I live in the poor part of town, mainly for the low rent. It's a HUD housing and welfare district. Anyway, I know every one of my neighbors and without fail they all have iPhone 4s. Yes, they may be single moms, or currently unemployed. Yet mysteriously they have a phone that I know I can't afford.

Welcome to the United States. Maybe this is a good indicator for why our politicians of both parties consistently choose to spend more money than we make.

And nothing of value was lost.

I don't have a Galaxy or other Android tablet, so I really don't know. But looking at the app store from my EVO there really aren't as many productivity applications for Android yet. At least not any that are really usable. So it appears to be a consumption device. My iPad has completely replaced my laptop for 95% of my productivity. The only thing it doesn't have that any good is an adobe suite. Here's a list of my apps I regularly use in my professional life:

1. Writing documents: Pages is really great and very usable.
2. Spreadsheets: Numbers, again an Apple product.
3. Powerpoints: Keynote, yes Apple again.
4. Movie editing: iMove is Sweeeet. I like it better than the Mac version.
5. Text Editor: Textastic is great, I can edit files right on an FTP server with syntax highlighting for a wide range of languages.
6. SVG Vector graphics: ne.Draw is an Inkscape replacement, Freeform is really good too.
7. Basic photo editing: Photoshop Express is sometimes useful.
8. Drawing/Painting: ArtRage is AWESOME, it's better than Photoshop for doing original artwork. Obviously not a PS replacement though.
9. Git repo functions: iOctocat helps me track changes my team is doing.
10. Customer invoicing: inVoice2Go is better than any desktop app for billing and invoicing.

I want to also mention that there are a few apps for which there is no usable Desktop alternative. In particular the Notes Plus app has nothing remotely as usable for taking notes on any Desktop platform. The thing is just incredibly smooth and transparent, it beats paper hands down. Also, Sorted is pretty sweet for managing projects. Although there are Desktop apps that will do the same thing, Sorted just makes it simple and painless.

I believe that the whole "it's just a consumption device" thing is primarily a FUD against tablets. The touch interface allows some applications to be much easier and more productive once you've learned the interface. In particular, the entire Adobe suite could work on an iPad MUCH better than any Desktop. Just because of the touch interface.

It's really a shame that Bitcoin is getting such negative press. It has real, legitimate and web changing possibilities if it drops the negative associations and begins to become legitimate. In particular, it would allow anonymous micro-transactions without a per-transaction fee. This could be HUGE for web developers, designers, bloggers and anyone who works online for a living. It would allow us to bypass the big advertising networks and get money directly from our customers with little-to-no transaction fees and no dangerous exchange of information. Yes, it's true that users won't spend $1.00 to read or donate to your blog. But they might spend 0.00005 BTC. If bitcoin transfers were so easy to do and integrated into your browser (perhaps with a <purchase receiver="12SW1w5mvp9ExwMbM9kMwTbN4D9e75KQDr" cost="0.00005> tag. This would change the way content producers get and receive payments. And it's a very legitimate use for which there is currently no alternative offered.

I never went to University for CS and I studied assembly. In fact, I wrote a CGI library for Linux x86 assembler that didn't link with libc. This allowed you to write a native CGI application in 120 bytes! Although it only supported GET requests and I only wrote atoi() of all the conversion functions in libc. Pretty sweet if you ask me. This time that I spent so long ago has paid for itself many times over. And even more as I transition into iOS programming. Contrast that with my buddy Daniel who graduated from a state school with a masters in CS and doesn't know ANY assembler. He learned Java byte code, but never native assembler. He and his professors espouse the "but you'll never need to know that" school. It's a waste of time because the JIT/compiler can write better assembler than you can. Pshaw, children these days, lawns needing vacated.

What? Why is this modded negatively? I worked at an ISP back then, we did NOT install Netscape for users so most people used ie 3. which was absolute crap.

I would say that having similarities with c# is not going to make a language elegant. I left flash development when they came out with as3 and haven't looked back. JavaScript isn't the most elegant language, but it is one of the most understood out there. And things like coffeescript help where it falls short. As to your concerns about FlashBlock (which I love), browser vendors will add similar features. Just like popup blockers. Remember when there were no popup blockers? Now everybody has one. We just have to wait for (or write) a nocanvas plugin. Cheers

I've tried Bing again and again hoping that it would replace Google for me. I keep wishing that someone, even if it's evil MS, will provide some serious competition in the search market. I'll keep trying Bing every year and probably keep going back to Google. Let's hope they really decide to up the ante and do something completely new and original. It's uncharacteristic of MS, but maybe they'll acquire a start-up that has something new?

