correct home screen.
I just wanted to add to that: The menu button feels different from the iPhone when you're first switching, but I love it now. When i pick up an iPhone, *it* always feels more cumbersome to use. "Menu" is a very intuitive concept, and I like that more than having to keep every possible function onscreen on the iPhone, which is itself cumbersome. Or, many iPhone apps end up implementing a "Menu" icon onscreen, but those will all be in a different place based on the UI design. On Android, "Menu" is always in the same place, and since its always there, UI designers don't feel like they have to put icons everywhere for things, they can just use "Menu" without worrying about making a cumbersome UI. I think its better personally. But as I said, it feels awkward coming from iPhone OS... but that goes away.
I use a Google Nexus, almost equivalent to the Desire, and I can recognize the battery drain. However, after a few weeks, the phone easily holds a day - probably because "moderate; use" is really "let's see what this device can do; use".
Also, some apps are written badly and consume a lot of power when in the background. If you are experimenting a lot with your phone, chances are big that you have installed one of these. There are two solutions:
1) Uninstall the bad apps.
2) Use a tool, like task killer, which can kill the bad apps when the screen turns off.
Additionally, if you are always online, and have enabled wifi, it will consume power. Quick solution: put a wifi on/off widget on your front screen, and keep wifi off under normal use.
Also a +1 for android, when your battery gets low, there is a little "Why?" button, and you can see battery usage by process, to see if its some poorly written bad app using it, a good app just doing more than you realized, or you're an idiot and left the bluetooth and wifi on all day (which are simple to turn off with the homescreen widget!).
I use my nexus one like crazy and by midnight i still have half my battery left most of the time. -Taylor
You said they might just need to use a bit more fuel to correct, but the story also mentions that that they went to great lengths to preserve as much fuel as possible, so i still wonder if they needed to use relativity or not...
Random variation in solar activity, random outgasing of surfaces, and random light pressure effects on decaying surface patterns/paints should totally swamp any relativity effects.
There are also experimentally observed effects that have no current explanation. Perhaps they are just noise, perhaps not. The topics you need to search for are Flyby Anomaly and Pioneer Anomaly. That will give you enough background on the scale of unknown orbital forces to compare with the theoretical effects of relativity calculations.
The math is so complex though - you have to take relativity into account because time literally slows down the closer to a massive body you get. I've been reading a Brief History of Time lately and this shit is insane.
By and large, unless you need super-precise calculations, you can rely solely on Newtonian physics to do orbital calculations. This makes the problem much easier to tackle computationally. The equations of motion cannot be solved analytically, but discrete simulations can be done to arbitrary accuracy extending out for years and years. Relativistic effects will appear as a small cumulative error, but it's small enough that it would probably require only a little more fuel to correct for.
While Saturn is heavy compared to the Earth, the curvature it produces in spacetime is tiny in the grand scheme of things. Even for calculations where the Sun dominates, relativistic effects can safely be ignored in all but the most exacting situations.
Put it this way: if relativistic effects mattered, then Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and others wouldn't have been able to work out the mathematics of non-relativistic orbital mechanics in the first place. Newtonian orbital mechanics is plenty accurate to predict the motions of the planets and other bodies to many decimal places over long stretches of time.
About the only noticeable orbital relativistic effect that I know of in the solar system is a slight perturbation in the orbit of mercury that only became apparent after we'd been observing it for a few centuries. Relativity also comes into play in GPS, but that has a lot more to do with the precise timing of their radio signals than with their orbits.
Hmm, interesting.
Yeah, I knew about the GPS thing, and that Newtonian physics didn't quite get mercury's orbit right, I guess I imagined that if you need to use relativity for those things, plotting a trip around a bunch of bodies properly would need relativity too.
You said they might just need to use a bit more fuel to correct, but the story also mentions that that they went to great lengths to preserve as much fuel as possible, so i still wonder if they needed to use relativity or not...
I guess i don't know *how* great of lengths they went to though, or how much difficulty relativity actually adds to them. I'm very much a noob here. -Taylor
...to see the software and user interface that NASA uses to plan the orbits? I wonder how much of it is automated and how much is interactive. We could envision a totally automated system in which they input a desired list of waypoints, some of which might have required time-windows, and the software cranks out the flight plan.
Does anybody here have experience with this?
As awesome as something like that sounds like it could be, we probably don't have much automation for that yet - it's probably just a bunch of physicists doing math on a computer.
