Also, it's a five thousand word novella with CREDITS (???) including like twenty different people.
It's _8.7 mb_ of web page, with all the various 'animated' background elements, the embedded videos, etc. I like the concept of the amount-of-battery icon changing as the review goes through the day, but otherwise it is just ludicrous.
That said, it was an interesting concept for the review, but it's too bad that no one had the guts/clout to stand up to the EIC and tell him the execution wasn't working out.
And the device itself pretty much came out exactly how I was expecting - processor too slow for what they're asking it to do, but it looks good.
That said, it was an interesting concept for the review, but it's too bad that no one had the guts/clout to stand up to the EIC and tell him the execution wasn't working out.
And the device itself pretty much came out exactly how I was expecting - processor too slow for what they're asking it to do, but it looks good.
It's hilarious that your first sentence could be either about the stupid verge article or the watch.
I almost made a joke to the effect of "I bet the Konami code does something in this dumb-ass review," and lo, the Verge has provided something even stupider.
I mean, at least he self identifies that the Verge is about consumerism. And that article is hitting all the marks of defining self through purchases.
Yeah, it kind of shocked me when he said that like it was NBD.
The article that stood out to me was the one last year that was like 3000 words about deer having the gall to live near New York City. It just made absolutely no sense.
I don't think it's tone deaf at all, I think their video in particular does a good job of illustrating all the problems with that device
I have to admit that I did not "watch" the video (GET IT???).
What I meant by tone-deaf is that the review comes very squarely from the perspective of someone in a tech-enthusiast bubble. It's out of touch with people in general, not with technophiles, which is I'm sure to some extent related to the audience they're targeting with their articles. It still reads to me like a dispatch from an alternate universe.
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AtomicTofuShe's a straight-up supervillain, yoRegistered Userregular
ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Pulled the trigger on the Surface Pro 2 just now. I decided the specs on the three don't justify the $400-$500 difference and I'd rather put that money towards something else.
I don't think it's tone deaf at all, I think their video in particular does a good job of illustrating all the problems with that device
I have to admit that I did not "watch" the video (GET IT???).
What I meant by tone-deaf is that the review comes very squarely from the perspective of someone in a tech-enthusiast bubble. It's out of touch with people in general, not with technophiles, which is I'm sure to some extent related to the audience they're targeting with their articles. It still reads to me like a dispatch from an alternate universe.
Based on reading other reviews around the net I think the reason it reads like that is because that's how every one of these reviews read, because Apple hasn't presented a single reason why non-technophiles would give a FUCK about it
Deciding if this tax return is getting me a bigger tablet....turns out the note 8 works beautifully but just isn't big enough for the glorified pdf reader I need it to be. Anybody have any suggestions? I'd like to stick with android things if possible. Goals: bigger than 8inches, under 500 (is this doable?) and preferably with whatever is a decent processor in a tablet.
I feel like the writers at The Verge are so up their own butts that they're actually looking out of their own eyes, which lets them display just a glimmer of self-awareness sometimes.
I mean they're tech-enthusiast press, sure, so you get what you get. But their podcast is really good and if you want reviews for Grandma go to Cnet or something.
I ordered it on feb 20th, they shipped it on mar 3rd, it got here today; that was from gearbest, though, I don't know who has the cheapest deal today.
I ordered mine from Gearbest too and it shipped last Wednesday. So I can poetically expect it to show up mid to late April then.
Hey it showed up today! Much earlier than expected. Right off the bat, this is a lot nicer build quality than I was expecting. I wasn't expecting trash but this looks and feels well constructed. Now to see how it works.
Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised by the comfort when wearing it, too -- I'm usually super picky about watches that don't fit just right, but this thing is so light it doesn't really matter much one way or another. The biggest annoyance is that it triggers the 'I have a watch on' instinct even when I don't, so I keep on looking at my arm to tell what the time is, and all I see is some little blinking dots.
The "Twilight of Attention" (!!!) section is my favorite:
So far I’ve mostly used the Watch either alone or in an office environment, but it’s really different to have a smartwatch in a bar: here, even small distractions make you seem like a jerk. Sonia’s trying to describe the project to me and find ways to work together, but I keep glancing at my wrist to see extremely unimportant emails fly by.
