In case you've been under a rock lately, HP, who most folks thought was a dollar short and a day late to the tablet party cleared out their inventory at dirt cheap prices and exited the market. A few weeks later we see that in fact, they were doing much better than they, or anyone else thought due to some creative numbers by Samsung. Sucks to be HP and they must be feeling pretty dumb right now.
Sorry someone thought that it was worth posting something relevant in this thread and offended you
well exactly. if you poke a hornets nest when it's just sitting there not hurting you, don't be shocked when you get stung. It's not that Apple wants to win, they want everyone else to lose. It almost seems Apple sees competition as "stealing" customers. The truth is the only way they'd have had these customers is if there was NO competition at all.
Personally, I don't know anyone with an iPad that seriously considered another device and i don't know anyone that picked another device that seriously considered an iPad. For both groups the fact that it was Apple was reason enough to buy or not buy an iPad.
well, the message Apple should be getting from this is "if you're going to be a dick and patent the only shape anyone is likely to use for a tablet and then sue everyone as if you're some great visionary then we're going to take our patents on something a bit more substantial and that we've so far been gracious enough not to ask you about and make you regret your decision."
Apple is honestly convinced that the rules really don't apply to them because they are soooo cooool. They are ALWAYS the victim...even when they aren't.
yeah because an endless parade of shiny gadgets that billions of people will never see is SOOO much more worthy than spending your own money to fight disease, poverty and illiteracy on a global scale. Bill isn't trying to buy his way to anything. Hey, maybe Steve gives privately, but the fact that Bill Gates gives publicly doesn't give Steve some moral high ground.
what games are these? the biggest space hog on my drive is WoW @ around 20GB, the next closest might be Fallout NV + DLC which is only around 8GB. Most other games (CoD, MoH, HL2) come in under that fully installed. I suppose if all you play are MMO's then 20GB could be a common size.
Anyway, what you suggest is exactly what I do, I don't see the need to have 50GB of games sitting on my drive when I can reinstall from Steam whenever. Particularly with an FPS since now days they tend to have damn little replay value (HL2 excepted). I keep probably 5 or 6 games permanently installed and the rest get downloaded when I'm in the mood to play. Granted I have 35Mb internet so that may not be practical for everyone.
you sir are a genius. We were just looking at in car systems, but I think we're just going to get a couple of those HP pads on clearance for $99 and load them up with kids shows, tuxpaint and all that good stuff now.
I installed DarkyROM 9.3 (froyo) a couple of weeks ago and have been pretty happy, particularly with battery life. How does it compare to Cyanogen? Any good reason to switch?
yeah actually. use one and one of those internal female condoms. whatever. there are plenty of couples out there with one HIV person that manage to stay together and have sex and minimize the risks of transmission. the point is HIV doesn't mean they have to give up sex forever.
"Yes, but try to explain that one to a spouse or girlfriend."
trying to understand this one... there is something called safe sex, you know. condoms are effective at stopping HIV transmission. and there's in-vitro fertilization for those that want to have kids. Does it mean a little extra precaution? Sure, but i'd like to think most spouses would rather see you alive and using condoms than dead. dunno about girlfriends, different level of commitment there.
Considering they view it as "high margin", the mark up must be pretty large. They may only need to increase sales 200%. Who knows though? No way of knowing unless the cable providers disclose the cost of getting and broadcasting the porn.
"Dropping the price would not increase sales that much"
I don't know about that. $10-$20 for a VOD seems crazy. Dropping it to $1 or $2 plants it right in impulse buy territory. The kind of thing someone might buy because the title is interesting/amusing just to see what's up. Who cares if they watch it all? They paid already.
I think you can look at the Apple app store for proof of this, plenty of people are willing to plop down a buck for a new fart app just to see if it's better than the OTHER fart app they bought.
google brake assist. here's one description of the system MB uses.
How Does Brake Assist Work?
"Slamming on the brakes sends a signal to the brake assist system, which senses the speed and pressure applied to the brake pedal. Emergency indicated, maximum clamping power is directed to the calipers and brake pistons as the Anti Lock Brake System (ABS) pumps the brake pedal. This maximum braking, while maintaining control stops the car as much as 45% faster than an equivalent vehicle without brake assist."
What if Brake Assist is Not Needed?