But if we do have or ever make something like that, it would probably be pretty awesome. I'm imagining a big 3d solar system view with all kinds of neat loopy lines for trajectories and such.
The math is so complex though - you have to take relativity into account because time literally slows down the closer to a massive body you get. I've been reading a Brief History of Time lately and this shit is insane.
If the story is accurate, then what's the point of exposing the poor sod's name?
What purpose does that serve? The guy's obviously had a rough week; why pile on and make it worse?
It's likely that he's going to be terminated (from his employment, not physically), if he hasn't been already. I'm sure there's some "handling company materials" guideline or somesuch on the books at Apple that will be enforced.
So why expose him publicly?
I don't get it. This just seems like nonsense to me.
The slashdot summary is complete bullshit.
They fail to mention that most likely, apple already knew who lost the phone - it's been missing for over a month now (this all went down around march 16th or so) and the guy had to remotely wipe it (which apple probably can find out about). I'm sure that if you are given a major device like this for testing, they're going to want to know how your progress is, and with as tight a ship as i hear they run, they *HAD* to know who lost it, and had to have known for some time.
Gizmodo posted the guy's name to try to bring this into the public eye. If they hadn't, apple probably would have just quietly let this guy go. Now there will be public pressure to let the guy off easy, since it was an honest mistake (It was his f'ing birthday when he lost it, of course he was out drinking!). Gizmodo made a point to publicly plead to apple to go easy on him at the end of the article in question, yet that is completely ignored here!
The last time we shamed apple was just a week ago when they denied that cartoon app, and sure enough, they changed their mind and asked him to re-submit it.
Gizmodo did the right thing here, and slashdot royally fucked up their summary. This is complete FUD and it pisses me off that they would make such a rash call on a story that has much more subtle information in it.
Normally I don't complain, but today, for this story, I've gotta say - Fuck You slashdot summary guy (not parent), this story is complete shit.
... Maybe I'm in over my head here. I assume you can write your own app and share it with friends.
No, you very, very much can't. (You can with android, i would like to add.)
Without hacking your iPhone, the only place you can get apps is from apple, so they *are* preventing you from running whatever app you want. That's the whole problem - they arbitrarily decide what content is and is not okay, and it's a level of control that is just worrisome. It keeps paying adults from seeing things they want, and it screws the little guy that spent time making the app. Yeah, they're allowed to, I'd never debate that, but I still have issues with their need to control everything. Why do they need to control content to that level of granularity? The only thing google prohibits is "malicious" apps, and their platform hasn't exploded. They actually get in *less* trouble because they don't oversee this stuff, so no one can get mad at them for "approving" apps.
More and more, corporations are in control of our lives. When only governments could control us, we fought for freedom. People didn't just decide to move to a different country, they fought. I see no reason not to fight for reasonable amount of freedom for our own devices too, without having to just switch devices. Because too many people will just live with the iPhone for some other reason, and freedom will be sacrificed in the process.
I don't know if legislation is the answer (because i don't like too much of that) but i certainly at least think people should keep complaining, and trying to raise public awareness, like this story does. Hopefully to just publicly pressure the company to change their policy. -Taylor
Just Wal-Mart deciding it isn't going to carry porn in its DVD collection. Nobody's freedom of speech is being violated here.
Sort of, but porn has a long history of being shoved into a corner. Now we're going to be okay with shoving slightly bothersome speech in a corner too?
I'd rather our society be open with sex, but I'll deal with it if we have to keep pretending like we're puritans in public discourse.
I would not be okay, however, if our society generally was okay with shunning satire and "bothersome" speech. Then i feel like we start to live in a censored world.
Besides, the lack of sexual freedom in many parts of the country actually *is* a problem - one many people are trying to fight (look up Madison Young - NSFW porn star, but she also does talks on sexual freedom in repressed areas).
I'm not saying wal-mart should carry porn (there are other places to get it), but I do think the app store should (something they also cut out - even non-porn "sexy" apps).
I don't like any personal computer (handheld or otherwise) that limits content access for reasonable adults. -Taylor
I'm using a Blackberry 9700 right now and it's reasonably responsive (though I don't make heavy use of complex applications), but the battery lasts forever and I essentially never have to reboot it or anything (except for large software updates).
