I just surf to my collection of 720p DVD handbrake rips and play.
And that's another example of why you still need a computer, you can't create handbrake rips on your ipad.
Well if you take it to that degree, I still need my NAS to hold my backed up DVD's and Video files... work files etc for my iPad and my computer to work. My computer simply won't do what the NAS can (massive storage of everything in one place and fully redundant). The readyNAS is an appliance too in many ways. It has some limitations which I have to work with, but don't really notice them now that my workflow is ironed out. I have to set it up and manage it remotely but I don't actually have to use a computer to make the necessary changes and configure it. I can manage my Ready NAS from my iPad (not tested yet). But I can't manage the NAS from itself; an outside device is required.
I have not done any DVD ripping in the past couple years, (my entire collection is on my NAS in Video_TS and.mp4's). Therefore, I don't really view myself as needing my computer for viewing my movies. Perhaps faulty logic?
At this point I no longer buy DVD's and probably won't in the future either. I won't need a machine for ripping. Currently, I just stream what I already own from my server or stream from the web. I no longer bother to waste time collecting movies since I think owning the media is mostly useless at this point. Everything I could possibly want is easily accessible online and the entire worlds media will be at the tip of our fingers in the next decade.
Apparently, a lot of problems in this debate about computer vs ipad derive from workflow. We have been working with the PC paradigm and there are some kinks between the new paradigm of smart devices and the cloud and the old paradigm of PC's and localized storage. But each day the gaps between these paradigms seems to be getting obliterated. Call it growing pains. So far I am lucky that I haven't experienced many of the annoyances other users have. I am learning that I haven't had enough hands on time to uncover the limitations since my workflow meshes better with the iPad than other peoples workflow meshes.
I use the computer as the tool for lots of things I need to do. The ipad is becoming an even more useful tool for most everything else. The iPad lifestyle is just more functional and I find myself reaching for it rather than sitting down at my desk with my computer more and more each day. I have only had an iPad for 4 months or so, but my netbook now languishes on the kitchen table and I rarely turn it on anymore. It has become a dinosaur and yet technically it has a wider degree of function. Yet it is not as functional somehow. The best computer is the one in your hand I suppose. Since the annoyances of work arounds hasn't imposed itself on me and I had not discovered the bottlenecks my workflow has been rather blissful up to this point.
My Infrant NAS shoots the video_TS data to my mac running VLC, the mac figures out how to play it and VLC streamer pulls the transcoded video from VLC.)
Well that involves having a Mac.
Yep.... I didn't mean to imply it didn't need the computer, but native video_TS streaming will not be a problem very soon. Certainly the iPad has more than enough processing power to allow for video_TS streaming. Heck my old Athlon 1.4ghz did just fine back in 2003 with 1 gig of ram. At best we are talking about a temporary speed bump.
Since my mac is on all the time and running VLC streamer, I can run a video_TS from anywhere in the house. I don't feel crippled or bottlenecked because VLC is not native on the iPad currently. That is merely a strange semantic difference of sorts. If anything, for me such a seamless setup is an odd extension of what the iPad can do, even if the computer is relaying it to the iPad. It functions so well and is
1. I didn't think my readyNas was transcoding anything. Perhaps I am wrong, but as far as I know, I just surf to my collection of 720p DVD handbrake rips and play. The NAS just shoots the data over to the device. The only transcoding I know of would be in the case of the video_TS folders on the NAS. My Infrant NAS shoots the video_TS data to my mac running VLC, the mac figures out how to play it and VLC streamer pulls the transcoded video from VLC.)
2. What do you have to sync with itunes to run VLC exactly? I don't know or understand exactly what you are meaning and am curious. Please explain if you have the time.
3. I don't have my device jailbroken, but for some people who have greater needs than my own, they might want to jailbreak is all I am saying. Currently, I haven't found the need to do it and yet I can get everything I want done to this point. I'm still playing around with my iPad 2.
Although "jailbreaking" is technically a hack, I look at it more like installing an app to get you more apps that do what you want. It isn't like doing the 3 days of Slackware compiles and tweaking to get linux up on my first PC box back in the day. It is more in line with double clicking the installer in windows and letting it run with a couple of reboots from my understanding. Hack has become a more pervasive term nowadays.
4. EyeFi interacts directly with my ipad... I don't need a network. I can be in the field shooting and my photos upload to the iPad directly. Or if I need to offload another card, I can use the card reader or USB dongle. That doesn't seem to be too bad. And it reads the Jpegs and NEF's (renames them as TIF's) and syncs them with the cloud when I get near a hotspot. Then the photos are available everywhere. Check this out this guys experience. http://www.vdsar.net/archives/924
5.
If i have a bunch of HD movies on a usb drive - because they don't fit on the device - that i want to take with me to say watch on the plane or in the hotel or whatever i can't do that with an ipad. Or if someone has given me documents on a usb stick? Again no go.
Firstly, how many movies does one need to take on a trip? And can't you stream something? There is so much media to stream using the iPad. Most of my handbrake movies only take a gig and if I want to carry a few movies with me I would load them strait on the iPad and not lug around an extra drive. But I digress....
Once again I don't have experience as far as movies and documents on USB. I would agree a person should be able to load a disk with movies and whatever else they might need. It is a pain that this can't be done without jailbreaking. It wasn't my point to say that there aren't limitations, but rather that I haven't really found much that for me personally is hard to navigate in my day to day use of the iPad. My personal use to this point has not been impinged upon much by the limitations of the iPad, and I suspect that most of the average users don't have much of a problem in their day to day use either. I also believe that all such limiting issues as you laid out so well, will eventually be non-issues in the near future and are mostly non-issues currently if you are willing to jailbreak.
