bathat

Not necessarily: If an advertizing slot was unsold and filled with self-advertizing, then the opportunity cost was zero.

I think the point is not that music software enables you specifically would be able to produce worthwhile music, but that it enables many people who are musically talented to create and distribute their work. There is, of course, an implicit assumption that there are a large number of such gifted people, but that assumption may not be as outlandish as it first appears. I had many friends from high school marching band who earned pocket money playing at weddings and such, yet every single one gave up music by the time they graduated from college.

We all know that anecdotes are not data, but the legacy music distribution model seems to be optimized for using labor efficiently a case where fixed and marginal costs are higher than they currently are. It is far from obvious that those optimizations are good ones where the cost of recording equipment has dropped by orders of magnitude and the cost of distributing a single song is so low that people will do it for free.

Not being familiar with the DDR4 spec, I wonder how much performance benefit DDR4 brings without increasing the size of the processor's cache line? As others have mentioned, the latency for random access is quite high, and DDR effectively just multiplies the bus width. For DMA and filling cache lines DDRx is a win because you usually want to grab all those bits anyway (although in those cases, the addresses tend to be contiguous anyway, so it's not as slow as "random"). But if your cache grabs bunches of 512 bits, having a memory that is only faster when transferring a contiguous group of 1024 bits isn't an obvious speedup.

I don't think anyone minds that Apple is competing. I've been fiercely critical of the new iOS 6 maps, and I welcome competition. I can't speak for others, but what bothers me is not that Apple released a different mapping solution, but that the new map app is just so unbelievably terrible for many people [1]. Even with the third-party add-ons, you still can't use Apple maps to plan an inter-city itinerary, or one that crosses the "territory" of multiple transit agencies. In some American cities, that means you can't use iOS 6 maps to plan a trip across town. These are things that did work in iOS 5.

I completely understand how it makes business sense for Apple to develop it's own mapping product, but that doesn't mean that they have to release software that is missing huge chunks of functionality. There seems to be this false dichotomy that Apple had two options: "release a product that is nowhere near ready to ship," and "rely on Google forever." There is a third option, which is "develop maps secretly, do the first two 90%'s of the work, then drop Google maps." Many on HN have argued that maps can't improve until they are used. That is doubtlessly true for some aspects: POIs, especially businesses, aren't going to be added until Apple maps gain mind-share, and there will be errors in the data that Apple bought until someone bothers to tell Apple to correct it. I can forgive Apple for that. But those are the things belong to the third 90% of the work.

If anything, this piece at Daring Fireball just reinforces the idea that Apple has a problem somewhere in the chain of command. It really seems like there's nothing that would have prevented Apple from waiting another 6 to 12 months to announce it's mapping product, except that someone drastically underestimated how difficult it would be to compete with Google. Frankly, I think that's why iOS 6 doesn't have transit directions--the only thing you can do with a late product is drop features or push back the ship date.[2]

I really do welcome all the things that Apple is trying to do maps in iOS 6, and I think they will have a good product in a year's time (or maybe two). That does not, however, mean that I want or will accept broken maps on my phone in the interim.

[1] Apparently this is everyone in Japan, a dude in Portugal, and many people who use public transit to get around in big American cities. For some, the addition of turn-by-turn is a bigger gain than the loss of public transit and street-view.

[2] This is also why I can't see the third-party transit thing as a viable solution. The end-game is that Apple will bring transit in-house the same way they did with the rest of maps. Actually, maybe it's a brilliant strategy on Apple's part to pick really good team to do transit directions. Embark seems to be doing a good job, but they seem to be focusing on just a few transit systems in big cities, with no inter-city transit. Hopefully Apple will acquire them and provide the resources to have really complete coverage.

The problem is that batteries are expensive. High-end cars have high margins (it doesn't cost 2x as much to build a $50k car as it does to build a $25k car). When Toyota introduced the Prius, they added all sorts of (what were then) $30k car features. Why? Not because they wanted to make a luxury car, (a friend of mine remarked that if they just added leather seats he would buy one instead of an expensive Lexus) but because it costs next to nothing to add those convenience features. That way people compare the Prius to a $30k car and see only a $1000 hybrid premium instead of a $5000 premium. That's also why you don't see $15k hybrids: Taking all the "premium" features out don't make it cost any less.

The reason this is possible is that hybrids and EVs have the margins of much less expensive cars.

Edit: added a sentence

Feist v. Rural (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural) seems to indicate the the arrangement of the facts is copyrightable, (if there is even a minimal degree of creativity) even though the facts themselves are not. The court held the alphabetic arrangement of names is not sufficient to warrant copyright protection, and it seems logical that mere temporal arrangement of classifieds would not merit protection either. However, it seems as though 3Taps would need to find a way to rearrange the facts presented within the advertizement, because that certainly is a creative process.