And actually, after posting that last night, I realized that i still had more than 50% battery around 1AM. So maybe its better than i thought!
I'm using a Blackberry 9700 right now and it's reasonably responsive (though I don't make heavy use of complex applications), but the battery lasts forever and I essentially never have to reboot it or anything (except for large software updates).
Pretty good. I keep it on full brightness and browse the web a lot, and it lasts all day. I've been a heavy smartphone user for years though so I consider anything that lasts till i go to bed to be good. It doesn't ever go critical on me though even with all that use. I abuse it too, keeping it at full brightness and leaving all the wireless on. I could lower the brightness and turn off wifi/bluetooth when not in use though (easy with the power widget on the homescreen) and it would probably last a day and a half. I just bought a bunch of micro USB cables from monoprice for $1.30 or so each with like $5 shipping, so I just surrounded myself with them. Some at home, some at work, one in my car. I can charge it whenever I need. Though i don't actually ever need to charge it more than at night, those are just in case.
I just don't care though, I'm used to one day max from other phones though, so I haven't paid much attention. So I might not be the best person to ask.
It really is the best phone I've ever had though. -Taylor
...In order to be an Apple killer it must work BETTER than the Apple. You have to be able to show your WORKING gadget to a potential Apple customer and make them want yours more....
That's what frustrates me about the Nexus One - or rather, google's marketing of the Nexus One. This really is something that can win over iPhone owners out of the box - it works great, the packaging is great, its snappy even with lots of apps installed. I really think it is a better phone than the iPhone and google could pull in a lot of people if they pushed it better and put the damn thing in stores.
Instead, they're letting verizon push the Droid, which I don't think is as good (600MHz processor, moving parts), when plenty of people would LOVE to have a Nexus One if they just knew about it! -Taylor
Is it going to be multi-touch capable and actually responsive, rather than barely touch aware and laggy?
I have yet to see a piece of hardware running android that doesn't feel slow to the point of non-response or that is just as comfortable to use as the UI on my iPhone. Anyone recommend a device running android that doesn't feel like a sluggish piece of poop?
The Nexus One. It seriously is fast as hell and i have a crapload of apps installed. Like, i was blown away the other day when i realized how many apps I have and how that has had *no* effect on the operation of the phone.
I did windows mobile for years (reboot twice a day), then the iphone 1g (reboot once a week maybe? I forget), and then the tmobile G1 (reboot twice a week maybe, but it was just generally underpowered). I got the N1 recently and it just blows me away how fast and stable it is. The 1GHz processor really makes a difference, and I can multitask all I want without having to ever use a task manager. Its also nice to have what i consider an excellent camera as far as a mobile phone goes. Low light with the flash is great and it is better than any device I've ever had (which is mostly HTC, they never put a big priority on cameras before). Also, the camera takes ~1/2 second to start up. THAT is nice!
There are some oddities - about once a week data stops working, but a reboot always fixes it, and honestly that could be AT&T for all their crapiness, I'm not sure.
But it is always snappy, and i couldn't be happier with the phone - it is literally the phone i have always been looking for. -Taylor
There were a ton of tablet prototypes shown at CES this year, months before the iPad was announced. Everyone and their mother independently came to the conclusion that tablets were going to be the next big thing after the success of netbooks.
Actually it was the same month.
But still, I am really looking forward to the HP Slate!
My friend actually has one! Apparently the Library of Congress makes them as a service for blind people. The thing was just 1/3 of one issue and it was like 3 inches thick! You can get 'em on ebay (or probably from the government, but ebay is easy enough). -Taylor
Despite the self-limiting nature of the technique they describe, whether it ends up working in production or not, I guarantee you that, in a matter of days, someone is going to be flogging a script around Hollywood studios about a runaway virus destroying all the water on earth and the team of hot, young scientists who save the day at the last possible minute by using something compounded from randomly selected Greek and Latin roots.
I predict that they will have to create a hyper-velocity neutron star supernova with quanum entangled quibits that will irradiate the viruses.
Slashdot Mirror
Queue up the Dr. Ferris speech about the real purpose of the law.
Controlling people. Not even for their own good, but merely for the sake of weilding control.
That is politics in America today.
No, i really disagree. You may want to complain about every piece of legislation being just so "the man" can "keep us down", but however misguided or stupid this legislation may be, I can at least understand that the people making it weren't just trying to control us, they actually believe this is helpful. You ought to be able to see that.