For me and my experience so far, the iPad does work well for what I have needed it for. Once I bump into more issues I may become more perturbed, but I haven't yet.
6. Here are a couple things I found on deleting all of the camera roll photos. Yep you are definitely right to be annoyed.... they really need a "Delete All" option or an easy way to select large chunks of photos and videos for deletion. I haven't spent anytime deleting my photos yet so I was unaware of this problem, but you inspired me to check it all out. Here is what I found currently:
a. Tedious way if you have lots of photos: Photos button-->Albums-->Camera roll-->Arrow in box @ top right (iOS5)-->Touch all the photos you want
I would say the extra GPU power is required just to maintain the same level of performance. When you have 4x the amount of pixels you naturally look to 4x the power to drive them.
Perhaps although I think the graphics on the iPad 2 seem rather snappy. Rather snappy at 4x the resolution would be phenomenal. I suspect that the new iPad will seem to play 3-D games better than my current mac mini does and that would be rather nice. The resolution is already bigger than my current monitor and I suspect that the frame rates will be not bad. I definitely don't expect them to be bleeding edge in any spec, but it is likely that it will make for a rather nice gaming device with airplay and a bluetooth controller. Just pipe the source to an HDTV or something and game away in HD. Could be very nice and for the kids it would make a really nice console game machine. And with each yearly generation the specs will improve too. How many upgrades has the PS3 had in the past 4 or so years?
Well i own one and the problem is that it is limited by content formats and size, i can't just plug in external storage and use it, i have to access non-local content through itunes running on another computer, and even then sometimes i need to run another media server to transcode content because the ipad can't play it.
I suspect this problem will go away with successive generations and with more jailbroken apps that add the functionality folks desire. I was pleased to be able to stream my video_TS DVD's from my Infrant ReadyNAS. I have to use VLC streamer, but it does work. It is only a matter of time before VLC runs natively on Jailbroken iOS devices and then I won't need VLC Streamer.
I hear the Netportal app will let you access network drives directly without need for any other computer. It will also allow you to stream music and such directly from the drive without iTunes or a computer.
iFile from Cydia App Store allows you to upload and download files... no need for itunes. I'm sure there are others apps for most everything you want to do.
I don't really spend much time plugging drives and such into my machines anymore. Almost everything I do is now over the network on Wireless-N devices. My photos and videos can be piped to my iPad using my EyeFi SD Card. I don't see much of a wired world in the near future. (I know it is not as fast as wired currently is, but it is getting there rather quickly)
if i have data on a USB stick, say a video i've been given or a bunch of photos or a document, how do i get that on the ipad? Not exactly easy, i need a PC to do it.
There's also a bunch of niggling annoyances that would be trivial to overcome if not for the locked-down nature of the device, for example deleting all photos in the camera roll, you either need to sync it to a PC and then deselect them and sync it back or delete them one-by-one...which is annoying when you have hundreds. Or how do you delete the videos you've taken? You can't filter the camera roll by video/photo so you have to scroll through the whole roll looking for the video icons.
Yes... the iPad in its current form has some limitations which is why certain people need to jailbreak. Shouldn't have to, but I think perhaps most of this will iron itself out over time. I'm wondering if the camera/photo/video management will be different with the coming of iPhoto for the iPad. It seems as though the more big apps that make it to the device, the more capabilities it seems to be inheriting.
There are perhaps a lot of photo management apps available which can do the kinds of things you would want to do. Just poke around a bit.
I think you may find jailbreaking your machine useful and the
At this point I don't have a 720p variant. I am not expecting a double improvement over what I do already. But I am expecting what the ATV provides.... smooth video with an easy system to run for my family.
If I buy the 1080p ATV, I don't consider I need to think twice about jumping onboard. Does a $99 cheapie device that works better than my current home theater PC need a lot of thought? 3-4 broken DVD players have all cost more than the appleTV. BD's cost more than that last time I checked too.
My neighbor has an ATV 720p and it is by far the best video source he has coming into his system (no BD to compare but lots of other HD). My HTPC setup has been nice, but nowhere near as nice as the video on my neighbors glassy smooth Apple TV even the allegedly HD content is as smooth despite allegedly better resolution.
Plus with an Apple TV I won't have to be the IT guy making it work.....my wife and kids won't have to figure out how to get everything setup, swap the remotes and move browser windows around, have frequent crashes or lockups of XBMC or Boxee or Plex.
The quality of my HTPC right now varies depending on the source. Frankly the streaming at times on my HTPC has been jittery and sometimes the quality has not been what I would like. The last few weeks I have been streaming some movies from Amazon and the video freezes while the audio continues forcing me to have to get up and tinker with things to get them working again. This has been my HTPC experience.... sometimes things are flawless.... then they aren't until I spend a while tinkering. Sometimes a software update causes lots of issues with the various streaming services I have used. My neighbors streaming Netflix is greatly superior to all of the varied methods of streaming the same content with all of my various clients. Why? The source is the same. The clients don't seem to work as well.
Very smooth and crisp video with a 720p Apple tv for my neighbor has been very consistent. Now a 1080p ATV with a better processor.... sounds like a winner for me at a measly 99 bucks. Especially to reduce the sheer hassle for myself and my family. Jailbroken it will do basically as much as I currently do and the resolution won't be worse than what I am doing now.
Not sure there is much to decide upon now that it is 1080p unless I want to wait a couple more years for the next 1080p one with more features and possibly better 1080p???
incoherence correction.... "The kids can whiz around grandmas machine and leave her still looking for stuff while the kids have already found it an moved on."