Mukilteo Mercedes Brake Assist is driver adaptive; learning your driving patterns and habits. This means the system knows the difference between an AHHHHHHHHHHHH braking moment and braking for traffic. Mercedes first offered this system in selected models in 1996; making brake assist standard equipment in all vehicles in 1998.
Yeah, the sensor solution works pretty well. I had a Mercedes Benz a few years ago that was able to detect a 'panic stop' situation and would apply the brakes much harder and faster than normally. I tried a lot of times to fool it, but the only times it fired were real panic stops. The difference in stopping time/distance was pretty startling. Once at around 50 mph there was an accident ahead of me and i slammed on the brakes. I stopped so abruptly, it felt like the back of the car was going to come off the ground and keep on going. that would have been funny, a 4 wheel luxury endo.
personally, i'd like thought controlled wipers/lights/signals/radio. Hell maybe even shifting. That would be cool.
i'd point to the people with kids market. It would be great to be able to put 500GB of ripped Barney, Sesame Street etc DVDs on a single disk for playback on the car media system. There are other people in the car not engaged in driving that would like some entertainment.
Sure, but it's a hell of a lot easier to create a small pump that uses ambient air (filtered no doubt) than it is to cram enough useful O2 into something that's not a pain in the ass to lug around. Even a backpack size pump has to be better than running around with O2 cylinders (and spares). Definitely a step in the right direction. cool.
The problem with the AOL comparison is that people had to actually sign up and PAY for AOL. Initially as a portal AND ISP, and later as just a portal. Kind of hard to convince all your friends and family to pay $14.99 a month to stay in touch. As more and more places online provided the same services for free, the cost/benefit for AOL nosedived. By the time AOL got a clue, it was too late.
Facebook provides an easy to use way for people to stay in touch. I certainly don't use much email to keep in contact with friends and relatives out of state these days. There will always be a market for that kind of tool and the average Joe that finally got on Facebook in 2010 won't be going anywhere. There are millions of Facebook users that are extremely averse to change. Even if some miracle service that was clearly better in every possible way came along they'd stay on Facebook. Myspace failed because they couldn't decide what the hell they wanted to be. Facebook has a clear identity.
What might happen is people get sick of 3000 "friends" and finally clean up their friends list, but I doubt it. Never mind the addictiveness of those crappy Zynga games. I know people that spaz if they don't mess with CafeWorld 12 times a day. They plan their schedules around being able to get online and cook virtual food. It's brought WoW type addiction to the masses. Anyway, I just don't see it going anywhere any time soon.
"Apple in particular, since they've already started developing their own battery technologies to save space and increase capacity."
Apple in particular so they can continue to justify non user replaceable batteries because their new batteries are "special". Come on Apple, if you just want more money admit it. Don't tell me it's because you couldn't find a way to package the internals so that the battery is accessible. Every other manufacturer seems to be able to make thin phones with replaceable batteries after all. Apple could come up with a 1 sq cm battery and would STILL embed it deep in the bowels of the device.
I've taken apart 2 iphone 3g's and replaced the batteries myself. Tiny parts and 45 min of dis-assembly/reassembly does NOT qualify as user replaceable. I just get so tired of companies lying about being greedy. Just admit it and stop with the BS and spin.
while we're on anecdotes... i've been hit by cars 5 times while cycling. 3 of them were drivers rolling through stop signs, even though I had gotten there first, stopped, and then gone on. 1 was an impatient lady that didn't seem to realize her light was still red and gunned it into the intersection. the last was a bozo that decided to back up at a light. into me... and let's see what about the thrown objects? firecrackers, cans, bottles. And the people that would rather clip you than dare to put a tire on or over the center line and give you some room. I could go on and on and on about the hostile asshat drivers I've dealt with over the years while I tend to obey the traffic laws like a good boy. I'd love for these tools to be on the other side someday.
Now, have i rolled through a stop sign intersection or turned on red when the sign clearly admonishes me for doing so? Sure, but I think the difference is I am very aware of my surroundings when i do so and if there's a vehicle around, i just stop. The consequences for me NOT seeing a car are just too severe. Drivers on the other hand forget they are driving 2000lb missiles and roll on through, oblivious to anything in the world.