When you claim the government has evil intent when they're obviously just being stupid, no one is going to listen to you.
-Taylor
California may as well be a whole 'nother country.
I know, let's not bother with that thing known as personal responsibility, let's legislate EVERYTHING!
Hey parents, your kids wouldn't be so fat if you didn't feed them crap food and let them sit on their butts in front of the t.v. all day and night.
Well, the sad truth is, we're all being so fucking stupid that it actually makes *sense* for them to do this. Parents *should* take care of their kids, but they're not and our whole country is getting fucking fat. We keep trying fitness promotion and all kinds of shit, but everyone just keeps getting fatter.
I'm not sure if its better to legislate us when we're being this fucking stupid, or let us all just kill ourselves. I don't approve of unnecessary legislation like this, but you sure have to wonder how the hell we're going to solve our fat fucking problem!
-Taylor
That is not leveling the playing field, that is a protection racket. Leveling the playing field would be making WinCE cost near nothing.
Well, it is still leveling the playing field. I certainly wasn't trying to imply that what they're doing is okay, and although it boils down to a protection racket, i feel like their real plan is to make android cost the same as WinMo, not just get protection money. The point isn't the money (which is normally why people collect protection funds), its promoting winmo.
-Taylor
As Engadget points out (or maybe just theorizes), the licencing fee for android patents is about the same as the regular licence fee for Windows Mobile (aka Windows Phone 7), thereby making it a wash for phone developers.
They're really just trying to level the playing field (in a shitty way).
-Taylor
Wow, by midnight you have half left (most of the time)... so you might almost get TWO days of battery life! That is *really* selling me on the phone....
You're obviously not a smartphone user.
I've been one for years. Not one of the phones I've had lasted much longer than a day and a half max. But why does it matter? Just charge it every night. If you're seriously not home nearly every night, carry a charger with you. My girlfriend has a regular phone and only needs to charge every couple of days, but all that means is that some nights it sits on the nightstand *not* plugged in. I don't see how that's much better than me having to place my phone in the cradle when i go to bed.
And my phone charges via USB, so if I'm at a friend's house, i just find a computer to plug it in.
Its not like it actually matters.
-Taylor
Guess I'd better write "JOURNALIST" in huge block letters on my tinfoil hat then.
Now the cops won't be able to arrest me for buying stolen goods anymore.
Well, I'm not suggesting the press should be given the right to steal, but they don't have that right and that's not my point. I have no idea if the Gizmodo case really boils down to freedom of the press or not, I'm only saying that "Freedom of the Press" as it stands is a good thing.
-Taylor
Journalists have *more* rights than the rest of us. This is a good thing.
So a select group of people having *more* rights than the rest of the population is "a good thing"?
Doesn't that mean the rest of the population had some of their rights taken away?
Uh, yeah.
If you actually think about it, instead of blindly clamoring for all the rights you can get (unless you're an Anarchist, in which case, go ahead), it would be really tough for our legal system to work if everyone was immune from search warrants, etc.
The press however, is the first to get neutered when an oppressive government is trying to take over, so giving *them* extra rights ensures that that's really hard to do.
-Taylor
Wait, what? Journalists are immune from having their computers seized? In what dreamworld?...
Did you even RTFA? They quote the laws in black and white. Journalists have *more* rights than the rest of us. This is a good thing.
Read the section entitled "Gawker's legal response to the police" in TFA.
-Taylor
What about his obsession for mushrooms, flowers, and jumping on turtles.
Haha, yeah, seriously! My GF was playing a lot of Mario 1 and 3 lately, and we were blown away by how NONE of it makes any sense!
Like, it is seriously one of the most cracked-out video games I've ever seen. Sure, there's probably been crazier stuff, but for something so mainstream and popular, its surprisingly nonsensical!
-Taylor
Just RTFA.
>Many functions require a press of the menu button to bring up a list of
>options, whereas on the iPhone there would be a button on the screen.
>This extra step makes the Desire feel a little cumbersome.
The thing is, on the Desire you have a widget for almost everything, so you don't even need to open the application. It's just there. You just need to navigate to the correct home screen.
