I agree, although you would change your coin system if you dropped one decimal.
I'm all for dropping a decimal and going to dimes. However, I would go ahead and change a few things: dump all current coins and switch to dimes, 50c coins, and $1 coins. This way cash prices can only be in dimes and you phase in $1 coins. The shape of the new 50c coin would be slightly larger than today's nickel, and the dollar can still be those dollar coins they've been minting.
Dimes will be dimes and they'll start to feel like pennies. The only difference is now you only need 50 to trade to a $5 bill (new lowest bill denomination) instead of 100 pennies to get to a $1 today. Similarly, 5 dimes would get you to 50c just as 5 pennies get you to 5c.
Journalism itself cannot be trusted. It is often filled with biases or spins the source purposely puts in in order to accomplish spreading their intended message. It doesn't matter if the media is publicly owned or corporate owned. It is guaranteed that you'll get shoddy journalism if laws don't protect free speech.
The only thing that can prevent a population from buying into poor journalism is an educated population. That is a population where individuals are capable for uncovering lies and biases inherent in the sources. This is why adequate education of citizens is crucial.
This is likely to be an unpopular opinion on slashdot, but the fact is most companies are not in the IT business. That means their primary service/product is not IT. If a company is selling shoes for example, they're not exactly going to be innovators in the IT world. In fact they'd much rather hire an external IT agency to handle their IT requirements because let's face it, there isn't much tie in with IT for their shoe selling business.
You can replace shoes with nearly anything. Now if your company's business relies heavily on IT infrastructure like certain engineering and technology segments, then perhaps it makes sense to bring in your own in-house IT department.
This applies not just to IT. For example the same shoe selling company isn't going to have a spectacular accounting department. They're either going to hire an accounting firm or just enough accountants to make the wheels spin for accounting.
The quicker you realize this the quicker you should be able to find a position that is stable for your own profession. If you want true stability and you want to stay in IT, then it is time to start your own IT business and bid on IT contracts.
Now consider that binary search is a freshman level programming problem and therefore is pretty low in terms of the complexity a developer is going to deal with. Much of software development will deal with far more complicated scenarios than this, and the facility doesn't *really* cover even the binary search complexity.
You're thinking a little narrow. You've found a problem with this style of programming and therefore dismiss its merits. But in the real world, I would say 90% or even more of the code we write is boring and lifeless.
For example his "replay" demo concept or the binary search demo where he gave the function values and saw the output was basically unit testing but interactively. So once he has inserted some values and found the correct output, shouldn't he be able to record that as a macro and now be finished with a unit test? That's a lot less mental work than imagining the boundary cases and inputing values or setting up scenarios to come up with a test suite. If this was possible it would take much less time than it currently does to write unit tests.
Another important aspect of his demo is the tree vector image. I think it includes an aspect that is missing from most UI development interfaces. The general consensus among UI development is the best we can provide is a drag and drop "what you see is what you get" but once you want to get into the details (the code) the WYSIWYG view disappears so now you're back to the tweak-compile-check loop. If there was a real-time display of your UI right next to the code as well as an inspector tool like he demo'ed, then making that UI wouldn't be so tedious especially since everyone has a different UI API to work with.
The closest I have seen to this is actually firebug and firebug's inspector tool. If we could take the same concept one step further into our programming code, then I would expect UI experiences and quality to improve across the board.
One field where his ideas are actually being implemented is photography. Cameras have gone quite a ways in "doing the boring stuff for you" so that you can focus on the creative process. (In fact the new lytro cameras allow you to change focus after the fact.) But because of this improvement in instance feedback on digital cameras, the number of photographers that can produce good quality work has increased dramatically. The traditional dark room is now replaced with software where you can see real-time edits with nearly unlimited undo. You could say within perhaps a decade everyone and their parents will be professional photographers. Sure, we just killed yet another profession, but I think that's the entire point of technology.
On the other side another field that is sorely in need of this is the medical field. A simple example would be that we have built machines to take blood pressure and heart rate automatically. But why aren't they in homes? We brush our teeth everyday, why can't we take blood pressure? Why can't we get a daily or even real-time heart rate? We carry smart phones. We have wireless networks. Why not advocate daily blood pressure readings tied to a wireless network that would log and analyze your blood pressure and heart rate over time so you could see trends on a daily basis rather than behaving in a reactive manner by going to the doctor when you do start to have severe symptoms. If this information was available, the doctor would not just have your vital readings on the day you show up, he would have an entire history of your readings. Why even stop there, why not have the system signal when thresholds or trends are developing and recommending you see a doctor about a developing trend so preventative care can be utilized.
Sure, I could have bought a cheaper car, and I'll never save enough in gas (well, unless Iran destabilizes the middle East and we end up with $10/gal gas) to recover my cost, but I actually like driving the Volt. It's not a sports car, but it's not sluggish either. 0-60 is 9.2 seconds, but the instant torque from the electric engine makes it feel much faster. In "Sport" mode, it does 0-30 in 3.0 seconds.
That's great for you. But here's what's going on in my mind: I could buy the upcoming Toyota Prius C for $20k, use it for the lame commute. Then later buy the upcoming Scion FRS (Toyota GT-86 outside of US) for ~$23 to $25k (official price not announced) for my "sporting" desires.
Buying the Volt is asking me to subsidize GM's plans without much benefit. Furthermore, I only have the capacity to afford at maximum a $25k car. I could afford more, but it isn't a good use of my income at my level.
At least a Tesla Roadster was something to be interested in. A Tesla Model S as well. GM really tried to meet too broad a market with the Volt. And the sales prove that.
Mass transit isn't intended for places like Montana. It is intended for cities with large populations.
For example in my city, San Diego county, we have piss poor mass transit but a population of over 3 million. That means that every San Diegan owns a car and likely has a 20+ minute commute just for driving from home to the office.
In fact it is worse than that. I see many "act like they live in the country" people driving around raised 4x4 truck. When you peer in the window, it is just a middle aged lady going to the strip mall to shop for clothes.
The problem with American culture is we're trained to think individually. That is we only think about ourselves and it is supposed to be a good thing. But you see, if you're in Montana, you should be all for mass transit and denser cities, not because your area would be one to receive such treatment, more because cities like San Diego would stop eating so much of our resources like fuel. That would benefit you indirectly by making demand for fuel not so important.
Suburban sprawl doesn't make it difficult for children to find playmates and a place to play. It is exactly the opposite. It gives them MORE places to play. The lack of neighborhood playmates comes from the recent trend of anti-sprawl. It is the jamming of houses together so tight that no one has a back yard.
You couldn't be more wrong. Here's why:
If you are a kid and you want to play, it is a lot more fun if you have a friend to play with. However, if the closest friend is just 2 miles on the other side of town, chances are you're not going to see that friend because: you are too young to drive, mommy thinks it's too far, and there's a child molester somewhere in the state.
The problem with your logic is you assume playground = kids can have fun. Or trees = kids can have fun. Or bicycles = kids can have fun. But what's the single thing people seem to aspire to do when they grow up? Find a mate. What you are suggesting is the equivalent of marrying a playground swing, slide, or monkey bars. Kids don't want that. People don't want that. What they want is the interaction with friends. The playground becomes secondary.
Now if you go to Tokyo, one of the densest cities in the world, I think you'll see something you haven't realized. It works the same in any city, but I think Tokyo is the finest example. Many homes even in the suburbs in Tokyo do not have yards. They might have a garden, maybe a space for 1 car. But that's it. The front door is usually less than 5 feet from the street. Now according to your argument, kids in Tokyo should be miserable and bored to death. But it is quite the contrary. Kids are lively. Go on a train just after school, elementary school kids riding the train together or alone without the aid of an adult. Go to a popular area or hangout for kids like say a trendy store or cafe, kids again waiting to meet up with friends and "hang out". Of all the places that are the emptiest, it is the public playgrounds that seem the most dead. Everyone else (kids included) are meeting up in various parts of the city to "play".