What I meant to say is that the kids can whiz around on their ipad while grandma is still trying to fire up her machine and the will be finished with a task before she can even get going.
What kind of hacking do you need to do exactly? And what do you mean by hacking?
I don't have to hack with anything to make mine "just work". It works fine and fast for what my family needs. Far better than my dell netbook.The family iPad 2 is rather speedy I feel when I compare it with our netbook and it is much much faster than grandmas giant laptop. The kids can whiz around grandmas machine and leave her still looking for stuff while the kids have already found it an moved on. Just works is a very apt descriptor as far as I'm concerned. Like a microwave or toaster as far as complexity. As far as I know the processor isn't the limiting factor with iPads. And it seems that the iPad 3 is going to be even more capable with a quad core GPU gaming becomes pretty viable for those who are interested in such things.
I'm pretty sure the iPad is not an ARM appliance.
I dont need a PC to make the iPad work either. For most folks... aka my kids or my grandma, the iPad does enough of what they need to be all the heavy lifting they need. Your milage may vary, but I suspect you don't actually own one to compare anything with or have a use for one. To each his own.
I'm not sure your assertion that the new iPad is a let down is correct. Was anybody really expecting a giant leap since the iPad2 was released? Personally, I think the screen is going to really be a big leap forward.
Apple TV isn't really lackluster. Finally it has 1080P which is nice. Now I don't have to dicker with my HTPC stuff and try to make it work with my family and visitors. Anyone can make an apple TV appliance work. For me this makes it shine for only 100 bucks. Jailbreak it and you get much much more. http://firecore.com/atvflash-black
I plan on buying an Apple TV this weekend. It finally has 1080P which is what I have been waiting for as have a lot of other people. The only thud is the thud of my cash in apples coffers.;-}
They never really have. Politics is like the second oldest profession and has been screwing the people in a less pleasurable way, for the citizenry, the entire time.
At least we can vote sometimes and have some say in our governance. That just was not how things were for the bulk of human history until our constitution. But thing aren't perfect and never will be since people are involved.
Ah... learned from the Goldman Sachs-->FED revolving door thing have they..... Move to the FED.... create the regulations.... move back to GS to a bigger bonus and more stock options..... rinse and repeat.
Yep.... sucks when you have one option. I was happy with T-mobile for 12 years when I could use any of 3 carriers before I moved, now AT&T is the option in the area and it sucks because we are kind of stuck.
What?..... a politician says his administration is going to be the "most transparent" when none in history has been and it is "evil" that the transparency hasn't magically happened? That is a bit of a two hundred plus year old double standard. Since when has a politician saying things during a campaign been something believable?
They need something that runs on stuffed animals. I have thrown away many garbage bags of them and my kids keep getting more somehow. It is quite miraculous how they keep coming into the house.
Of course there are still a couple situation which could be problematic. Folks with faulty DNA repair coupled with malfunctioning or mis-calibrated machines. There have been cases of bad consequences in the past with defective machines causing severe damage and even death.
I suppose I don't understand the need for ionizing radiation scanners when 1mm scanners do not damage DNA. Why are we deploying them?
In general, if given the opportunity to avoid getting an Xray done at the doctor I will. Last time I was at the hospital with my daughter they wanted to do a CT of my daughter. They were quite insistent and insinuated that it was needed and I might not be doing the best thing for my daughter by not getting it.
I asked them how it would change treatment and they couldn't tell me. Finally I asked another doctor if they would recommend a different course of treatment once they did the CT. She told me it would just firm up the diagnosis. I passed. No sense exposing people to ionizing radiation of any sort just because they need to nail their diagnosis.
Since I view most of what goes on at the Airport security to be for show, they are exposing a lot of people to ionizing radiation just because. This is not really in the best interest of the public at large. A waste of time, taxpayer dollars, does little to protect the population from terrorism and needlessly exposes the public to ionizing radiation which is a health hazzard. Then of course there is the fact that people are being revealed naked for everyone. I think this is appalling personally.
It isn't the dose of any given exposure that will give you cancer.... it is the accumulated exposure. People can argue that the dose is so small as to be statistically insignificant, but then again they can't say if someone does end up with cancer that that scan was not the one that did it.
There is a risk when you have something emitting ionizing radiation in an open unshielded space for it to malfunction or not be properly calibrated which is what they found back in march or may of last year.
Anyhow radiation is a bit of a distraction and.... you are right that the likelihood is any given exposure causing cancer is small and the cancer issue pales in comparison with the modesty and privacy concerns.
I can just say that me an my family will not be walking thru them at any point.
Most of the organic farmers where I live are small time operations. They don't and wouldn't have the funds necessary if a lawsuit came their way to defend themselves. It would just put them out of business.
Maybe, but I can't think of a single instance of a farmer ever being sued for that. For intentionally selecting for and mass planting a cross pollinated crop, yes, but not for just being cross pollinated.
And lets not forget that a transgene isn't the only thing that can mess up your crops. If I grow OP seeds and my neighbor grown hybrids, or if I grow seedless citrus or persimmons and my neighbor's trees of another variety cross pollinated mine, I could lose my variety if I don't take proper precautions, or my fruit could end up with seeds. This is hardly a unique phenomenon.
I guess the bigger issue for Organic farmers isn't being sued for cross pollenation. The issue is that if their crops get cross pollenated by GMO or GE crops they have to throw the crop away and lose all of that money.... also something they can't usually afford.
Reading up a bit it seems that those being sued are saving seeds from one year to the next and using them again. This is against the contract they sign. Normally if a farmer buys regular seed they can save it over from year to year.
