Captain Megaton

I thought it was interesting that in 1890 people correctly predicted internet porn, and by 1912 had figured out Skype, too.

I guess out in the sticks it still has some name recognition?

That’s just the cost of the software!

16:21 would be even better.

There are people who understand the advantages of 35/1.4 over 18-55/3.5-5.6 and are prepared to pay for the former. Then there people like you who don’t.

And much cheaper than a Leica!

And show me an 18/2 in Nikon mount! Closest I can think of the the Carl Zeiss 18/3.5 and that costs $1500 or so! A 28/2 would be an AiS, and used about $400. A Nikkor 35/1.4 AFS retails at two grand. Could probably do better than the Fuji for 50mm F1/4, but a 60mm Nikkor AFS macro, only F2.8, is about $500.

While the X-Pro 1 is above my pain threshold, I don’t feel the lenses are comparatively expensive. “XF18mmF2 R, a 27mm f/2.0 lens; the XF 35mmF1.4 R, a 53mm f/1.4 lens; and the XF60mmF2.4 R Macro” Given the apertures on offer here, I’d be hard pressed to find equivalents in Nikon or Canon mount for much less money, unless I bought used.

When I read the earlier Verge post about the rally, I laughed and though, “Hey, I wonder if Paul Miller is in with those 40,000”. and -

He WAS!

:)

Basic problem with plasma is the power consumption and heat. In terms of black, OLED and CrystalLED technology should be close enough for any application outside of bragging rights, since there too the dark pixels are actually turned off, there is no backlight.

That was pretty much my point, and yes, as I see it that’s about the only difference. They key point is selling payload capacity to telecommunications companies. The revenue goes to SpaceX and not back to NASA, and indirectly, taxpayers. Not necessarily progress in other words.

So you are saying that, some ways into their 1.6 billion contact, SpaceX says “sorry, we estimated wrong, it’s going to could 2.3 billion”, taxpayers are not going to foot the bill for overruns?

Try pulling the other one…

How is “private” space travel any better than “public” space travel? Do you really think, for one second, that private enterprise would have sent Voyager out to explore the planets of our solar system, would have been willing to send a rover to mars? send a probe to land on a comet? build a space telescope?

SpaceX is just a contractor funded with public money, providing a service for the government. Before, contractors just built parts of rockets, now they do they whole package. Yay.

Not sure if you are being cynical or not

Ri-ight…

1960: Government funds NASA, NASA builds rocket, rocket flies people to the moon and back.

2010: Government funds SpaceX, SpaceX builds rocket, rocket flies a load of fresh laundry to the space station.

Never a more exciting time?

I wouldn’t say WR is a gimmick, the real story here is the glass pentaprism and front control dial.

And the grills. Can’t ignore the grills.

“Panasonic is only making 1,500”

I’m sure they’ll make more if they ever sell out.

That is worth a lot as well.

Its only worth something if people keep using the site, keep providing information, and, crucially, the advertising is shown to translate into people buying stuff.

You’re it until you’re dead of I find someone better…

From Starship Troopers, but it does apply I think to internet users and facebook. The way people use the internet evolves over time, often with very sharp, swift swings once something reaches critical mass. Facebook is values at 100B, has revenues of only 1B, the majority of which comes from people playing farmville. A significant fraction of people hate the site, even if most people use it. It’s not Myspace, not, but it could yet be a Yahoo.

Yeah, but people think FB is worth one hundred billion dollars. That’s one expensive commenting platform…

It terms of what the internet will be, and what people will be doing, it’s fair to say that facebook could likely be far less relevant in 8 years than it is now. Its big enough that its not going down any faster, but at the same time it’s not as monolithic as all-encompassing as Google. Let’s face it, facebook is useful, but its not all that interesting.

The professional analysis in the papers today seems to be that the big money was made already, by the early investors. My gut feeling will be that FB shares will jump, then dip, then hold steady for a couple of years before the next big thing shows up and the company slides into decline.

So at first I was like “what are you talking about, she’s way over 18…”

and then I was like “disks, storage, non-retrievable data destruction…”

and then I was like “ahhhhhhhh….”

+1 to you, Sir!

So the cute PR rep can’t speak English but can mouth the words, and the not cute PR rep with (just) passable English provided the voiceover?

Quick, name one thing Yahoo! has to its name that is not done better elsewhere.

…..

I draw a complete blank. Flickr. At the time Yahoo bought it, it was better than anything photo gallery site out there, chiefly because it had the social aspect. 2012 you can’t say that anymore.

I like it as a social network for photographers. The system of groups, galleries, favorites and contacts works very well. I was taken aback by the really negative view people have been expressing recently here at the Verge. I agree that Yahoo hasn’t done anything positive for flickr, and that flickr itself has remained essentially static for the past four years, but what it does it does well.

That probably varies by region, but the flickr map for Japan is far, far – FAR – worse than the map at yahoo.co.jp, which is itself pretty piss-poor compared to Google. All you can see for major cities like Osaka are 2-3 main highways…