The strange side effect of all of this is because the kids have to walk some distance, they aren't hyperactive compared to American kids that get driven around everywhere. They also grow up with the idea that walking is a part of life. Here the first thing a kid whines about is having to walk somewhere. Well he wouldn't whine if you'd stop driving him everywhere he needs to be and if Billy his best friend was within 10-15minutes by foot rather than 30 minutes by foot.
In Tokyo access to a train station pretty much grants you access to the entire city. In order to use the train you only have to buy a ticket. There's no age requirement, no license requirement. This means as soon as a kid can buy a ticket, know what stop to get on/off, he has equivalent mobility to most adults in the city as well. That's huge. No suburban backyard can compare to that concept.
Best deals I've seen are tmobile prepaid. For example they have an unlimited data/text (up to 5gb at 4g speed) and 100 minutes for $30 a month.
Then I would actually buy an android smartphone used or new (tmobile will sell you a sim card for $2 or $6), and install google voice. Now you can have free calling within the US.
I've become a firm believer in "paid" parking or "market driven" parking. That is where we get rid of "free" parking and instead directly charge users fees for the parking they utilize. This article adequately explains why: http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281.
You can claim the street cleaning thing is a scam, sure I'll agree there that should go away, however, we should not have free parking at all. It is not logical. It only makes sense that the person that utilizes the parking should pay for it. That's how normal things work.
When we have "free" parking, the costs of parking are hidden from the user. This leads to abuse. If you are aware that something is free but obviously costs money to maintain or provide, then by all means as a typical capitalist, you should abuse the hell out of that free service. So now we have grown up with an expectation of "free" parking when that is clearly not the case.
This penalizes us in multiple ways. The strip mall is now twice as large in order to provide a surface level parking lot (the cheapest option). You must now buy a new house or condo with parking due to minimum parking laws (what if I don't need the space?). The city is now designed around cars and not people (we will never get density as long as this is true).
In related studies on traffic, the findings are similar. If we expand lanes on a congested freeway, demand will increase to fill up that lane because the freeway is subsidized. That is, the cost of using the freeway to users appears to be "free" therefore demand increases in order to take advantage of a free resource. The result is for a short period the freeway is not congested, then suddenly it has the same amount of traffic.
"Free" parking creates the problem it tries to cure. Users complain "parking is expensive" so the city gives them free parking, then suddenly everyone uses the parking because it is free and now there is a shortage of parking again. This is like giving people free money. They say "I have no money" so you give them $5 dollars. Then they go spend it. Then they complain they have no money again...
"Showrooming" can be used against online retailers by brick and mortar shops. They just haven't realized it. You simply go the opposite direction: stock your store with 1 model and maybe 1 or 2 units of inventory, then only offer to sell it by order. In the process you would reorganize your inventory and supply chain to support a centralized warehouse with reduced store inventories. Stores would only carry high volume units. Low volume items would generally only have display units. You offer a competitive "online" price on these items.
You would eventually beat the online retailers at their own game: customers would come into your "showroom" because they have tangible access to the products and likely pay a small markup because they can be sure they placed the order on the right product.
If the customer really must have the product in their hands at that exact moment, then you offer to sell it at that price, but charge an "expedite" fee. Now they get both options from you: slightly higher price for paying for inventory on site, or reduced warehouse price with delayed delivery.
Big retail chains need to realize what has happened. Customers didn't just say they wanted the cheapest price. They also said "I'm willing to wait a few days on my purchase if you knock the price down a bit." The big retailers need to realize how to take advantage of that and the fact that they have "showrooms".
They dropped CarrierIQ with iOS5, which is more than most competitors can say.
All right, I've had enough of this "2 wrongs = 1 right" argument. Why? Because the fact is they allowed something to slide in their interests until it generated bad PR then "magically" did the right thing as the public became aware of the wrong doing. You can stick any company in this position and change the parameters. The actions are still speaking the same language: we will not do anything about it until it becomes a problem (for us, the corporation). This reactive nature is bad on so many levels because it entices the corporation to do whatever possible to evade bad PR even if it is immoral or causes things like "human death".
Do yourself a favor, read the nytimes article but first replace "Apple" with "The Corporation" and "iPad/iPhone" with "The Corporation's Product" to prevent your distortion field from taking effect.
The difference between doctors/residents and factory workers is the doctors/residents aren't working in a hazardous environment.
But even given that, two wrongs don't make one right. Both conditions should be changed in regards to their respective problems. Apple appears to not care about the issue.
Eh, I'm not that excited about autonomous automobiles. I envision something more like Wall-e where people have so much automation that they become slobs. To some degree it already happened to the U.S. just from car culture. You no longer walk more than even a quarter mile a day. Your car sits just a few steps away in your home garage. The parking space is right next to the front door of the store or the office. Now all of your medical ailments are due to being in a chair for most of the day rather than using your body for what it was made for: to move yourself.
I'm not sure why we need this when we've had the solution for quite a while. One trip to Tokyo will make you realize what we've ignored for perhaps the last 100 years in America. Tokyo itself is designed like real-life Disneyland. If you go to Disneyland and walk around in the park, you'll notice that it isn't so bad. Why? Because the inside of the park was designed for people, not cars. Tokyo is exactly like this. The center of the city was designed for people without cars. Trains and subways take you everywhere and come regularly. Thirsty? There's a vending machine 5 feet away, a convenience store 50 feet away. The closest train/subway station? A 5 minute walk. Pedestrian bridges over particularly busy streets. Buildings have no parking because nobody uses cars.
What everyone thinks of Japan (besides the anime junk) is that it is a small tiny and crappy apartment with no living space. That's true, but it is only half of the story. Nobody takes a camera and shows you how long it takes to get to the closest convenience store, the closest market, the closest restaurant, or the closest train station. But it is all possible, with your two feet and public transit. Using a car in many ways is actually more inconvenient. As bad as the weather got, I didn't mind walking. In fact walking was more interesting. I could observe my surroundings. When I was driving, I was looking to protect myself. Sure, an autonomous car would change that, but there's more to this.
When you get on (a not so busy) train there, you're free to read/sleep/play around on your phone. They already have the conveniences we dream of with autonomous cars simply because their city was built around people and transit.
The strange thing is as busy as their city is, the actual living spaces away from the center of the chaos is quiet (as in no sound). Anywhere in the U.S. which is populated will have this incessant freeway/highway hum. It's annoying. Over there at worst you live next to a train station. The train itself isn't annoying, because they're all electrified and they don't blow their horns. Instead it's the stupid announcement message that the next train will be arriving soon...
As soon as you step outside of the hotel or apartment you feel alive. You see people walking around. You can see people from the street and look into shops and see other people. That doesn't work in United Suburbia of America. Drive by the strip mall and you can barely glance inside. Get out of your car and now you're in "car defense" mode. Walk to another store on the other side of the strip mall and get tired because the parking lot is just too damn big. That's ridiculous.
Since few people own a car, you wonder how they manage to buy large objects or transport things. The simple answer is they rent a car. Most people are called "paper drivers" because they get driving licenses but don't use them regularly. They just use it when convenient. Alternatively you can also have things delivered. Since people don't own their own cars, it is actually possible to work as a delivery man. You know...kinda how we solved distributing milk without refrigeration way back... (As a side note, I'm always confused why only Pizza is delivered in the U.S. but not other fast foods.)
Every time I come back to the U.S. I'm annoyed. I know our cities don't have to be this way. We don't need novel solutions like autonomous cars to satisfy the living needs of 80% of the urban population. We
The problem Google has is they still don't understand service. Which you would think is odd since their search engine was built on top of being the best as services search queries...
This service problem works it's way into many things. But the worst is it is blinding them from where they got their initial success. Most of Google's products since have been released for "free as in beer". They essentially tried to apply the ad model to everything without recognizing that it doesn't work in all cases.
