That's a marketing/perception thing, which is completely non-technical. I'm not saying it isn't a great idea, but such things are normally outside the programmer wheelhouse.

I love that you highlighted a really cool perspective on this new statistic. Thank you!

No. With a non-multitasking enabled iPhone, you cannot listen to an audio app and use another program at the same time. The only program that was an exception to this rule was the stock iPod app.

The most popular example of a non-iPod app that people wanted, as mentioned, was Pandora.

The iPhone doesn't even have true, unfettered multi-tasking enabled for front end apps (of course it supports it internally). What iOS has are pre-approved background services, which are like light gateways into faux multi-tasking. Namely, one is audio (like Pandora).

I use some photography related apps under Ubuntu. These are free and easily available via the Software Manager. The same quality of apps are not available under Win7.

I highly doubt the veracity of that last statement given that Windows is home to applications like Photoshop and Lightroom.

Newsflash, self evidence hasn't worked to date, try something else.

While I agree with you that messages should be pure, you may be working with an audience that doesn't operate on that level. Therefore, the newly wrapped message isn't for you, it's for them. To get them thinking. So that one day, they might not need the window dressing.

Being right doesn't mean being effective.

I'm offended you would make light an issue of such gravity! This isn't a laughing anti matter!

Just because all the applications are amazing doesn't mean they have to accept all of them. Maybe they don't have the resources to support that many amazing students. There's no incongruity here.

Based off of the headline, did anyone else think this was about a new Warcraft spell?

"Man, AoE silence, that's imba!"

This doesn't make any sense. You're not paying for "the Diablo I want to play". You're paying for "the Diablo III that Blizzard made". If you don't like it, don't pay for it.

This sense of entitlement is ridiculous. If you want an offline, single player game, go make one yourself.

You're kidding, right? If you're the #1 gorilla, who cares about interoperability? The only thing interoperability does is make it easier for people not-you to take parts of the market that aren't or soon won't be yours.

I'm not saying interoperability is bad. I'm just saying, from the perspective of the one in power, there seems to be no local benefit at all. Why would anyone consider that.

Dude, I just burned an hour trying to understand the Tuesday Boy problem since I've never heard of it until now. I have two contributions.

1) It's best understood spatially. There's a hit on Google that emphasizes that although two different boys can both be born on Tuesday, the "hit" only counts for one in terms of odds since they must co exist. That's why the answer is close to 50% but not quite 50%.

2) Implicitly distributable attribution. If I say I have a random person here of unknown gender, you immediately think, hey, 50/50 male/female (apologies to the LGBT community). In the question, you read born on a Tuesday. You could interpret the date as meaningless or implicitly distributable. If it had the same social gravity as gender, you could easily see how the solution above applies. But if you think date has nothing to do with birth rates but somehow isn't random, then the answer could very well be anything. 0, 100, 73, i.e. there may be a date (Friday!) where mad babies are born.

It's really hard to chew through at first but those two nuggets have comforted me in settling down on the Internet's correct answer of 13/27.

That's kind of stupid. If I told you, hey buddy, you have free rights. And then locked you in a cage. Then you said, hey, where are my free rights?

I'm not limiting your rights, just your access to them. WTF?

Rights quality = access * amount of rights

If your access is limited, the quality of your rightship is also limited.

Have you ever considered maybe such programming would be necessary to its survival or existence? The alternative may be having no Discovery Channel whatsoever.

I'm not saying it's right or in the spirit of the channel. Just food for thought. Nothing is so cut and dry. "High-quality educational programming or bust!"

Showing the user something he probably doesn't need* to see undermines what could have been an automagical experience.

* for varying definitions of need. Slashdot users, in all their technical glory, sure love talking about edge cases that wouldn't apply to the vast majority of people out there...

I find it absolutely disturbing that you don't think "user experience" is an important factor here. Everything Apple does is driven by providing a superior user experience, at any cost, even at the cost of openness.

Openness doesn't really matter that much to normal, average, non-technical users, of which there are vastly more of than very vocal minority here on Slashdot. Compare to a fantastic "user experience" which provides immediate value to everyone.