I just wanted to add to that:
The menu button feels different from the iPhone when you're first switching, but I love it now. When i pick up an iPhone, *it* always feels more cumbersome to use. "Menu" is a very intuitive concept, and I like that more than having to keep every possible function onscreen on the iPhone, which is itself cumbersome. Or, many iPhone apps end up implementing a "Menu" icon onscreen, but those will all be in a different place based on the UI design. On Android, "Menu" is always in the same place, and since its always there, UI designers don't feel like they have to put icons everywhere for things, they can just use "Menu" without worrying about making a cumbersome UI. I think its better personally. But as I said, it feels awkward coming from iPhone OS... but that goes away.
Also not cumbersome? A Back button.
-Taylor
I use a Google Nexus, almost equivalent to the Desire, and I can recognize the battery drain. However, after a few weeks, the phone easily holds a day - probably because "moderate; use" is really "let's see what this device can do; use".
Also, some apps are written badly and consume a lot of power when in the background. If you are experimenting a lot with your phone, chances are big that you have installed one of these. There are two solutions:
1) Uninstall the bad apps.
2) Use a tool, like task killer, which can kill the bad apps when the screen turns off.
Additionally, if you are always online, and have enabled wifi, it will consume power. Quick solution: put a wifi on/off widget on your front screen, and keep wifi off under normal use.
Also a +1 for android, when your battery gets low, there is a little "Why?" button, and you can see battery usage by process, to see if its some poorly written bad app using it, a good app just doing more than you realized, or you're an idiot and left the bluetooth and wifi on all day (which are simple to turn off with the homescreen widget!).
I use my nexus one like crazy and by midnight i still have half my battery left most of the time.
-Taylor
You said they might just need to use a bit more fuel to correct, but the story also mentions that that they went to great lengths to preserve as much fuel as possible, so i still wonder if they needed to use relativity or not...
Random variation in solar activity, random outgasing of surfaces, and random light pressure effects on decaying surface patterns/paints should totally swamp any relativity effects.
There are also experimentally observed effects that have no current explanation. Perhaps they are just noise, perhaps not. The topics you need to search for are Flyby Anomaly and Pioneer Anomaly. That will give you enough background on the scale of unknown orbital forces to compare with the theoretical effects of relativity calculations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyby_anomaly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly
Cool, thanks!
-Taylor
By and large, unless you need super-precise calculations, you can rely solely on Newtonian physics to do orbital calculations. This makes the problem much easier to tackle computationally. The equations of motion cannot be solved analytically, but discrete simulations can be done to arbitrary accuracy extending out for years and years. Relativistic effects will appear as a small cumulative error, but it's small enough that it would probably require only a little more fuel to correct for.
While Saturn is heavy compared to the Earth, the curvature it produces in spacetime is tiny in the grand scheme of things. Even for calculations where the Sun dominates, relativistic effects can safely be ignored in all but the most exacting situations.
Put it this way: if relativistic effects mattered, then Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and others wouldn't have been able to work out the mathematics of non-relativistic orbital mechanics in the first place. Newtonian orbital mechanics is plenty accurate to predict the motions of the planets and other bodies to many decimal places over long stretches of time.
About the only noticeable orbital relativistic effect that I know of in the solar system is a slight perturbation in the orbit of mercury that only became apparent after we'd been observing it for a few centuries. Relativity also comes into play in GPS, but that has a lot more to do with the precise timing of their radio signals than with their orbits.
Hmm, interesting.
Yeah, I knew about the GPS thing, and that Newtonian physics didn't quite get mercury's orbit right, I guess I imagined that if you need to use relativity for those things, plotting a trip around a bunch of bodies properly would need relativity too.
You said they might just need to use a bit more fuel to correct, but the story also mentions that that they went to great lengths to preserve as much fuel as possible, so i still wonder if they needed to use relativity or not...
I guess i don't know *how* great of lengths they went to though, or how much difficulty relativity actually adds to them. I'm very much a noob here.
-Taylor
...to see the software and user interface that NASA uses to plan the orbits? I wonder how much of it is automated and how much is interactive. We could envision a totally automated system in which they input a desired list of waypoints, some of which might have required time-windows, and the software cranks out the flight plan.
Does anybody here have experience with this?
As awesome as something like that sounds like it could be, we probably don't have much automation for that yet - it's probably just a bunch of physicists doing math on a computer.
But if we do have or ever make something like that, it would probably be pretty awesome. I'm imagining a big 3d solar system view with all kinds of neat loopy lines for trajectories and such.
