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Comment Re:The girl you should've asked to prom... (Score 1) 117

Considering iTunes' not working on other devices was due to DRM (mainly), I can't say it's a very positive aspect that only the iPhone could do it.

My smartphones back then did a very good job with what web pages were available back then, no problems there.

The iPhone only really changed two things:

Interfaces got flatter (fewer sub-menus) and touch input replaced physical keyboards and navigation keys.

You're applying your techie values and missing some things. You may see iTunes and associated DRM as a disadvantage but the larger group of consumers doesn't (or didn't). It was a hugely positive aspect and only the iPhone had it. Further, the app store wasn't there at day one but it really helped push the iPhone ahead of everybody else when it did come. This in spite of the fact that lots of techies don't like the walled garden aspect of it. The world is filled with people who don't really care about that.

The touch input just didn't replace the keyboard and navigation keys. It allowed for much better navigation than what was available before, especially on a small device. Pinch and Zoom was what really made web pages designed for large screens workable on a small one, so no the web browser you had was not nearly as good in comparison even though it may have been decent for its time and good enough for you.

Comment Re:The girl you should've asked to prom... (Score 1) 117

The day Steve Jobs stood in front of a room and introduced the Iphone EVERYONE knew this was a game changer. "Today we're going to introduce a new iPod, a phone, and world class web device" As he repeated that line the graphics on the screen merged and the room realized the leaks about three new products were instead one new device. It was a hell of a mis-direction. It wasn't "the mother of all demos" but it was a close second.

I disagree, but that's probably because I'd been using PDAs for a decade prior to the iPhone. Everyone in the PDA business knew that phones and PDAs were going to merge. The only thing they didn't know was if phones were going to pick up PDA features, or if PDAs were going to be able to make calls. In the end, they are both small computers running various programs. The only game-changer the iPhone brought was that it eschewed hardware number/keyboard entry (and one helluva marketing campaign). Others had toyed with a purely touchscreen interface before, but nobody had bet the entire farm on it like Apple did. (For those taken in by the marketing who believe that the iPhone was the first purely touchscreen phone, google for LG Prada.) In that way, the iPhone was a lot like the iPod. It was ho-hum in terms of technical features - things which everyone else already had or had tried before. But the interface was a game-changer, and even if they weren't actually the first to market with the idea their massive marketing campaign made it first in people's minds. So I don't really blame Intel for missing the boat. Interface and marketing aren't things you can really appraise prior to a product's release. If Intel judged the iPhone purely on its technical features, it would've looked like any other smartphone with one helluva risky bet on a touchscreen-only keyboard. Just like the technocrati here first saw the iPod and based on its technical features declared, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

How many PDAs or smart phones in 2007 could leverage the tremendously popular iTunes store? How many had web browsers that could actually display most sites as intended (flash notwithstanding)? To me there were other things that the iPhone brought to the table that could have been used to evaluate its potential.

Comment Re:I wish I'd went with my gut... (Score 2) 117

They seem to have a hard time grasping that numbers aren't all that matter and more data needs to be considered. The game changers are often the people who know how to look beyond the numbers.

This is especially true for Apple. Apple's sales have always relied as much on consumers' emotional responses to its products as to the tech specs - - (Apple haters would say they relied it more or exclusively). It's always been about creating "an experience" for consumers, which, by definition, creates an emotional appeal that can't be measured quantitatively. So anyone who tries to judge the likely success or failure of a new Apple product based solely on numbers and tech specs just doesn't understand the way Apple does business at all.

I'd take it further than that. To like something because it's easier to use than another product isn't just an emotional response, it's a very practical one. The iTunes store made it easy to get the music you wanted. There were smartphones before the iPhone and even ones with touch screens. There were PDAs, There were mp3 players. There were cameras. Apple created a device that from a sheer hardware and software standpoint was perhaps not the best of breed in any of those categories but was by far and away the best at combining them. It was also easy to buy which is part of the process.

Comment Re:I wish I'd went with my gut... (Score 1) 117

So, he made a perfectly rational decision based upon the data he had available. It turned out in the long run that he would have been better off if he had acted otherwise, so looking back on it he says it would be better to reject rational decision making. I find this unconvincing. In my experience, people have a fantastic way of revising their own personal histories and 'the gut' is a great tool to do so. If I made the best choice I could, given the information I had, and it turned out incorrect I can always look back on things and say that my gut told me otherwise. By this means the chief protagonist of my personal history will always be correct, always know the right thing to do, even when it turned out to be wrong.