The seller has the freedom to write text a description and include pictures. Photographs have a long history of copyright protection, as does written work. Simply copying the specification sheet for a particular model of TV into the ad, for example, might not be copyrightable, but how does 3Taps sort those from the rest?

I just stole this from a random Craigslist ad:

"Black futon in good condition. The mattress is a lot thicker than most futons. It is pretty easy to assemble. You must be able to pick it up though because I do not have a truck. I am moving in a week so I need to get rid of it, asking for 100 or better offer. Please use the link above to email me. "

That the object is a futon, that said futon is black, thicker than average, easy to assemble and in good condition are all facts. The seller could have presented those facts in any number of ways, but he or she chose this way (proper spelling, for example, and mostly written in complete sentences) because he or she thought that would generate a better response. The only way I can see 3Taps on solid ground is if they can take the ad text, use it to generate a set of facts, and rewrite the ad from that (analogous to the way the PC BIOS was reverse-engineered, but done mechanically (I can't imagine it would scale well to have humans rewrite the ads))

Well... maybe I'm being too hyperbolic. But, I am under the impression that Safari is still the default handler for http things. So, links from the mail app or maps will open in Safari. I don't think it's that outrageous to suggest that malicious links have ever been sent via email.

We can all sit here on HN and say that you shouldn't just go around clicking on everything that arrives in your inbox, but phishing is still something that banks deal with.

> ... it's hard to believe Apple don't have automated tests to check for performance regressions like that.

Well, I mean, this is the same company that has received "some press" recently regarding the latest version of its mapping application.

Edit: That was a low blow, wasn't it?

Wonderful. So, now owners of the iPhone 4 and 4s will have two options:

1) Upgrade to a newer version of iOS to patch the exploit, and suffer a major functionality regression with regard to maps.

2) Not upgrade and risk having all the personal information on the phone stolen by a malicious website.

Is it possible that someone at Apple was a little stupid one day and said to themselves, "Oh, an iPad is just like an iPhone, so I'll just use the same routing config script for both. And since I'm such an efficient employee, I'll go ahead and commit this obviously-trivial change without further tests"?

Ok, yes, I was a little cavalier in my phrasing, and didn't communicate what I meant (which was roughly "iOS devices with a cellular radio"). iPhones and iPads with cellular radios are typically multi-homed. Edit: And "typically" does not mean "exclusively."

Unfortunately, Embark's applications don't do inter-city transit, and they only exist for a few large cities. Even with a 3rd party app installed, and completely ignoring the regression in UX, iOS 6 has a major regression in functionality. Try typing the following into Google maps: "Redondo Beach to UCSB" Then look at the public transit options.

This is a completely plausible scenario, and look at how Google shines:

1) Seven different transit agencies are represented in the first four suggested routes: LA County Metro, LA City DOT, Culver City Bus, Amtrak, Metrolink and Santa Barbara Transit

2) Google has no trouble mixing and matching the agencies to find the best route (but gives the user the option of reducing transfers).

3) Each route option only requires a subset of those, usually three.

4) Google knows that UCSB means University of California Santa Barbara, and picks a reasonable location on campus

5) This journey works my iPhone 4, but not on an iPhone 5

An iOS device is typically multi-homed. Think about what routing options the typical iPhone has and how it likely picks a default route.

The point anovikov was making is that AC is not intrinsically more efficient. In fact, it is less efficient over very long distances dues to radiative losses. We don't use AC because it lets us use more efficient voltages today. We use AC because 100 years ago we didn't have the technology to boost direct current to high voltages.

Yup, and on top of everything you said, Google maps integrates directions from different transit agencies really well. In Los Angeles, for example, there are often routes on three different systems. All the agencies already have trip planners, but none of them will suggest using a neighboring agency's bus or train, even if it would be more convenient.

Think of it like VHS vs. Betamax. "Everyone" says Betamax was technically superior, but often forget that it debuted with only a ~1 hour recording time, making it completely unsuitable for movie watching. However most users wanted to be able to watch movies. So even though it was only technically inferior in one aspect, that aspect was so important to the majority of users as to make VHS a significantly better system.

The same thing is happening here. A lot of people who live in big cities now depend on their phones for directions, and a lot of them need transit directions in addition to driving directions. A phone that can't do that has greatly diminished value. Not everyone wants a phone as a status symbol: some want it to actually do useful things.

As an interesting side-note, FedEx was buying adds a while ago complaining about the "Brown Bailout." Apparently there was some to-do about how UPS's pilots were part of the teamster's union (or its drivers were part of the pilot's union--I don't remember--in any case, FedEx didn't like it). For that reason, I wonder if we'll see a third player (maybe Amazon) enter the local delivery market because it doesn't have to deal with legacy contracts with the teamsters.