The math is so complex though - you have to take relativity into account because time literally slows down the closer to a massive body you get. I've been reading a Brief History of Time lately and this shit is insane.
Also... Rachel?
-Taylor
You know, I find that completely over-the-top.
If the story is accurate, then what's the point of exposing the poor sod's name?
What purpose does that serve? The guy's obviously had a rough week; why pile on and make it worse?
It's likely that he's going to be terminated (from his employment, not physically), if he hasn't been already. I'm sure there's some "handling company materials" guideline or somesuch on the books at Apple that will be enforced.
So why expose him publicly?
I don't get it. This just seems like nonsense to me.
The slashdot summary is complete bullshit.
They fail to mention that most likely, apple already knew who lost the phone - it's been missing for over a month now (this all went down around march 16th or so) and the guy had to remotely wipe it (which apple probably can find out about). I'm sure that if you are given a major device like this for testing, they're going to want to know how your progress is, and with as tight a ship as i hear they run, they *HAD* to know who lost it, and had to have known for some time.
Gizmodo posted the guy's name to try to bring this into the public eye. If they hadn't, apple probably would have just quietly let this guy go. Now there will be public pressure to let the guy off easy, since it was an honest mistake (It was his f'ing birthday when he lost it, of course he was out drinking!). Gizmodo made a point to publicly plead to apple to go easy on him at the end of the article in question, yet that is completely ignored here!
The last time we shamed apple was just a week ago when they denied that cartoon app, and sure enough, they changed their mind and asked him to re-submit it.
Gizmodo did the right thing here, and slashdot royally fucked up their summary. This is complete FUD and it pisses me off that they would make such a rash call on a story that has much more subtle information in it.
Normally I don't complain, but today, for this story, I've gotta say - Fuck You slashdot summary guy (not parent), this story is complete shit.
-Taylor
... Maybe I'm in over my head here. I assume you can write your own app and share it with friends.
No, you very, very much can't. (You can with android, i would like to add.)
Without hacking your iPhone, the only place you can get apps is from apple, so they *are* preventing you from running whatever app you want. That's the whole problem - they arbitrarily decide what content is and is not okay, and it's a level of control that is just worrisome. It keeps paying adults from seeing things they want, and it screws the little guy that spent time making the app. Yeah, they're allowed to, I'd never debate that, but I still have issues with their need to control everything. Why do they need to control content to that level of granularity? The only thing google prohibits is "malicious" apps, and their platform hasn't exploded. They actually get in *less* trouble because they don't oversee this stuff, so no one can get mad at them for "approving" apps.
More and more, corporations are in control of our lives. When only governments could control us, we fought for freedom. People didn't just decide to move to a different country, they fought. I see no reason not to fight for reasonable amount of freedom for our own devices too, without having to just switch devices. Because too many people will just live with the iPhone for some other reason, and freedom will be sacrificed in the process.
I don't know if legislation is the answer (because i don't like too much of that) but i certainly at least think people should keep complaining, and trying to raise public awareness, like this story does. Hopefully to just publicly pressure the company to change their policy.
-Taylor
Just Wal-Mart deciding it isn't going to carry porn in its DVD collection. Nobody's freedom of speech is being violated here.
Sort of, but porn has a long history of being shoved into a corner. Now we're going to be okay with shoving slightly bothersome speech in a corner too?
I'd rather our society be open with sex, but I'll deal with it if we have to keep pretending like we're puritans in public discourse.
I would not be okay, however, if our society generally was okay with shunning satire and "bothersome" speech. Then i feel like we start to live in a censored world.
Besides, the lack of sexual freedom in many parts of the country actually *is* a problem - one many people are trying to fight (look up Madison Young - NSFW porn star, but she also does talks on sexual freedom in repressed areas).
I'm not saying wal-mart should carry porn (there are other places to get it), but I do think the app store should (something they also cut out - even non-porn "sexy" apps).
I don't like any personal computer (handheld or otherwise) that limits content access for reasonable adults.
-Taylor
How's the battery life, out of curiosity?
I'm using a Blackberry 9700 right now and it's reasonably responsive (though I don't make heavy use of complex applications), but the battery lasts forever and I essentially never have to reboot it or anything (except for large software updates).
And actually, after posting that last night, I realized that i still had more than 50% battery around 1AM. So maybe its better than i thought!
How's the battery life, out of curiosity?
