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Comment We Are The Sick (Score 1) 510

Sorta OT, but this is a poll thread anyway, so who cares?

Medical science has found "cures" for some things that used to remove people from society (either by death or institutionalization), but for many other conditions we have "treatments" instead of cures.

One basic consequence of that is that over the last 20 years there's been a substantial increase in people living normal lives with chronic conditions. So yeah, we're here, we're sick, and we're sick of people acting like there's something wrong with us just because there's something wrong with us!

So get over it.

Comment Re:Each day, Google. Each day. (Score 4, Insightful) 228

You don't get anywhere by suing companies that decide not to use your product. The Google situation is not at all similar -- the allegation is that Google PREVENTED Motorola from using Skyhook's product.

I see a lot of dumb comments above about how Google shouldn't be forced to integrate Skyhook's location services, but this isn't about Google integrating Skyhook's location services. This is about Motorola choosing to use Skyhook on Android, and Google refusing to allow it.

Comment Re:None of the above. (Score 1) 342

These large-sensor interchangeable-lens cameras (like Micro Four-Thirds as well as some others) are better seen as a miniaturized DSLR than a point-and-shoot. They will never be as small or pocketable as current point-and-shoots, since covering their large sensors requires a much larger lens (though not quite as large as in a DSLR). They are also just as expensive as DSLRs and are likely to remain so.

The focus speed issue is not easy to solve, since DLSRs use a submirror to direct light to a phase detection system, which can be very fast. Since the MFT camera has a sensor size comparable to a DSLR, longer focal lengths are required than those used in point-and-shoot cameras, which has the effect that focus accuracy is crucial. The lack of a mirror assembly for phase-detect autofocus, combined with the large sensor, means that these in-between cameras will be the slowest to focus. That can easily cost you the "moment".

All that being said, they ARE a lot smaller and I want one.

Comment "Shield Law" IS special rights for certain people (Score 3, Insightful) 602

Sort of funny to see someone write about how the "shield law" is "much needed" and complain that it won't apply to everyone in the same paragraph. The whole point of a "shield law" is to provide special rights for a limited set of people.

For regular folks, if the cops have reason to believe that you know something about a crime, you'll get subpoenaed and required to testify, under penalty of perjury, potentially against your will. Journalists seem to think they ought to be exempt from the regular laws.

You can't give everyone an exemption or they'll claim they were "reporting" when they drunkenly bragged that they knew who killed Mr. Body. That's the problem with the shield law idea.

Comment Re:Since you did not point it out... (Score 3, Insightful) 381

No, the items you keep quoting are obviously merely members of a long list of example techniques for evaluating the likelihood that a phone has been stolen.

There's no conspiracy theory here. Imagine that you were a phone. Someone enters the wrong unlock password a dozen times? Maybe your owner forgot it. You haven't been back to your home a couple days? Maybe your owner is on vacation. But when, IN ADDITION to all that, someone starts trying to unlock you, you'd have a pretty good notion that you're about to be hawked on ebay.

Comment Re:So how bad was it? (Score 4, Insightful) 917

Well, I have one, and I don't use a case. I'm not sure if I can tell you how bad the problem really is, since I don't make many phone calls, and even though I do use my left hand when I do, my natural grip doesn't touch the weak spot.

Using data, it seems like it's slower when I touch the weak spot, so I don't do that. It's not my natural grip when using it for Web browsing either. And usually I'm using wi-fi anyway, in which case it doesn't seem to matter at all.

Not sure if that answers your question. I think it depends a lot on the user.

Comment Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score 1) 417

Because it's become political. It's the new nationalism, now. Later we'll have a war between the iNation Party and the Android People's Alliance.

More seriously, it's just the way the brain works. Once you disagree with some claim of fact, those making it seem disagreeable. Like how the media has been calling certain government figures "czars" for years, but then someone from the other party gets elected and some people start to think that "czar" means the government is taking over the country.

Comment Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score 1) 417

Curious, why do you think rooting an iPhone voids the warranty, and rooting an Android device doesn't? While I'm sure there are some things you can do on Android without having to hack it, it seems like hacking is really popular so people must be dissatisfied with some of the restrictions.

I think that the "jailbreaking voids your warranty" stuff is Internet folklore for the most part. Unless you actually brick the device you can always do a restore anyway, and then how would they know it was once rooted?

Comment Re:Interested to know... (Score 3, Interesting) 282

It's all speculation at this point. But the best speculation possible is based on reports that the iPhone 4 was designed to look for towers with lower congestion, even if they might have a weaker signal. If this is the case (and I don't personally know) it's possible that this feature is simply too aggressive, or not aggressive enough about switching back to the strong tower when attenuation occurs.

Speculation, as I said. I don't think anyone really knows for sure.

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