The side effects were very, very irregular and somewhat minor in relation to the widespread severity and frequency of COVID and associated side-effects. Source: Was part of a vaccine rollout, which included AstraZeneca; including when the whole blood clot information came to light, and the frequency was about 1 in 100,000. And then even with the blood clotting, your chances were good to survive unless you had a rare blood clotting disorder, which was checked 3 separate times before you got jabbed with the needle.

Anecdotally nobody was paying for Google Play Music and nobody outside some niche pockets even knew about it. Spotify and others eating it for breakfast = time to change strategy and leverage the big name of YT. I held out for a long time, particularly with my music collection I've been curating for 18~ years, but finally gave in more recently when it became only a few extra $'s on my wife's spotify account per month for a music easier experience

I'm sure I am preaching to the crowd here, but the crash should be considered in light of the following facts:
- SpaceX customers still pay for the entire rocket, there is no discount applied yet
- All other competing rockets do not have this capability and burn up on re-entry
- Every landing attempt provides new and unique data that can be used for continuous improvement
- The primary mission (what they are being paid for) was still accomplished

.. while they're at it. Worst key combo ever. Hit it all the time. Don't try this at home.

This is going to get downvoted to oblivion, but here it goes.

Normal people do not care about software updates. They care even less about security updates. They are on their contracts and happy to pick up a new phone every 2 years or so, and there is little elapsed time before their phone's current OS will go out of fashion.

Nerds do care about this stuff (myself included). This is the specific reason I buy the Nexus line. I have had non-Nexus devices before, and gotten bored (rather than frustrated) over lack of OS update, so I've flashed custom ROMs.

I read that Lollipop will include webview as part of the Google Play Services framework, which is Google's cloud-based framework that they have been moving more and more Android services to.

Unlike app store updates and normal Android system updates, Google Play Services works as a silent push update, so phone providers and manufacturers cannot block the update. I'd hazard a guess and say this may have something to do it.

Source: http://developer.telerik.com/f...

You have a really good point & it's something I was considering while making my original post but couldn't address it concisely so I left it out. So here's my non-concise ideas on that.

My general take is that WP & the Amazon phones seem to be something more akin to the iPhone: an attempt to make an integrated hardware/software device (or at least one built to strict standards) that has a real distinct brand & tie in to the related manufacturers universes (or more cynically, walled gardens). Andriod, for better or for worse, seems to be a lot more decentralized which probably appeals to the device makers like Samsung whose main interest is moving handsets, not creating a "wonderful" experience for the end user.

So my comparison with Apple, MS, and Amazon was assessing the battle for their respective Universes & Apples dominance in that regard.

However...I see in hindsight that Google _absolutely_ has its own Universe that Android most certainly is a big and successful part of it: Search, Mail, Mobile Devices & Personal data / advertising. It's a mutually beneficial relationship w/ the handset makers because Google wouldn't care about hardware revenue and Samsung etc. don't really have a stake in those other "interests" of Google. It seems obvious that this partnership is a productive one for both sides & would be successful. I guess I just didn't notice it at first because of the divorce from hardware.

Maybe this is exactly why MS bought the handset division of Nokia. Playing the decentralized, hardware agnostic, Google-style game hadn't panned out, so making their own handsets is a further step in creating a competitive platform to Apple's. It may well work out for them over time.

That leaves Amazon's phone, essentially a branded/crippled Andriod, worst of both worlds and, to me, likeliest to fail due to lack of purpose.

You can knock Microsoft and Amazon all day long for their phones not taking the world by storm, but I think that actually sells short the remarkable phenomenon that is the iPhone & associated Apple universe. One of the takeaways here for me is that it truly is almost impossible to break into the smart phone market this late in the game given what Apple has done - at least here in the US.

To see MS & Amazon, who have generally succeeded and overpowered rivals for many years, fail to make a true dent in the smartphone market is a real testament to Apple's success; Apple really did raise the bar that high. As you pointed out the Amazon flop is in marketing... exactly where Apple does not flop. You would think a good device would be its own marketing but I think that Apple has shown the device and the marketing are one and the same. And maybe what Amazon is learning is that this isn't like the kindle (good device on its own) but requires ramping up the marketing BS by a million fold.

For the record, I am a disillusioned former fan of the AppleVerse so I am cheering for anyone to bring legit competition, even if paradoxically it's those other well-known foes of competition: MS & Amazon

At first I wanted to write off your post as just typical, cynical slashdotterism. But I re-read it and - well, I realize that you are probably right, particularly in the IT field (it could be argued that if you want to work in academia, school names _do_ matter).

Reading your post carefully, I see you aren't saying that "college is worthless, blah blah blah" but rather that the differences between the universities for undergrad ain't what they used to be. As another commenter here noted (paraphrasing) information has been liberated by the Internet so University isn't the only way to attain subject matter knowledge anymore, closing the gaps between schools.

However, I continue to believe that if a person goes through 4+ years of accredited university experience, learns how to follow directions, learns how to deal with smart people & foolish people, and discovers that they have a passion for something (be it computer science or otherwise) is a person better prepared to be effective in the working world than otherwise. And if that's university's main benefit, then dammit I guess I have to agree that it matters less where you do it.

Grad school is probably a different story but for undergrad & the kind of jobs you will be getting with an undergrad degree - I think you got it right.

Totally true & in this case I think we all believe that the cyclist's death was accidental. However I think the issue here is the injustice in failing to hold the officer accountable. I think it's fair to interpret that piece as the result of systemic problems (i.e. cops being above the law / held to different standards) vs. the actual accident.

Hmm interesting. My "official" 8.1 build on my nokia 635 doesn't have the feature but defaults to Nokia for the turn-by-turn. My HTC 8x running windows 8 did have it tho. I wonder if it's just purposely disabled on Nokia devices now?

Really good points, all - it's not like someone broke into these people's houses & took pictures of them in the nude unawares. However... I don't think that the "victims" here are necessarily freaking out that the pictures exist or are worried what the public will think of their naked bodies (as you pointed out they are mostly beautiful anyway). I think that they are trying to treat the stealing & dissemination of stolen images as a crime, which it is.

So while I agree that the best solution to keeping your nudie pics off the web is to not take them in the first place (as Joshua would say: "The only winning move is not to play") , I am all for treating it like a crime and following up even if your actions end up Streisand Effecting your photos in the process.

The built-in maps do work just fine, however there are no spoken "turn-by-turn" directions anymore. In earlier versions of Windows Phone there was support for this, but no longer. The Nokia app has it & that's about the only reason to use it.

I guess the other handy feature of the Nokia app is that you can change the perspective to a "driver's view" vs. overhead map view, kinda like what you see on TomTom or Garmin.

NASA is providing incentives -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development
Understandably these are to meet NASA's requirements (which makes since, since they would be the main customer for the services anyway), so they don't just want to dole it out without a decision process.
There's also stuff like the Lunar X prize, but none of this is in the magnitudes you are talking about (good luck getting that through congress).

Sorry -- slightly unhelpful post in that I don't have a link, but according to some interviews I've seen with Elon Musk much of it is to do with modern engineering. One of the examples he gave (which was during a totally non-sciency talk show) was about how they processed and bent a particular type of metal used in the Falcon.