I'm using a Blackberry 9700 right now and it's reasonably responsive (though I don't make heavy use of complex applications), but the battery lasts forever and I essentially never have to reboot it or anything (except for large software updates).
Pretty good. I keep it on full brightness and browse the web a lot, and it lasts all day. I've been a heavy smartphone user for years though so I consider anything that lasts till i go to bed to be good. It doesn't ever go critical on me though even with all that use. I abuse it too, keeping it at full brightness and leaving all the wireless on. I could lower the brightness and turn off wifi/bluetooth when not in use though (easy with the power widget on the homescreen) and it would probably last a day and a half. I just bought a bunch of micro USB cables from monoprice for $1.30 or so each with like $5 shipping, so I just surrounded myself with them. Some at home, some at work, one in my car. I can charge it whenever I need. Though i don't actually ever need to charge it more than at night, those are just in case.
I just don't care though, I'm used to one day max from other phones though, so I haven't paid much attention. So I might not be the best person to ask.
It really is the best phone I've ever had though.
-Taylor
...In order to be an Apple killer it must work BETTER than the Apple. You have to be able to show your WORKING gadget to a potential Apple customer and make them want yours more....
That's what frustrates me about the Nexus One - or rather, google's marketing of the Nexus One. This really is something that can win over iPhone owners out of the box - it works great, the packaging is great, its snappy even with lots of apps installed. I really think it is a better phone than the iPhone and google could pull in a lot of people if they pushed it better and put the damn thing in stores.
Instead, they're letting verizon push the Droid, which I don't think is as good (600MHz processor, moving parts), when plenty of people would LOVE to have a Nexus One if they just knew about it!
-Taylor
Is it going to be multi-touch capable and actually responsive, rather than barely touch aware and laggy?
I have yet to see a piece of hardware running android that doesn't feel slow to the point of non-response or that is just as comfortable to use as the UI on my iPhone. Anyone recommend a device running android that doesn't feel like a sluggish piece of poop?
The Nexus One. It seriously is fast as hell and i have a crapload of apps installed. Like, i was blown away the other day when i realized how many apps I have and how that has had *no* effect on the operation of the phone.
I did windows mobile for years (reboot twice a day), then the iphone 1g (reboot once a week maybe? I forget), and then the tmobile G1 (reboot twice a week maybe, but it was just generally underpowered). I got the N1 recently and it just blows me away how fast and stable it is. The 1GHz processor really makes a difference, and I can multitask all I want without having to ever use a task manager. Its also nice to have what i consider an excellent camera as far as a mobile phone goes. Low light with the flash is great and it is better than any device I've ever had (which is mostly HTC, they never put a big priority on cameras before). Also, the camera takes ~1/2 second to start up. THAT is nice!
There are some oddities - about once a week data stops working, but a reboot always fixes it, and honestly that could be AT&T for all their crapiness, I'm not sure.
But it is always snappy, and i couldn't be happier with the phone - it is literally the phone i have always been looking for.
-Taylor
There were a ton of tablet prototypes shown at CES this year, months before the iPad was announced. Everyone and their mother independently came to the conclusion that tablets were going to be the next big thing after the success of netbooks.
Actually it was the same month.
But still, I am really looking forward to the HP Slate!
My friend actually has one! Apparently the Library of Congress makes them as a service for blind people. The thing was just 1/3 of one issue and it was like 3 inches thick! You can get 'em on ebay (or probably from the government, but ebay is easy enough).
-Taylor
The Art of Electronics is the best book ever for learning all these basics.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271114053&sr=8-1
(not an affiliate link)
Yeah, it's $90, but its worth it. Broke? I'm sure the library has it, and that's free!
After that I'd really recommend learning microcontrollers, and for that, Sparkfun Electronics is great.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorials.php
My only other advice is to learn stuff the same way I've been learning stuff the last few years - just look on google. You'll find what you're looking for.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=learning+electronics&aq=f&aqi=g-sx10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
-Taylor
Despite the self-limiting nature of the technique they describe, whether it ends up working in production or not, I guarantee you that, in a matter of days, someone is going to be flogging a script around Hollywood studios about a runaway virus destroying all the water on earth and the team of hot, young scientists who save the day at the last possible minute by using something compounded from randomly selected Greek and Latin roots.
I predict that they will have to create a hyper-velocity neutron star supernova with quanum entangled quibits that will irradiate the viruses.