Google and Apple can't change how much people obsess about them.
Nor would they want to. The perpetual, intense attention given to Apple's products, while it might annoy us who regularly pay attention to this stuff, has the very beneficial side effect of spreading the word to many other people that would otherwise be ignorant of their existence. More people hear about it, more people buy it. Simple.
Do the outrageous expectations hurt sales from those of us who may get annoyed with the constant attention? Not likely. I don't think too many people will decide not to buy an iPhone simply because of the obsession of fanboys. The people whining about and pointing fingers at the fanboys probably resolved not to buy one right from the get-go anyway. The rest of us cheerfully ignore the hype, and I suspect a lot of us will buy the iPhone regardless.
True, children don't understand anything without exposure, all the more reason to expose them. Perhaps children aren't mature enough to handle it. True, nobody is mature enough to handle it until they have been exposed to it and there is no justification for hindering or retarding the maturation of a human being so they can enjoy ignorant bliss for a prolonged period of time.
The other reply was right: it is glaringly obvious that you don't have kids, and that you have minimal experience with them at all. The reason is simple: you don't understand at all why children don't understand things; you seem to think it's for lack of exposure. Hell, let's expose the world's 5-year-olds to blood and gore, then they're all good to go! To hell with age restrictions, let them drink and vote, too!
Here's an idea: the fact that children cannot properly understand some things is not because of lack of exposure. Children are not adults learning the ways of the world. Children are developing beings who are not fully capable of rational decision-making. A parent showing his kids violence implies that he finds it acceptable, when in fact it most certainly isn't.
Children learn by playing copycat, the whole "monkey see, monkey do" sort of thing. They regularly copy the behavior patterns of their parents, because they trust them and they observe them the most. Show a child violence, though, and he will imitate that, too, whether it's gunplay or physical assault or something worse. Young children are largely incapable of discerning right from wrong. Even teens are not fully capable.
The correct solution is to slowly expose violence, but make it clear that it is wrong. As they become older--and more capable of rational thought and moral judgment--expose some more. Let them learn at a good pace exactly why violence is bad.
Who says it is bad to not feel the need to gasp in shock when one sees death and violence? If that is real life then why should we be afraid of or shocked by it?
In what perverted alternate reality is GTA real life?
Perhaps that lack of morality is only shocking to you because you were brainwashed as a child...?
The only possible interpretation I can derive from this comment is that you think a lack of morality is a good thing, which I don't understand at all. Morality is caused by brainwashing? I hope you just phrased something poorly.
I don't like what Massachusetts is doing at all, but it's a hell of a lot better than what you propose. I admire your "let everyone decide for themselves" attitude and I agree with your anti-censorship stance, but in regards to children, they are misplaced.
Um... what? Why was your incoherent rant modded up?
0% of software can be installed as a non-admin
Wrong. Any program that can be installed by copying it to any folder (besides Programs) does not need admin access. This includes small programs like uTorrent and VG emulators.
even if you know the admin l/p
Wrong, again. In XP, for example (I haven't used Vista), right-click > "Run As..." is all you need. Not knowing this trick can cause confusion--installers might finish way too quickly and actually install nothing, without a single "permission denied" notification--but installation is indeed very possible.
After that, 80% of it requires you to be logged in as an administrator.
Uh, no. Enter the password as above and you're good to go.
Please, there's plenty of material for which to bash Microsoft. Don't make stuff up.
And mods, don't mod something up because you agree with the opinion; that's what digg is for.
Experimentation is *the* way that users learn stuff.
And some experiment by playing around in System Preferences (or Control Panel, but it's not nearly as good). How is this method inferior, or rather, how is it not superior to random key presses and crossed fingers?
Seriously, you want an OS that does exactly what you want at boot time? Use Unix. You want something that works reasonably without you having to mess with it? Use Windows.
Best of both worlds: set the default to load a pre-saved boot image, or hold down a hotkey to go through an auto-detect boot sequence. Have the initial screen say "Hold D to auto-Detect new hardware" so ignorant people don't have to dig through manuals to find out how to get their computer to use their shiny new parts.
Sometimes I would just like to do things and go places without broadcasting the news to everyone I know, and the measly temporary opt-out certainly doesn't cut it for me. Whether I trust my friends or not is irrelevant. If you like it, by all means, do it, but count me out.