I think the parent article might be sketchy. I don't think it was organic farmers who were being targeted but small farmers who had contracts with Monsanto perhaps. I don't know of many Organic farmers who would contract with Monsanto "aka the great Satan" for their seeds. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
Your arguments are all very thoughtful and I commend you on them. I appreciate the list of articles and it will take me a considerable time to read a decent number of them to be able to understand them. I appreciate such a succinct source. Biofortified is a site I would say most people should have in their bookmarks. Right up my alley.
In my brief skimming of the articles, I stuck to the 'independent funded' studies. Most don't appear to be longitudinal however. The questions they answer are mostly specific to a particular limited question which is valuable, but are not exactly the kind of studies most people are talking about needing to determine the impact of widespread deployment of GMO's and their production systems. They paint a small patchwork picture which make it hard to get an overall picture. Additionally, there don't seem to be all that many studies collected. Is there a reason there seem to be so few?
I remember when I was studying Public Health and Medicine that for any tiny disease there were often hundreds of studies to sift through. Does the collection at biofortified.org represent the bulk of studies?
Longitudinal epidemiological or system wide studies analyzing collateral systems over time tend to reflect the overall impact of a particular GMO system deployment on the ecosystem. Such studies would be valuable in assessing if there is any unanticipated impact on the crops, surrounding ecosystems, or if there are deleterious effects on those who consume such crops whether human or animal over time. Often consequences and changes are not revealed immediately. As small examples... a B-12 deficiency can take 7-12 year to develop or in the case of smoking, lung cancer or emphysema can take decades to manifest.
Your assessment of natural crop genetic migration is accurate and something farmers have always had to deal with. Cisgenic seems to be the equivalent of test tube babies. Anti-sense GE manipulation would seem to make some people nervous since it involves us changing natural gene expression. Some might take a philosophic pause on that one.
No longer having Flavr Savr tomatoes is the direct result of pushing something out without due diligence. It seems to be the perfect example of why people are fired up about GMO's too. Companies and scientists often don't understand that people need to be made participants and be educated and involved in the process before foisting stuff on them.
The same mistakes are being made with GMO's regarding the public today. I think people understand that genetic manipulation is powerful. I think people have an innate sense that this power can do much good, but there is also potential for great harm. I don't think it is unreasonable for people to feel this way. A sense of caution often later proves to be valid and when it doesn't there is often little harm caused by caution.
It is important for those with knowledge such as yourself, to use it to do their due diligence for those who don't have the knowledge. It is also up to them to explain their knowledge in understandable ways. Likewise, it is imperative that those with such knowledge be seen to be doing all they can to make sure that society is safe even above and beyond the point at which they feel things are okgood for PR. Not doing so gives the impression that people are pulling the wool over ones eyes or that there is a lack of honesty which is where Monsanto is getting into trouble sometimes.
GMO is not equivalent with Good for Humanity nor Bad for Humanity. Any specific GMO needs it's proper vetting just like Flavr Savr. Flavr Savr may have been good, but lost the PR battle. You seem to be satisfied with the current level of GMO info which exists, but I am not. There is a gulf it would seem between my comfort level and yours as a scientist person who has worked more closely in Ag. That gap has to close is what I would argue before the firestorm will die down.
My old epidemiology professor always said that even in peer reviewed papers much of what appeared was im
I wasn't talking about 1mm scanners at any point and was talking about xray scanners.
I didn't claim Terahertz scanners were ionizing. Although there has been some peripheral claims that 1mm scanners can disrupt DNA strands by a different mechanism. But that has not been fully vetted. But that is not what I have been talking about. Not sure where you get me claiming Terahertz scanners are the problem because nowhere did I say that and I'm not sure you can show my ignorance on the subject when you can't even accurately portray what I say.
Most of my discourse has be about ionizing radiation and hence about the scanners in the US which use ionizing radiation. Roughly 50% of scanners in the US are x-ray scanners and perhaps a greater percentage of the next 1000 being rolled out. And this past March or May when they were tested, a percentage of them were found to be emitting 10x the radiation per scan that they were supposed to.
If this isn't concerning, I'm not sure what you would be concerned about. Xray equipment which is not operating normally has been the cause of numerous injuries and deaths. Now we have them open and unshielded in a public space. Fantastic!
Counter to what you say, there is NOT a lack of studies showing the negative and cummulative effects of ionizing radiation. That is just utter non-sense. What is being argued about the xray scanners is that the amount is so tiny so as not to be significant. But that has more to do with them being operational within certain parameters. If they are not then people will be exposed to higher levels of ionizing radiation. I would disagree with their use when there are scanners which can achieve the same goal which do not use ionizing radiation.
I'm glad you aren't bothered by scanners, but that is not how everyone feels for various reasons. I would never put one of my kids through any of them or myself. Ionizing scanners just need to go. And for me, all scanner need to go since they are just basically a veneer of safety which doesn't do much if anything for actual safety and security. Additionally, I don't care to have my junk on display for the Apes at the TSA especially when I am zero threat to any airline or passenger.
Exactly how many bombers have these things caught?..... None. The terrorists will just find other ways to terrorize. But meanwhile we will all be endlessly hassled for the spectacle of it all.
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Workers are workers.... government or private.
Can't get more human than human and we are all the same animal.
I just surf to my collection of 720p DVD handbrake rips and play.
And that's another example of why you still need a computer, you can't create handbrake rips on your ipad.
Well if you take it to that degree, I still need my NAS to hold my backed up DVD's and Video files... work files etc for my iPad and my computer to work. My computer simply won't do what the NAS can (massive storage of everything in one place and fully redundant). The readyNAS is an appliance too in many ways. It has some limitations which I have to work with, but don't really notice them now that my workflow is ironed out. I have to set it up and manage it remotely but I don't actually have to use a computer to make the necessary changes and configure it. I can manage my Ready NAS from my iPad (not tested yet). But I can't manage the NAS from itself; an outside device is required.