If they want to expand successfully into other businesses, they're going to have to accept that they're going to have to alter their money making strategy for different business segments. Sorry, that's just life. Ads don't work well in all cases.
If they want to improve Android as a platform, they should first look to their app developer base and look for ways they can work with developers to make better applications. A good amount of this will be in providing an API and tools that make it easier for the developer to make a good app. There's a lot of non-sense in the android API (I've worked with it) that make it more painful to work with than anything. For example for a while they were advocating their nifty swipe left/right to switch to a different view, but did they provide this interface and make it usable for devs? No.
I'm also going to say that they need to start hiring more employees without engineering or technical centric backgrounds. That's right, everyone from designers, to marketers, to support staff. They're missing a real human component to their business and it is starting to cause them grief and isolates their technical staff from reality. When you're surrounded by people that are not technical, you begin to understand their problems and alter your strategies for implementing your own solutions. If you're only surrounded by technically aware people, your solutions are only going to fit other technically minded people. To be clear, I'm not saying they need to grow their marketing department to rival their engineering department, instead they at least need a team large enough to take on significant marketing tasks like PR and branding and they also need to get more of their engineers out in the field rather than in the Googleplex.
However, in the Android world you can buy a brand new Android phone with an OS 2 versions out of date, and that phone will never be upgraded. THAT is the problem.
Oh, I see the name of this game now. Let's change "fragmentation" to mean whatever we want it to mean.
First it was the fact that different devices existed though they were generally running the same Android version. Everyone complained "oh, fragmentation." Jobs and company went out and told the world you can't build a high quality product if you don't control the entire market vertically. That was fragmentation.
Of course many developers came out and said it wasn't really a problem. You simply target a lower API level and develop from that. If you're using undocumented features and digging in beyond what was specified, that was your problem. That's like tweaking your car's engine beyond specification with something like a turbo charger and later calling up the manufacturer and asking why the engine blew up because you used forced induction.
Nevermind that iOS has similar fragmentation issues. The screen on an iphone 3gs is not the same resolution as an iphone 4 which is not the same as an ipad. Fragmentation?
Now you say, "OMG, you can buy a phone with an old version of android!" Well no shit. The idea wasn't to pigeon hole everyone into something. That's Apple's business model, the model of complete control. When Apple decides "hey, buy a new phone" they can and will force people to do it and nobody dares to stand up to them.
For example let's talk about Siri. Siri is perfectly capable of running on EXISTING iphone 4 devices. It was shown to be possible by some hackers. Hell, Siri itself was running on iphone 3gs when Siri was an independent company. Then Apple came in and bought Siri, dropped the Siri app from the app store, and re-released it as part of iOS 5 and RESTRICTED it to iphone 4s. How is that not fragmentation? How is that not FORCED product obsolescence?
Oh yeah, that's right. Jobs and his legacy is your savior. We must justify every decision even if it potentially hurts us. But if someone else does it? EVIL! HATE! ALERT THE BLOGOSPHERE! F-R-A-G-M-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N!!!
I recommend using Dancer. It is much newer but borrows/learns from many of the mistakes in Catalyst and other language's frameworks. It has fewer dependencies and will more likely install correctly. It is also PSGI/Plack ready. It is also designed to be more configurable so you can easily switch the templating system via a config file.
Unlike, for example, Japanese, which has entire verb classes dedicated to the deference of women and underlings to the male/ boss.
Uh, as a student of the Japanese language, I understand that there are varying degrees of politeness, but it has less to do with gender and more to do with "rank". So you speak differently to your superiors and they speak differently "down" to you.
In terms of genders, I think Japan has come quite a ways in terms of making women more "equal". There are still obvious gaps: wages for women are generally lower than men but it doesn't seem women mind this. I think it is still very common for women in Japan to stop working when they have children. The man however will continue to work to support the family. That's a fair trade if a woman doesn't expect to be working once she enters "family" life.
There are still some customs we would consider sexist here in the west. For example female office workers are often referred to as "OL" which is short for Office Lady. OL are expected to make/serve the tea in the office if they are present. But there are many other differences that really set Japanese work environments apart from western style work environments. The most notable is the priority of the "group" instead of individual.
In terms of language however, the honorifics aren't necessarily specific to gender, more ranking.
If you really want to see retardedness in terms of not only "rank" but also gender, you should try South Korea. Not only do you get the awkward language with "rank" expressions built into it, you get it at the fun level of age. That is if someone happens to be older than you by a year, you must address them differently. So before you can even talk to a random person, the first question you have to ask is "how old are you?" Add on top of it that they're heavily influenced by christianity and have a history of unwanted occupations by other countries, well, you've got a ton of bitterness and strangeness built into that kind of culture. Not saying that they're bad people, but it can really be hard to understand or deal with their culture at times.
Consider this: in South Korea, appearance is so important that it is fairly common for Korean families to provide plastic surgery as a "gift" for their daughters once they graduate high school.
But even for both cultures, I don't think either is oppressed at the "gender" level. Women in both countries seem very content and expressive with their lives. In fact, Japanese men are trending "down" in terms of dating women. There's a phenomenon called "grass eaters" going on. That is men that don't actively see women because they think it is too much hassle.
Finally in Filipino culture, there is some of this "genderness" and "ranking" built into the language. While it isn't at the general "he/she" level it is more at the family level. Any older sibling must be referred to as "kuya" for older brothers and "ate" (pronounced ah-te) for older sisters. This expands not just to your immediate family but also to any relatives and anyone considered a close relative (may not be blood related). There are many of these respectful expressions notions. For example any woman of roughly the same age group as your parents should be referred to as "aunt".
If you were to compare languages, I would say English is still the king of shedding gender and politeness. He/she still exists but that's way simpler than knowing all of these cultural/ranking specific terms. Even "Mr/Ms" is starting to go away as well as "m'am" and "sir".
I like airplanes. I really do. Someday I'll fly one myself. But beyond that, air travel has it's own set of problems. Each airplane "ride" has this annoying process called "boarding and deplaning". It's the whole reason why you have to show up 1 hour early to the airport, and while your flight arrives at maybe 2pm, it still takes you 30 minutes to be on your way out of the airport. And that's all IF things go smoothly. Chances are a bag gets lost, somebody holds up the security line, etc.
No matter how hard you try, you can't argue against that. A transfer in a large sized airport will need at least 1 hour to make it assuming things go well. But usually you plan on a 2 hours between transfer just incase you're delayed for whatever reason. It doesn't matter where you are, this seems to be the norm all over the world for air passenger travel.
A train transfer on the other hand can be as short as however fast you can run to the next train. There's also none of that take-off and landing stuff. You can even line up outside the door as the train comes to a stop. A ticket purchase can also be made minutes before the actual departure. It is quite a trip to see a good working train system in action. I recommend it. We don't have much of it here in the states.
Now on the to the cost. There are certainly a lot of dumb reasons why the California HSR project is getting inflated. It basically boils down to two groups that I'll call "Not in my backyards (NIMBY)" and "Please in my backyard". The first is easy to explain, but it is mainly rich people and people like yourself that think the project is useless. So these people band together to prevent any meaningful progress happen. I'd say their strategy is akin to that of the GOP's strategy in congress (whine as much as possible so that nothing gets done). Rich people obviously don't want the project because it will change their communities along the proposed track lines. People like yourself don't want it because you don't think it is economical.
The strange thing is the farmers and small towns along the valley DO want the train. In many studies when HSR is built, small towns that get a trains stop actually see population and economic growth due to more people having access to the town. So this becomes a lot of bickering and whining for stations, some which may not even be worth the hassle in the initial segment.
Finally there's a lot of freight companies and FRA standards that make absolutely no sense. Not only does this affect HSR, but it also affects local passenger rail services. Our passenger rail trains are generally overweight due to "safety" rules enforced by the FRA on minimum weight.
