Because the technologically-illiterate have come to hear "jailbroken" as meaning "being able to put whatever you want on it", or worse, "being able to put pirated stuff on it", not the original meaning of "removing write protection on the root", or "breaking out of a chroot". Rather like "CPU" became the general term for the big box all the wires plug into.

I was showing off my iPad one day and mentioned it was jailbroken, and suddenly everyone thought I was a software pirate. No, sorry, just wanted to install LaTeX...

I wouldn't be surprised, if this picks up steam, if some products in the future advertise having a "jailbroken mode", even though there was no jail in the first place.

That's a very impressive tech demo there, but I cringe every time this guy says "OpenGL". It's pretty clear he has no idea what OpenGL actually is, because he's constantly acting amazed that OpenGL can do realtime rendering (*gasp*).

Choice quote: "The VBOs have been like pumped up for OpenGL..." (around 4:20)

One small clarification: When I said "A lot of the readers even run a small web server so you can upload your books via web browser, no iTunes required.", I meant that the ebook reader software itself has the web server built in. It's quite user-friendly, and even gives you the web address to enter in to your browser on the iPad's screen. I was very impressed.

While you've made your point on various counts, there are a few things that I'll contest here just because I think they're misleading. Overall, I will not agree that an iPad is a replacement for a laptop, the way techies use laptops. It is, however, a great replacement for a netbook, the way non-techies use a netbook.

Also, I'd assume you jailbreak your iPad. Yes, this means doing something to unlock features you should already have. But jailbreaking makes the iPad much more tech-friendly.

You get used to the on-screen keyboard very quickly, and the same with the touch screen. It's actually quite accurate once your fingers calibrate themselves :D. I would not recommend using emacs via an SSH client, though. I have tried, and it's not fun.

Honestly, I'm curious. When was the last time you've had to use a CD drive? It's been years for me, but maybe you (or I) have some non-standard use patterns.

It's a little-known fact that the USB keyboard adapter is actually just a standard USB host adapter. You're only some hotplug scripts away from USB drive happiness! Not easy, for sure, but not technically impossible.

I was not aware of this... that's quite sad. Subtitles are important! Fortunately all my GitS has pre-baked subtitles so it's easier to figure out how, exactly, the characters are talking to each other, so I've never noticed this before.

I've never needed iTunes to put eBooks on it. The reader I use (which was free at the time, though maybe not now) lets you copy and paste URLs to download, and handles just about anything. For extra points, it includes an "eBook Store" that includes the free Project Gutenberg texts. A lot of the readers even run a small web server so you can upload your books via web browser, no iTunes required.

You underestimate the power of a larger screen, I think. It's way nicer on your eyes, even if you don't notice it immediately. I carry mine in my book bag, instead of carrying all my textbooks -- a good tradeoff, if you ask me.

Basically, yes, it is not a laptop replacement, and it's dumb to even suggest that. However it is quite a bit nicer than most people make it seem.

It's more that kids may never find out they want to do math without calculus.

If I never took calculus, I'd have never learned I love math.

I, for one, hope they continue to teach calculus in schools.

Everything you learn up to calculus is basically arithmetic. With algebra, you get into some more complicated math, but it still seems like just adding and multiplying, which you've been doing for years by then. It's not really very interesting.

But calculus, oh boy. There is some interesting mathematics in there. In fact, I'd say that this is the first exposure students get to "real" math, with analysis rolled in for fun. Not to mention with calculus you get to start solving complicated, interesting problems that are actually useful to solve, like acceleration and velocity calculations, the first introduction of new operators since 1st grade, and the more existential problems like the completeness of reals.

If we drop calculus, all we end up teaching kids about math in schools is the boring stuff, and I fear that's what they'll think. Boring is not what math is about! We need to teach students calculus because it's the first real introduction to the type mathematics you work on as a mathematician.

I liked math before, but after calculus, I loved it. Now I'm working on a physics/math double major, and the physics is looking less and less interesting.

