Comment Re:Clarification mayhaps? (Score 1) 382
Change angles so that at least at least two shots get overlapped cats
Or just use a shotgun.
Comment Re:Real Ratina Display (Score 1) 476
Just for grins, I measured where I hold my phone (by playing a game and then having my wife measure).
13 inches, give or take a bit since I seem to move my head around a bit.
I suspect it has a lot to do with your vision and comfortable arm angles.
iPhone 4's "Retina Display" Claims Challenged 476
adeelarshad82 writes "Of the many things that buyers might need to know about the new iPhone, Raymond Soneira — president of DisplayMate Technolgies — added one more to the list. Soneira challenged Apple's claims that Apple's new iPhone contains a so-called 'retina display.' According to Soneira, the resolution of the retina is in angular measure, 50 cycles per degree, where a cycle is a line pair, which is two pixels, so the angular resolution of the eye is 0.6 arc minutes per pixel. So, if you hold an iPhone at the typical 12 inches from your eyes, that works out to 477 pixels per inch. At 8 inches it's 716 ppi. You have to hold iPhone 4 out about 18 inches before it falls to 318 ppi. So the iPhone has significantly lower resolution than the retina."
Comment Re:Entourage Edge (Score 2, Insightful) 106
I find the completely different format on the screens a bit distracting, but it's still better than this Kno thing.
I will just keep carrying a little torch for the Courier that could have been, and stick to my moleskine.
Comment Re:Different than a laptop? (Score 1) 106
Yeah, sorry - at that size, weight, and price, it's not worth it.
Wanted a courier bad. This? This doesn't hit the same buttons, and you're still stuck finger painting.
Jumbo Dual-Screen "Kno" Tablet Debuts At D8 106
itwbennett writes "The Microsoft Courier may be a dead project, but that doesn't mean you can't still have a dual-touchscreen e-reader. And a super-sized one at that, says blogger Peter Smith. The Kno, which debuted at All Things Digital's D8 conference yesterday has 'two 14.1-inch (1440 x 900) capacitive touch screens. Each screen has its own battery, giving the Kno 8-hours of battery life, but a hefty weight of 5.5 lbs. ... If Kno (the company) has its way, students will be carrying around a Kno (the device) rather than a stack of textbooks. That's the reason for the huge screens; most textbook pages can be shown 'full size' on a 14-inch screen.' Engadget, who got some hands-on time with the device, says 'the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance.' Price is still up in the air but Ina Fried at CNET says the company is aiming for a price well under $1,000."
Man Builds His Own Subway
174
jerryjamesstone writes "Everybody is into rail these days; it is the greenest way to get around next to a bike. Leonid Mulyanchik has been into it for years since before the Berlin Wall fell, since before the first Macintosh, building his own private underground Metro railway system. English-Russia says that he has been doing it with his pension, that it is all legal and approved and that he is still at it. Gizmodo calls it 'Partly the traditional, inspiring, one man against all odds type of persistence, but more the obsessive, borderline insane persistence.'"
Update: 06/02 07:33 GMT by T : And if you're the type to visit Burning Man, you can actually ride a home-made monorail this summer, too.
Comment Re:Apple "It Just Works" (Score 1) 595
Option 1 mostly works, providing you're going from external to external. Usually the consolidate causes more trouble initially since you have to be very careful to set everything up just right. It's almost better to copy the files, delete the library, and start over.
Option 2 - sometimes. It depends, of course. A lot of people go from using the 'My Music' type directory to 'Music' or something (without thinking about it).
On removable, I found that Songbird Portable handles this well by substituting the drive letter on the fly, so if my external is D, or E, or F, it doesn't matter as long as it's the same path (/portableapps/documents/music, for example).
Comment Re:Apple "It Just Works" (Score 1) 595
Wow, what a fanboi.
People move their music libraries all the time. Buy a newer hard drive, move the library to it. Use an external, move it to that. Even worse (and this one completely sucks, btw) - if your music is on an external, it could come it with different letters on occasion. I have a drive that floats between E and F. When I still tolerated iTunes, I had to keep going in and re-assigning the drive letters (and hoping that iTunes didn't auto-launch in the interim).