I agree that hindsight is 20/20. However, he may have actually had an inclination that he decided to ignore and instead make a decision "based on the data he had available"

The problem is that we sometimes look at all the relevant reports, trend studies, and specs we've been presented with and figure that constitutes the data that's available. It's not. I believe that what we often call "gut instinct" or "intuition" is really our mind's way of combining various bits of information from throughout our lifetime and merging it with our sense of the current situation to form an opinion. THAT is data too.

Many techie people seem to be confounded by Apple's success because the just look and the hardware specs and think there's better stuff available. Lot's of folks in the tech industry thought the iPad was going to be a huge flop.

They seem to have a hard time grasping that numbers aren't all that matter and more data needs to be considered. The game changers are often the people who know how to look beyond the numbers.

Comment Re:Temple in the picture is not Noh mul, it's Lami (Score 1) 276

by unimacs (#43728679) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew

Lamanai, not Laminai,, from the Mayan Lama'anayin meaning submerged crocodile.

Beautiful pyramids though and it is very easy to know what they are is as they are always in areas with other Mayan structures. And yes, the Belize gov is pretty incompetent (ask McAffee)

It's only easy to know that the other hills in the area are ruins if you've been told that. I saw the temples at Lamanai and maybe eventually on my own I would have figured out that the other hills are ruins but it wasn't obvious to me at first. They were completely unremarkable to me and looked very much like the limestone hills and outcroppings I'd see around here near some rivers and streams.

Nohmul might be different.

Comment Re:This is what happens to buildings IRL (Score 1) 276

by unimacs (#43728637) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew
It brings up a good question. There's an old fort near where I live. Up until after WWII it served the military in various ways, primarily as place for training in it's later years. Now it's mostly a living museum. The main buildings and walls have been restored and are maintained, but a lot of the supplemental buildings on the edges of the complex have stood empty for decades. They've become dilapidated and would be increasingly expensive to repair. At what point do you say we have enough examples of buildings like this, we don't need to keep all of them?

Mayan ruins are different of course. They're much older and could provide valuable information about that culture and that time period that has been lost. Still, it's very unlikely that all the ruins will be ever excavated or studied in any detail. In fact excavating them would probably just hasten their erosion. I'm sure that many of the structures are very much like a lot of the other ones.

A good road in Belize however, might have much more practical value to the local population. But I don't really understand the whole context of this. I'm sure there are lesser ruins that could have been used instead. Further, I'm pretty sure that limestone is a pretty common material in Belize (hence its use by Mayans) so is it really that hard and that expensive to get it some place else? Would the local population have been better off had the tourism potential of the ruins been realized? I don't now. I do know that it's pretty easy to sit here and judge when shown a picture of an impressive ruin which is not in fact the one that was destroyed and when we can take roads for granted.

Comment Re:Temple in the picture is not Noh mul, it's Lami (Score 1) 276

by unimacs (#43723409) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew

Bullshit. They excavated the material for road fill, they knew exactly what it was and the quality of the material they would obtain and how much money they would save paying for quarried material trucked to the site. You do not just use any passing dirt for road fill because it will be impossible to compact properly and could be subject to extreme bulking when exposed to water, you do not randomly excavate hills because you do not know what they constitute and how difficult they will be to excavate.

You win the prize for civil construction ignorance as do those who thought your ignorance was informative. Even ancient Romans knew better than you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads please check diagram at bottom of article.

The greedy shit head owner of the company knew exactly what they were doing and how much they would save.

I'll try putting it a little differently. I have a hard time believing they knew exactly what they were doing because if they did they'd know there'd be hell to pay. There are lots of completely un-excavated buildings of lesser importance that they'd have a much better chance of destroying and getting away with. In fact that may be exactly what they were supposed to do. Somebody picked the wrong hill.

Comment Re:Temple in the picture is not Noh mul, it's Lami (Score 1) 276

by unimacs (#43723057) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew

Bullshit. They excavated the material for road fill, they knew exactly what it was and the quality of the material they would obtain and how much money they would save paying for quarried material trucked to the site. You do not just use any passing dirt for road fill because it will be impossible to compact properly and could be subject to extreme bulking when exposed to water, you do not randomly excavate hills because you do not know what they constitute and how difficult they will be to excavate.

You win the prize for civil construction ignorance as do those who thought your ignorance was informative. Even ancient Romans knew better than you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads please check diagram at bottom of article.

The greedy shit head owner of the company knew exactly what they were doing and how much they would save.

I'm sure they knew what they were getting even if they didn't realize it was a Mayan temple (which as I said is a stretch). The limestone was visible through the vegetation. I'm not suggesting that people commonly dig up random hills to use as road fill.

