Recent Posts

576

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 30, 2010, 02:36 PM »

I really hope I'm in a position to purchase technology from some of the people in this thread someday.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 30, 2010, 07:23 AM »

Take any computer, write a bit of buggy software and put it on it. All of a sudden, it has features that no other computer has. I don't think that really makes it worth much more.

-Renegade (April 29, 2010, 10:36 PM)

Please, that's a nonsense a comparison. Maybe if said buggy software was an in development application full of trade secrets then we'd start to be in a similar situation to the current one. Of course then the laptop would become a very valuable commodity and completely disprove your point.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 29, 2010, 09:37 AM »

I'm not referring to sentimental value. This phone was a very valuable commodity beyond just the sums of it's parts as it represents highly prised IP. You can't simply compare it to existing iPhones or try and judge it's worth based on something like a lack of support, as it's not in that sense this item holds it's value.

The value of this phone would be determined by three factors; first by how much R&D Apple invested into it, second the potential loss to Apples profits if similar devices were to hit the market earlier as a direct consequence of the prototype leaking, and third by just how much 3rd parties are willing to pay for it, in this case $5000.

Your dirty underwear may be a difficult product to buy, but it's value is based on demand and if no one wants to buy it then supply is irrelevant.

A precious artwork for example holds very real, legally enforced value even if to 90% of the world it is little more than dirty paper useful only for wiping ones ass.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 29, 2010, 06:39 AM »

Funny, I'm not inclined to think it's a publicity stunt. It's doesn't follow any of Apple previous marketing tactics.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 29, 2010, 06:23 AM »

1) Used iPhones go for around $60 or so, well under $100. Used iPhones on eBay

2) In addition to being used, the product wasn't even finished. What is the value of an phone that you know doesn't work properly? This should further devalue it.

3) There is no support for the product, so if there are any issues, it's basically a worthless chunk of plastic and metal. This again should further devalue it.

-Renegade (April 29, 2010, 03:19 AM)

The value here is the value to the owner, and to Apple this phone was very, very valuable! That it was bought goes a long way to showing it was also considered a valuable item to others too. Just because 'most people' wouldn't see the value in it doesn't inherently devalue the item.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 27, 2010, 03:20 PM »

Well I just see it as taking a level of care and caution. Even if he wasn't drinking, so there isn't an issue of judgments being impaired, I still don't see how the risk can be justified. Pubs and night's out are generally risky places for expensive personal belongings of all kinds, given the importance of this particular item I just cannot see how bringing it along was a good idea.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 27, 2010, 12:35 PM »

There is a element of corporate espionage here, it's more serious than just the phone.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Eóin on April 27, 2010, 12:21 PM »

For Gizmodo to pay for a phone that they know was not the property of whom they were buying from was criminal.

-wraith808 (April 27, 2010, 11:32 AM)

Lost and found doesn't equal stolen. You are of course supposed to go to steps to return a good before you can claim ownership and I tend to agree Gizmodo's actions here are very dubious.

As for the engineer, he definitely deserves to get fired. Of all places to bring such a device the pub was not one of them! I bet he just wanted to show it off.

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Living Room / Re: People are really (really, really) stupid

« Last post by Eóin on April 26, 2010, 05:04 PM »

I wouldn't go so far as to call them stupid, just disinterested, and very funny!

-sazzen (April 26, 2010, 04:58 PM)

I would consider anyone not willing to learn to be stupid

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Living Room / Re: For when your PC next plays up...

« Last post by Eóin on April 26, 2010, 07:17 AM »

  I like, very clever

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Site/Forum Features / Re: Friendly 404

« Last post by Eóin on April 24, 2010, 03:14 PM »

My suggest would be to not make a 404 page too busy. I find on some sites that sometimes it take me a few moments to realize I'm not looking at a content page.

I think incorporating Cody is a great idea, as having an image dominate the 404 page very quickly indicates, to me at least, that this is not where I intended to be.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by Eóin on April 21, 2010, 11:33 AM »

Whenever I do slides for presentations or talks I use Beamer. Perhaps not for the faint of heart but if you want consistency you cannot do better than separating content from structure through use of a mark-up language.

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General Software Discussion / Re: How to remove ">>>" characters from mail and rewrap mail text?

« Last post by Eóin on April 21, 2010, 08:25 AM »

This is such a pet peeve of mine. I also want a cleaner to undo HTML style quoting. There really aren't that many email programs in common usage, surely a application could be written to identify and specifically undo each existing programs handiwork.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 20, 2010, 12:45 PM »

It exactly because of the 160 character SMS limit. Originally tweets were sent to and from phones through the SMS networks.

I actually think this is still possible?

I presume the extra 20 chars was reserved for potential ads, they are a commercial entity after all.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 20, 2010, 05:46 AM »

Oops yes, I was thinking of SMS text messages.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 19, 2010, 05:22 PM »

Well I'm not really looking to say URL shortening has no use, just that in cases where they aren't needed then they shouldn't be used due to the negative aspects that come along for the ride.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 19, 2010, 03:47 PM »

Let's not be silly, of course you can come up with an example greater than the 160 limit, that's hardly the point.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 19, 2010, 11:36 AM »

It would be interesting to see a survey of tweets with shortened URLs. I bet the vast majority would still fit within the 160 chars limit even with the long URL.

Of course I have no data to back that up, it's just a feeling

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 19, 2010, 08:13 AM »

Saying something was done "automatically" may let you argue your intent wasn't malicious. But to just say "oh well" or "sorry, we're working on it" doesn't meet the requirement for acting in a timely and responsible manner. Nor does it remove the liability for any harm done.

-40hz (April 19, 2010, 07:38 AM)

Just to clarify to automatic aspect I was referring to is a twitter client auto shortening of URLs for you, not bit.ly's identifying of site's as malicious.

My point is that the user who re-tweeted apps link should not have re-shortened the link and that they are more responsible for the damage done than bit.ly in the sense that they created a very suspicious looking, doubly cloaked, link.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 19, 2010, 06:46 AM »

I know this is all happening automatically without evil intent, but when you step back and look at it from again from the point of view a maliciously cloaked addresses then one that is doubly cloaked is very very suspicious.

A big part of me still thinks the blasé use of these services need to be highlighted and if you're using a client which is re-shortening already short links you should switch clients.

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Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Eóin on April 18, 2010, 03:46 PM »

Devils advocate: Outside of a constrained medium like twitter I would consider it right to warn user that they are clicking on masked or obfusticated URLs. It is a very dubious practice, personally I almost never click such hidden links.

But nonetheless you are correct here app, there is no excuse for one url shortening service to flag their competitors as malicious.

[edit] Just noticed that it's a nice ironic twist the the bit.ly link is longer than the original 

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Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by Eóin on April 17, 2010, 02:02 PM »

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of people who would actually choose neither.

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Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by Eóin on April 16, 2010, 08:29 AM »

+1 I fully agree with Curt

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Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by Eóin on April 15, 2010, 09:06 PM »

Is this supposed to be a logic/behavior problem as people are suggesting? Are you trying to second guess the other entrants and chose the drawing fewest of them would have opted for the increasing you chances of winning?

In that case I'd go for $250, seems likely to me that the vast majority would opt for $1000.

Of course if any more that 20% select the $250 draw then your expected return in a math sense is higher by entering the $1000 draw.

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Living Room / Re: Yea, I won't be getting an iPad anytime soon

« Last post by Eóin on April 15, 2010, 10:14 AM »

Most expensive iPad stand ever