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Comment Re:So, when will heads roll? (Score 1) 110

That worked well for Abu Ghriab. The peons got the shaft, while everyone who was responsible and actually matters got off scot-free.

Thats pretty much how everything works, the people on the bottom take full responsibility, and basically shield everyone else with real power.

The Nuremberg defense is bull. If you're order to do something unconscionable/illegal, then both YOU and your superior who gave the order should be held equally responsible. This should follow all the way up, until we realize that this, being a democracy, is our fault as well. We voted for them, we condone their actions by not removing them, so we, the people, are fully guilty of all actions committed by our government.

Comment Re:Now.. (Score 1) 321

I'd have been better off getting an iPad and it wouldn't have cost much more then the damn N7 I bought.

Only nearly double, you mean.

The online issue isn't only a problem for Android... Apple really has the same issue, since pretty much every service is increasingly "in the cloud" for them as well.

That sort of is the point of mobile devices though... what good is a calendar that only resides on your tablet? The goal is to have it completely sync with everything, from your desktop PC to online services. I personally like the fact that everything is synced. On my N7, pretty much everything is automatically synced, from appointments, to bookmarks and contacts. I like this, since it makes management much easier than it used to be with my giant laptop.

Comment Re:Now.. (Score 1) 321

Don't be silly. Sales of pads are still lower than PC sales...

I never said that tablets will kill PCs (they won't, but they will make a decent impact someday). OP said that they find tablets useless, and that was the point I was addressing. A ton of people find them convenient, and more are doing so every day. As I stated, I hated the idea, until I got a good one (I had, and hated, a 10" ASUS Transformer).

The fallacy at work here is that tablets and PCs are somehow competing, or mutually exclusive. I still use my PC, a lot. For the foreseeable future I'm not scrapping my PC, since I need it for work (content production, if you will), gaming, and more serious tasks. On the other hand my Nexus 7 has trimmed a couple hours of PC time from my day as well, since I can leisurely check my email, run some searches, keep some notes, check the news, and watch videos without being tied down by my computer, or by a beastly laptop. There is room for both, and will be for a long time.

As someone said here... PCs = content creation. Tablets = content consumption. If you look at tablets as a PC replacement, your looking at it wrong.

Comment Re:Betteridge's law (Score 1) 418

Either that or someone channel-flipped an IR picture, which is what it looks like. Either from a camera with a more permissive filter, without a filter (doubtful, since you'd also be exposing near UV as well as near IR), or from a standard camera with an IR filter screwed on. It could be any of these, since pretty much all IR shots need a ton of processing.

I keep meaning to get the filter on my old Kx modified, but I don't really trust any of the people doing it. I do shoot, sometimes, with screw-on filters, (both 720nm, and 760nm), but they are an absolute pain in the ass. The exposure times, even in full sun, are so long as to introduce a ton of noise. Focusing is all manual, since most AF sensors will misjudge, and your focusing in a near black view finder. Its a bit better on my m4/3 system, since the EVF is boosted a bit, but most m4/3 lenses have IR hotspots.

Further, and amusingly enough, most lens hoods are IR reflective. After my first long outing with my IR setup I discovered that every picture I took had green or blue ghosting from IR reflection, even from my matte hoods.

Poking at the picture further, I think you're right though; unless it was a very, very, still day, or very, very, bright out. There isn't any blur, AFAICT, from long exposure times.

Comment Re:Now.. (Score 1) 321

just not going to find those for less than $700-800, even in a standard laptop. Yet you want it to cost the same an iPad?

It will come... perhaps not in the next couple years, but within a decade they will be cheap.

I agree, at the current price point it can make sense for some people, but I'm not one of them. While having a handheld x86 computer would be nice to have right now, most of the features it would add over my N7 are convenience features, not must-haves. If I was on the road more there would be a much stronger case for spending 700-800 for one.

Comment Re:Now.. (Score 1) 321

Do you use it for REPLYING to email?

For short missives; yes. For long correspondence; no. I mostly use it to sort my mail, flagging things for immediate actions, checking alerts, deleting junk, and such. Later, when time permits, I do the replying that needs more than a sentence or two on my desktop. This works fine, since my morning coffee time isn't for actual work. But it is nice to get the sorting out of the way before actually sitting down and being productive.

Consume on tablet. Produce on laptop.

Pretty much. I don't have a problem with this, though. I don't expect to be productive on my tablet(s). When people complain about this, I always wonder why they don't complain about not being able to author books on their Kindle, or produce video on their TV.