However, even if total ignorance of the significance of the site is a stretch, what I also find unbelievable is that someone thought they could tear down the most prominent feature of a major archaeological find and figure that nobody would notice.

So the truth is probably somewhere in between. The picture in the linked article was a deliberate misrepresentation of what was destroyed in order to fan outrage. If they'd shown a picture of the actual temple readers wouldn't be nearly as upset because frankly it didn't look like much. Now again, the fact that it didn't look like much doesn't mean it's not an important site. I'm not condoning what happened. But tearing down something like the high temple at Laminai is a much different sort of crime that what we have here.

Comment Re:Private land owner wanted to clear his land (Score 1) 276

by unimacs (#43721659) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew

The alternative to a money compensation was mentioned as a swap for land of equal value. Since someone is going to make an issue of that then swap them for some land in the city where smaller parcels are valued higher and, hopefully, all the excavation for relics has already been done.

You're still assuming that the government is in possession of land both valuable enough and in sufficient quantity to swap with landowners that have ruins on their property. Belize has ruins everywhere. It's a largely rural country anyway. The largest city has less than 80,000 people and it's much bigger than any other town in the country.

Comment Re:Temple in the picture is not Noh mul, it's Lami (Score 4, Interesting) 276

by unimacs (#43719843) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew

Visual impressiveness is rarely an indication of archaeological importance. In fact, something that looks like a pile of rocks is often a structure that hasn't been studied yet. The fantastic pyramids and temples you see are often the result of best-guess reconstruction.

I agree. My point was that in the few pictures I was able to find of it prior to being destroyed, it didn't look like much more than what could have been a natural limestone formation covered by vegetation. Again I think it's a stretch, but it's possible the workers didn't realize they were digging up a temple. After reading some of the local news coverage though, this seems very unlikely.

Anyway, I'm disappointed that the article pictured the wrong temple and I suspect that it might have been intentional.

Comment Temple in the picture is not Noh mul, it's Laminai (Score 4, Informative) 276

by unimacs (#43719181) Attached to: Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew
I was just in Belize a few weeks ago and while the destruction of any Mayan ruins is tragic, I don't think Nohmul was quite what it's being made out to be. The few pictures I could find of the actual Nohmul temple are much different than the picture in the linked article. I remember no mention of it when trying to select ruins to go see. It doesn't seem like it was a big tourist draw.

I was at Laminai and that is a truly impressive set of structures. There are lots of unexcavated buildings still there and the remarkable thing is that the look just like hills. Though it's a stretch, it's not outside the realm of possibility that workers at Noh mul were unaware of the significance of what looked like a pile of rocks until they started working. The landowner surely would have known.

Comment Re:Oh come on Bill (Score 5, Interesting) 294

by unimacs (#43712527) Attached to: Bill Gates Opens Up About Steve Jobs
My step-dad worked in construction his whole life and he loved it. He loved building things. Well after "retiring" he'd putter around in the workshop he had in the garage. Not long before he died he had me helping him build these modular tables and benches he could reposition for doing various things. His health had deteriorated quite a bit by this point and I strongly suspected he would die before getting much if any use from these tables.

To me it seemed kind of pointless and physically it wasn't easy for him. As I suspected, it was only a few months later that he ended up in the hospital because of his ongoing heart problems, suffered a stroke and died.

These tables were monstrous and incomplete. Nobody wanted them, so eventually they were dismantled.

The missing part of the story is that this man survived over 40 years after open heart surgery and was relatively active in spite of several heat attacks and periodic bouts with other debilitating health problems. Part of the reason he managed to do this was that in spite of his often poor health he never stopped living the life he wanted to live. He may very well have known he'd never finish the tables, but he loved the process. It got him up in the morning.

I think lots of people when faced with mortality will spend more time with their families and trying to do the things they wished they had been doing all their lives. Some people were already doing it. That may be the case with Jobs. I'm not saying he wasn't a jerk and that he didn't have regrets. I'm sure he did. But that doesn't change what brought him joy.

Comment Re:And... (Score 1) 618

Weren't laptops freakishly expensive just to be used for everything a PC already did?

The fact is that laptops don't do everything as well as tablets. They're very difficult to use unless you have a flat surface to set them on. They take up more room. The batteries don't last as long. For the most part the lack a mature touch interface. They don't typically have displays that can be used in multiple orientations and they suck even worse for taking pictures than a tablet does.

To me even the name "surface" demonstrates how clueless Microsoft is when it comes to tablets. Their commercials show a bunch of people using Surfaces on tables. The beauty of a tablet is that you don't need a desk or table. You can use it while standing, sitting under a tree, or laying in bed.

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