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Comment Re:How many iPhone killers is that? (Score 1) 617

Amen, brother.

I've been carrying a WinMo phone (the HTC Vogue, called the Touch by my carrier, Sprint, in the US). The hardware is nice to look at and touch. The OS is so feature laden and so random in its interaction design that I am about to go back to my Palm 755p. At the very least its ancient single tasking design and 1990-era touch interaction are SIMPLE enough that I will not be constantly frustrated when doing 90% of my phone use, i.e. talking or messaging.

Why not an iPhone or a RIM product? Early termination fees, a cheap "insider" rate, and a great data network make me loathe to switch, at least until my contract is done. Although Sprint carries Blackberry service, it is a ninth circle of hell ordeal to deal with the switch and maintain my cheap data plan. They also only carry older Blackberry products -- no Bold available.

Symbian is not a real option on this US carrier, either.

I work with the iPhone, in fact have written apps in Objective C. I've done with same for Palm and (god forgive) BREW. I agree with a lot of developers -- Objective-C is actually a relief after a lot of C++ work, makes a lot more sense. The XCode environment is pretty nice. The documentation is first rate. And as for buying a pricey Mac, well, I've had a lot of laptops running everything from FreeBSD+Openstep to Vista and this one is the most stable, sensible, versatile I've ever had. YMMV.

Further proof of the parent's point - I don't think its useful to rate the phones (or the development envirnment) by toting up features -- featuritis is one of the reasons I avoid most Microsoft products. the iPhone -- and the new Palm OS -- seem to have taken usability and overall user experience based on real world use cases, as their guiding design principles. That's why people are comparing the two so much.

I look forward to getting a Pre at launch.

Comment Re:Any doctors reading this? (Score 4, Interesting) 320

Your comments seem, well... under-informed.

Here's a link to a user comment that I found pretty interesting regarding the ability of post-Whipple procedures patients to process proteins.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/new-money/2009/01/05/some-arent-buying-steve-jobs-hormone-imbalance.html#1593509

For those that don't click through, here's a quote of a portion:

"the person has an unusual level of difficulty digesting proteins, fats, and starches since pancreatic enzyme levels are reduced and since the duodenum is missing. Unlike ferrets (who also get a little understood form of insulinoma, with insulinoma being a topic that needs a lot of study still) humans just don't have a lot of excess pancreas to spare. So, the upshot is that his body now will have more of his food go through without needed nutrients digested. Hence, the weight loss.

Add to this that he is a vegetarian, in fact, a vegan. Vegetable protein is especially difficult to break into usable amino acids. Animal protein is far easier to utilize.

Furthermore, people who have had the Whipple Procedure sometimes find themselves simply not feeling like having the many and frequent small meals the procedure makes necessary, and as a vegan Mr Jobs may resist the foods that settle the belly at such times: full fat yogurts, full fat milk, and cheeses. "

Comment Re:hrmph. (Score 1) 242

But when I can buy an copy off the 'net for less then a scanned, no doubt DRM'd, electronic copy - I have to wonder who the target of this website is.


Sheesh, are you people kidding me? This isn't a place to get a copy of RAH's books. This is a research library project that carefully identified, documented and scanned his lifetime correspondence and notes. It's a research tool for those interested in an influential contributer to the development of modern speculative fiction.

The money (do the math, its barely enough to pay a grad student to scan the documents) goes to the archive's work and the Heinlein Prize. The debate on whether or not an author's work should move into the public domain at a certain point, an idea I'm in favor of, is irrelevant to this collection. It doesn't even contain his copyrighted books. It's a research archive.

Go tote up the expense of getting similar material from Hemingway's archives. This is a relatively cheap source for the kind of information only an academic (or drooling fan) would be interested in. It has nothing to do with buying his published works.

For what it is, its cheap and I think its cool that such a popular author's literary archive is available on the web in such a way as to make it available to those, such as myself, who might have a few dollars worth of interest but no real academic project.

BTW, its made clear on the sites that for academic researchers, grants to use the archive gratis are available. You know, just like in every other University archive.

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