loopyduck

iTunes on Windows is a total kludge. Once your library goes over 100GB, basic things like sorting go out the window. Half the time it refuses to sync with my iPhone — right now I’m trying to figure out why it’s not syncing some NPR podcasts — and after version 9, when syncs do work, they take forever. As for “not an eyesore”, it insists on custom UI elements that make it look nothing like any other Windows program. “Doesn’t crash”? Maybe iTunes 7.

To be fair, Win2K shouldn’t really be counted, not because it was too close to ME but because it wasn’t really supposed to be a consumer OS.

Incidentally, a lot of people seem to forget that ME came after 2000.

There is no such thing as Windows 97. There was a few Windows 95 OEM Service Release (aka Service Packs) in late ’96 and early ’97 but those were never available retail.

I didn’t know you were outside the States; I thought you were a Verizon customer. Google recently enabled folks on AT&T with a Nexus S or Galaxy Nexus to download Google Wallet straight from Play. Before then, those phones weren’t supported, and folks had to do the same workaround. Unlocked Galaxy Nexus phones in the US also can download Google Wallet.

So this might not be a carrier issue so much as a regional availability issue; Google doesn’t provide support for its use outside the country. You might end up needing to use a proxy to fool Play into thinking you have an American IP. Worse case scenario, XDA-Developers has a copy of Google Wallet you can just sideload onto your phone (if you’re willing to trust them I guess).

It’s actually pretty easy to install it, in four steps. You know how you can use your desktop or laptop browser to buy apps and they’ll automatically download on your phone? The 4-step procedure uses that. Just remember: every time it asks you if you want to switch to the Play app, stay in the browser, or else the workaround won’t work!

" The label has lost some of its sting… Increased public recognition has also helped broaden the culture; no longer confined to the image of an person-less room overstuffed with pop-culture flotsam."

I’m not sure if Galbraith that’s missing the mark or Hicks. From the write-up it seems like there’s a bit of conflation going on between otaku and hikikomori, the latter reflecting more of the reclusive nature mentioned here a couple times (especially Wired’s “socially inept but often brilliant technological shut-ins”). I see pictures of mecha, manga, figures, etc. and talk about maids, but one can be a train otaku, an architecture otaku, a gun otaku, military otaku, idol otaku — the term isn’t solely limited to, as they say, “2D people”.

Otaku, as an epithet, indicates not merely nerditry — which here in the States has some sort of hipster-coolness-I-wear-chunky-frames-and-like-Halo-therefore-I-am-a-nerd thing going on — but an unhealthy obsession. Sure, there’s the occasional women’s magazine article that touts the pros and cons of dating otaku (“never worry about him cheating on you! him spending hundreds of thousands of yen on toys”), but being considered an otaku by “normal” people is the kiss of social death. Just as with any sort of spurned subculture, the different subtypes of otaku have developed a certain defiant pride in what they do (and good on them for it), and some are attempting to reclaim it. But the term really is nothing like how someone at AX cosplaying as Naruto uses it when calling themselves “an otaku”.

Sigh. Not only did I misread what people were replying to, I didn’t even reply to the correct person D:

Whoops, misread it as you were talking about Verizon’s phone. The gimped part about AT&T’s X is the bootloader that HTC won’t offer an unlock for.

It’s a chunkier, slower One S without a heftier battery to account for LTE or CDMA (which, all things being equal, requires more power than GSM). About the only things going for it is the lack of PenTile and the MicroSD slot.

It’s a chunkier, slower One S without a heftier battery to account for LTE or CDMA (which, all things being equal, requires more power than GSM). About the only things going for it is the lack of PenTile and the MicroSD slot.

Also, while a Predator costs more than most standard police helicopters, there are plenty of drones that are in turn cheaper than a helicopter.

I’d actually love to see a Predator-mounted daisy cutter; it would be hilarious. A BLU-82 weighs about 7 times as much as a Predator.

Standard MQ-1 Predators cannot carry armaments. Only the MQ-1A Predators can carry weapons, and only Hellfire missiles.

The drone belongs to DHS; the LPD has an agreement with them that allows the police to borrow it if a situation is serious enough and it’s not already being used.

A standard MD 500E helicopter costs $1.1 million. The drone didn’t cost the police department anything, because it belongs to the DHS, and the Lakota police has an agreement with them that lets them borrow it.

You said “device”, which is singular. A single Predator drone does not cost multiple billions. Maybe if they had sent up a B-2 in support your comment would have been valid.

Right, and there are RFID scanners for the building doors/gates all across Berkeley. I never said it would be original, hence the last sentence of my comment. However, the difference is that (1) no dorm rooms at Berkeley have the scanners, and (2) with more and more folks having phones with NFC, not having one’s keys or ID doesn’t mean having to wait for an RA or roommate to come by. At least while I was at Berkeley, it seemed that people were much less likely to forget their phone than their keys or wallet.

What’s North Side like these days? Lived at Foothill (when the automation thing first appeared I expected to hear that it was by some Hillside engie nutter) for a couple years when I was at Berkeley.

That would require effort. Whoever is behind the idea, they probably thought they could make a (relatively) quick buck on this.

What makes you think a joystick would make it harder to control? At the very least we wouldn’t hear people accidentally stepping on the the gas pedal when they meant to step on the brakes.

“But the iPad works in Australia, albeit on HSPA+ speeds which is acceptable to the ITU as 4G.”

People keep saying this. The ITU didn’t say that. The ITU has no legal control over the term 4G. They don’t have the authority to give permission to its use because it’s not legally protected. When they said that certain service providers “may use” 4G to describe their HSPA+ or LTE or WiMAX services, they didn’t mean “may” as in “give permission”; they meant “will possibly do this”.

Good luck; you’re going to need it. Things like ATMs and parking meters are connected via the internet, and stuff like buying a plane ticket are going to cost you extra if you hold yourself to the “not asking other people to use it for you”. If you said you were quitting the Web for a year I’d think you might have a shot at this.