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There is big problem with finance in Prague city transport company (lot of frauds), big price increasing is coming. So this is probably an attempt to distract attention. Very poor attempt. Or someone in management is on drugs :-)

1 day ago on Prague plans subway carriages for singles to find love as they commute

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Weapons. In the end, having weapons will allow you to get whatever else it is that you may need.

7 days ago on Biggest Bitcoin exchange accused of violating US financial regulations, CEO faces fine or jail 1 reply

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“a dollar I send to Mt Gox may end up in your bank account with no oversight.”

Oh, the HORROR! Some fat lying slob claiming to represent my interests half a continent away doesn’t get to help himself to the fruits of my labor. What a fucking tragedy. I mean, really…

7 days ago on Biggest Bitcoin exchange accused of violating US financial regulations, CEO faces fine or jail 1 reply 1 recommend

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Try Pursued, it’s a bit more user-friendly.

10 days ago on Helplessness, despair, and Street View come together in 'GeoGuessr' Google Maps game

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Actually, Coca Cola’s market research indicated that the majority of their sample audience liked the New Coke.

In fact, New Coke was a (subjectively) better product (sweeter, smoother, etc).
But case studies on its failure indicate that that’s not why it failed.
There are currently several leading conclusions:

1. How a vocal minority was able to influence and sway people’s decision (study on social and peer pressure)
2. Poor statistical metrics. During Coca Cola’s trial run/market research, the majority of the samples, while favourable towards the new coke, said they “wouldn’t mind buying” the new product, whereas the minority who were against it, had a much stronger aversion “Will never buy”.

My personal conclusion from all this:

1. Listening/not listening to customers is like any other risks in business.
2. No matter how compelling the evidence FOR a new product, there’s always going to be facets that was not taken into account.
3. New/innovative != better. If this were true, we would all be using Dvorak keyboards today.

11 days ago on Microsoft responds to Windows 8 criticism, defends upcoming changes as 'a good thing'

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our experience too.
We recently opened up new offices in the states and the uk.
Bought new computers for the employees, but upon complaints and requests for retraining, we reinstalled W7 on almost all the machines.

There’re only a handful of users/machines that are still using W8.
Interestingly, they’re also the most vocal about their support for W8, compared to everyone else.
When I was over at the states’ office supervising some new developers, I notice how these guys acted like real-life Sheldons (TBBT).
Constantly belittling fellow employees, hijacking discussions and arrogantly trying to impose their opinions on others (“did you know w8 can do that better?”, “People who still uses W7 are unable to adapt”, etc).
Every now and then, they would notice tidbits of features in W8, and make a huge scene out of it.
“WHOA!!! Did you guys know that Win8 can do THIS? How is your Win7?”

So, in my (extremely biased) experience, not only do many people not like W8, but their workflows are also being disrupted by W8 fan boys. It’s almost like 2nd hand smoke. Sure, it’s not Microsoft fault for the emergence of these sort of people, but that’s the reality of it for our organisation, unfortunately.

And for that, I (as well as management) form a much worse opinion about W8.

11 days ago on Microsoft responds to Windows 8 criticism, defends upcoming changes as 'a good thing' 1 recommend

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Maybe you should get a non-shitty computer?

My Flash doesn’t take up too much CPU (unless it’s like heavy 3D) and doesn’t crash save maybe once a year.

If you get an shitty video card or the video drivers / OS doesn’t allow Flash to access the bitstream of the video, of course it’s going to become unstable (any computer at high load will do that).

17 days ago on Google Glass' awkward interactions parodied on 'Saturday Night Live'

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He states it as a fact and instructs others to pray. Would it be ok if it was my belief to say: “Those who blow up the heretics will raise into the paradise. The Lort will magnify your efforts. I have seen it so often in my life.”
I also could say “Gay people will burn in hell and everyone who supports them.”
There is a border what one can proclaim and state as a fact. You can believe what you want – feel good, be fine – but don’t whip it out as much as you can.

