history's greatest retraction

[Kip Williams]

http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html

"...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright
Flyer. It was not Wilbur, whose name is not spelled Wilber.

"The plane's wing span was 40 feet, 4 inches. The wings were 6 feet 2
inches apart vertically and 6 feet, 6 inches from front to rear. They
were covered in muslin, not canvas.

"The engine rested on top of the lower wing. It did not hang below it.

"The propellers had two blades each, not six. They both were mounted on
the rear side of the wings. There was no propeller providing upward force.

"Rudders in the front and rear and warping of the wings controlled the
plane. There was not a single, huge fan-shaped rudder that could be
moved side to side and raised and lowered.

"The pilot lay prone on the lower wing. There was no pilot's car..."

It goes on and on. The paper that covered the first flight first
revisited it just 100 years later to set the record straight.


Kip W
rasfw

[Howard Brazee]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:39:53 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>"...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright





>Flyer. It was not Wilbur, whose name is not spelled Wilber.

Cite the spelling?

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Howard Brazee]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:34:32 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:39:53 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>"...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright
>
>
>
>
>
>>Flyer. It was not Wilbur, whose name is not spelled Wilber.
>
>Cite the spelling?

Never mind, I misread you. I didn't look at the link, where I infer
the odd spelling existed.

[Kip Williams]

Howard Brazee wrote, On 8/25/12 9:36 PM:

> On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:34:32 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:39:53 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright
>>
>>> Flyer. It was not Wilbur, whose name is not spelled Wilber.
>>
>> Cite the spelling?
>
> Never mind, I misread you. I didn't look at the link, where I infer
> the odd spelling existed.

The link is to my blog. I reprint the retraction, and four paragraphs up
from the bottom of the blog post, there's a link to the original
Virginian-Pilot article from 1903 (the first published, apparently),
which contains the mistakes. It's at the Smithsonian, as part of a
lesson plan for schools.

I emailed them this evening, telling them about the corrections. If
they're going to use it in teaching, they might like to know about those.


Kip W
rasfw

[tphile2]

Dewey Defeats Truman

[William Hyde]

On Aug 25, 7:39 pm, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html
>
> "...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright
> Flyer.

Orville's yacht is up for sale. It's more than 75 years old and in
good condition. So if anyone one the group needs a tax deduction, be
advised that several museums would like to have it (or of course you
could use it yourself, it's currently on or about lake Huron).

William Hyde

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <700bb48f-a8d6-4bdf...@googlegroups.com>,

Trolley Delayed By Shark
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Dan Tilque]

tphile2 wrote:
> On Saturday, August 25, 2012 6:39:53 PM UTC-5, Kip Williams wrote:
>> http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html

>> "The pilot lay prone on the lower wing. There was no pilot's car..."
>>
>>
>>
>> It goes on and on. The paper that covered the first flight first
>>
>> revisited it just 100 years later to set the record straight.
>

> Dewey Defeats Truman

That wasn't a retraction.

The only famous retraction I can think of off-hand is the one from the
NY Times correcting an article from the 20s or 30s about how rockets
won't work in space. It was published, I believe, on July 15, 1969, the
day Apollo 11 was launched.


--
Dan Tilque

[Kip Williams]

Dan Tilque wrote, On 8/26/12 4:38 AM:

> tphile2 wrote:
>> On Saturday, August 25, 2012 6:39:53 PM UTC-5, Kip Williams wrote:
>>> http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html
>>> "The pilot lay prone on the lower wing. There was no pilot's car..."
>>>
>>> It goes on and on. The paper that covered the first flight first
>>> revisited it just 100 years later to set the record straight.
>>
>> Dewey Defeats Truman
>
> That wasn't a retraction.

One hopes they printed one for that, though.

> The only famous retraction I can think of off-hand is the one from the
> NY Times correcting an article from the 20s or 30s about how rockets
> won't work in space. It was published, I believe, on July 15, 1969, the
> day Apollo 11 was launched.

There's a good example.