I have not done any DVD ripping in the past couple years, (my entire collection is on my NAS in Video_TS and .mp4's). Therefore, I don't really view myself as needing my computer for viewing my movies. Perhaps faulty logic?
At this point I no longer buy DVD's and probably won't in the future either. I won't need a machine for ripping. Currently, I just stream what I already own from my server or stream from the web. I no longer bother to waste time collecting movies since I think owning the media is mostly useless at this point. Everything I could possibly want is easily accessible online and the entire worlds media will be at the tip of our fingers in the next decade.
Apparently, a lot of problems in this debate about computer vs ipad derive from workflow. We have been working with the PC paradigm and there are some kinks between the new paradigm of smart devices and the cloud and the old paradigm of PC's and localized storage. But each day the gaps between these paradigms seems to be getting obliterated. Call it growing pains. So far I am lucky that I haven't experienced many of the annoyances other users have. I am learning that I haven't had enough hands on time to uncover the limitations since my workflow meshes better with the iPad than other peoples workflow meshes.
I use the computer as the tool for lots of things I need to do. The ipad is becoming an even more useful tool for most everything else. The iPad lifestyle is just more functional and I find myself reaching for it rather than sitting down at my desk with my computer more and more each day. I have only had an iPad for 4 months or so, but my netbook now languishes on the kitchen table and I rarely turn it on anymore. It has become a dinosaur and yet technically it has a wider degree of function. Yet it is not as functional somehow. The best computer is the one in your hand I suppose. Since the annoyances of work arounds hasn't imposed itself on me and I had not discovered the bottlenecks my workflow has been rather blissful up to this point.
My Infrant NAS shoots the video_TS data to my mac running VLC, the mac figures out how to play it and VLC streamer pulls the transcoded video from VLC.)
Well that involves having a Mac.
Yep.... I didn't mean to imply it didn't need the computer, but native video_TS streaming will not be a problem very soon. Certainly the iPad has more than enough processing power to allow for video_TS streaming. Heck my old Athlon 1.4ghz did just fine back in 2003 with 1 gig of ram. At best we are talking about a temporary speed bump.
Since my mac is on all the time and running VLC streamer, I can run a video_TS from anywhere in the house. I don't feel crippled or bottlenecked because VLC is not native on the iPad currently. That is merely a strange semantic difference of sorts. If anything, for me such a seamless setup is an odd extension of what the iPad can do, even if the computer is relaying it to the iPad. It functions so well and is
1. I didn't think my readyNas was transcoding anything. Perhaps I am wrong, but as far as I know, I just surf to my collection of 720p DVD handbrake rips and play. The NAS just shoots the data over to the device. The only transcoding I know of would be in the case of the video_TS folders on the NAS. My Infrant NAS shoots the video_TS data to my mac running VLC, the mac figures out how to play it and VLC streamer pulls the transcoded video from VLC.)
2. What do you have to sync with itunes to run VLC exactly? I don't know or understand exactly what you are meaning and am curious. Please explain if you have the time.
3. I don't have my device jailbroken, but for some people who have greater needs than my own, they might want to jailbreak is all I am saying. Currently, I haven't found the need to do it and yet I can get everything I want done to this point. I'm still playing around with my iPad 2.
Although "jailbreaking" is technically a hack, I look at it more like installing an app to get you more apps that do what you want. It isn't like doing the 3 days of Slackware compiles and tweaking to get linux up on my first PC box back in the day. It is more in line with double clicking the installer in windows and letting it run with a couple of reboots from my understanding. Hack has become a more pervasive term nowadays.
4. EyeFi interacts directly with my ipad ... I don't need a network. I can be in the field shooting and my photos upload to the iPad directly. Or if I need to offload another card, I can use the card reader or USB dongle. That doesn't seem to be too bad.
And it reads the Jpegs and NEF's (renames them as TIF's) and syncs them with the cloud when I get near a hotspot. Then the photos are available everywhere. Check this out this guys experience.
http://www.vdsar.net/archives/924
5.
If i have a bunch of HD movies on a usb drive - because they don't fit on the device - that i want to take with me to say watch on the plane or in the hotel or whatever i can't do that with an ipad. Or if someone has given me documents on a usb stick? Again no go.
Firstly, how many movies does one need to take on a trip? And can't you stream something? There is so much media to stream using the iPad. Most of my handbrake movies only take a gig and if I want to carry a few movies with me I would load them strait on the iPad and not lug around an extra drive. But I digress....
Once again I don't have experience as far as movies and documents on USB. I would agree a person should be able to load a disk with movies and whatever else they might need. It is a pain that this can't be done without jailbreaking. It wasn't my point to say that there aren't limitations, but rather that I haven't really found much that for me personally is hard to navigate in my day to day use of the iPad. My personal use to this point has not been impinged upon much by the limitations of the iPad, and I suspect that most of the average users don't have much of a problem in their day to day use either. I also believe that all such limiting issues as you laid out so well, will eventually be non-issues in the near future and are mostly non-issues currently if you are willing to jailbreak.
For me and my experience so far, the iPad does work well for what I have needed it for. Once I bump into more issues I may become more perturbed, but I haven't yet.
6. Here are a couple things I found on deleting all of the camera roll photos. Yep you are definitely right to be annoyed.... they really need a "Delete All" option or an easy way to select large chunks of photos and videos for deletion. I haven't spent anytime deleting my photos yet so I was unaware of this problem, but you inspired me to check it all out. Here is what I found currently:
a. Tedious way if you have lots of photos:
Photos button-->Albums-->Camera roll-->Arrow in box @ top right (iOS5)-->Touch all the photos you want
I would say the extra GPU power is required just to maintain the same level of performance. When you have 4x the amount of pixels you naturally look to 4x the power to drive them.