So if you combine all of those factors, what we have is a lot of unnecessary needs to address factors just so that everyone in their municipality or interest can benefit. That means unnecessary tunneling where it is perfectly viable to be at grade. Unnecessary extra tracks. Unnecessary stations. Unnecessary train specifications.
But of course people like you have to make this political, make it black-and-white. "There is no viable HSR system" is obviously not the case when the rest of the world continues to expand passenger rail services. This project is obviously overweight, I agree with that, but let's at least understand what's wrong rather than fill it up with logical fallacies. It's quite obvious that's how many things are working out in this country. Everyone seems more interested in throwing up own straw-men rather than working together to do what's reasonable.
Fun observation, the interstate highway system is probably the most expensive public works project in history. Should that have been considered a boondoggle? From wikipedia: "The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars) and took 35 years."
If I had to run the project I'd certainly look at implementing a shorter initial segment with less oppositio
"It'll make you look like an IDIOT if you talk to your phone!" "Nobody will want to use THAT!"
I'm not going to talk to my phone for the same reason I don't call people or even pick up their calls at times; text messaging is far more convenient and private than any voice conversation.
When messages come in as text, I can read and consume them in an order that best fits my schedule. I also read much faster than someone can talk. The most annoying thing at work is older folks that like to leave 2 minute long or longer voice mails. If you have that much information to tell me, send me an email.
Voice communication is also known to be ambiguous at times even between humans. It is the entire reason why we have detailed conversations and go back-and-forth on subjects. Meanwhile a text and computer interface is accurate. There are many cases where I don't want to deal with the ambiguity of language or making something/someone understand. I know what I want to do and if there is a formal and clear interface for doing it, then lets use that.
There are only a few cases where voice commands to a computer make sense. One case is driving. Most people probably have enough brain capacity to have the phone do something for them while they're driving. Siri or something like it would be good for that.
My Nexus one doesn't do some of the things you claim. My clock is always accurate and I never had a problem with the phone switching off of wifi to 3g/2g.
The headphone jack can get a little finicky but I don't use it much. Bluetooth dock I don't have. But I do sync with bluetooth. Sometimes the phone won't sync. Haven't figured out if it is the phone or the car. I'm always on vibrate so I don't know if I've had the ringtone issue. The launcher does have issues and I'll force close it and let it restart. The screen locker can have issues but I think it is tied to the launcher having issues.
NOT targeting the majority with your latest and greatest phone a wise move?
No sane business plan ever targets "the majority". That's an excellent way to set yourself up for failure. Every marketing strategy first targets a very small group and then new strategies are created to target the next group.
For example, even the first iphone targeted very specific users. Later it expanded with each iteration. The first iphone didn't have 3rd party app support and the iOS App Store wasn't available yet. It wasn't until 1.5 years AFTER the initial announcement of the first iphone that the itunes App Store was released.
The basics in marketing are to come up with a marketing strategy that will succeed in a specific target market. Make your target market everyone and you're guaranteed to fail.
I mean, this thing is meant to be THE Android Smartphone by Google(TM).
The nexus phones are Google's way of pushing the Android market where they would like to see it. You can think of it as "seeding" the competition.
For example when Google released the Nexus One, it was the first phone with Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. During this period, many manufacturers were trying to build the cheapest Android they could get away with so most of the phones came with slow processors and minimal RAM. Google didn't like that, and had the Nexus One built. With that came other "fast" phones (for the time) like the HTC Incredible which shared specs with the Nexus One VERY closely. That wasn't a surprise considering that HTC also manufactured the Nexus One. Immediately following this, all the other manufacturers followed up with their own offerings with similar or better specifications.
Sometime in the future, perhaps Google will start to compete with their own hardware. But at this point, I don't think that is their primary goal. The primary goal is to push the Android market forward. Secondary would be making money on the hardware since they already are the source for the OS.
As The Onion headlined a few days ago: "Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies". How apt.
You do know that The Onion is 100% satire? You've lost a lot of credibility with that kind of statement.
If everyone eventually ends this evil little war in a compromise, the consumer will win. I just hope all sides lose massive amounts of money in the process. Unfortunately, the lawyers will get rich(er).
I don't understand how you come to this logic. Previously nobody was actively attacking each other with patent suits, Apple let the cat out of the bag, and now pretty much every player now has an extra line item called lawyer-ing up on their expense sheet as well as all future requirements having an additional risk item called "patent violation risk". Any engineer knows that the more requirements you tag on, the more expensive the product will get. But this one is a double-whammy because not only does the engineering team have to design in attempts to avoid/develop patents, but now the lawyer team gets bigger to defend against patent attacks.
All this means is delayed products, less freedom for companies to develop products, and more stand-offs between companies. The consumer is never going to benefit. The products will be delayed or put off of the market. The next generation products will be more expensive. All future products will come with their own awkwardness just because of these patent wars.
Consider this. The top two manufacturers for cameras, Canon and Nikon, don't name their "modes" identically though they should. Canon labels shutter mode "Tv". Nikon labels it "S". Additionally, the exposure bias meters are opposite. Nobody shares lens mounts. Each mfg makes their own. The result? You buy into a set of lenses and if you want to switch you have to sell all of your gear and go buy into a new set of lenses.
Macs and Windows PCs had the same awkwardness too. ctrl+c for windows. cmd+c (alt key location for PCs) for macs.
You can see this sort of non-sense going on everywhere in new technology. ebooks: Amazon kindle's only do kindle drm formats and pdfs, everyone else has their own drm format. All of the streaming video content services and random support with tvs and tv boxes (roku, boxee, apple tv, etc).
It's a giant mess and the consumer definitely isn't winning. The consumer was in an awesome position back when we were still using vhs and cassette tapes. You could take that stupid tape and a gazillion different devices played it from that giant boom box, to the school's cheezy tape player, do your car radio. Same with vhs. These days? Fuck you.
Apple knows this and they're trying to corner the market while they can. They don't want a race to the bottom but that's exactly what would benefit the consumer the most. While they certainly aren't the only company attempting this (sony and bluray, amazon and kindle, etc) they're certainly one of the most significant (ios apps).
It's not about paying for what you use - it's about paying for what Government wants.
While you do have a point, I'm not sure the government can make it any more fair in this regard. Additionally, you're not just paying for services on the mainland, you're also paying for government protection of it's citizens via foreign relations and military. As long as you claim to be an American citizen, you're going to be paying American taxes.
How are they not paying for road upkeep - they pay fuel costs...
Actually there is a good amount of data showing that current gasoline taxes are not high enough to pay for road maintenance. So road maintenance gets delayed and that's why we have crumbling roads, bridges, etc. The reason why this is is because the gas tax is flat and hasn't been adjusted for quite a while. So while costs keep going up due to inflation, the gas tax covers less and less. Technology is also getting more efficient so people can actually buy vehicles that consume less gas for the same distance traveled (thus lower tax revenue).
Oh, I like this. Let's just redefine "desktop" to mean something else where linux happens to dominate and we'll say "the linux desktop has arrived!!" By that logic I can redefine BSD to mean OSX and OSX to mean iOS and now that iGadgets are so popular the BSD desktop has arrived!
Of course it is all nonsense. By desktop we mean that PC that most office workers are forced to use. We mean the UI that those workers are forced to use. We mean the software platform and training everyone is put through. That "check point" on the average office worker's resume that says "knows how to use 'x' software". That software is currently called MS Windows and MS Office except in some major software houses where users are technical enough not to need training (think Google). But go to any non-technical company like say a company in the finance industry, or a paper pushing agency. MS Windows is everywhere. MS Office is everywhere.
That's not to say that integrators have taken Linux and developed their own product based on Linux. That is quite true as well! But remember, these are specialized applications. I'm not going to call the point-of-sale computer and software I saw at the local supermarket a "desktop" even if I very well know it had Gnome behind it.
