224 karma · joined February 19, 2013
I guess you never know when a candy bar might come in handy.
4chan, in comparison, has always been organic from day 1.
Related, one of the funniest bans I've ever seen.
Quite the fundamental difference.
For one, you're not holding people at gunpoint with the threat of violence.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/4
Every phone has its features. It's just at a point where a simple chart-by-chart comparison won't work for most people anymore. Practically every reviewer likes the One despite the fact that on paper it's a downgrade to the S4 in every way. Basically, it is like you said, the devil is in the details, but bigger is not necessarily better.
Personally, out of those three phones, I'd rather go with the HTC One only because I like the aluminum body chassis (along with how the screen looks) and the fact that their stock Android version is 50 dollars cheaper than Samsung's. The decently sized front speakers are also a plus. I very much dislike the look of the GS4 and TouchWiz which, in comparison with HTC's Sense, has less cooler whistles and doodads IMO. But ultimately I like stock Android the best.
The beats audio chip on the One is a con for me though (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdbn_pmxFic).
I haven't given the Xperia Z much of a chance, but aside from the fact that it looks aesthetically pleasing to me and I can use it while showering, I don't see much of an advantage. The GS4 came out with a water and dust resistant version, but it's slightly bigger and the audio jack is off so it won't fit most S4 cases. The Z's overlay is much more stock Android (GS4 version is TouchWiz only). So I'll pick it over Samsung because of that.
Basically, I really don't like TouchWiz. For the most part it just feels cluttered and half baked and a pain to use.
Russia Today is exceptionally critical of American politics, and their international video newscasts are pretty much dead center criticisms of America. They barely mention Russian affairs, if at all. Whenever I catch a glimpse of them on MHz WorldView I have to change the channel.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/18/4343382/technical-illusion...
Granted, a firing is never a graceful affair, but Valve could've done much worse if they wanted to.
It seems to me that Valve was cutting some losses and her project wasn't showing much promise compared to other things they had going on, so they let her go.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33882559/ns/business-us_business/t...
Axe: Get bitches
Dove: Because bitches deserve to be got.
Some odd summers ago I went across Chicago Public Schools to document building lighting for upgrades to more efficient lamps, since the current lamps the building "engineers" were using stopped being manufactured and supply was starting to run out.
Some of the shit I've seen there puts third world countries to shame. One day my photography partner couldn't make it so I brought my mother along to fill her spot. After we finished a particularly bad school she began crying because it reminded her of her own primary schooling in communist Ukraine some ~50 years ago. It was incomprehensible and heartbreaking to her that such a great country like America could have such terrible education standards. The difference between rich and poor schools is night and day. When you don't have central heating, when half of the bathroom facilities don't work, and when you don't even have enough money to buy chalk, there's absolutely no way you could even possibly comprehend to compete with the likes of Walter Payton.
36 grand for a single undergraduate school year? Thanks, but you can go fuck right off America. At the very least studying overseas does provide you with a genuinely different political and philosophical worldview.
I don't have any empirical data to back this up, but in my personal opinion a large reason why Windows Phone just isn't doing so well is because of brand association with 'Windows' and 'Microsoft'.
Microsoft's general appeal to the public is not one of hip and chic and new, which is what Windows Phone marketing has generally been about. Microsoft is associated with corporation and money and monopoly. The appeal of Windows OS to users is that people just use it and it works and sometimes it does things they don't understand and they get viruses and they get angry at it and they have to use Excel and Word. Even if Windows as a product is stellar the old moniker still lurks and it's very difficult to move away from that. People buy Windows because it's Windows. Good or bad. Doesn't matter. And Microsoft clearly has the OS marketshare muscle to force people onto Windows 8 despite it not being very favorable to many at all. Microsoft is just seen as an unappealing 'businessy' corporation for the general public. It doesn't at all attract the young or relatively middle aged chic users that it wants so hard. Windows is just seen as a business brand in general.
Apple already has a well known established brand and image, and Samsung is relatively faceless to the western market (and quite respected in the east) so much so that it can shape its brand image still (Going for the Apple look). Microsoft is simply just too well known to market Windows Phone as Windows Phone.
I honestly believe that if they just set up a different Mobile branch with a new name, rename Windows Phone to something else, and removed some of the "Windowsy" stickers on the Phone's OS, it would sell very very well. As an operating system the core apps work very well together and it's honestly better than Blackberry's and stands as a fair contender with Android in terms of polish. The only real problem is that it's just called Windows Phone.
That, and Microsoft just loves to drop support for older phones (2+ years old). That's a big no-no. Fucking over your already small userbase because you're churning out bigger and more powerful phones to go after the cash prize of young consumers does not bode well. It shows your greedy cunty side and will obviously detract already existing customers... which makes developers not so willing to make apps on your platform, however open and easy and inviting it may be. You are not Android. You do not offer the upgradability option like Android.
But unfortunately Microsoft's goal is to unify all of their products under a few 'key' Windows things. Skype is increasingly becoming more Microsofty and hotmail was turned into outlook. Neither of those things as brands are exactly super appealing. Microsoft is trying to centralize everything a la Google with it's wide plethora of apps and services while simultaneously creating a walled garden of windows only products like Apple.
When I think of outlook I think of being at work and dealing with business emails. I hate that. I don't want to tell you what I think about when I think of Internet Explorer. Associating that with Windows Phone doesn't make me happy. I don't want to take my internet explorer experience with me on the go.
When I think of Android I think of an open platform and flexible. Google's default apps are very open and clean and simple. Chrome mobile is just primary colors and white and sharp with some text. It doesn't fuck around but it doesn't look businessy either. Same goes for the gmail app. The plethora of adequate white space between apps and their overall simple and clean design shapes Google's image as an open and simple company. In general, that's always been how Google has marketed itself and it's products. Windows is trying to copy that same design style to some degree in Windows Phone, but it just doesn't work. That's not the company's history.
Now, going back on topic. Samsung is going to spend a few years actually just making Tizen work as an OS and polishing it, unless they somehow hijack a lot of grunt developers overnight or something. iOS has gone through a lot of polish and testing and Android has taken years to work as well as it is currently today. Yes yes, TouchWiz is Android to many Samsung users. But under the hood Android does quite a bit more than what TouchWiz lets you believe. And there's lots of things that you only learn about once you let something loose in the wild.
Sleep deprived walltexts. I am sorry HN.
Are even logical fallacies supposed to be politically correct now? That's hilarious. Googling strawpeople gets me a New Zealand band.
...what? How much effort do you put in to finding everything sexist?
This ladybug mounting another ladybug outside my window? Sexually oppressive. The female ladybug should be capable of choosing which position is preferable for her. This pencil in my hand? It's long. Hence a phallic object. Hence sexually intimidating. I am forced to involuntarily hold penises as I write on paper. This mouse under my palm is being raped as it has no matter of choice by which I guide it and its wheel (symbolic of the empowering clitoris, which I voluntarily scroll with) to accomplish my task. It has no say in when I click it or how I click it. Hence I am depriving it of free choice. Hence I am raping it.
A while back there was a way to unlock an AMD 6950 GPU to a 6970 as well. Had something to do with unlocking some memory modules since the cards were identical.
It was only years later after I began delving into Linux and found a need to make something a bit more powerful than a bash script that I began developing an interest in programming again.
I'm sure there are many other capable and willing folks out there right now who feel the same way that I did. They want to learn but they don't see the point of it. Most courses at least don't really teach any real world applicability to what is being studied.