The upside is all this drama has made me the most defensive driver on the planet. I'm convinced that people are really about to hit me for no reason at any moment lol.
we're holding it wrong? steve is that you? so basically you're saying that if users don't want to have to reboot, they should not use the pitifully small number of useful apps available for BlackBerry, rendering it even MORE outdated. I've had 2 BlackBerries that would hang. Completely frozen, you can push power or any other key or combination thereof all day long. The only way to get it back on is pop the battery. I was happy to go to iPhone and even happier to ditch iPhone for Android.
well as someone earlier posted, it's about making decisions faster than the competition. If they can analyze a transaction, assign a risk and make a decision faster, they make the money. If the competition also takes 8 hours to do an analysis, doing it in 3 min is huge. Who cares if it's outdated in 5 years? You build another with a fraction of the profits this one helped you earn you and keep chugging along.
sometimes, in some industries, first post IS important.
That's nice. The GOVERNMENT is also filtering everything that comes through that fiber and is only concentrating on kiddie porn at the moment because it's easy to get buy in. It won't stop there, their original filtering plans were much broader in scope and they will slip it in a bit at a time.
Enjoy your new Great Firewall, or maybe it's the Great Barrier Filter in your case. SO FAR we have none of these shenanigans in the U.S. (not for lack of groups that would love to see it though.)
sorry, but i see a lot of people asking where DO you get cheap HDMI cables. Personally, I've used http://www.cablesforless.com/Default.aspx for several years. I just get the cheapest HDMI cables they offer and they've worked fine. I can tell no difference between them and the pair of ridiculously expensive cables I was conned into when i got my first HDMI TV and devices. As a side benefit, they have lots of other hard to find cables and connectors and can custom make cables to your specs.
anyway. it's a good place to start if you're looking to save money on cables.
"In short, the hazard is very real - it's the mandatory evacuations that has kept the death toll so low" well noooo kidding. Evacuating a burning building prevents fire deaths too. So are you really saying that in order to evaluate the safety of an energy source we need to think about the number of people that COULD have died if we did some thing completely boneheaded like saying "your house is on fire, but just hang out a little longer, k?" Any society that dumb should just go back to the stone age.
This culture of risk aversion is getting out of hand. There is no such thing as a risk free life. Sorry, doesn't exist. People are jumping at shadows these days.
Slashdot Mirror
In case you've been under a rock lately, HP, who most folks thought was a dollar short and a day late to the tablet party cleared out their inventory at dirt cheap prices and exited the market. A few weeks later we see that in fact, they were doing much better than they, or anyone else thought due to some creative numbers by Samsung. Sucks to be HP and they must be feeling pretty dumb right now.
Sorry someone thought that it was worth posting something relevant in this thread and offended you
well exactly. if you poke a hornets nest when it's just sitting there not hurting you, don't be shocked when you get stung. It's not that Apple wants to win, they want everyone else to lose. It almost seems Apple sees competition as "stealing" customers. The truth is the only way they'd have had these customers is if there was NO competition at all.
Personally, I don't know anyone with an iPad that seriously considered another device and i don't know anyone that picked another device that seriously considered an iPad. For both groups the fact that it was Apple was reason enough to buy or not buy an iPad.
well, the message Apple should be getting from this is "if you're going to be a dick and patent the only shape anyone is likely to use for a tablet and then sue everyone as if you're some great visionary then we're going to take our patents on something a bit more substantial and that we've so far been gracious enough not to ask you about and make you regret your decision."
Apple is honestly convinced that the rules really don't apply to them because they are soooo cooool. They are ALWAYS the victim...even when they aren't.
yeah because an endless parade of shiny gadgets that billions of people will never see is SOOO much more worthy than spending your own money to fight disease, poverty and illiteracy on a global scale. Bill isn't trying to buy his way to anything. Hey, maybe Steve gives privately, but the fact that Bill Gates gives publicly doesn't give Steve some moral high ground.
what games are these? the biggest space hog on my drive is WoW @ around 20GB, the next closest might be Fallout NV + DLC which is only around 8GB. Most other games (CoD, MoH, HL2) come in under that fully installed. I suppose if all you play are MMO's then 20GB could be a common size.
Anyway, what you suggest is exactly what I do, I don't see the need to have 50GB of games sitting on my drive when I can reinstall from Steam whenever. Particularly with an FPS since now days they tend to have damn little replay value (HL2 excepted). I keep probably 5 or 6 games permanently installed and the rest get downloaded when I'm in the mood to play. Granted I have 35Mb internet so that may not be practical for everyone.
you sir are a genius. We were just looking at in car systems, but I think we're just going to get a couple of those HP pads on clearance for $99 and load them up with kids shows, tuxpaint and all that good stuff now.