The phone does not use Google as its default search. And it doesn't utilize Yahoo! either. No, the Fascinate search engine defaults to Bing. Bing is used for the homescreen widget. It is defaulted to in the browser. It is present across the device... and there's no way to choose a different search engine. Like, you know -- Google. When we pressed Verizon reps about this, they let us know in no uncertain terms that the stock engine is Bing without a second choice.
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I agree, although you would change your coin system if you dropped one decimal.
I'm all for dropping a decimal and going to dimes. However, I would go ahead and change a few things: dump all current coins and switch to dimes, 50c coins, and $1 coins. This way cash prices can only be in dimes and you phase in $1 coins. The shape of the new 50c coin would be slightly larger than today's nickel, and the dollar can still be those dollar coins they've been minting.
Dimes will be dimes and they'll start to feel like pennies. The only difference is now you only need 50 to trade to a $5 bill (new lowest bill denomination) instead of 100 pennies to get to a $1 today. Similarly, 5 dimes would get you to 50c just as 5 pennies get you to 5c.
Journalism itself cannot be trusted. It is often filled with biases or spins the source purposely puts in in order to accomplish spreading their intended message. It doesn't matter if the media is publicly owned or corporate owned. It is guaranteed that you'll get shoddy journalism if laws don't protect free speech.
The only thing that can prevent a population from buying into poor journalism is an educated population. That is a population where individuals are capable for uncovering lies and biases inherent in the sources. This is why adequate education of citizens is crucial.
This is likely to be an unpopular opinion on slashdot, but the fact is most companies are not in the IT business. That means their primary service/product is not IT. If a company is selling shoes for example, they're not exactly going to be innovators in the IT world. In fact they'd much rather hire an external IT agency to handle their IT requirements because let's face it, there isn't much tie in with IT for their shoe selling business.
You can replace shoes with nearly anything. Now if your company's business relies heavily on IT infrastructure like certain engineering and technology segments, then perhaps it makes sense to bring in your own in-house IT department.
This applies not just to IT. For example the same shoe selling company isn't going to have a spectacular accounting department. They're either going to hire an accounting firm or just enough accountants to make the wheels spin for accounting.
The quicker you realize this the quicker you should be able to find a position that is stable for your own profession. If you want true stability and you want to stay in IT, then it is time to start your own IT business and bid on IT contracts.
Now consider that binary search is a freshman level programming problem and therefore is pretty low in terms of the complexity a developer is going to deal with. Much of software development will deal with far more complicated scenarios than this, and the facility doesn't *really* cover even the binary search complexity.
You're thinking a little narrow. You've found a problem with this style of programming and therefore dismiss its merits. But in the real world, I would say 90% or even more of the code we write is boring and lifeless.
For example his "replay" demo concept or the binary search demo where he gave the function values and saw the output was basically unit testing but interactively. So once he has inserted some values and found the correct output, shouldn't he be able to record that as a macro and now be finished with a unit test? That's a lot less mental work than imagining the boundary cases and inputing values or setting up scenarios to come up with a test suite. If this was possible it would take much less time than it currently does to write unit tests.
Another important aspect of his demo is the tree vector image. I think it includes an aspect that is missing from most UI development interfaces. The general consensus among UI development is the best we can provide is a drag and drop "what you see is what you get" but once you want to get into the details (the code) the WYSIWYG view disappears so now you're back to the tweak-compile-check loop. If there was a real-time display of your UI right next to the code as well as an inspector tool like he demo'ed, then making that UI wouldn't be so tedious especially since everyone has a different UI API to work with.
The closest I have seen to this is actually firebug and firebug's inspector tool. If we could take the same concept one step further into our programming code, then I would expect UI experiences and quality to improve across the board.
One field where his ideas are actually being implemented is photography. Cameras have gone quite a ways in "doing the boring stuff for you" so that you can focus on the creative process. (In fact the new lytro cameras allow you to change focus after the fact.) But because of this improvement in instance feedback on digital cameras, the number of photographers that can produce good quality work has increased dramatically. The traditional dark room is now replaced with software where you can see real-time edits with nearly unlimited undo. You could say within perhaps a decade everyone and their parents will be professional photographers. Sure, we just killed yet another profession, but I think that's the entire point of technology.
On the other side another field that is sorely in need of this is the medical field. A simple example would be that we have built machines to take blood pressure and heart rate automatically. But why aren't they in homes? We brush our teeth everyday, why can't we take blood pressure? Why can't we get a daily or even real-time heart rate? We carry smart phones. We have wireless networks. Why not advocate daily blood pressure readings tied to a wireless network that would log and analyze your blood pressure and heart rate over time so you could see trends on a daily basis rather than behaving in a reactive manner by going to the doctor when you do start to have severe symptoms. If this information was available, the doctor would not just have your vital readings on the day you show up, he would have an entire history of your readings. Why even stop there, why not have the system signal when thresholds or trends are developing and recommending you see a doctor about a developing trend so preventative care can be utilized.
Sure, I could have bought a cheaper car, and I'll never save enough in gas (well, unless Iran destabilizes the middle East and we end up with $10/gal gas) to recover my cost, but I actually like driving the Volt. It's not a sports car, but it's not sluggish either. 0-60 is 9.2 seconds, but the instant torque from the electric engine makes it feel much faster. In "Sport" mode, it does 0-30 in 3.0 seconds.
That's great for you. But here's what's going on in my mind: I could buy the upcoming Toyota Prius C for $20k, use it for the lame commute. Then later buy the upcoming Scion FRS (Toyota GT-86 outside of US) for ~$23 to $25k (official price not announced) for my "sporting" desires.
Buying the Volt is asking me to subsidize GM's plans without much benefit. Furthermore, I only have the capacity to afford at maximum a $25k car. I could afford more, but it isn't a good use of my income at my level.
At least a Tesla Roadster was something to be interested in. A Tesla Model S as well. GM really tried to meet too broad a market with the Volt. And the sales prove that.
Mass transit isn't intended for places like Montana. It is intended for cities with large populations.
For example in my city, San Diego county, we have piss poor mass transit but a population of over 3 million. That means that every San Diegan owns a car and likely has a 20+ minute commute just for driving from home to the office.
In fact it is worse than that. I see many "act like they live in the country" people driving around raised 4x4 truck. When you peer in the window, it is just a middle aged lady going to the strip mall to shop for clothes.
The problem with American culture is we're trained to think individually. That is we only think about ourselves and it is supposed to be a good thing. But you see, if you're in Montana, you should be all for mass transit and denser cities, not because your area would be one to receive such treatment, more because cities like San Diego would stop eating so much of our resources like fuel. That would benefit you indirectly by making demand for fuel not so important.
Suburban sprawl doesn't make it difficult for children to find playmates and a place to play. It is exactly the opposite. It gives them MORE places to play. The lack of neighborhood playmates comes from the recent trend of anti-sprawl. It is the jamming of houses together so tight that no one has a back yard.
You couldn't be more wrong. Here's why:
If you are a kid and you want to play, it is a lot more fun if you have a friend to play with. However, if the closest friend is just 2 miles on the other side of town, chances are you're not going to see that friend because: you are too young to drive, mommy thinks it's too far, and there's a child molester somewhere in the state.
The problem with your logic is you assume playground = kids can have fun. Or trees = kids can have fun. Or bicycles = kids can have fun. But what's the single thing people seem to aspire to do when they grow up? Find a mate. What you are suggesting is the equivalent of marrying a playground swing, slide, or monkey bars. Kids don't want that. People don't want that. What they want is the interaction with friends. The playground becomes secondary.
Now if you go to Tokyo, one of the densest cities in the world, I think you'll see something you haven't realized. It works the same in any city, but I think Tokyo is the finest example. Many homes even in the suburbs in Tokyo do not have yards. They might have a garden, maybe a space for 1 car. But that's it. The front door is usually less than 5 feet from the street. Now according to your argument, kids in Tokyo should be miserable and bored to death. But it is quite the contrary. Kids are lively. Go on a train just after school, elementary school kids riding the train together or alone without the aid of an adult. Go to a popular area or hangout for kids like say a trendy store or cafe, kids again waiting to meet up with friends and "hang out". Of all the places that are the emptiest, it is the public playgrounds that seem the most dead. Everyone else (kids included) are meeting up in various parts of the city to "play".