Kip W
rasfw

[Tim McDaniel]

In article <a9tmvj...@mid.individual.net>,

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>In article <700bb48f-a8d6-4bdf...@googlegroups.com>,
>tphile2 <tph...@cableone.net> wrote:
>>On Saturday, August 25, 2012 6:39:53 PM UTC-5, Kip Williams wrote:
>>> http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html
>>>
>>> "...Orville Wright was the pilot for the first flight of the Wright
>>> Flyer. It was not Wilbur, whose name is not spelled Wilber.

...
>>
>>Dewey Defeats Truman

As Mr. Tilque noted, that was not a retraction.

>Trolley Delayed By Shark

I laughed out loud at that reference out of left field (or, to be more
precise, out of Astro City). Though that story isn't really apt
either, as every fact reported in that story was absolutely true --
it's just that the reporter couldn't source anything more except as
his own eyewitness testimony, so he had to leave out the cult opening
a doorway to an evil dimension and tons of superheroes battling to
save the Universe.

Googling, I ran across
http://www.astrocity.us/cgi-bin/index.cgi?page=news/trolley.html
Dear God! I hadn't realized that the newspaper story was an actual
true happened-in-our-universe story that Kurt Busiek built a superhero
story around!

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

[Peter Granzeau]

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:49:42 +0000 (UTC), tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel)
wrote:

>>>Dewey Defeats Truman
>
>As Mr. Tilque noted, that was not a retraction.

In fact, the headline was one of the greater examples of wishful
thinking.

[Howard Brazee]

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:11:04 -0400, Peter Granzeau <pgra...@cox.net>
wrote:

Wishing that they got the story out first.

[Joseph Nebus]

Well, not actually. More one of having to go to press earlier
than they should have (the Tribune was for reasons too complicated for
me to have kept straight using a different printing scheme than the
usual one --- I believe an early version of the photo-offset typing
that's now standard --- but it required more time to print at that
point) and so going to bed before the rather surprising decision of
the people to vote the way they wanted despite what polls and relentless
common wisdom said they would do was in evidence. (I don't doubt the
Tribune's boss wished Dewey had beaten Truman, but it's not like they
had no reason to think that Dewey had and were publishing a deliberate
fantasy.)

--
http://nebusresearch.wordpress.com/ Joseph Nebus
Current Entry: Reading the Comics, August 27, 2012 http://wp.me/p1RYhY-im
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Charles Bishop]

In article <k1cm07$n4o$1...@dont-email.me>, Dan Tilque <dti...@frontier.com>
wrote:

I seem to remember some from Scientific American, perhaps from their
50/100/ years column.

--
chalres

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:39:53 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>http://kipwblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html

[snip]

>It goes on and on. The paper that covered the first flight first
>revisited it just 100 years later to set the record straight.

ObSF: Isaac Asimov wrote -- I forget where; I read it a long time
ago -- that "The New York Times" declaimed once after yet another
failure at heavier-than-air flight that it would not happen in 1,000
years and that this was ten days before Kitty Hawk. Have you ever
seen that article? That would make for an interesting retraction.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[James Silverton]

Well, at least it was retracted. There is a word, following "The
Hacker's Dictionary" for such sweeping statements, a vannevar, from
Vannevar Bush's prediction of 'electronic brains, the size of the Empire
State Building and requiring the equivalent of Niagara Falls for
cooling'. This was made *after* semiconductors had been demonstrated.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Robert A. Woodward]

In article <g3454858u4v16lom3...@4ax.com>,

The Wikipedia article on Samuel P. Langley's unsuccessful airplane
(crashed on Dec 8, 1903) mentioned that "Newspapers made great
sport of the failures" - BTW, Langley completely overlooked the
necessity for roll control.

--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>

[Kip Williams]

Robert A. Woodward wrote, On 9/2/12 1:38 AM:

That's another interesting thing about Norfolk � signs of pro-Langley
partisan remain, even after all these years. Some thought he may have
succeeded before the Wrights, and they hung onto that for decades.
There's a marker for his aerodrome out on Willoughby Spit (not sure
offhand if that's where he was working or not), and of course NASA
Langley bears his name to this day.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/about/history.html

I'm thinking they must have filmed at least a bit of THE RIGHT STUFF at
Langley, seeing that big old wind tunnel that I drove by so many times
behind the actors in one or two shots. Too lazy to look it up just now,
though.