Perhaps although I think the graphics on the iPad 2 seem rather snappy. Rather snappy at 4x the resolution would be phenomenal. I suspect that the new iPad will seem to play 3-D games better than my current mac mini does and that would be rather nice. The resolution is already bigger than my current monitor and I suspect that the frame rates will be not bad. I definitely don't expect them to be bleeding edge in any spec, but it is likely that it will make for a rather nice gaming device with airplay and a bluetooth controller. Just pipe the source to an HDTV or something and game away in HD. Could be very nice and for the kids it would make a really nice console game machine. And with each yearly generation the specs will improve too. How many upgrades has the PS3 had in the past 4 or so years?
Well i own one and the problem is that it is limited by content formats and size, i can't just plug in external storage and use it, i have to access non-local content through itunes running on another computer, and even then sometimes i need to run another media server to transcode content because the ipad can't play it.
I suspect this problem will go away with successive generations and with more jailbroken apps that add the functionality folks desire. I was pleased to be able to stream my video_TS DVD's from my Infrant ReadyNAS. I have to use VLC streamer, but it does work. It is only a matter of time before VLC runs natively on Jailbroken iOS devices and then I won't need VLC Streamer.
I hear the Netportal app will let you access network drives directly without need for any other computer. It will also allow you to stream music and such directly from the drive without iTunes or a computer.
iFile from Cydia App Store allows you to upload and download files... no need for itunes. I'm sure there are others apps for most everything you want to do.
I don't really spend much time plugging drives and such into my machines anymore. Almost everything I do is now over the network on Wireless-N devices. My photos and videos can be piped to my iPad using my EyeFi SD Card.
I don't see much of a wired world in the near future. (I know it is not as fast as wired currently is, but it is getting there rather quickly)
if i have data on a USB stick, say a video i've been given or a bunch of photos or a document, how do i get that on the ipad? Not exactly easy, i need a PC to do it.
You don't need a PC if you have the camera connection kit for $29 bucks. USB adapter and SD card adapter.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC531ZM/A
There's also a bunch of niggling annoyances that would be trivial to overcome if not for the locked-down nature of the device, for example deleting all photos in the camera roll, you either need to sync it to a PC and then deselect them and sync it back or delete them one-by-one...which is annoying when you have hundreds. Or how do you delete the videos you've taken? You can't filter the camera roll by video/photo so you have to scroll through the whole roll looking for the video icons.
Yes... the iPad in its current form has some limitations which is why certain people need to jailbreak. Shouldn't have to, but I think perhaps most of this will iron itself out over time. I'm wondering if the camera/photo/video management will be different with the coming of iPhoto for the iPad. It seems as though the more big apps that make it to the device, the more capabilities it seems to be inheriting.
There are perhaps a lot of photo management apps available which can do the kinds of things you would want to do. Just poke around a bit.
I think you may find jailbreaking your machine useful and the
At this point I don't have a 720p variant. I am not expecting a double improvement over what I do already. But I am expecting what the ATV provides.... smooth video with an easy system to run for my family.
If I buy the 1080p ATV, I don't consider I need to think twice about jumping onboard. Does a $99 cheapie device that works better than my current home theater PC need a lot of thought? 3-4 broken DVD players have all cost more than the appleTV. BD's cost more than that last time I checked too.
My neighbor has an ATV 720p and it is by far the best video source he has coming into his system (no BD to compare but lots of other HD). My HTPC setup has been nice, but nowhere near as nice as the video on my neighbors glassy smooth Apple TV even the allegedly HD content is as smooth despite allegedly better resolution.
Plus with an Apple TV I won't have to be the IT guy making it work.....my wife and kids won't have to figure out how to get everything setup, swap the remotes and move browser windows around, have frequent crashes or lockups of XBMC or Boxee or Plex.
The quality of my HTPC right now varies depending on the source. Frankly the streaming at times on my HTPC has been jittery and sometimes the quality has not been what I would like. The last few weeks I have been streaming some movies from Amazon and the video freezes while the audio continues forcing me to have to get up and tinker with things to get them working again. This has been my HTPC experience.... sometimes things are flawless.... then they aren't until I spend a while tinkering. Sometimes a software update causes lots of issues with the various streaming services I have used. My neighbors streaming Netflix is greatly superior to all of the varied methods of streaming the same content with all of my various clients. Why? The source is the same. The clients don't seem to work as well.
Very smooth and crisp video with a 720p Apple tv for my neighbor has been very consistent. Now a 1080p ATV with a better processor.... sounds like a winner for me at a measly 99 bucks. Especially to reduce the sheer hassle for myself and my family. Jailbroken it will do basically as much as I currently do and the resolution won't be worse than what I am doing now.
Not sure there is much to decide upon now that it is 1080p unless I want to wait a couple more years for the next 1080p one with more features and possibly better 1080p???
But I didn't know that was what you meant. I didn't see anything about Cook or about the event. I have only been reading about the hardware.
My bad.
incoherence correction....
"The kids can whiz around grandmas machine and leave her still looking for stuff while the kids have already found it an moved on."
What I meant to say is that the kids can whiz around on their ipad while grandma is still trying to fire up her machine and the will be finished with a task before she can even get going.
But I wasn't referring to Cook. I was talking about the hardware.
You didn't say that Cook was a disappointment or lackluster.
What kind of hacking do you need to do exactly? And what do you mean by hacking?