The strange side effect of all of this is because the kids have to walk some distance, they aren't hyperactive compared to American kids that get driven around everywhere. They also grow up with the idea that walking is a part of life. Here the first thing a kid whines about is having to walk somewhere. Well he wouldn't whine if you'd stop driving him everywhere he needs to be and if Billy his best friend was within 10-15minutes by foot rather than 30 minutes by foot.
In Tokyo access to a train station pretty much grants you access to the entire city. In order to use the train you only have to buy a ticket. There's no age requirement, no license requirement. This means as soon as a kid can buy a ticket, know what stop to get on/off, he has equivalent mobility to most adults in the city as well. That's huge. No suburban backyard can compare to that concept.
Best deals I've seen are tmobile prepaid. For example they have an unlimited data/text (up to 5gb at 4g speed) and 100 minutes for $30 a month.
Then I would actually buy an android smartphone used or new (tmobile will sell you a sim card for $2 or $6), and install google voice. Now you can have free calling within the US.
I've become a firm believer in "paid" parking or "market driven" parking. That is where we get rid of "free" parking and instead directly charge users fees for the parking they utilize. This article adequately explains why: http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281.
You can claim the street cleaning thing is a scam, sure I'll agree there that should go away, however, we should not have free parking at all. It is not logical. It only makes sense that the person that utilizes the parking should pay for it. That's how normal things work.
When we have "free" parking, the costs of parking are hidden from the user. This leads to abuse. If you are aware that something is free but obviously costs money to maintain or provide, then by all means as a typical capitalist, you should abuse the hell out of that free service. So now we have grown up with an expectation of "free" parking when that is clearly not the case.
This penalizes us in multiple ways. The strip mall is now twice as large in order to provide a surface level parking lot (the cheapest option). You must now buy a new house or condo with parking due to minimum parking laws (what if I don't need the space?). The city is now designed around cars and not people (we will never get density as long as this is true).
In related studies on traffic, the findings are similar. If we expand lanes on a congested freeway, demand will increase to fill up that lane because the freeway is subsidized. That is, the cost of using the freeway to users appears to be "free" therefore demand increases in order to take advantage of a free resource. The result is for a short period the freeway is not congested, then suddenly it has the same amount of traffic.
"Free" parking creates the problem it tries to cure. Users complain "parking is expensive" so the city gives them free parking, then suddenly everyone uses the parking because it is free and now there is a shortage of parking again. This is like giving people free money. They say "I have no money" so you give them $5 dollars. Then they go spend it. Then they complain they have no money again...
"Showrooming" can be used against online retailers by brick and mortar shops. They just haven't realized it. You simply go the opposite direction: stock your store with 1 model and maybe 1 or 2 units of inventory, then only offer to sell it by order. In the process you would reorganize your inventory and supply chain to support a centralized warehouse with reduced store inventories. Stores would only carry high volume units. Low volume items would generally only have display units. You offer a competitive "online" price on these items.
You would eventually beat the online retailers at their own game: customers would come into your "showroom" because they have tangible access to the products and likely pay a small markup because they can be sure they placed the order on the right product.
If the customer really must have the product in their hands at that exact moment, then you offer to sell it at that price, but charge an "expedite" fee. Now they get both options from you: slightly higher price for paying for inventory on site, or reduced warehouse price with delayed delivery.
Big retail chains need to realize what has happened. Customers didn't just say they wanted the cheapest price. They also said "I'm willing to wait a few days on my purchase if you knock the price down a bit." The big retailers need to realize how to take advantage of that and the fact that they have "showrooms".
They dropped CarrierIQ with iOS5, which is more than most competitors can say.
All right, I've had enough of this "2 wrongs = 1 right" argument. Why? Because the fact is they allowed something to slide in their interests until it generated bad PR then "magically" did the right thing as the public became aware of the wrong doing. You can stick any company in this position and change the parameters. The actions are still speaking the same language: we will not do anything about it until it becomes a problem (for us, the corporation). This reactive nature is bad on so many levels because it entices the corporation to do whatever possible to evade bad PR even if it is immoral or causes things like "human death".
Do yourself a favor, read the nytimes article but first replace "Apple" with "The Corporation" and "iPad/iPhone" with "The Corporation's Product" to prevent your distortion field from taking effect.
The difference between doctors/residents and factory workers is the doctors/residents aren't working in a hazardous environment.
But even given that, two wrongs don't make one right. Both conditions should be changed in regards to their respective problems. Apple appears to not care about the issue.
Eh, I'm not that excited about autonomous automobiles. I envision something more like Wall-e where people have so much automation that they become slobs. To some degree it already happened to the U.S. just from car culture. You no longer walk more than even a quarter mile a day. Your car sits just a few steps away in your home garage. The parking space is right next to the front door of the store or the office. Now all of your medical ailments are due to being in a chair for most of the day rather than using your body for what it was made for: to move yourself.
I'm not sure why we need this when we've had the solution for quite a while. One trip to Tokyo will make you realize what we've ignored for perhaps the last 100 years in America. Tokyo itself is designed like real-life Disneyland. If you go to Disneyland and walk around in the park, you'll notice that it isn't so bad. Why? Because the inside of the park was designed for people, not cars. Tokyo is exactly like this. The center of the city was designed for people without cars. Trains and subways take you everywhere and come regularly. Thirsty? There's a vending machine 5 feet away, a convenience store 50 feet away. The closest train/subway station? A 5 minute walk. Pedestrian bridges over particularly busy streets. Buildings have no parking because nobody uses cars.
What everyone thinks of Japan (besides the anime junk) is that it is a small tiny and crappy apartment with no living space. That's true, but it is only half of the story. Nobody takes a camera and shows you how long it takes to get to the closest convenience store, the closest market, the closest restaurant, or the closest train station. But it is all possible, with your two feet and public transit. Using a car in many ways is actually more inconvenient. As bad as the weather got, I didn't mind walking. In fact walking was more interesting. I could observe my surroundings. When I was driving, I was looking to protect myself. Sure, an autonomous car would change that, but there's more to this.
When you get on (a not so busy) train there, you're free to read/sleep/play around on your phone. They already have the conveniences we dream of with autonomous cars simply because their city was built around people and transit.
The strange thing is as busy as their city is, the actual living spaces away from the center of the chaos is quiet (as in no sound). Anywhere in the U.S. which is populated will have this incessant freeway/highway hum. It's annoying. Over there at worst you live next to a train station. The train itself isn't annoying, because they're all electrified and they don't blow their horns. Instead it's the stupid announcement message that the next train will be arriving soon...
As soon as you step outside of the hotel or apartment you feel alive. You see people walking around. You can see people from the street and look into shops and see other people. That doesn't work in United Suburbia of America. Drive by the strip mall and you can barely glance inside. Get out of your car and now you're in "car defense" mode. Walk to another store on the other side of the strip mall and get tired because the parking lot is just too damn big. That's ridiculous.
Since few people own a car, you wonder how they manage to buy large objects or transport things. The simple answer is they rent a car. Most people are called "paper drivers" because they get driving licenses but don't use them regularly. They just use it when convenient. Alternatively you can also have things delivered. Since people don't own their own cars, it is actually possible to work as a delivery man. You know...kinda how we solved distributing milk without refrigeration way back... (As a side note, I'm always confused why only Pizza is delivered in the U.S. but not other fast foods.)
Every time I come back to the U.S. I'm annoyed. I know our cities don't have to be this way. We don't need novel solutions like autonomous cars to satisfy the living needs of 80% of the urban population. We
The problem Google has is they still don't understand service. Which you would think is odd since their search engine was built on top of being the best as services search queries...