Paying zero attention to someone trying to have a conversation with you makes you """seem""" like a jerk.
It turns out that checking your Watch over and over again is a gesture that carries a lot of cultural weight. Eventually, Sonia asks me if I need to be somewhere else. We’re both embarrassed, and I’ve mostly just ignored everyone. This is a little too much future all at once.
Looking at your watch has been social shorthand for "I am bored as fuck" since forever, was this reviewer unfrozen from a block of ice recently?
Also it's the watch's fault that I don't give a shit about what my co-worker is saying.
hey now
nobody wears watches anymore
but then again
now we check our phones to indicate we're "bored as fuck"
since they also tell time
(and also twitter)
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
Can someone please explain these sms/texting apps to me?what is the deal with Google hangouts? What is that textra thing?
You can swap the default SMS app on Android to other apps besides the default Messenger app. Google Hangouts supports SMS similar to iMessage, in that Hangouts messages and SMS are merged into one thread in-app.
Personally, I use Textra for SMS but there's several other excellent options you can use. If you want to try out a few, you might want to be careful about losing old messages. If I remember correctly, switching from Hangouts to something else will erase your old SMS messages, but you can backup/restore them.
Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised by the comfort when wearing it, too -- I'm usually super picky about watches that don't fit just right, but this thing is so light it doesn't really matter much one way or another. The biggest annoyance is that it triggers the 'I have a watch on' instinct even when I don't, so I keep on looking at my arm to tell what the time is, and all I see is some little blinking dots.
A guy modified the app to allow for the more advanced notification features that would normally only work with Xiaomi phones to work with any phone.
It allows any app that uses notifications to push them to the band where you can customize the alerts individually with full control of LED color as well as number and duration of flashes and vibrations.
Hope my Pebble Time arrives soon. As a backer I should get it in may, would be my first "Smartwatch"
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Hey so, this is more video-gamey than straight Tech-y but I feel like it's close enough? Also I can't find a generic video games news thread. So you know what I'm gonna just post it
The Entertainment Software Association doesn’t want anyone to restore the functionality of older videogames that are no longer supported by their publisher, because, says ESA, this is “hacking,” and all hacking is “associated with piracy.”
EFF, along with law student Kendra Albert, is asking the Copyright Office to give some legal protection to game enthusiasts, museums, and academics who preserve older video games and keep them playable. We’re asking for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions (Section 1201) for those who modify games to keep them working after the servers they need are shut down. Many player communities, along with museums, archives, and researchers, want to keep the games they own playable after publishers shut down the servers the games depend on. Section 1201 creates legal difficulty for these communities, which is why we’ve asked the Copyright Office to give them an exemption.
Section 1201 is often used by the entertainment industries not to prevent copyright infringement but to control markets and lock out competition. So it’s not surprising that ESA (the trade association for the largest game producers), along with MPAA and RIAA, have written to the Copyright Office to oppose this exemption. They say that modifying games to connect to a new server (or to avoid contacting a server at all) after publisher support ends—letting people continue to play the games they paid for—will destroy the video game industry. They say it would “undermine the fundamental copyright principles on which our copyright laws are based.”
ESA also says that exceptions to Section 1201’s blanket ban will send a message that “hacking—an activity closely associated with piracy in the minds of the marketplace—is lawful.” Imagine the havoc that could result if people believed that “hacking” was ever legal! Of course, “hacking” is legal in most circumstances. ESA, the spokespeople for a group of software companies, knows this full well. Most of the programmers that create games for Sony, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, and other ESA members undoubtedly learned their craft by tinkering with existing software. If “hacking,” broadly defined, were actually illegal, there likely would have been no video game industry.
Behind this hyperbole, ESA (along with MPAA and RIAA) seem to be opposing anyone who bypasses game DRM for any reason, no matter how limited or important.