Oh, then there is the massive facepalm when it decides to go flag every dang song invalid and you have to pretty much start over.
I use songbird portable now, and I'm a lot happier. It still can be a pain if you change paths, but it handles the drive letter changes really well and I can use the same library+player on pretty much any machine.
Comment Re:The question is (Score 2, Interesting) 595
Regarding Music - you're right on the money. When I dumped Apple, it was a pain to move the DRM'd music across, so I either nuked it and re-bought or just didn't worry about it (lots of 'one hit wonder' crap, really - didn't care if I lost it).
Regarding Apps - I think they are a LOT less sticky than people want to believe. Most people in my office have dropped iPhones for various other devices, and didn't give the sunk costs a second thought. You'd have to be poorly off to think that $30 or $50 worth of iPhone apps is a large expense. You will probably spend more on a memory stick for your new phone. I know I did
Regarding app devs? I doubt it matters. I have yet to see anyone find a single 'Killer App' for the iPad or iPhone (or really even Android). The stores are largely filled with toys and stupid time wasters.
My 'stickiest' app was CS2. I had the premium version, and there is no upgrade path for Apple -> Windows (or other). Thank goodness CS2 performs so badly on Apple Intel boxes
Why Apple Is So Sticky 595
Hugh Pickens writes "'Sticky,' in the social sciences and particularly economics, describes a situation in which a variable is resistant to change. For websites or products it usually means that visitors or customers keep coming back for more. Now Fortune Magazine reports on an analysis by Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore on what makes the (iTunes-based) iPhone-iPod-iPad platform so sticky and why it's going to get harder, not easier, for Apple users to switch, no matter what Google and the rest of Apple's competitors have up their sleeves. Whitmore says the investment Apple's customers have made in content for those devices in terms of apps, videos, and music purchased at the iTunes Store creates Apple's 'stickiness.' Apple has an installed base today of about 150 million iTunes-dependent devices that could grow to more than 200 million by the end of 2011. Whitmore comes up with a cumulative investment in those devices of about $15 billion today, growing to $25 billion by the end of next year. 'This averages to ~$100 of content for each installed device,' Whitmore writes, 'suggesting switching costs are relatively high (not to mention the time required to port). When Apple's best-in-class user experience is combined with these growing switching costs, the resulting customer loyalty is unparalleled.'"
Ancient Comet Fragments Found In Antarctic Snow 92
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos Magazine:
"Two tiny meteorites recently recovered from Antarctic snow contain material dating back to the birth of our Solar System, and may provide clues about the delivery of organic matter to Earth. Researchers believe that these micrometeorites likely came from the cold, comet-forming outer regions of the gas and dust cloud that comprised the early Solar System, and sample its composition. Discovered in 2006, the particles measure less than 0.25 mm across and survived their journey through Earth's atmosphere relatively unscathed. More importantly, scientists found that they contain unusually high amounts of organic matter."
Comment Re:Solution: (Score 1) 763
Heh - I used to do something similar with my old Porsche Sportamatic.
Stick shift. No clutch pedal. Operated by 'magic' (ie you touch the shifter and it activates the clutch).
Cool thing was that it was so sensitive that if I moved the shift boot, it would no longer engage the clutch again - and you could start the car, but not actually shift into gear.
Even the valets hated that thing, but realistically car thieves just toss them onto a tow truck and pretend they're doing their job.
Now my old Corvair with the bad wiring that gave you a nasty shock if you didn't touch the handle just right - that was theft deterrent
Comment Re:Heh? Mountain climbing clip? (Score 1) 763
I disagree - a decent carabiner with a screwgate and a good weight rating is easily worth $18
Comment Re:News for nerds. (Score 1) 763
Exactly - I have my keyrings split out.
Daily use: Car and house (nothing else). Anything more would ruin the line of a suit.
Key ring on fridge: Mailbox, gym, random stuff like that.
Spare key for wife's car in my glove box, spare for mine in hers (just in case).
Can't carry too many keys, need room for important stuff
