I simply don't trust a company that farms out their userbase's private information for monetary gain,

But the point is they have not done that with either of those two companies (at least not any more than those companies were already doing).

Your mistake is in treating all subsets of a company equally based on what one part is doing. If you want to see change, reward what a company does that you like, do not instead curse them forever for the mistake of one part. Otherwise you will never see change because there is no motivation nor visibility to what people want more.

This is going against what almost everyone here predicted would happen with both services: That no one wanted Facebook in their lives...

I think that statement is accurate.

What did not happen was those apps becoming Facebook. If you didn't know Facebook owned them, you might not guess it otherwise... Facebook has only been used to steer users to those apps, not to change what they do.

The same will happen for Oculus.

I'm not sure I understand your argument, all I hear from the scientists has to do with the root cause CO2, I don't really recall hearing anything from scientists about corporate profits. And the scientists generally work for universities or government labs, which carries some risk of government interference, but as a group scientists are one of the most aggressive about maintaining their independence.

Nothing can be proven absolutely, even math proofs rely on a system of very basic assumptions we all just take to be obviously true, but we cannot prove formally. And all science outside of math relies on theories that are not proven. Even the theory that cigarettes cause cancer isn't proven and is likely wrong in some sense. Which part of the cigarettes cause how much cancer? The nicotine, carcinogen A, B, C, or D, simply the carbon smoke in the lungs? You tweak the cigarette formula to something like electronic cigarettes and it's suddenly unclear if these new cigarettes cause cancer.

And the reason 'self proclaimed intellectuals' get pissed off at certain questions is because those same question have been asked countless times and answered adequately each time, yet people keep asking them. And generally they ask it not because they want to know the answer, they ask it because they are trying to prove the scientist wrong.

Imagine a guy proclaims that if you went to the top of a cloud during a thunderstorm you'd see Zeus throwing thunderbolts down. So you put him in a plane and during a thunderstorm and fly above the clouds seeing the thunder and a distinct lack of Greek gods. So you land, he steps out of the plane, goes up to a crowd of his followers, and starts talking about how if you went to the top of a cloud during a thunderstorm you'd see Zeus throwing thunderbolts down.

You'd probably get pissed off too.

I'm completely spit-balling here, but what if each component needing drivers brought their own?

Yes, just like each computer peripheral you bought used to come with a CD - that you had to toss and download an updated version of because your OS had changed since the CD was made... which would remain true of the OS vis-a-vis whatever driver shipped on the physical node.

So it would be no different, you'd be constantly managing drivers.

Like I said, I've not had a phone scratched in any way for the last few iPhone models - I keep it in an pocket with keys and sometimes other things, and never use a screen protector. I'm sure sapphire is even more durable, but Gorilla Glass is already quite impressive as far as scratch resistance.

You're right that screens cracking is a real issue, but possibly they have figured out how to treat the sapphire so it's even better in that regard. It may also feel better though that's totally speculation.

I thought AT&T's whole marketing plan was based on the magic words "up-to [dream] for only $[price]* ".

Those magic words "up-to" make great talking points for the advertising people's sales pitches without committing the company to a thing, while at the same time obligating anyone who drinks their kool-aid to pay at least [price] and *likely more.

It seems every time I see those words "up-to" I think its "AT&T calling"

Not what the masses want.

It's REALLY not what the masses want when you consider drivers have to me made and maintained for each module... nothing like driver conflicts in your phone! I don't know that even many geeks want to go back to that model.

It's surprising that Apple didn't do this a long time ago.

It's not if you read the article and know more about the costs Sapphire have traditionally added.

It's embarassing how fragile Apple's mobile products are.

You mean, the ones that use the same Gorilla Glass everyone else is using?

Sapphire does sound nice, but you are selling Gorilla Glass way short. It can take a lot of pounding, and I haven't had keys (or anything else) be able to scratch the display in years. I recall a model of the iPhone a few years ago where a YouTube review showed things like shaking the phone in a bag of keys, and the screen was untouched.

I have no doubt whatever comes next will be better, but I wouldn't say mobile devices suffer from overly delicate screens anymore.

This was a joke about him saying there was only one universe.

Notwithstanding other planets the atmosphere consists of multiple layers of atmosphere, different regions of the planet, different aspects like storms, rainfall, temperature, etc.

For instance CO2 warming doesn't just explain the earth getting warmer right now, it also explains that different layers of the atmosphere will warm to a different degree, it also explains past warming events.

you aren't going to find a climate scientist who specializes in the atmosphere anymore than you find a physicist who specializes in the universe.

What???

I think you misunderstood what I meant, they don't specialize in 'the universe' because the universe is actually an insanely vast and complex thing, they instead specialize in some arcane aspect of inflation theory.

The reason that matters is because you can repeat observations.