This service problem works it's way into many things. But the worst is it is blinding them from where they got their initial success. Most of Google's products since have been released for "free as in beer". They essentially tried to apply the ad model to everything without recognizing that it doesn't work in all cases.
If they want to expand successfully into other businesses, they're going to have to accept that they're going to have to alter their money making strategy for different business segments. Sorry, that's just life. Ads don't work well in all cases.
If they want to improve Android as a platform, they should first look to their app developer base and look for ways they can work with developers to make better applications. A good amount of this will be in providing an API and tools that make it easier for the developer to make a good app. There's a lot of non-sense in the android API (I've worked with it) that make it more painful to work with than anything. For example for a while they were advocating their nifty swipe left/right to switch to a different view, but did they provide this interface and make it usable for devs? No.
I'm also going to say that they need to start hiring more employees without engineering or technical centric backgrounds. That's right, everyone from designers, to marketers, to support staff. They're missing a real human component to their business and it is starting to cause them grief and isolates their technical staff from reality. When you're surrounded by people that are not technical, you begin to understand their problems and alter your strategies for implementing your own solutions. If you're only surrounded by technically aware people, your solutions are only going to fit other technically minded people. To be clear, I'm not saying they need to grow their marketing department to rival their engineering department, instead they at least need a team large enough to take on significant marketing tasks like PR and branding and they also need to get more of their engineers out in the field rather than in the Googleplex.
However, in the Android world you can buy a brand new Android phone with an OS 2 versions out of date, and that phone will never be upgraded. THAT is the problem.
Oh, I see the name of this game now. Let's change "fragmentation" to mean whatever we want it to mean.
First it was the fact that different devices existed though they were generally running the same Android version. Everyone complained "oh, fragmentation." Jobs and company went out and told the world you can't build a high quality product if you don't control the entire market vertically. That was fragmentation.
Of course many developers came out and said it wasn't really a problem. You simply target a lower API level and develop from that. If you're using undocumented features and digging in beyond what was specified, that was your problem. That's like tweaking your car's engine beyond specification with something like a turbo charger and later calling up the manufacturer and asking why the engine blew up because you used forced induction.
Nevermind that iOS has similar fragmentation issues. The screen on an iphone 3gs is not the same resolution as an iphone 4 which is not the same as an ipad. Fragmentation?
Now you say, "OMG, you can buy a phone with an old version of android!" Well no shit. The idea wasn't to pigeon hole everyone into something. That's Apple's business model, the model of complete control. When Apple decides "hey, buy a new phone" they can and will force people to do it and nobody dares to stand up to them.
For example let's talk about Siri. Siri is perfectly capable of running on EXISTING iphone 4 devices. It was shown to be possible by some hackers. Hell, Siri itself was running on iphone 3gs when Siri was an independent company. Then Apple came in and bought Siri, dropped the Siri app from the app store, and re-released it as part of iOS 5 and RESTRICTED it to iphone 4s. How is that not fragmentation? How is that not FORCED product obsolescence?
Oh yeah, that's right. Jobs and his legacy is your savior. We must justify every decision even if it potentially hurts us. But if someone else does it? EVIL! HATE! ALERT THE BLOGOSPHERE! F-R-A-G-M-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N!!!
I recommend using Dancer. It is much newer but borrows/learns from many of the mistakes in Catalyst and other language's frameworks. It has fewer dependencies and will more likely install correctly. It is also PSGI/Plack ready. It is also designed to be more configurable so you can easily switch the templating system via a config file.
Unlike, for example, Japanese, which has entire verb classes dedicated to the deference of women and underlings to the male/ boss.
Uh, as a student of the Japanese language, I understand that there are varying degrees of politeness, but it has less to do with gender and more to do with "rank". So you speak differently to your superiors and they speak differently "down" to you.
In terms of genders, I think Japan has come quite a ways in terms of making women more "equal". There are still obvious gaps: wages for women are generally lower than men but it doesn't seem women mind this. I think it is still very common for women in Japan to stop working when they have children. The man however will continue to work to support the family. That's a fair trade if a woman doesn't expect to be working once she enters "family" life.
There are still some customs we would consider sexist here in the west. For example female office workers are often referred to as "OL" which is short for Office Lady. OL are expected to make/serve the tea in the office if they are present. But there are many other differences that really set Japanese work environments apart from western style work environments. The most notable is the priority of the "group" instead of individual.
In terms of language however, the honorifics aren't necessarily specific to gender, more ranking.
If you really want to see retardedness in terms of not only "rank" but also gender, you should try South Korea. Not only do you get the awkward language with "rank" expressions built into it, you get it at the fun level of age. That is if someone happens to be older than you by a year, you must address them differently. So before you can even talk to a random person, the first question you have to ask is "how old are you?" Add on top of it that they're heavily influenced by christianity and have a history of unwanted occupations by other countries, well, you've got a ton of bitterness and strangeness built into that kind of culture. Not saying that they're bad people, but it can really be hard to understand or deal with their culture at times.
Consider this: in South Korea, appearance is so important that it is fairly common for Korean families to provide plastic surgery as a "gift" for their daughters once they graduate high school.
But even for both cultures, I don't think either is oppressed at the "gender" level. Women in both countries seem very content and expressive with their lives. In fact, Japanese men are trending "down" in terms of dating women. There's a phenomenon called "grass eaters" going on. That is men that don't actively see women because they think it is too much hassle.
Finally in Filipino culture, there is some of this "genderness" and "ranking" built into the language. While it isn't at the general "he/she" level it is more at the family level. Any older sibling must be referred to as "kuya" for older brothers and "ate" (pronounced ah-te) for older sisters. This expands not just to your immediate family but also to any relatives and anyone considered a close relative (may not be blood related). There are many of these respectful expressions notions. For example any woman of roughly the same age group as your parents should be referred to as "aunt".
If you were to compare languages, I would say English is still the king of shedding gender and politeness. He/she still exists but that's way simpler than knowing all of these cultural/ranking specific terms. Even "Mr/Ms" is starting to go away as well as "m'am" and "sir".
I like airplanes. I really do. Someday I'll fly one myself. But beyond that, air travel has it's own set of problems. Each airplane "ride" has this annoying process called "boarding and deplaning". It's the whole reason why you have to show up 1 hour early to the airport, and while your flight arrives at maybe 2pm, it still takes you 30 minutes to be on your way out of the airport. And that's all IF things go smoothly. Chances are a bag gets lost, somebody holds up the security line, etc.
No matter how hard you try, you can't argue against that. A transfer in a large sized airport will need at least 1 hour to make it assuming things go well. But usually you plan on a 2 hours between transfer just incase you're delayed for whatever reason. It doesn't matter where you are, this seems to be the norm all over the world for air passenger travel.
A train transfer on the other hand can be as short as however fast you can run to the next train. There's also none of that take-off and landing stuff. You can even line up outside the door as the train comes to a stop. A ticket purchase can also be made minutes before the actual departure. It is quite a trip to see a good working train system in action. I recommend it. We don't have much of it here in the states.
Now on the to the cost. There are certainly a lot of dumb reasons why the California HSR project is getting inflated. It basically boils down to two groups that I'll call "Not in my backyards (NIMBY)" and "Please in my backyard". The first is easy to explain, but it is mainly rich people and people like yourself that think the project is useless. So these people band together to prevent any meaningful progress happen. I'd say their strategy is akin to that of the GOP's strategy in congress (whine as much as possible so that nothing gets done). Rich people obviously don't want the project because it will change their communities along the proposed track lines. People like yourself don't want it because you don't think it is economical.
The strange thing is the farmers and small towns along the valley DO want the train. In many studies when HSR is built, small towns that get a trains stop actually see population and economic growth due to more people having access to the town. So this becomes a lot of bickering and whining for stations, some which may not even be worth the hassle in the initial segment.
Finally there's a lot of freight companies and FRA standards that make absolutely no sense. Not only does this affect HSR, but it also affects local passenger rail services. Our passenger rail trains are generally overweight due to "safety" rules enforced by the FRA on minimum weight.