Kip W
rasfw

[David Johnston]

I did check out what the New York Times had to say about the subject in
1903 and of course so far as I can determine it never said any such
thing. It did have a scathing editorial in which it said that Langley
was wasting his time but the slant appeared to be that building flying
machines was a job for "mechanicians" and not mathematicians. They felt
that his math would always run into the limitations of real world
materials.

[David Johnston]

I find that entirely unremarkable. I'm not sure how big the biggest
server farm in the world is, but it must be getting up there.

[Kip Williams]

Also, I heard back from someone at the Smithsonian. I wrote them about
the retraction and suggested they might like to incorporate it into the
lesson plan that reprinted the original article.

The person who wrote said that they are going to revisit some of those
lesson plans soon, and thought they might include the belated
corrections as a sidelight.

Yay!


Kip W
rasfw

[JRStern]

On Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:34:27 -0600, David Johnston <Da...@block.net>
wrote:

>> Well, at least it was retracted. There is a word, following "The
>> Hacker's Dictionary" for such sweeping statements, a vannevar, from
>> Vannevar Bush's prediction of 'electronic brains, the size of the Empire
>> State Building and requiring the equivalent of Niagara Falls for
>> cooling'. This was made *after* semiconductors had been demonstrated.
>
>I find that entirely unremarkable. I'm not sure how big the biggest
>server farm in the world is, but it must be getting up there.

Yep.

Parkinson's Law at work, I guess.

J.

[Joseph Nebus]

To be fair to Langley, pretty much everyboy *except* the
Wrights overlooked the problem of control. Or, at least, they supposed
that the important problem was getting enough power to push something
through the air and trusted that controlling it would be something to
solve once they were up. The Wrights focused much more on controlling
a craft first (with gliders, first, and then putting an engine on) and
yeah, it turned out, it's much easier to learn how to fly and then put
the motor in to fly somewhere. (On the other hand, nobody used the
Wright's control mechanism; I think T A Heppenheimer described it as a
fine system for the *first* airplane but not for the second.)

I remember once looking through the New-York Daily Times
microfilm to find the editorial Asimov referred to, but I remembered the
date of the Wright Brothers' flight wrong and so ended up in a stretch of
late November 1903. That's notable to me only because I ran across an
editorial noting the anomalous discovery of helium coming from samples of
pure radium, and their making guesses about why this could be happening.
Their best guess --- perhaps the previous thinking was wrong and radium
was not actually an element --- is probably as good as could be imagined
at the time, certainly by the popular press anyway.

I'm also reminded of a history of mathematics by Florian Cajori,
published in the mid-20s, mentioning the anomalous splitting of spectral
lines that it's easy to see 85 years later was the discovery of the Zeeman
effect. It's just neat watching bright people struggling with the
mysteries of the age.

--
http://nebusresearch.wordpress.com/ Joseph Nebus

Current Entry: Why Someone Should Take That Deal http://wp.me/p1RYhY-iC
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Greg Goss]

nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

> To be fair to Langley, pretty much everyboy *except* the
>Wrights overlooked the problem of control. Or, at least, they supposed
>that the important problem was getting enough power to push something
>through the air and trusted that controlling it would be something to
>solve once they were up. The Wrights focused much more on controlling
>a craft first (with gliders, first, and then putting an engine on) and
>yeah, it turned out, it's much easier to learn how to fly and then put
>the motor in to fly somewhere. (On the other hand, nobody used the
>Wright's control mechanism; I think T A Heppenheimer described it as a
>fine system for the *first* airplane but not for the second.)

I thought that their patent protected "wing warping", so others had to
come up with ailerons and elevators instead. It turned out that the
second choice was MUCH better than the protected version.

That is one advantage of the patent system. While the first patent
runs, we exhaust all of the other possible ways of doing things, so
when the patent disappears we have far more choices.
--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:16:04 PM UTC+1, Greg Goss wrote:
> That is one advantage of the patent system. While the first patent
> runs, we exhaust all of the other possible ways of doing things, so
> when the patent disappears we have far more choices.