I don't have to hack with anything to make mine "just work". It works fine and fast for what my family needs. Far better than my dell netbook.The family iPad 2 is rather speedy I feel when I compare it with our netbook and it is much much faster than grandmas giant laptop. The kids can whiz around grandmas machine and leave her still looking for stuff while the kids have already found it an moved on. Just works is a very apt descriptor as far as I'm concerned. Like a microwave or toaster as far as complexity.
As far as I know the processor isn't the limiting factor with iPads. And it seems that the iPad 3 is going to be even more capable with a quad core GPU gaming becomes pretty viable for those who are interested in such things.
I'm pretty sure the iPad is not an ARM appliance.
I dont need a PC to make the iPad work either. For most folks... aka my kids or my grandma, the iPad does enough of what they need to be all the heavy lifting they need. Your milage may vary, but I suspect you don't actually own one to compare anything with or have a use for one. To each his own.
Seems to me Apple has only treated the apple TV as a footnote.
I hardly see anything about this niche appliance.
Yet.... I am getting one this weekend.
Leftist money?
Huh?
I'm not sure your assertion that the new iPad is a let down is correct. Was anybody really expecting a giant leap since the iPad2 was released?
Personally, I think the screen is going to really be a big leap forward.
Apple TV isn't really lackluster. Finally it has 1080P which is nice. Now I don't have to dicker with my HTPC stuff and try to make it work with my family and visitors.
Anyone can make an apple TV appliance work. For me this makes it shine for only 100 bucks. Jailbreak it and you get much much more.
http://firecore.com/atvflash-black
You can put plex on the apple TV since 2010 or something.
Also check out:
http://firecore.com/atvflash-black
I plan on buying an Apple TV this weekend. ;-}
It finally has 1080P which is what I have been waiting for as have a lot of other people.
The only thud is the thud of my cash in apples coffers.
Talk about the apparent obliteration of citizens rights.... I thought the US was starting to turn to the darkside, but Canada is working hard eh?
They never really have. Politics is like the second oldest profession and has been screwing the people in a less pleasurable way, for the citizenry, the entire time.
At least we can vote sometimes and have some say in our governance. That just was not how things were for the bulk of human history until our constitution. But thing aren't perfect and never will be since people are involved.
Ah... learned from the Goldman Sachs-->FED revolving door thing have they.....
Move to the FED.... create the regulations.... move back to GS to a bigger bonus and more stock options..... rinse and repeat.
Yep.... sucks when you have one option. I was happy with T-mobile for 12 years when I could use any of 3 carriers before I moved, now AT&T is the option in the area and it sucks because we are kind of stuck.
What?..... a politician says his administration is going to be the "most transparent" when none in history has been and it is "evil" that the transparency hasn't magically happened?
That is a bit of a two hundred plus year old double standard.
Since when has a politician saying things during a campaign been something believable?
They need something that runs on stuffed animals. I have thrown away many garbage bags of them and my kids keep getting more somehow. It is quite miraculous how they keep coming into the house.
Thanks for the info. I find that I need to look into it more. For a long time I have thought it was about cummulative dosage.
Here is an interesting link which seems to have some merit, but I am no expert. I also am not an anti-nuclear person per se.
http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/radiation-the-no-safe-level-myth.html
Of course there are still a couple situation which could be problematic. Folks with faulty DNA repair coupled with malfunctioning or mis-calibrated machines. There have been cases of bad consequences in the past with defective machines causing severe damage and even death.
I suppose I don't understand the need for ionizing radiation scanners when 1mm scanners do not damage DNA. Why are we deploying them?
In general, if given the opportunity to avoid getting an Xray done at the doctor I will.
Last time I was at the hospital with my daughter they wanted to do a CT of my daughter. They were quite insistent and insinuated that it was needed and I might not be doing the best thing for my daughter by not getting it.
I asked them how it would change treatment and they couldn't tell me. Finally I asked another doctor if they would recommend a different course of treatment once they did the CT. She told me it would just firm up the diagnosis.
I passed. No sense exposing people to ionizing radiation of any sort just because they need to nail their diagnosis.
Since I view most of what goes on at the Airport security to be for show, they are exposing a lot of people to ionizing radiation just because. This is not really in the best interest of the public at large. A waste of time, taxpayer dollars, does little to protect the population from terrorism and needlessly exposes the public to ionizing radiation which is a health hazzard. Then of course there is the fact that people are being revealed naked for everyone. I think this is appalling personally.
It isn't the dose of any given exposure that will give you cancer.... it is the accumulated exposure. People can argue that the dose is so small as to be statistically insignificant, but then again they can't say if someone does end up with cancer that that scan was not the one that did it.
There is a risk when you have something emitting ionizing radiation in an open unshielded space for it to malfunction or not be properly calibrated which is what they found back in march or may of last year.
Anyhow radiation is a bit of a distraction and.... you are right that the likelihood is any given exposure causing cancer is small and the cancer issue pales in comparison with the modesty and privacy concerns.
I can just say that me an my family will not be walking thru them at any point.
Most of the organic farmers where I live are small time operations. They don't and wouldn't have the funds necessary if a lawsuit came their way to defend themselves. It would just put them out of business.
Maybe, but I can't think of a single instance of a farmer ever being sued for that. For intentionally selecting for and mass planting a cross pollinated crop, yes, but not for just being cross pollinated.
And lets not forget that a transgene isn't the only thing that can mess up your crops. If I grow OP seeds and my neighbor grown hybrids, or if I grow seedless citrus or persimmons and my neighbor's trees of another variety cross pollinated mine, I could lose my variety if I don't take proper precautions, or my fruit could end up with seeds. This is hardly a unique phenomenon.
