I dunno - I'm with the OP here. A big part of why most computing classes suck is that they aren't focusing on the fun and exciting things that can be done with programming.

Example.

I work in a US DoD agency that has a ton of civilian Engineers in it. I work with people who have MS degrees in Engineering, and tens of years of experience. Really. Friggin. Smart. People.

Not a one of them has taken a programming language that's even still used. Not even the newest Engineer, who has his Masters, and is only 26 years old. He didn't even have to TAKE a programming class. All the older engineers of my age (mid 30s) had to at least take a programming class, but it was Pascal (SERIOUSLY????) or FORTRAN.

Now - granted, FORTRAN is still used in a lot of the models we run, but I digress.

None have heard of Python, Groovy, etc. None have ever touched an object oriented language. But every one of them comes to me to write code for them where they could probably do it themselves if they had the training. I'm talking about silly stuff - data manipulation that takes 30-100 lines of code and a half day at most.

Don't get me wrong - I love my job, but ffs. If they had to take an object oriented language - even C++, but better C# or Java, they could much better interact with we programmers writing their apps for them.

This is certainly ethically wrong. It'd be like me going into your house and installing stuff on your home PC that I want there, without ever asking and without your knowledge.

Nevermind the fact that you should have protected it with a password, at the least.

Of course the password thing doesn't work as well when you're trying to sell iPhones.

It's not like you have an agreement you have to approve or anything to use their iPhone

<quote>Requiring a phone to be online in order to run an app, especially if it otherwise has no need to communicate with the Internet, will hurt users of non-phone Android devices such as the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. I hope any developer that feels the need to do this will use the Steam-style "cached response from the last time the app was run if no connection to the Market is available", as the article puts it, rather than the Assassin's Creed 2-style "only allow[ing] the app to start if the server is available to verify the license."</quote>

You're misunderstanding what's in the API. All google has done is provide a facility for checking, should the app developer choose to. It's not required at boot time or any other time and proper checking by the app (think: try: is the network on; except: don't check for a license) will negate any issues that may arise from network problems.

Sounds a bit like "a boot".

But of course a boot is not what this is about. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong here - and I usually am wrong - but aren't we "limited" now only by controllers and the *price* of the NAND chips? I've read anandtech's last few SSD manifestos and it seems the controllers' speeds and the price of the NAND - not really anything else - is limiting their absolute capacity. I recall engadget doing several reviews of SATA and PCI-E SSDs with capacities up to 1TB. Granted the 1TB Z-drive was between $1,500 to $2,000 back in March of 2009, but you get the idea. We can make a very large SSD today. It's just not affordable.

To wit, who honestly has a larger than 1TB disk inside their machine right now? I'd imagine not terribly many, as a percentage of all computer owners. Indeed at home I have twin 700-ish GB Caviar Blacks in a RAID 1 configuration, of which I'm using maybe 30% of their capacity.

TFA doesn't actually make any arguments about price directly. It indirectly suggests price of the drives is related to lithography resolution, but provides nothing to back that up.

It seems to me that over time as yields on current technology increase and fab costs are recouped, the price of current technology will go down.

So if we can make a 1TB disk today, it'll be the same 1TB disk in a year or two, except less expensive, probably faster, and probably more reliable.

Oh I see what you did there. Clever.

Ironically, the EFF seems to have been slashdotted. Drat. :(

You know what occurred to me after reading the summary and your post? That it's not the forgetting part that needs to change. Indeed, to fundamentally change data retention policies across the ENTIRE INTERNET seems, at best, a dumb hopeless idea.

However, to change the perception people have when they find that you don't have an un-scarred past seems to be a good and righteous thing to challenge.

We as a society have this idea that keeps getting trashed that there are people out there who are as good as we want them to be. In my 36 years of experience, I've found only a small handful of people who are completely honest about who they are and were. In general people try to practice this selective forgetting so that they can "reinvent" themselves.

Instead, why don't we just learn to not hype people to unachievable heights and realize they're as human as we are and made as many mistakes as we all did?

You had me really interested in what you were saying until this:

Sigh. So promising. :(

To wit, I'm a former iPhone 3G owner, and before that I had the original iPhone. Just got a Droid X. Absolutely love it for all its differences, they key being NON-INTRUSIVE NOTIFICATIONS.

Twitter, for example, has an icon on my status bar that reflects the number of tweets that have come in since the last time I opened it or cleared notifications.

Same for texts, e-mails, etc. And I don't get an annoying stupid pop-over with EVERY text or app notification. My screen doesn't "wake up" when I get texts. A nice subtle led gently flashes.

I've only not found one app with a similar brethren on the Android store, and I've found many sweet widgets and status notifications that do stuff the way I Want it done, not the way Apple does.

The iPhone stopped innovating at the 3GS. Front-facing camera is a non-issue with me. Everything else my Droid X has is superior to the iPhone, except for its orientation sensor and pixel density.

But I'll be damned if I can pick out a pixel on my screen (20/10 vision, thanks) or feel like I'm missing a 3D orientation sensor.

Want to buy mod points. I was just about to post this very same circular reference and unverified information. Also pay close attention to Sockatume's post below.

Obviously you've never been involved in supply chain management. If this device isn't already nearly in or already in production, there's no way they can meet the demand they probably expect.