The Windows tablet, or a tablet capable of running regular programs, would be nice, since I could get a bit more serious about things. Being able to fire up Photoshop, or Lightroom, or a full office suite on the go would be nice... Not as nice as a heavier laptop, or on my desktop, but it wouldn't be a feature I'd complain about.

My one concern, though, is having another throw-away computer. In 4 years the Windows tablet will be useless, and then what? Go buy another one, and trash it? Sell it on Craigslist for $25?

Comment Re:Now.. (Score 4, Interesting) 321

Like what? Personally, I think the form-factor of a tablet is next to useless, and I'll stick with laptops and desktops,

You might be the only one, these days. In the beginning of the tablet thing, I would have agreed with you... but now my Nexus 7 gets almost as much time as my beastly desktop. My desktop reigns supreme for actual work and gaming (Android/iOS games suck, as a rule), while my Nexus 7 is for sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee while checking my email/news. The Nexus also spends a fair amount of time in the kitchen for recipes, in the living room for quick Googling, etc... I'm not going to use it for editing photos, transcoding video, coding, or typing anything about 200 characters, though.

Now if my tablet could run full-blown Windows, at a good speed (better than a shitty unpowered Windows Starter-only netbook) it would be a very nice thing. Then, for instance, I could have done some basic Lightroom work on my recent trip (the screen would still suck compared to my large wide-gamut IPS panel). My girlfriends Netbook can barely run Picasa, so its flat out. My old 14" laptop could do it, but it is another fairly heavy thing to carry around... A 10" Windows tablet would be perfect.

Hell having a tablet/phone with an OS that doesn't feel like a damn toy would be nice... I'm not just talking about Windows, having full blown whatever distro you want would be awesome. Especially if they were cheaper than Windows 8. And Ubuntu x86 tablet would be perfect. Hell, better, since it could be tailored to hardware (Like iOS or tablet Windows), avoiding Linux driver hell.

But then again, I'd own the Windows 8 tablet (not RT) right now, but for the fact that it is horribly expensive. $1000 for a convenience item is stretching it, especially when it is hardly as convenient as anything else on the market... It weighs two pounds, and has some unimpressive battery life. Fix that, drop the price by half, and then we'll talk.

Comment Re:But of course (Score 1) 239

It could be genuine. I had a friend, with a masters in PoliSci, who adhered to this position, as did her professors (at Georgetown). I also had a couple of friends who went through the Iraq wringer (Army) who left the service with this point of view. It must be somewhat common, since we do manage to start unprovoked wars all over the place without any political fallout to those who started them...

Comment Re:But of course (Score 5, Insightful) 239

Trolling or genuine, who knows?

Seriously though, if we take your argument at face value, we're forced to ask; who gets to police us? Also, who made our judgements the so-called correct ones? And how can we actually claim authority over international morality when we're pretty much assholes, and do pretty much everything we condemn in others?

Comment Re:Color me surprised (Score 1) 109

This new thing may combine some traits of all three of those, but will it come in for under $150? (Which can easily be done by buying a fligh-sim joystick, a trackball, and a mouse.) At least it's showier for presentations and doesn't appear to clutter up the desk.

Why would it have to be under $150? If we're talking industrial CAD applications, money isn't that much of an object as long as it is more effective/efficient. We're not talking hobby work, or making video game models here, we're talking rocket engines. If you can afford to manufacture a working rocket, and launch it, I doubt you care if you break $150 for an input device.

I can do most of my stuff with a $200 point and shoot camera, yet I have a fairly pricey kit... Why? Versitility and increased effectiveness. I don't own the most expensive (or even close to it), because there is a point, for what I need to do, where diminishing returns set in. If I really needed it, and made enough to warrant it, I'd cough up more.

Comment Re:Expensive (Score 1) 244

How irresponsible of anybody to manufacture something that doesn't work in 0.00001% of the world.

You realize that the U.S. isn't the world, and if it was AZ would be 2% of the world? Perhaps a bit less, since The Rez uses DST, even if the rest of the state doesn't.

Further, for the countries of the world that do use DST, which isn't a majority from the looks of it, they use differing standards so "Smart" appliances would still be useless for them, if they are locked into U.S. DST.

Furthermore, why the hell would anyone actually WANT DST... Its a dumb system, and should probably die. For once Arizona is smarter than the rest of the U.S., at least on this front. I will celebrate tonight.

Comment Re:Expensive (Score 1, Funny) 244

Hey, not all of us are as creepy as our politicians.. Actually Arizona could be two states, Maricopa County (Phoenix), and Everything Else. The other large population center (Tucson) leans heavily towards the left, as does a decent swath of Northern Arizona. Phoenix is the problem. As a person who lives there, I'd be happy if it was erased from the map. People aren't meant to live here.

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