I guess the bigger issue for Organic farmers isn't being sued for cross pollenation. The issue is that if their crops get cross pollenated by GMO or GE crops they have to throw the crop away and lose all of that money.... also something they can't usually afford.
Reading up a bit it seems that those being sued are saving seeds from one year to the next and using them again. This is against the contract they sign. Normally if a farmer buys regular seed they can save it over from year to year.
I think the parent article might be sketchy.
I don't think it was organic farmers who were being targeted but small farmers who had contracts with Monsanto perhaps. I don't know of many Organic farmers who would contract with Monsanto "aka the great Satan" for their seeds. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
Your arguments are all very thoughtful and I commend you on them. I appreciate the list of articles and it will take me a considerable time to read a decent number of them to be able to understand them. I appreciate such a succinct source. Biofortified is a site I would say most people should have in their bookmarks. Right up my alley.
In my brief skimming of the articles, I stuck to the 'independent funded' studies. Most don't appear to be longitudinal however. The questions they answer are mostly specific to a particular limited question which is valuable, but are not exactly the kind of studies most people are talking about needing to determine the impact of widespread deployment of GMO's and their production systems. They paint a small patchwork picture which make it hard to get an overall picture. Additionally, there don't seem to be all that many studies collected. Is there a reason there seem to be so few?
I remember when I was studying Public Health and Medicine that for any tiny disease there were often hundreds of studies to sift through. Does the collection at biofortified.org represent the bulk of studies?
Longitudinal epidemiological or system wide studies analyzing collateral systems over time tend to reflect the overall impact of a particular GMO system deployment on the ecosystem. Such studies would be valuable in assessing if there is any unanticipated impact on the crops, surrounding ecosystems, or if there are deleterious effects on those who consume such crops whether human or animal over time. Often consequences and changes are not revealed immediately. As small examples... a B-12 deficiency can take 7-12 year to develop or in the case of smoking, lung cancer or emphysema can take decades to manifest.
Your assessment of natural crop genetic migration is accurate and something farmers have always had to deal with. Cisgenic seems to be the equivalent of test tube babies. Anti-sense GE manipulation would seem to make some people nervous since it involves us changing natural gene expression. Some might take a philosophic pause on that one.
No longer having Flavr Savr tomatoes is the direct result of pushing something out without due diligence. It seems to be the perfect example of why people are fired up about GMO's too. Companies and scientists often don't understand that people need to be made participants and be educated and involved in the process before foisting stuff on them.
The same mistakes are being made with GMO's regarding the public today. I think people understand that genetic manipulation is powerful. I think people have an innate sense that this power can do much good, but there is also potential for great harm. I don't think it is unreasonable for people to feel this way. A sense of caution often later proves to be valid and when it doesn't there is often little harm caused by caution.
It is important for those with knowledge such as yourself, to use it to do their due diligence for those who don't have the knowledge. It is also up to them to explain their knowledge in understandable ways. Likewise, it is imperative that those with such knowledge be seen to be doing all they can to make sure that society is safe even above and beyond the point at which they feel things are okgood for PR. Not doing so gives the impression that people are pulling the wool over ones eyes or that there is a lack of honesty which is where Monsanto is getting into trouble sometimes.
GMO is not equivalent with Good for Humanity nor Bad for Humanity. Any specific GMO needs it's proper vetting just like Flavr Savr. Flavr Savr may have been good, but lost the PR battle. You seem to be satisfied with the current level of GMO info which exists, but I am not. There is a gulf it would seem between my comfort level and yours as a scientist person who has worked more closely in Ag. That gap has to close is what I would argue before the firestorm will die down.
My old epidemiology professor always said that even in peer reviewed papers much of what appeared was im
Ah... thanks.
Lively discussion eh?
I wasn't talking about 1mm scanners at any point and was talking about xray scanners.
I didn't claim Terahertz scanners were ionizing. Although there has been some peripheral claims that 1mm scanners can disrupt DNA strands by a different mechanism. But that has not been fully vetted. But that is not what I have been talking about. Not sure where you get me claiming Terahertz scanners are the problem because nowhere did I say that and I'm not sure you can show my ignorance on the subject when you can't even accurately portray what I say.
Most of my discourse has be about ionizing radiation and hence about the scanners in the US which use ionizing radiation.
Roughly 50% of scanners in the US are x-ray scanners and perhaps a greater percentage of the next 1000 being rolled out. And this past March or May when they were tested, a percentage of them were found to be emitting 10x the radiation per scan that they were supposed to.
If this isn't concerning, I'm not sure what you would be concerned about. Xray equipment which is not operating normally has been the cause of numerous injuries and deaths. Now we have them open and unshielded in a public space. Fantastic!
Counter to what you say, there is NOT a lack of studies showing the negative and cummulative effects of ionizing radiation. That is just utter non-sense. What is being argued about the xray scanners is that the amount is so tiny so as not to be significant. But that has more to do with them being operational within certain parameters. If they are not then people will be exposed to higher levels of ionizing radiation. I would disagree with their use when there are scanners which can achieve the same goal which do not use ionizing radiation.
I'm glad you aren't bothered by scanners, but that is not how everyone feels for various reasons. I would never put one of my kids through any of them or myself. Ionizing scanners just need to go. And for me, all scanner need to go since they are just basically a veneer of safety which doesn't do much if anything for actual safety and security. Additionally, I don't care to have my junk on display for the Apes at the TSA especially when I am zero threat to any airline or passenger.
Exactly how many bombers have these things caught?..... None. The terrorists will just find other ways to terrorize. But meanwhile we will all be endlessly hassled for the spectacle of it all.