Sure, the source is distributed, but it is inaccessible . There is no way to access files on iOS without jailbreaking it. It would be like if you bought some files from me, and I distributed them as encrypted archives without giving you the password. You expected readable files, but all you got was unusable extra data that contain those files, somewhere.

Even if you ignore the distribution problem, though, anyone who downloads GPL'd apps from the app store is not free to modify and distribute usable binaries. The last part is the important part for GPLv3 software, which was targeted at a similar thing Tivo did a while back (and may still do) to exploit a loophole in the GPLv2.

If I download GPL software, the GPL explicitly gives me rights as a user. I am free to modify and free to distribute. The first one works here; I can download Apple's SDK freely, and modify the source provided (again, ignoring the source distribution problem). I am also free to distribute my modified work so others can use it; This I cannot do on iOS without paying Apple $100 for the privilege, and even then I can only do this as many times as I want by getting AppStore approved (not free, as in freedom), or paying for the enterprise option (significantly not free, as in money).

I would like to know where you got this number (92%), because I suspect it is much lower. I have no proof of this, though, and I'd like to know what the number actually is.

Also, I would like to note that not all GPL'd source is AppStore incompatible, because of one thing. If I write software (from scratch) that I license under the GPL, I'm still free to distribute it however I want (as the copyright owner). So I can put it on the AppStore. However, I couldn't do that if I also pulled in other GPL sources, since I do not own the copyright on all the code anymore and therefore must adhere to their licenses.

Obligatory xkcd, but it's old, so perhaps this plug is excusable.

National Language

Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but wget is an extremely powerful and configurable web client (just check out its man page). I never thought it was so versatile until I started using it for more than just downloading tarballs on the command line.

It's not inconceivable that the right combination of simultaneous downloads, link processing, bandwidth throttling, and per-download waits could do the job just fine.

Maybe I just missed these moments, but if I recall correctly both Up and Toy Story 3 were available in 3D, and they were great movies. I never even saw Toy Story 3 in 3D.

Just because most 3D movies are gimmicky doesn't mean all are. It's just that most movies suck regardless.

Yeah, that's the problem, but for those interested...

The base problem with this is that unlike the logarithm for real numbers, the logarithm for complex values is not a function (or, if you like, it's a "multi-valued function"). This comes from the interesting fact that x^1 has 1 solution, x^2 has two solutions, x^3 has 3 solutions, and so on. We kind of fudge around it in reals, because x^n will only ever have one or two solutions, but in the complex plane it has n solutions, and things are much more complicated.

The end result of the multi-valued logarithm is that the normal rules for exponentiation and logarithms can break down in ways that may be unexpected. In this case, yeah, it's confusing sqrt(1) = +- 1, but I've seen more subtle proofs (similar to the GP's) that use cube roots to avoid the math plus-or-minus square root gut reaction.

For more information, see the Powers of Complex Numbers and Complex Logarithm pages on Wikipedia.

This has already been said by an AC, but I'll echo it because it needs to be heard.

Non-user-editable valve proprietary game? Really? Have you played valve's games? The Source SDK is available to anyone with a Source game, and they're all very mod-able. Valve actually encourages this, because some of their most popular products (Counter-Strike, Team Fortress) were mods for Half-Life that they bought out and hired the creators. This is sort-of what happened here with DoTA. I wouldn't worry about mod-ability.

Also, if you've played other valve games, you know they have high standards. It's likely this will be a very good game. They also have a great relationship with their community. If players want a game mode, it'll be in there.

2. Religion causes indifference towards real life. This has already been hashed and rehashed in other threads, but this is the second thing I thought of, after...

1. Who cares if someone's indifferent towards real life, as long as they're living a fulfilled life? If a virtual world is nice enough to cause people to entirely disregard real life, then chances are (modulus some mental disorders) that world is nice enough to live a good life in. It doesn't matter what's real, as long as people are happy and they know there are other choices.

(Come to think of it, wasn't this the point of Inception?)

God bless you, sir. This little tidbit of internet folklore made my day. I can't believe I've never seen this before.