20 days ago on UNICEF says Facebook 'likes' won't save children's lives 4 recommends

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Please don’t speak as if your belief would be true. It may and does insult people.

20 days ago on UNICEF says Facebook 'likes' won't save children's lives 7 replies 17 recommends

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His post has 17 recommends, almost 40% more than any other naysay posts. People appear to agree with him more than not, which is sadly the case.

Feature-for-feature, the S4 destroys most competition (close is HTC’s One) series. (And yes, these features now matter since, as it’s posted before, most smartphone platforms are “equal” these days in terms of content acquisition, applications, etc — at least, for the common user).

Remote control replacement? Yes please! Stupidly simple content transfer / broadcast? Yes please! Smartphone based credit card? Yes please! (See? Notice I only mentioned the features most people would want to use and not anything that can be deemed “gimmicky”?)

So… What does that i5 have that can’t be downloaded on an S4? Voice assista… oh wait, there’s like a million of them on the Play Store — most of which integrate well. Widgets? Oh wait, wrong platform.

LOL

24 days ago on Microsoft creates an Apple vs. Samsung wedding fight for its new Windows Phone ad 1 reply

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Bad apps written badly will lag badly.

If the lag annoys you in Flipboard, use another app that doesn’t lag?

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review

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And if he had one of those two phones, he wouldn’t have a usable phone at all.

The drop must have been pretty forceful / at a high distance — it was strong enough so that the battery and cover popped out and disappeared (i.e. ejected quite a distance).

A “unibody” or single-piece chassis would have had to absorb all of that kinetic energy. I have no doubt it would have cracked the screen or damaged the chassis in one of those phones you mentioned.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 recommend

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Unfortunately, the antenna is also needed for data connections.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review

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And this is why i users ARE IN THE MINORITY.

You read that right.

Compared to all the Symbian, Android (excluding HTC One, RAZR, etc.), Blackberry, featurephone users, the majority of the market has opted for battery swap and memory cards (be it SD or Memory Stick).

Never has there been a time where less than 80% of the world phone market have not had removable memory / battery. (Before you go trotting out 30%+ marketshare, I said “phone market”, not “smartphone market”)

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 recommend

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You want that hanging out of your pants as it’s plugged into your phone for at least an hour?

Don’t get me wrong, I ALSO have an external battery pack, but I also have an extended battery. The pack is great for when you’re settling down (like at night when you’re camping), but no thank you while I’m moving — I don’t want things sticking out of my pants, possibly getting snagged (why I moved to bluetooth headsets for music instead of wired).

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 reply

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Google has NOT removed support for SD cards.

They haven’t included them into their products because:
a) PR wise, they’ll say that the average user is too stupid to have UI indicating where things are stored (not in those worse, but if you google “nexus phones misisng sd cards reason”, I’m sure you’ll find the interview(s) saying as such.
b) it increases your reliance on cloud services where they can see what kind of music / shows you have to tailor search results. (and no, it’s not just Google doing this)

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 reply 1 recommend

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Except the GS3 has:

a bigger screen
NFC
more software features
a faster processor
a bigger battery

Oops, forgot about those factors costing things, didn’t you?

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 4 replies 4 recommends

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I have both.

I have an external solar battery bank plus an extended battery. If the power goes out (like that massive blackout taking out most of US East and a bit of Canada for several days) or I go camping for several days, I can probably get about 20-30 hours of medium use, and an hour or so a day after if it’s sunny.

It helps, especially if you do something like gps-logging to trace the route you took.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 reply

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Of course you don’t find it a hassle. You need to bring a computer along with you to get the full potential of your phone.

Everyone else just leaves their laptop at home, carries their whole music and video library with them (64GB SD+64GB internal in a package that fits in your pants), and lasts for DAYS without being tethered to anything.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 recommend

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.. which require you to keep it plugged in for a period of time.

You’ll have to pay attention to how much the output current is. If the external charger is only 500mA, then a full charge on a normal phone is about 2-3 hours. A 1A output you could have a full charge in about 1-1.5 hours.