What???? Seriously, I hope this is a troll?

There is no proof of a multiverse, the atmosphere is within confined known space and measurable, science does have specialists, and I can repeatedly watch lightning come out of the sky but that does not mean Zeus throwing thunder because he's angry.

If this was not a troll ... well the world is already in trouble so what's one more.

Your issue with the multiverse and specialist thing was a misunderstanding, similarly with the atmosphere I wasn't saying it was infinite, I was saying it was way too big and complex to treat as a simple thing.

The theory that Zeus threw thunder, if the atmosphere was as simple as a thing that made thunder then the only thing we could repeat was the observation that thunder happens. But we can test the Zeus theory multiple ways, we can fly up to the top of the clouds and see if a giant is hanging out up there, we can look at multiple clouds in different parts of the globe and see if there's more simultaneous lightning strikes than Zeus has limbs, we can check to see if lightning strikes correlate with sacrifices, or if there are other cloud characteristics that predict lightning. There is only one atmosphere but I just named four ways to test the Zeus theory, its not as simple as one atmosphere means one observation and no way to double check your theory, that's why the observational vs narrative model is false.

That sounds like anti-conformism for anti-conformisms sake. There's nothing wrong with questioning authority, the problem is with assuming the authority is wrong just because they're an authority. There are a ton of mathematical proofs I don't understand but I blindly accept because I understand the mathematicians don't have a motive to mislead me. And even when something catches my eye and I do decide to question I'll do so aggressively but that doesn't mean I stop believing it. Whatever happens you've got to believe something, if you don't believe the authority then what do you believe?

Similarly with AGW, I can read a blog or skim a paper as well as anybody, but I can't understand the entirety of climate research. I can however understand the researchers and the scientific institutions and not every force pushes them in the direction of the truth. But given what I understand of the science and the scientists I can't think of a group who would be closer to the truth than them.

What about the multiverse? :)

I disagree about the 'narrative science' idea because I think that oversimplifies the topic. The atmosphere isn't some single indivisible thing anymore than the universe, you aren't going to find a climate scientist who specializes in the atmosphere anymore than you find a physicist who specializes in the universe.

The reason that matters is because you can repeat observations. If you make a theory explaining observation X about the atmosphere that has implications for the rest of the atmosphere, so you gain repeatability by testing your theory against these other parts of the atmosphere. Same thing for the universe, the big bang theory doesn't just say the universe stated and is expanding outwards, it explains countless other things about the universe. The background radiation we see that's consistent with the big bang is an example of the big bang theory being "repeated".

That sounds a lot like Ken Ham's distinction of observational vs historical science.

How do you actually test that cigarettes cause cancer? A big observational study? Well maybe people smoke because they're stressed or not health conscious, and they have a natural per-disposition to lung cancer. Build it from theory? Sure the smoke causes these problems in the lungs that we would expect to cause cancer, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're causing the cancer.

Now how do we test the Big Bang theory? A big observational study? We can see things that look a lot like after effects of what a big bang would look like, but maybe we're misidentifying them. Theory? There's a lot of theory about the universe that suggests a big bang, but that could be a mistake.

Clearly the cigarette cancer link is a lot easier to demonstrate than the big bang theory, or AGW, but they're not really alternative types of science. At the end of the day all of science is a mixture of observe X, where X is either a constructed experiment or a data set collected from the universe, and develop a theory Y, where Y has to explain X and all the previous observations we've made.

Putting a bunch of cigarette smoke into a lung and expecting it to develop cancer requires "faith" in the same way that putting a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere and expecting it to develop warming does. The latter problem is a harder one no doubt, but it follows the same approach of incremental collection of data and development of theories to explain that data.

I know the water is fine, but if I lived in Portland and they hadn't emptied the reservoir I would have been looking at the tap water a little more suspiciously, and if I was someone who sometimes bought bottled water I probably would have been a little more likely to buy some. I have no doubt many of you are the same.

Someone peeing in the tap water is icky, it doesn't matter if it's irrational, we are irrational, and as costs of irrationality goes emptying a single reservoir is pretty damn cheap. There's times to stand on scientific principal, this isn't one of them. There's no point in grossing out an entire city, reducing confidence in the municipal water supply, and impacting human health and the environment by pushing people towards bottled drinks, just because it's irrational. Sometimes the most rational thing you can do is accommodate your irrationality.

If you take off your "Electric Companies are TEH EVIL" hat for a second, it's pretty interesting that they have the same issue that states do with paying for roads in relation to electric cars. That is, someone generating electricity or using an electric car is making use of a resource where the cost of access is subsidized by something you are no longer consuming.

I think the electric companies have a pretty good point that they still have to pay to maintain lines to your house even though you are now consuming a fraction of what you would have.

You believe this so strongly you refuse to put your name to it!