I installed DarkyROM 9.3 (froyo) a couple of weeks ago and have been pretty happy, particularly with battery life. How does it compare to Cyanogen? Any good reason to switch?
yeah actually. use one and one of those internal female condoms. whatever. there are plenty of couples out there with one HIV person that manage to stay together and have sex and minimize the risks of transmission. the point is HIV doesn't mean they have to give up sex forever.
"Yes, but try to explain that one to a spouse or girlfriend."
trying to understand this one... there is something called safe sex, you know. condoms are effective at stopping HIV transmission. and there's in-vitro fertilization for those that want to have kids. Does it mean a little extra precaution? Sure, but i'd like to think most spouses would rather see you alive and using condoms than dead. dunno about girlfriends, different level of commitment there.
i have a nice late 1950's console stereo that is packed with tubes. has a really rich, full sound.
Considering they view it as "high margin", the mark up must be pretty large. They may only need to increase sales 200%. Who knows though? No way of knowing unless the cable providers disclose the cost of getting and broadcasting the porn.
"Dropping the price would not increase sales that much"
I don't know about that. $10-$20 for a VOD seems crazy. Dropping it to $1 or $2 plants it right in impulse buy territory. The kind of thing someone might buy because the title is interesting/amusing just to see what's up. Who cares if they watch it all? They paid already.
I think you can look at the Apple app store for proof of this, plenty of people are willing to plop down a buck for a new fart app just to see if it's better than the OTHER fart app they bought.
google brake assist. here's one description of the system MB uses.
How Does Brake Assist Work?
"Slamming on the brakes sends a signal to the brake assist system, which senses the speed and pressure applied to the brake pedal. Emergency indicated, maximum clamping power is directed to the calipers and brake pistons as the Anti Lock Brake System (ABS) pumps the brake pedal. This maximum braking, while maintaining control stops the car as much as 45% faster than an equivalent vehicle without brake assist."
What if Brake Assist is Not Needed?
Mukilteo Mercedes Brake Assist is driver adaptive; learning your driving patterns and habits. This means the system knows the difference between an AHHHHHHHHHHHH braking moment and braking for traffic. Mercedes first offered this system in selected models in 1996; making brake assist standard equipment in all vehicles in 1998.
Yeah, the sensor solution works pretty well. I had a Mercedes Benz a few years ago that was able to detect a 'panic stop' situation and would apply the brakes much harder and faster than normally. I tried a lot of times to fool it, but the only times it fired were real panic stops. The difference in stopping time/distance was pretty startling. Once at around 50 mph there was an accident ahead of me and i slammed on the brakes. I stopped so abruptly, it felt like the back of the car was going to come off the ground and keep on going. that would have been funny, a 4 wheel luxury endo. personally, i'd like thought controlled wipers/lights/signals/radio. Hell maybe even shifting. That would be cool.
i'd point to the people with kids market. It would be great to be able to put 500GB of ripped Barney, Sesame Street etc DVDs on a single disk for playback on the car media system. There are other people in the car not engaged in driving that would like some entertainment.
"mechanical ventilation is still needed"
Sure, but it's a hell of a lot easier to create a small pump that uses ambient air (filtered no doubt) than it is to cram enough useful O2 into something that's not a pain in the ass to lug around. Even a backpack size pump has to be better than running around with O2 cylinders (and spares). Definitely a step in the right direction. cool.
The problem with the AOL comparison is that people had to actually sign up and PAY for AOL. Initially as a portal AND ISP, and later as just a portal. Kind of hard to convince all your friends and family to pay $14.99 a month to stay in touch. As more and more places online provided the same services for free, the cost/benefit for AOL nosedived. By the time AOL got a clue, it was too late.
Facebook provides an easy to use way for people to stay in touch. I certainly don't use much email to keep in contact with friends and relatives out of state these days. There will always be a market for that kind of tool and the average Joe that finally got on Facebook in 2010 won't be going anywhere. There are millions of Facebook users that are extremely averse to change. Even if some miracle service that was clearly better in every possible way came along they'd stay on Facebook. Myspace failed because they couldn't decide what the hell they wanted to be. Facebook has a clear identity.