I dunno - I think that might happen anyway, just so that your product
has a unique-selling-point feature (whether better /or/ worse), and,
on the other hand, patents seem to be written to include "...also,
any other conceivable way of doing the same thing".

In the field of computer and telecommunications technology,
patents have been getting rather annoying, since, for one thing,
on a "smart" phone now you can do a lot of the things that you
used to do on a computer, but /because/ it's on a phone, somehow
the desktop computer version doesn't count as "prior art".
Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

Somewhere in there there may also be "portable computer" and
"tablet" versions of the same things.

Consequently, the twenty-first century sucks.

[Rod Speed]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

> Greg Goss wrote

>> That is one advantage of the patent system. While the first patent
>> runs, we exhaust all of the other possible ways of doing things, so
>> when the patent disappears we have far more choices.

> I dunno - I think that might happen anyway, just so that your product
> has a unique-selling-point feature (whether better /or/ worse), and,
> on the other hand, patents seem to be written to include "...also,
> any other conceivable way of doing the same thing".

They can't get patent protection doing that last.

> In the field of computer and telecommunications technology,
> patents have been getting rather annoying, since, for one thing,
> on a "smart" phone now you can do a lot of the things that you
> used to do on a computer, but /because/ it's on a phone, somehow
> the desktop computer version doesn't count as "prior art".

That's wrong too.

> Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

Nope.

> Somewhere in there there may also be "portable computer"
> and "tablet" versions of the same things.

Not patent protection wise.

> Consequently, the twenty-first century sucks.

Nope.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 9:05:13 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>
> > ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now

> > until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
> > such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.
>
> Nope.

Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an
Australian does.

Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?

[Rod Speed]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

> Rod Speed wrote
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

>> > ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
>> > until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
>> > such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

>> Nope.

> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
> does.

Like hell you do.

> Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?

Says he carefully deleting all the rest I said.

[Rod Speed]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

> Rod Speed wrote
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

>>> ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
>>> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
>>> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

>> Nope.

> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
> does.

We'll see...

Have fun listing even a single example of a patent that the
courts have upheld where that's actually been the case.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <84c88667-9c2a-4259...@googlegroups.com>, Robert

Annoying, isn't it. Just the same word, as if that would be enough proof
to change someone's mind.

'tis: 'tisn't

--
charls

[Gary R. Schmidt]

And that's how the nickname "RodBot" was acquired, back when it used to
annoy people using BBS's.

If I ever find out who told Roddles about Usenet and the Internet I may
have to break the promise to my sainted grand-mother *not* to use
violence as an educational tool.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Rod Speed]

"Gary R. Schmidt" <grsc...@acm.org> wrote in message
news:h9tlh9-...@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au...

> On 6/09/2012 4:33 PM, Charles Bishop wrote:
>> In article <84c88667-9c2a-4259...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Robert
>> Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 9:05:13 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
>>>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>>>>
>>>>> ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
>>>>> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
>>>>> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.
>>>>
>>>> Nope.
>>>
>>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an
>>> Australian does.
>>>
>>> Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?
>>
>> Annoying, isn't it. Just the same word, as if that would be enough proof
>> to change someone's mind.
>>
>> 'tis: 'tisn't

> And that's how the nickname "RodBot" was acquired, back when it used to
> annoy people using BBS's.

Wrong, as always.

> If I ever find out who told Roddles about Usenet and the Internet

No one did, stupid.

> I may have to break the promise to my sainted grand-mother *not* to use
> violence as an educational tool.

Completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:03:54 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
<news:84c88667-9c2a-4259...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

Corse he does.

Brian

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 12:35:54 AM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
> > Rod Speed wrote
> >> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>
> >> > ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
> >> > until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
> >> > such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.
>
> >> Nope.
>
> > Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
> > does.
>
> Like hell you do.

Why the hell wouldn't I?

> > Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?
>
> Says he carefully deleting all the rest I said.

Well, it was basically "Nope" in more and other words.

Strangely, that isn't less irritating, and yet "Nope" is /more/
irritating. Something's wrong with the arithmetic, here.

[Robert Carnegie]

Why would it matter what the courts do? Patents are mainly for
intimidating your competitor.