If I had mod points I'd do it. Someone get this dear poster a book deal.

I dont' personally believe in enslaving anyone, particularly health care workers who try to save lives. I don't believe that other Americans should be enslaved to pay them either. As someone who just spent $600 today on blood tests, x-rays and an "urgent care" visit I'm no hypocrite. My insurance doesn't kick in until $5,000, which is reasonable, this costs me and my wife ~$150 a month. I'm a little bit offended when assholes pretend that medical care is somehow different than any other kind of service. Just because medical care can be important, it doesn't make other people any more obligated to help you. Particularly against their will.

I'm a little proud of America when I think about it. We have respect for people here. We protect the innocent from looters, thieves and people who look at other people like pieces of meat.

Seriously, how can something like this be modded insightful? All modern currencies are made by a bunch of guys with a printing press. Somehow that magically blesses them into being "valuable". I don't see why a bunch of open source computer programmers can't create some currency too. Why is that deluded, but some faceless bureaucrat with a printer any less deluded? I would take a currency "backed" by cryptography over a currency "backed" by the FBI any day.

but still worth shit.

The value comes from whether or not someone accepts it as valuable, period. Dollars happen to have a lot of people convinced at the moment, but that will change, empires rise and fall, one day they will become worthless to everyone except collectors. So I for one salute you in attempting to sell your shit as currency. Good luck with that.

Bitcoins are more convenient than trading sacks of shit. And they happen to be more convenient than trading dollars too. So I really hope that Bitcoin can be given a chance as a currency. It would be great for my business (100% freelance online developer.)

GarageBand for iPad is pretty sweet and I use it to make music, not all of which sucks. Pages is pretty decent for putting together a letter or flyer, it's not as nice as Pages for Mac but you really could layout just about anything in it. I can't vouch for Keynote or Numbers because I haven't bought them for iPad but they're probably at least as nice as their Mac counterparts. MS Office app knock-offs abound, so many I haven't even bought one. For non-Apple apps you have Freeform which I like better than Inkscape for creating application icons (even if it doesn't support SVG.) I've written a few hundred lines of code/html using Textastic, it would be great if they polish it up a bit more. A few other production apps on my iPad are Sketchpad, Elance, oDesk, Photoshop Express, iOctocat and Remoter VNC.

I spend more time with my iPad playing World of Goo or watching Netflix than using any of these. But I don't think that will always be the case, I think the apps will just get better and better and will eventually be easier to use than the Desktop apps.

I think what's dying is the worker/employer dichotomy. We're moving away from big corporations with thousands of cradle-to-grave employees, and moving to a situation where the workers own the means of production within a semi-free market economy. An example of this is the thousands of independent contractors who work for themselves. As a work-at-home web developer, I'm in this class of people. I taught myself all the open source tools using free documentation. Now I own my own business and am able to pay for me and my wife's health insurance, life insurance, renters insurance, food, lodging and retirement savings all using open source tools and free information. Most of my friends who are building construction contractors, electricians and auto-mechanics are moving to the same model too, btw. They own their own tools and teach themselves, in return they make more money and can set their own schedules. Everyone who works this way is a lot happier too. I know I am, I take Monday's off every week to focus on volunteer projects. In fact, it's not far away from true communism when the workers own the means of production. Even if they own it individually, instead of "collectively".

When people say communism though they usually mean a super-powerful state with an small oligarchy that decides wealth distribution. Somehow this is argued as being better, when the proposal to fix crony-capitalism is crony-communism. Every "communist" country in the world today has a terrible wealth distribution. Kim Jong-Il was the number one world buyer of Hennessey Cognac, meanwhile his people are starving. Communist party members have always enjoyed massively better lives in every single country communism has been tried in. Just look at the standard of living of the average "worker" in any of these "workers paradises" around the world. You're right that the rich are selfish dicks, but a free society allows anyone to become rich. It just takes time and hard work.