I just hope that the ability to (easily) track others will stay limited to subscribers of this and similar services.
As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.
As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.
In other news, the Pentagon's News Correction Unit's first telegram is reported to contain the cryptic sentence "times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling."
I thought the name was quite amusing. While the pronunciation of zhong1 ke1 sounds sort of like "junk" to English speakers, it actually translates roughly to "Central Technology". Talk about your subliminal messages:P
(Hmm, Slashdot doesn't accept Chinese characters. Bummer.)
Expect to have demands like 'we need an entire application written this week, don't worry about design or figuring out what the application really needs to do, just write something.'
You mean random experimentation? Having a bunch of people write something, then taking the most interesting ideas and developing them into something usable, then into something for general consumption? Like R&D, or Google Labs?
Sounds awesome. Can I have the job you turned down?:)
The vast majority of this age group just don't care enough to vote.
That's not entirely true. It's difficult for this age group to be properly registered.
Oh, you say, but registration via mail is so easy! But you're forgetting that the just-turned-18 group is heading for college, quite possibly out of state.
Here's my situation. I'm leaving for college, which is out of state (across the country, as a matter of fact). I can submit a mailed registration, but they need valid ID. I can either submit with the mailed registration a copy of a bill, a paycheck, or other government doc showing my residence (I have none of these), or, the first time I vote, I can show valid ID (like my passport). Problem is... I'll be out of state! I will/would be submitting an absentee ballot. There's no way to show any NJ voting official my ID when I'm three time zones away.
Most of these register-to-vote sites neglect to show an alternative way to register to vote, so any students in my position who don't know where to go to register and get the ID stuff taken care of. (I'm not even sure where to go myself; the county seat, or something?)
So, to go through all that trouble (did I mention I can't drive?), all just for a single vote among millions? It's not anyone's fault (just horrible timing), but I should think it's easy to see why many young adults don't find it worth it. True, a large portion probably don't care to vote at all, but many are stuck in situations like mine.
The good news is that being compliant is not difficult nor is it expensive.
It's either expensive or it's difficult. It's (relatively) expensive if the party in question previously went with the lowest bidder, and decides to hire a more competent web designer.
It's difficult for both the employer and the employed lowest bidder if the employer decides to demand said lowest bidder to construct the web site according to compliance rules. It would also be quite the soap opera.
Google's crawlers won't be able to index this information unless the folks working for facebook open it up to them.
It's worth mentioning that the protection over user content consists of more than a Robots.txt file. Facebook is much more privacy-minded than MySpace.
I was on the fence about the additions to Facebook. On the one hand, I agree with most of the Slashdotters here in that most of the people -- I should say, studests -- probably don't have a good grasp of how public the Internet really is. The newsfeeds were then a constant reminder that content uploaded can and most likely will be seen by unwanted people.
On the other hand, the newsfeeds were a gross exaggeration of what internet publicity will mean to most people. I remember an argument given by a fellow slashdotter (too lazy to look up the name, so props to the original poster) that the newsfeeds were dehumanizing, in that when someone breaks up and puts the information on facebook, the intent is so that his/her friends can gradually learn of the breakup, not all simultaneously receive a notice "John Smith is no longer in a relationship." The point is not that the person wants it to be private, but that the person wants it to be a gradual dissemination.
The main problem I have with most of the arguments on Slashdot is that they assume a false dilemma: post info on the Internet, and EVERYONE EVERYWHERE WILL KNOW!! Or, if you don't want that to happen, DON'T POST ON THE INTERNET!! I think it should be quite clear that there are problems with this. There exists a middle ground between the ignorance of normal Internet users and the alarmist attitude of most Slashdotters.
Another thing: a lot of Slahsdotters said that if I want something private, don't post it on the Internet. But keeping a piece of info off the Internet is no assurance of privacy. Indeed, politicians, Hollywood stars, and many other public figures have their personal lives, information, and past scrutinized by media, and the uncovered information is disseminated to the public, whether wanted or not. But if you're worried about that happening to you, is the solution to stop writing, and stop speaking, and burn all records of your past? Of course not. The practical thing is to try to limit access to that information. Maybe let close friends A, B, and C look at your personal stuff, and you just have to trust them not to spread that info to persons D, E, and F.
