Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Massive Negativity (Score 1) 218

I have a kill-switch, right now, and I have control over it. If my iPhone goes missing, I can lock or remotely wipe it, and they can't do anything to get it running again without my iCloud credentials. They can scrounge it for parts, but at least that's less appealing than a working iPhone, and it'll keep them from getting to any personal info I have on it.

I don't see why we should assume a kill-switch from other vendors would work substantially differently.

Comment Re:Massive Negativity (Score 1) 218

Let's just stop all technological advancement until we overthrow the US government. It sounds like that's the only way you'll let anybody invent anything novel or useful.

The government could use Siri to monitor everything I say, so let's disable that even though I use it every day. My girlfriend and I use "Find my Friends" to see when we might be coming home, but the government could use it to spy on us, so let's get rid of that. Let's stop using Gmail because the government can snoop on us through there. Let's also get rid of our webcams because the government can spy on us through them. I like the convenience of using fingerprint sensors on phones to secure them, but the government could abuse *that* too, so let's not use it.

Are the actions of the NSA and government in spying on us with no oversight right? Absolutely not, and people should be hung for treason. But it's a separate problem from giving consumers a kill-switch on their phone in case it gets stolen.

Comment Massive Negativity (Score 2) 218

You know, if humanity in general was as negative and paranoid towards every bit of technological change as the commenters on here trying to find every reason this won't work... We'd have never come out of the damned trees.

My iPhone 5 has a killswitch through the form of iOS 7 and my iCloud account. I like this. If you're so damned determined to believe that this feature will only be used by the government to oppress you, why do you own a smartphone to begin with?

Comment Space Seems Surprisingly Safe (Score 3, Insightful) 144

Given the fact that astronauts and cosmonauts have only died trying to launch from, and land on, the Earth, space itself seems surprisingly safe.

It's probably because all the excitement and explosions occur at the taking off and landing, and most of our actual time in space is spent traveling in big circles.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 255

Another part of the reason for iOS 7 being flat and text based is it makes it easier to graphically scale applications.

If Apple does release larger iPhones, they may do a jump in resolution at the same time. Since they've never had a huge number of different resolutions, iOS 7's flatter theme and improved text reflowing will make it easier for apps to appear the same that higher resolutions.

Comment Re:Bad call (Score 5, Insightful) 611

The debate isn't about convincing the creationists - it's about convincing anybody on the fence.

It's an unfortunate fact that it's necessary to constantly have fact-based evidence floating out there to counter the enormous amount of irrational nonsense. It's not necessarily the best voice that wins, but often the loudest.

Comment Re:money-making scheme (Score 3, Insightful) 348

If you look at the report Ars Technica discusses, they found that red light cameras at intersections were configured to cover those lanes that would would generate the most revenue but were not necessarily the most dangerous. Furthermore, only 10% of the revenue goes to the city, which means it's definitely a profit center for the company.

People are already rightfully suspicious of government's authority to levy fines and taxes, but we allow it because we know that in principle (if not always or even usually in practice) it's to further the public good. Private companies have no such social responsibility and no reason to not abuse their position to maximize how much money they can extract from the public.

Comment Re:meta-game (Score 2) 177

That gives me a brilliant idea for a way to salvage this game. They could include the code and call it SimDev.

Simulate the experience of being called in to finish a non-working software project that's gone over budget and missed half its requirements. Track down and locate SimBugs!

Intellisense, er, SimAdvisors will give you tips along the way! How close to zero can you get your fatal compile errors, er, rather, "SimComps"?

They could even include DLC as DLC. The "SimDLC" DLC will let you experience disabling features, and then attempt to rebrand them as value added features after launch!

Comment At last, platform equality. (Score 5, Insightful) 177

Maybe they're afraid that if they gave Mac users a non-broken version of SimCity, people would accuse them of playing favorites.

Really, this level of "quality" isn't much different from what the Windows users were delivered, so EA is just trying to be fair. "Look, we put just as much effort into our OS X products as Windows. Which just happens to be little to none. Now buy more DLC!"

Slashdot Top Deals

IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

Working...