So if you combine all of those factors, what we have is a lot of unnecessary needs to address factors just so that everyone in their municipality or interest can benefit. That means unnecessary tunneling where it is perfectly viable to be at grade. Unnecessary extra tracks. Unnecessary stations. Unnecessary train specifications.
But of course people like you have to make this political, make it black-and-white. "There is no viable HSR system" is obviously not the case when the rest of the world continues to expand passenger rail services. This project is obviously overweight, I agree with that, but let's at least understand what's wrong rather than fill it up with logical fallacies. It's quite obvious that's how many things are working out in this country. Everyone seems more interested in throwing up own straw-men rather than working together to do what's reasonable.
Fun observation, the interstate highway system is probably the most expensive public works project in history. Should that have been considered a boondoggle? From wikipedia: "The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars) and took 35 years."
If I had to run the project I'd certainly look at implementing a shorter initial segment with less oppositio
"It'll make you look like an IDIOT if you talk to your phone!" "Nobody will want to use THAT!"
I'm not going to talk to my phone for the same reason I don't call people or even pick up their calls at times; text messaging is far more convenient and private than any voice conversation.
When messages come in as text, I can read and consume them in an order that best fits my schedule. I also read much faster than someone can talk. The most annoying thing at work is older folks that like to leave 2 minute long or longer voice mails. If you have that much information to tell me, send me an email.
Voice communication is also known to be ambiguous at times even between humans. It is the entire reason why we have detailed conversations and go back-and-forth on subjects. Meanwhile a text and computer interface is accurate. There are many cases where I don't want to deal with the ambiguity of language or making something/someone understand. I know what I want to do and if there is a formal and clear interface for doing it, then lets use that.
There are only a few cases where voice commands to a computer make sense. One case is driving. Most people probably have enough brain capacity to have the phone do something for them while they're driving. Siri or something like it would be good for that.
My Nexus one doesn't do some of the things you claim. My clock is always accurate and I never had a problem with the phone switching off of wifi to 3g/2g.
The headphone jack can get a little finicky but I don't use it much. Bluetooth dock I don't have. But I do sync with bluetooth. Sometimes the phone won't sync. Haven't figured out if it is the phone or the car. I'm always on vibrate so I don't know if I've had the ringtone issue. The launcher does have issues and I'll force close it and let it restart. The screen locker can have issues but I think it is tied to the launcher having issues.
NOT targeting the majority with your latest and greatest phone a wise move?
No sane business plan ever targets "the majority". That's an excellent way to set yourself up for failure. Every marketing strategy first targets a very small group and then new strategies are created to target the next group.
For example, even the first iphone targeted very specific users. Later it expanded with each iteration. The first iphone didn't have 3rd party app support and the iOS App Store wasn't available yet. It wasn't until 1.5 years AFTER the initial announcement of the first iphone that the itunes App Store was released.
The basics in marketing are to come up with a marketing strategy that will succeed in a specific target market. Make your target market everyone and you're guaranteed to fail.
I mean, this thing is meant to be THE Android Smartphone by Google(TM).
The nexus phones are Google's way of pushing the Android market where they would like to see it. You can think of it as "seeding" the competition.
For example when Google released the Nexus One, it was the first phone with Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. During this period, many manufacturers were trying to build the cheapest Android they could get away with so most of the phones came with slow processors and minimal RAM. Google didn't like that, and had the Nexus One built. With that came other "fast" phones (for the time) like the HTC Incredible which shared specs with the Nexus One VERY closely. That wasn't a surprise considering that HTC also manufactured the Nexus One. Immediately following this, all the other manufacturers followed up with their own offerings with similar or better specifications.
Sometime in the future, perhaps Google will start to compete with their own hardware. But at this point, I don't think that is their primary goal. The primary goal is to push the Android market forward. Secondary would be making money on the hardware since they already are the source for the OS.
As The Onion headlined a few days ago: "Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies". How apt.
You do know that The Onion is 100% satire? You've lost a lot of credibility with that kind of statement.
If everyone eventually ends this evil little war in a compromise, the consumer will win. I just hope all sides lose massive amounts of money in the process. Unfortunately, the lawyers will get rich(er).
I don't understand how you come to this logic. Previously nobody was actively attacking each other with patent suits, Apple let the cat out of the bag, and now pretty much every player now has an extra line item called lawyer-ing up on their expense sheet as well as all future requirements having an additional risk item called "patent violation risk". Any engineer knows that the more requirements you tag on, the more expensive the product will get. But this one is a double-whammy because not only does the engineering team have to design in attempts to avoid/develop patents, but now the lawyer team gets bigger to defend against patent attacks.
All this means is delayed products, less freedom for companies to develop products, and more stand-offs between companies. The consumer is never going to benefit. The products will be delayed or put off of the market. The next generation products will be more expensive. All future products will come with their own awkwardness just because of these patent wars.
Consider this. The top two manufacturers for cameras, Canon and Nikon, don't name their "modes" identically though they should. Canon labels shutter mode "Tv". Nikon labels it "S". Additionally, the exposure bias meters are opposite. Nobody shares lens mounts. Each mfg makes their own. The result? You buy into a set of lenses and if you want to switch you have to sell all of your gear and go buy into a new set of lenses.
Macs and Windows PCs had the same awkwardness too. ctrl+c for windows. cmd+c (alt key location for PCs) for macs.
You can see this sort of non-sense going on everywhere in new technology. ebooks: Amazon kindle's only do kindle drm formats and pdfs, everyone else has their own drm format. All of the streaming video content services and random support with tvs and tv boxes (roku, boxee, apple tv, etc).
It's a giant mess and the consumer definitely isn't winning. The consumer was in an awesome position back when we were still using vhs and cassette tapes. You could take that stupid tape and a gazillion different devices played it from that giant boom box, to the school's cheezy tape player, do your car radio. Same with vhs. These days? Fuck you.
Apple knows this and they're trying to corner the market while they can. They don't want a race to the bottom but that's exactly what would benefit the consumer the most. While they certainly aren't the only company attempting this (sony and bluray, amazon and kindle, etc) they're certainly one of the most significant (ios apps).
It's not about paying for what you use - it's about paying for what Government wants.
While you do have a point, I'm not sure the government can make it any more fair in this regard. Additionally, you're not just paying for services on the mainland, you're also paying for government protection of it's citizens via foreign relations and military. As long as you claim to be an American citizen, you're going to be paying American taxes.
How are they not paying for road upkeep - they pay fuel costs...
Actually there is a good amount of data showing that current gasoline taxes are not high enough to pay for road maintenance. So road maintenance gets delayed and that's why we have crumbling roads, bridges, etc. The reason why this is is because the gas tax is flat and hasn't been adjusted for quite a while. So while costs keep going up due to inflation, the gas tax covers less and less. Technology is also getting more efficient so people can actually buy vehicles that consume less gas for the same distance traveled (thus lower tax revenue).
Oh, I like this. Let's just redefine "desktop" to mean something else where linux happens to dominate and we'll say "the linux desktop has arrived!!" By that logic I can redefine BSD to mean OSX and OSX to mean iOS and now that iGadgets are so popular the BSD desktop has arrived!
Of course it is all nonsense. By desktop we mean that PC that most office workers are forced to use. We mean the UI that those workers are forced to use. We mean the software platform and training everyone is put through. That "check point" on the average office worker's resume that says "knows how to use 'x' software". That software is currently called MS Windows and MS Office except in some major software houses where users are technical enough not to need training (think Google). But go to any non-technical company like say a company in the finance industry, or a paper pushing agency. MS Windows is everywhere. MS Office is everywhere.
That's not to say that integrators have taken Linux and developed their own product based on Linux. That is quite true as well! But remember, these are specialized applications. I'm not going to call the point-of-sale computer and software I saw at the local supermarket a "desktop" even if I very well know it had Gnome behind it.