Facebook's goal was just that: let friends A, B, and C (and D, and E... and whomever else you want) have access to your history and personal info that you will share, and limit (or outright forbid) others' access to that information--and you just have to hope that you can trust your friends. Whether said info is on the internet or not is of little importance.
There's another scenario where the chime doesn't sound, and it doesn't involve holding down a key. If the system is booting up from a hibernate*, the chime never sounds. If I'm planning to go to the library in the morning and I don't want that pesky LED lighting up my entire room, I just make sure to suspend my OS X session to disk. No chime, no embarrassment.
*But wait! There's no "hibernate" option! For those who don't know (I had to dig a little to find this out), type in the terminal sudo pmset hibernatemode NUM, where NUM is either 1 for hibernate or 0 for normal sleep. With hibernatemode set to 1, I just close the lid of my MacBook (non-laptop users can go to Apple > Sleep) and OS X drifts off into blissful hibernation**.
**If you dual/triple boot, booting into Windows or Linux (or at least Ubuntu) wipes the hibernation data. I found this out the oops-I-did-something-stupid way. Durr.
Slashdot Mirror
Do the outrageous expectations hurt sales from those of us who may get annoyed with the constant attention? Not likely. I don't think too many people will decide not to buy an iPhone simply because of the obsession of fanboys. The people whining about and pointing fingers at the fanboys probably resolved not to buy one right from the get-go anyway. The rest of us cheerfully ignore the hype, and I suspect a lot of us will buy the iPhone regardless.
Here's an idea: the fact that children cannot properly understand some things is not because of lack of exposure. Children are not adults learning the ways of the world. Children are developing beings who are not fully capable of rational decision-making. A parent showing his kids violence implies that he finds it acceptable, when in fact it most certainly isn't.
Children learn by playing copycat, the whole "monkey see, monkey do" sort of thing. They regularly copy the behavior patterns of their parents, because they trust them and they observe them the most. Show a child violence, though, and he will imitate that, too, whether it's gunplay or physical assault or something worse. Young children are largely incapable of discerning right from wrong. Even teens are not fully capable.
The correct solution is to slowly expose violence, but make it clear that it is wrong. As they become older--and more capable of rational thought and moral judgment--expose some more. Let them learn at a good pace exactly why violence is bad.
In what perverted alternate reality is GTA real life?
The only possible interpretation I can derive from this comment is that you think a lack of morality is a good thing, which I don't understand at all. Morality is caused by brainwashing? I hope you just phrased something poorly.
I don't like what Massachusetts is doing at all, but it's a hell of a lot better than what you propose. I admire your "let everyone decide for themselves" attitude and I agree with your anti-censorship stance, but in regards to children, they are misplaced.
Wrong. Any program that can be installed by copying it to any folder (besides Programs) does not need admin access. This includes small programs like uTorrent and VG emulators.
Wrong, again. In XP, for example (I haven't used Vista), right-click > "Run As
Uh, no. Enter the password as above and you're good to go.
Please, there's plenty of material for which to bash Microsoft. Don't make stuff up.
And mods, don't mod something up because you agree with the opinion; that's what digg is for.
Oh, wait
Grammar^W Vocab Nazi, I know. I'll craw back under my rock now.
/ducks tomato
I think that's a pretty simple solution.
Sometimes I would just like to do things and go places without broadcasting the news to everyone I know, and the measly temporary opt-out certainly doesn't cut it for me. Whether I trust my friends or not is irrelevant. If you like it, by all means, do it, but count me out.
I just hope that the ability to (easily) track others will stay limited to subscribers of this and similar services.
The Wii will NOT come with Wii Sports. It will be sold separately for 4800 yen (probably around $40).
This is the press release (in Japanese) showing what comes with the Wii. No Wii Sports.
Tch. Everyone knows that the real top 5 are:
1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
2. Halo 2
3. Half Life 2
4. Counter Strike
5. Battlefield 2
All my 11-year-old neighbors told me so.
Wasn't it already announced that Opera had created a version of their browser for the Wii?
I thought the name was quite amusing. While the pronunciation of zhong1 ke1 sounds sort of like "junk" to English speakers, it actually translates roughly to "Central Technology". Talk about your subliminal messages :P
(Hmm, Slashdot doesn't accept Chinese characters. Bummer.)
