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Guys am I the only one who thinks these services are utterly pointless?

I don’t need more music – there’s tons out there already, i am mostly on sound cloud. I don’t need radio. I don’t want to subscribe to anything or if I do it better provide incredible value.

What’s the appeal? Is this about people who listen to mainstream pop?

1 day ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service 3 replies

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The truth is this movie should have ended when Spock tricked Khan with the torpedoes and blew up his ship. That was awesome. The film was concise, tight, and great up to that point.

Then followed tedium. Another 30 (?) or 40 minutes of added-on drama that did nothing to enhance the movie; that was mostly just silly. Oh Khan reappears even though his ship was blown to pieces, sure!, Enterprise facing technical trouble that might kill Kirk, everyone knows Kirk isn’t gonna die so the death scene was stupid, Spock “showing emotions” needs way more setup; e.g. we need to see Spock having no emotions in 50 episodes and then he shows emotions – that’s cool. As it were, there were 2 scenes where he didn’t show emotions, then he’s “oh I have them after all, there, a tear!”.

I am guessing this film suffered from too much budget.

It’s sad because there’s sooooooo much potential. All the casting is perfect. Action sequences were awesome. Especially Khan single-handedly taking out two squardons of Klingons, plus their ships. How cool.

And I totally agree with the looking back – what is UP with that? The Star Trek films never were any good; let’s be happy with a fresh start and please for the love of good stop navel gazing.

4 days ago on 'Star Trek Into Darkness' — a spoiler-heavy discussion 1 reply 2 recommends

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MS propaganda. WP is irrelevant. It’s being pushed relentlessly by Nokia and MS – that doesn’t make it a success; if they stopped pushing it, it would go away in no time at all.

In some ways WP’s “success” is similar to the “success” that Windows has on the PC. Windows is installed by default an all PCs sold. WP is installed by default on all Nokia phones sold. Even though Nokia is on its way down and out, it still has momentum, retail presence, marketing presence, and consumer mindshare. If Nokia put Symbian on these devices instead of WP, it would sell just the same. Nobody is asking for WP.

4 days ago on Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome

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Are you seriously suggesting that Google is dissing MS? Hello, the 1990s called… in this day and age MS is a non-entity;

Google competes with Apple, and they put their hangouts on Apple phones despite that. They have to as any messaging app must be available on all the important channels. And the important channels they have covered: MS Windows (desktop); iOS; Android; and Chrome, well they better push their own platforms, right.

In order to support WP, there would need to be a political reason, that somehow, to some end, WP must live. That’s clearly not Google’s priority given that WP is at best a competitor and made by a company that’s been trying to eat Google’s lunch for the past decade (search, maps, ….)….

4 days ago on Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome

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BBM and now this. Everyone wants to get into the chat game.

Downloaded on iOS but it’s a bit unclear how it works. I am not sure it knows my phone number; this is something it needs to know so others can chat with me without explicitly sending me an invite.

It said something about confirming my number but didn’t get past choosing the country code. Then the button was disabled.

Everyone I know already has Line and whatsapp. So tell me how this is better; if it mainly works with Google+ circles, then it’s significantly worse than the others….

4 days ago on Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome

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No one cares about Windows phone. That’s all. Nothing personal.

4 days ago on Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome

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Just call it what it is – propaganda.

One aspect of it is that those who are brainwashed by such propaganda will never see that; you can’t argue with a FOX news watcher. It’s very clever that way.

7 days ago on 'Geography of Hate' maps racism and homophobia on Twitter 2 replies 2 recommends

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The whole point is that this thing can fly indefinitely.

I wonder if that makes this suitable as a replacement for Satellites… a plane that can fly forever could act like a satellite, just much closer to the ground.

And I bet the military is all over this already…

15 days ago on Flying forever, one day at a time: solar-powered airplane embarks on coast-to-coast voyage 2 replies

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BTW they have whatsapp here too but I think it’s free for most people? I know lots of ppl with Whatsapp here that most certainly have no app store account / credit card / google play account. Good strategy actually, keep it free for those who won’t buy it anyway

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all?

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In Thailand, it’s Line. Hard to find anyone not using Line. Unfortunately it’s a really bad name in terms of googling for it….

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all? 1 reply

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Texting is really expensive here in SE Asia. About 15 cents / message. Unlimited internet is $20/month over here; So if you have internet already, there’s no reason to send sms.

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all?

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Skype is the worst messenger app , totally unreliable. Messages often appear hours later, or even days later. WTF. It seems like a pretty basic thing but Skype can’t do it.

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all? 2 recommends

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Which makes it useless to me.

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all?

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I disagree – I don’t think the messenger app matters at all, as long as the other person has it.

That said I am shocked by how crappy Whatsapp looks.

And I quite like the idea of Stickers in Line (now stolen by Path)… stickers have been around for a while in Asia – by no means did Line invent it – it’s basically an elaboration of emoticons. ASCII emoticons, then Emoji, then Stickers.

It’s quite fun – I’ve had proper conversations only using stickers. Of course stickers are best to express feelings rather than thoughts; but they’re great for that.

The other amazing thing about stickers is monetization – themed stickers go for $1 – $2 and there’s a viral element to them too as in when somebody sends you a cool sticker, and you don’t have that collection, you’re likely to go get it. Stickers are often free for a while, or used for promotion, etc. Fantastic from a business perspective. Probably why Path stole it. And why Facebook will steal it next.

16 days ago on Alone together: will one messaging app rule them all?

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If Robert Downey, Jr. leaves it’s good night and goodbye Iron Man, no matter what happens with the franchise. He is Tony Stark.

16 days ago on ‘Iron Man 3’ review: Robert Downey Jr. becomes the latest lethal weapon 1 reply

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I agree in light of the fact that I cannot remember a single thing about Iron Man 2 even though I most certainly saw it in a theater. Must have been really bad.

It just occurred to me that the new light-heartedness in IM3 is clearly because of the The Avengers. It fits better in that world this way, and The Avengers was easily the best superhero movie so far, out of all of them. I loved the super serious Batman movies as well – BUT – The Avengers was still a better film. And funny.

16 days ago on ‘Iron Man 3’ review: Robert Downey Jr. becomes the latest lethal weapon 1 recommend

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I quite liked it. It was a nice twist.

16 days ago on ‘Iron Man 3’ review: Robert Downey Jr. becomes the latest lethal weapon 1 recommend