I guess you prefer to lug around an extra cable, the extra box, and wait an hour?

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 3 recommends

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I thought those phones charged themselves off of smug.

Man, was I wrong.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 recommend

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If you do have access to a charger for a few seconds, I’ve hotswapped my GNex batteries. 2 seconds of charger saves your reboot. =P

The charging level indicator is sometimes incorrect initially, but it usually settles in after a while (or if I need to, reboot =P)

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review

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If you leave your phone charging overnight or a long time, you realize that the battery bounces between 90%-100% to prevent overcharging? It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up over time.

The RAZR Maxx is a bit of an exception, too. The battery is massive compared to most phones. For that, some people might forgive the non-removability.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review

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Your phone is new, isn’t it?

Enjoy your phone 2 years down the road when it’s still perfectly usable (let’s be honest, you’re not going to need a 4GHz CPU in a cell phone unless you’re doing CAD) but your battery life has degraded by 40-60% original capacity. That’s just how rechargeables work. On average, you’ll find about a 20% battery life degredation per year, more if you constantly cycle (drain+charge).

Primary complaint of users with fixed batteries I hear all the time (mostly i users, actually)? Battery life sucks ass after 1-2 years. Enjoy paying for a new phone and new contract when your current device is perfectly fine. I’ll just throw in a $30 battery (off contract =P) and call it a day.

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 reply 1 recommend

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Or you just spend another one-time $50 and have your entire fucking library with you all the time? Or a $50/MONTHLY data plan for a GB? Or buying a coffee every day to use your local cafe’s wifi?

I don’t know about you, but I use my phone a LOT (GPS navigation, screen fairly bright, high-end gaming, some geofencing, music) and usually come back with less than 30% battery. Adding background data syncing will just kill the rest of my battery.

I could modify my behaviour to make the battery last longer, but why would I?

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 2 replies 2 recommends

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Why wouldn’t you want your entire music library with you, especially if it only cost you $25-50 (moveable to newer phones)? I don’t understand the need to be tethered to a wireless service (running data connection on 500MB is limiting, and wifi requires you to have wifi where ever you are) or a desktop/laptop (another 5 pounds of stuff to lug around?)

Sure, you can manage a TV season episode by episode… but with 96GB (64 SD+32 internal), I don’t have to. I have it with me all the time. I run NO chance of forgetting to sync up before the last episode of whatever you’ve synced before.

I’ll one-up your assertion that 99% of people don’t need external storage. I’ll make the argument most people don’t NEED smartphones; all they do is text and the occasional web browse and play some specific games. There’s absolutely no need for a dual or quad core device – a simple feature phone will do. (My old Sony Ericsson flip phone of 5 years ago has a browser, Nimbuzz for IMing, texts, music, games, etc.)

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 3 recommends

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Comparing the popularity of devices with removable memory and without, I don’t think it’s “a vocal minority” even if it’s not a primary purchase reason.

Every single Blackberry has a removable battery and SD card slot.
Most “featurephone” / “dumbphone” candybar phones have memory card slots, removable memory.
Most non-budget cameras have memory card slots.
Most popular Android, Symbian devices have SD card slots, and removable battery.

Ignoring the camera, that’s like 80%+ of ALL phones EVER (after memory cards were invented, anyway). The ones without expandable memory and removable battery are in the minority.

Why? Mostly because it’s dirt cheap to add these features… so why not?

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 3 replies 4 recommends

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You realize that the amount of power and CPU used for a hand-waving ONLY WHEN CALLING feature is negligible, right?

Thanks to Android’s Intent function, an Incoming Call intent is broadcast to all software whenever a call comes in. At this point, the software (which has not been running at all) activates, senses proximity for about 15 seconds, then closes after the ringing stops or user picks up.

If you turned this feature completely off, I think you MIGHT have about a minute more in standby, and about 5 seconds of usage. OMGTHINKOFTEHBATTERIEZ

29 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 2 replies 2 recommends