Games abandoned by their producers are one area where Section 1201 is seriously interfering with important, lawful activities—like continuing to play the games you already own. It’s also a serious problem for archives like the Internet Archive, museums like Oakland, California’s Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, and researchers who study video games as a cultural and historical medium. Thanks to server shutdowns, and legal uncertainty created by Section 1201, their objects of study and preservation may be reduced to the digital equivalent of crumbling papyrus in as little as a year. That’s why an exemption from the Copyright Office is needed.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
"Copyright holders defend their copyrights because they kinda have to" isn't super shocking.
The EFF is dealing with this the right way by asking for new regulations to be created, and until that happens the ESA is doing what they have to do to legally hold on to their copyrights.
+1
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AtomicTofuShe's a straight-up supervillain, yoRegistered Userregular
The Verge's review of the Macbook seems to more based on the product it thinks it will be in a few generations rather than the product it is now
The Verge's review of the Macbook seems to more based on the product it thinks it will be in a few generations rather than the product it is now
I think that it's kind of crazy that they decided to give it a perfect score in "design" when they admit that it's an exercise in compromise. Especially down in the section where they talk about the switch to a single USB Type-C port. These are direct quotes:
So, just by way of example, right now I can't plug my Apple MacBook into my Apple Cinema Display because I don’t have a dongle with Display Port on it.
Sure, I miss the safety of the MagSafe adapter, but being able to buy any number of chargers and adapters from whomever makes the cheapest or best ones is a big deal — and worth the tradeoff. Or will be, once USB Type-C takes hold.
The MacBook supports Bluetooth 4.0 and an alphabet of Wi-Fi standards, but that's not enough, not yet.
But when I need it, I need it, and having to carry a rat's nest of adapters and cables puts a huge damper on the portability of this machine.
That's enough for me to say that a 10/10 for design isn't a legitimate score. It might be a legitimate score in a year, when the rest of the peripheral world has caught up, but in the here-and-now it's not cutting it. When a reviewer is stating directly that a design choice meant to increase portability has done exactly the opposite, that's obviously not a good design choice!
jgeis on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
The Verge's review of the Macbook seems to more based on the product it thinks it will be in a few generations rather than the product it is now
I think that it's kind of crazy that they decided to give it a perfect score in "design" when they admit that it's an exercise in compromise. Especially down in the section where they talk about the switch to a single USB Type-C port. These are direct quotes:
So, just by way of example, right now I can't plug my Apple MacBook into my Apple Cinema Display because I don’t have a dongle with Display Port on it.
Sure, I miss the safety of the MagSafe adapter, but being able to buy any number of chargers and adapters from whomever makes the cheapest or best ones is a big deal — and worth the tradeoff. Or will be, once USB Type-C takes hold.
The MacBook supports Bluetooth 4.0 and an alphabet of Wi-Fi standards, but that's not enough, not yet.
But when I need it, I need it, and having to carry a rat's nest of adapters and cables puts a huge damper on the portability of this machine.
That's enough for me to say that a 10/10 for design isn't a legitimate score. It might be a legitimate score in a year, when the rest of the peripheral world has caught up, but in there here-and-now it's not cutting it. When a reviewer is stating directly that a design choice meant to increase portability has done exactly the opposite, then that's obviously not a good design choice!
Even in a years time when the market is filled with USB-C goodies, one port is still not enough. At the very least it should be one on each side.
I consider myself a tech enthusiast and I also consider the Apple watch to be at best impractical and at worst useless.
So, like every other watch out there?
I've never owned a watch with a battery that only lasted 36 hours
My watch lasts about 48 hours if I give it a good windup.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
edited April 2015
I just can't imagine why they would make an Apple Watch. To me it seems anachronistic, like the sort of thing you'd see in a 1970's sci fi movie about the 2010's. You can buy a smart phone, you can buy a tablet, why would you want a smaller version of those which seems less flexible in its use, unless it was a much much cheaper alternative, which it doesn't really seem to be?
Honestly, it sort of reminds of the Dilbert where he makes a ring that can access the internet with a tiny screen that displays a single character at a time. Or the Time Mug.