This is a very important point. Not just that, but the "offload person" won't be a member of the teamster's union (seeing as how they aren't actually driving the truck) and will have a more reasonable wage.

As chollida1 points out, UPS/Fedex may not be allowed to lift the CLD requirement quite yet, but that will probably come in time.

It depends on how good their marketing is. Trucks will initially probably still need a human in the cab. Truckers often drive in pairs so that the rig can be rolling for 20-22 hours per day. The way you get drivers to embrace the technology is by lobbying for laws that would allow a single driver to be at the wheel for, say, 14-16 hours at a time.

That's enough for a pair of drivers to keep the truck on the road continuously, and maybe almost enough to make it worthwhile to have just a single driver (so the cab owner doesn't have to split his profits with anyone). After gradually raising hours over the course of a few years, you can declare drivers optional. Owner-operators would still ride in the cab so they could handle pickup and delivery of trailers, but fleet owners might just hire drivers on the spot for things like that.

Edit: My (mis)understanding of trucking hours of service was based on a conversation with a truck drive a few months ago. Apparently, you can drive 14 hours continuously after taking 10 hours off. However, I think the point still stands that truck drivers will be less resistant to the introduction of robotic trucks if they perceive the change as a (at least short-term) benefit to them by increasing allowable driving time.

Here's what I would suggest: Part with $400-500 to join your airline's airport lounge/club for a year. The saved time and stress vastly outweighs the cost if you fly more than five or six times a year--if you fly that much it's usually worthwhile to try to stick with a single airline anyway for the frequent flier miles and the perks they hand out to those with "Elite" status (or whatever your airline calls it). If you fly less often it makes more sense to just buy day passes.

Most clubs have showers, free wifi, numerous power outlets, free snacks and adult beverages and, most importantly, a quiet place to relax before your flight (and none of those annoying "The TSA has recently blah blah blah blah" announcements over the PA). Many airlines offer reciprocal benefits with other airlines' lounges (for example, when flying on Alaska, you can use the Boardroom at an airport without an Admiral's Club).

Earlier this week I had to catch a flight departing at 6:15am. Instead of waking up at 3am, I spent my mandatory pre-flight airport time taking a shower (shampoo, soap, a razor and, of course, clean towels complements of the lounge), eating breakfast (free coffee, muffins and an apple) and catching up on email.

I agree, but banana plugs can be added to regular speaker wire pretty easily. Most just have a simple flat-head screw which holds the wire in place, so you don't even need to warm up the soldering iron.

I don't know if it justifies the "billion" that the other commenter threw out there, but there are a ton of Airport Express wifi devices, which support Airtunes. That's obviously not exactly the same thing, but saying that there are only 0.4 billion devices instead of 1 billion doesn't seem like a particularly strong argument.

Can you clarify how you think needing a separate Android device to control a Q to stream to a TV is the same as needing an Apple TV to stream to a TV? An Apple TV comes with a basic remote, so you don't need anything other than what comes in the box to actually use the device.

It looks like another commenter possibly answered this question, but I would also point out something possibly more important: You don't need to. That's because Apple includes a cheap little 7-button remote with the Apple TV. The iPod/iPad/iPhone remote does greatly enhance the UX of the Apple TV, but you don't need it to use the Apple TV for its intended purpose.

Just to reiterate: The reason people make a big deal about the fact that you need an Android to control a Q, but don't make a big deal about needing an iPhone to control an Apple TV, is that you don't need to buy anything extra (or already own anything in the Apple ecosystem) to use the Apple TV from the couch. For people who don't already own devices in the Android ecosystem, the Q is a $500 device, but the Apple TV is only a $100 device for those who don't already have an iThingy.

Hmm... some of your other comments read like they were written by a PR firm, (take that as you will) and in this one it seems that you are being deliberately obtuse. At best it seems like you are arguing a technicality.

I'm not in any way defending the actions of MU, its founders or staff, but it had only be established that such devices were legal a year or so before the iPod was released. At the time there was no way to legally purchase MP3- or AAC-encoded music from any of the major recording labels, so the idea that selling those devices (and distributing an MP3 encoder with iTunes for free) was inducement to infringe copyright on a massive scale wasn't so obviously without merit.

Well... but it isn't really the first draft of the technology, is it? Steve Mann was doing basically the same thing 15 years ago with equipment that wasn't really a whole lot more clunky. In fact, that's really the reason I can't get behind Glass as the Next Big Thing: I've wanted something like this for the better part of two decades and the display technology continues to suck.

Edit to add: Look here: http://wearcam.org/netcam.html That webpage hasn't been edited for a decade (a decade, that's 10 years), and it has a better-looking display unit (see the picture captioned "late 90's").