Sounds awesome. Can I have the job you turned down?
Oh, you say, but registration via mail is so easy! But you're forgetting that the just-turned-18 group is heading for college, quite possibly out of state.
Here's my situation. I'm leaving for college, which is out of state (across the country, as a matter of fact). I can submit a mailed registration, but they need valid ID. I can either submit with the mailed registration a copy of a bill, a paycheck, or other government doc showing my residence (I have none of these), or, the first time I vote, I can show valid ID (like my passport). Problem is
Most of these register-to-vote sites neglect to show an alternative way to register to vote, so any students in my position who don't know where to go to register and get the ID stuff taken care of. (I'm not even sure where to go myself; the county seat, or something?)
So, to go through all that trouble (did I mention I can't drive?), all just for a single vote among millions? It's not anyone's fault (just horrible timing), but I should think it's easy to see why many young adults don't find it worth it. True, a large portion probably don't care to vote at all, but many are stuck in situations like mine.
The Chinese firewall does not block Slashdot.
It's difficult for both the employer and the employed lowest bidder if the employer decides to demand said lowest bidder to construct the web site according to compliance rules. It would also be quite the soap opera.
Uh, maybe I lack the right amount of delicacy needed here, but
I was on the fence about the additions to Facebook. On the one hand, I agree with most of the Slashdotters here in that most of the people -- I should say, studests -- probably don't have a good grasp of how public the Internet really is. The newsfeeds were then a constant reminder that content uploaded can and most likely will be seen by unwanted people.
On the other hand, the newsfeeds were a gross exaggeration of what internet publicity will mean to most people. I remember an argument given by a fellow slashdotter (too lazy to look up the name, so props to the original poster) that the newsfeeds were dehumanizing, in that when someone breaks up and puts the information on facebook, the intent is so that his/her friends can gradually learn of the breakup, not all simultaneously receive a notice "John Smith is no longer in a relationship." The point is not that the person wants it to be private, but that the person wants it to be a gradual dissemination.
The main problem I have with most of the arguments on Slashdot is that they assume a false dilemma: post info on the Internet, and EVERYONE EVERYWHERE WILL KNOW!! Or, if you don't want that to happen, DON'T POST ON THE INTERNET!! I think it should be quite clear that there are problems with this. There exists a middle ground between the ignorance of normal Internet users and the alarmist attitude of most Slashdotters.
Another thing: a lot of Slahsdotters said that if I want something private, don't post it on the Internet. But keeping a piece of info off the Internet is no assurance of privacy. Indeed, politicians, Hollywood stars, and many other public figures have their personal lives, information, and past scrutinized by media, and the uncovered information is disseminated to the public, whether wanted or not. But if you're worried about that happening to you, is the solution to stop writing, and stop speaking, and burn all records of your past? Of course not. The practical thing is to try to limit access to that information. Maybe let close friends A, B, and C look at your personal stuff, and you just have to trust them not to spread that info to persons D, E, and F.
Facebook's goal was just that: let friends A, B, and C (and D, and E... and whomever else you want) have access to your history and personal info that you will share, and limit (or outright forbid) others' access to that information--and you just have to hope that you can trust your friends. Whether said info is on the internet or not is of little importance.
Try not to use absolutes. It paints you simpleminded.
Keeping track of all of one's promises, profused beliefs, and excuses is not for the weak-minded.
There's another scenario where the chime doesn't sound, and it doesn't involve holding down a key. If the system is booting up from a hibernate*, the chime never sounds. If I'm planning to go to the library in the morning and I don't want that pesky LED lighting up my entire room, I just make sure to suspend my OS X session to disk. No chime, no embarrassment.
*But wait! There's no "hibernate" option! For those who don't know (I had to dig a little to find this out), type in the terminal sudo pmset hibernatemode NUM, where NUM is either 1 for hibernate or 0 for normal sleep. With hibernatemode set to 1, I just close the lid of my MacBook (non-laptop users can go to Apple > Sleep) and OS X drifts off into blissful hibernation**.
**If you dual/triple boot, booting into Windows or Linux (or at least Ubuntu) wipes the hibernation data. I found this out the oops-I-did-something-stupid way. Durr.