What might happen is people get sick of 3000 "friends" and finally clean up their friends list, but I doubt it. Never mind the addictiveness of those crappy Zynga games. I know people that spaz if they don't mess with CafeWorld 12 times a day. They plan their schedules around being able to get online and cook virtual food. It's brought WoW type addiction to the masses. Anyway, I just don't see it going anywhere any time soon.
"Apple in particular, since they've already started developing their own battery technologies to save space and increase capacity."
Apple in particular so they can continue to justify non user replaceable batteries because their new batteries are "special". Come on Apple, if you just want more money admit it. Don't tell me it's because you couldn't find a way to package the internals so that the battery is accessible. Every other manufacturer seems to be able to make thin phones with replaceable batteries after all. Apple could come up with a 1 sq cm battery and would STILL embed it deep in the bowels of the device.
I've taken apart 2 iphone 3g's and replaced the batteries myself. Tiny parts and 45 min of dis-assembly/reassembly does NOT qualify as user replaceable. I just get so tired of companies lying about being greedy. Just admit it and stop with the BS and spin.
while we're on anecdotes... i've been hit by cars 5 times while cycling. 3 of them were drivers rolling through stop signs, even though I had gotten there first, stopped, and then gone on. 1 was an impatient lady that didn't seem to realize her light was still red and gunned it into the intersection. the last was a bozo that decided to back up at a light. into me... and let's see what about the thrown objects? firecrackers, cans, bottles. And the people that would rather clip you than dare to put a tire on or over the center line and give you some room. I could go on and on and on about the hostile asshat drivers I've dealt with over the years while I tend to obey the traffic laws like a good boy. I'd love for these tools to be on the other side someday.
Now, have i rolled through a stop sign intersection or turned on red when the sign clearly admonishes me for doing so? Sure, but I think the difference is I am very aware of my surroundings when i do so and if there's a vehicle around, i just stop. The consequences for me NOT seeing a car are just too severe. Drivers on the other hand forget they are driving 2000lb missiles and roll on through, oblivious to anything in the world.
The upside is all this drama has made me the most defensive driver on the planet. I'm convinced that people are really about to hit me for no reason at any moment lol.
we're holding it wrong? steve is that you? so basically you're saying that if users don't want to have to reboot, they should not use the pitifully small number of useful apps available for BlackBerry, rendering it even MORE outdated. I've had 2 BlackBerries that would hang. Completely frozen, you can push power or any other key or combination thereof all day long. The only way to get it back on is pop the battery. I was happy to go to iPhone and even happier to ditch iPhone for Android.
well as someone earlier posted, it's about making decisions faster than the competition. If they can analyze a transaction, assign a risk and make a decision faster, they make the money. If the competition also takes 8 hours to do an analysis, doing it in 3 min is huge. Who cares if it's outdated in 5 years? You build another with a fraction of the profits this one helped you earn you and keep chugging along.
sometimes, in some industries, first post IS important.
That's nice. The GOVERNMENT is also filtering everything that comes through that fiber and is only concentrating on kiddie porn at the moment because it's easy to get buy in. It won't stop there, their original filtering plans were much broader in scope and they will slip it in a bit at a time.
Enjoy your new Great Firewall, or maybe it's the Great Barrier Filter in your case. SO FAR we have none of these shenanigans in the U.S. (not for lack of groups that would love to see it though.)
sorry, but i see a lot of people asking where DO you get cheap HDMI cables. Personally, I've used http://www.cablesforless.com/Default.aspx for several years. I just get the cheapest HDMI cables they offer and they've worked fine. I can tell no difference between them and the pair of ridiculously expensive cables I was conned into when i got my first HDMI TV and devices. As a side benefit, they have lots of other hard to find cables and connectors and can custom make cables to your specs.
anyway. it's a good place to start if you're looking to save money on cables.
"In short, the hazard is very real - it's the mandatory evacuations that has kept the death toll so low"
well noooo kidding. Evacuating a burning building prevents fire deaths too. So are you really saying that in order to evaluate the safety of an energy source we need to think about the number of people that COULD have died if we did some thing completely boneheaded like saying "your house is on fire, but just hang out a little longer, k?" Any society that dumb should just go back to the stone age.
This culture of risk aversion is getting out of hand. There is no such thing as a risk free life. Sorry, doesn't exist. People are jumping at shadows these days.