Lord_Asmodeus on
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Posts
It's _8.7 mb_ of web page, with all the various 'animated' background elements, the embedded videos, etc. I like the concept of the amount-of-battery icon changing as the review goes through the day, but otherwise it is just ludicrous.
Nilay thinks he is a good writer, but he really, really isn't.
And the device itself pretty much came out exactly how I was expecting - processor too slow for what they're asking it to do, but it looks good.
It's hilarious that your first sentence could be either about the stupid verge article or the watch.
I almost made a joke to the effect of "I bet the Konami code does something in this dumb-ass review," and lo, the Verge has provided something even stupider.
I don't think it's tone deaf at all, I think their video in particular does a good job of illustrating all the problems with that device
Yeah, it kind of shocked me when he said that like it was NBD.
The article that stood out to me was the one last year that was like 3000 words about deer having the gall to live near New York City. It just made absolutely no sense.
But just watching the video paints a perfect picture of that watch
I have to admit that I did not "watch" the video (GET IT???).
What I meant by tone-deaf is that the review comes very squarely from the perspective of someone in a tech-enthusiast bubble. It's out of touch with people in general, not with technophiles, which is I'm sure to some extent related to the audience they're targeting with their articles. It still reads to me like a dispatch from an alternate universe.
Steam
Based on reading other reviews around the net I think the reason it reads like that is because that's how every one of these reviews read, because Apple hasn't presented a single reason why non-technophiles would give a FUCK about it
I mean they're tech-enthusiast press, sure, so you get what you get. But their podcast is really good and if you want reviews for Grandma go to Cnet or something.
Hey it showed up today! Much earlier than expected. Right off the bat, this is a lot nicer build quality than I was expecting. I wasn't expecting trash but this looks and feels well constructed. Now to see how it works.
So, like every other watch out there?
Satans..... hints.....
hey now
nobody wears watches anymore
but then again
now we check our phones to indicate we're "bored as fuck"
since they also tell time
(and also twitter)
I really enjoy a good, clean, well made interface in just about everything
But this seems... It just seems like way too much.
You can swap the default SMS app on Android to other apps besides the default Messenger app. Google Hangouts supports SMS similar to iMessage, in that Hangouts messages and SMS are merged into one thread in-app.
Personally, I use Textra for SMS but there's several other excellent options you can use. If you want to try out a few, you might want to be careful about losing old messages. If I remember correctly, switching from Hangouts to something else will erase your old SMS messages, but you can backup/restore them.
Depending on your circles it's probably more of a fashion statement than the Apple watch anyways
I've never owned a watch with a battery that only lasted 36 hours
Did you see this?
A guy modified the app to allow for the more advanced notification features that would normally only work with Xiaomi phones to work with any phone.
It allows any app that uses notifications to push them to the band where you can customize the alerts individually with full control of LED color as well as number and duration of flashes and vibrations.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/videogame-publishers-no-preserving-abandoned-games-even-museums-and-archives\\
The EFF is dealing with this the right way by asking for new regulations to be created, and until that happens the ESA is doing what they have to do to legally hold on to their copyrights.
Steam
But literally every new product they're releasing now is made on the idea that fairy dust engineering is more important than practicality
It's like if a company were to try selling Alfa Romeo 4Cs and Toyobaru BRZ-86s as family sedans
I think that it's kind of crazy that they decided to give it a perfect score in "design" when they admit that it's an exercise in compromise. Especially down in the section where they talk about the switch to a single USB Type-C port. These are direct quotes:
That's enough for me to say that a 10/10 for design isn't a legitimate score. It might be a legitimate score in a year, when the rest of the peripheral world has caught up, but in the here-and-now it's not cutting it. When a reviewer is stating directly that a design choice meant to increase portability has done exactly the opposite, that's obviously not a good design choice!
Even in a years time when the market is filled with USB-C goodies, one port is still not enough. At the very least it should be one on each side.
My watch lasts about 48 hours if I give it a good windup.
Honestly, it sort of reminds of the Dilbert where he makes a ring that can access the internet with a tiny screen that displays a single character at a time. Or the Time Mug.