Maybe the courts are judicious enough to recognise that
"word processing on a 3G phone" isn't in itself an innovation
over "word processing on a 2G phone" or "word processing
in the 1970s on a desktop typewriter with a screen", and
maybe they aren't.

Supposing that they are, the picture can also be confused
by including consideration of "wirelessly accessed app store",
"cloud computing", etc. I think the odds favour a patent-hoarder
finding some way to declare their product a "new invention"
and thereby to prevent competitors from selling something similar.

Oh, and I think Apple claim that anyone else calling a small
application software title an "app" is infringing a trademark,
possibly the name of their fruity logo. I don't see this
standing up, though.

[Anthony Nance]

Not strange...taken to a not-too-far-away extreme, it's
related to the difference between well-reasoned opposing
discussion and a 4-year-old's automatic response of "no"
to everything.

Tony

[BCFD36]

On 9/2/12 8:44 AM, Kip Williams wrote:
> Robert A. Woodward wrote, On 9/2/12 1:38 AM:

[stuff deleted]

>
> I'm thinking they must have filmed at least a bit of THE RIGHT STUFF at
> Langley, seeing that big old wind tunnel that I drove by so many times
> behind the actors in one or two shots. Too lazy to look it up just now,
> though.
>
>
> Kip W
> rasfw
>

I believe that big old wind tunnel in the movie is at NASA Ames in
Sunnyvale, Ca. I seem to remember them filming there way back when.


--
Dave Scruggs
Captain, Boulder Creek Fire

[Kip Williams]

BCFD36 wrote, On 9/6/12 10:57 AM:

> On 9/2/12 8:44 AM, Kip Williams wrote:
>> Robert A. Woodward wrote, On 9/2/12 1:38 AM:
> [stuff deleted]
>>
>> I'm thinking they must have filmed at least a bit of THE RIGHT STUFF at
>> Langley, seeing that big old wind tunnel that I drove by so many times
>> behind the actors in one or two shots. Too lazy to look it up just now,
>> though.
>>

> I believe that big old wind tunnel in the movie is at NASA Ames in
> Sunnyvale, Ca. I seem to remember them filming there way back when.

A longer shot would have helped. Close up, one big wind tunnel looks a
lot like another. We weren't in Virginia yet when they made the movie,
as I recall, but I don't remember any HaRoSFAns saying anything about
it, so you have more corroboration than I did.


Kip W
rasfw

[Kevrob]

On Sep 4, 6:16 pm, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
> >        To be fair to Langley, pretty much everyboy *except* the
> >Wrights overlooked the problem of control.  Or, at least, they supposed
> >that the important problem was getting enough power to push something
> >through the air and trusted that controlling it would be something to
> >solve once they were up.  The Wrights focused much more on controlling
> >a craft first (with gliders, first, and then putting an engine on) and
> >yeah, it turned out, it's much easier to learn how to fly and then put
> >the motor in to fly somewhere.  (On the other hand, nobody used the
> >Wright's control mechanism; I think T A Heppenheimer described it as a
> >fine system for the *first* airplane but not for the second.)
>
> I thought that their patent protected "wing warping", so others had to
> come up with ailerons and elevators instead.  It turned out that the
> second choice was MUCH better than the protected version.
>

Maybe there will be more retractions in store, if Gustave Whitehead's
partisans ever prove their case that he made the 1st heavier-than-air
powered flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead

> That is one advantage of the patent system.  While the first patent
> runs, we exhaust all of the other possible ways of doing things, so
> when the patent disappears we have far more choices.
> --
>

Kevin

(Not a Whitehead partisan)

[Kip Williams]

Kevrob wrote, On 9/6/12 11:47 AM:

> Maybe there will be more retractions in store, if Gustave Whitehead's
> partisans ever prove their case that he made the 1st heavier-than-air
> powered flight.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead

Actually, powered flight came out of New Zealand, according to this
amazing documentary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Silver
(Luckily for posterity, they also invented movies.)


Kip W
rasfw

[Michael Stemper]

"That's not an argument, that's a contradiction!"

(Well, somebody had to say it.)
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.

[Bill Snyder]

No, they didn't!

--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

[Rod Speed]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

>>>>> ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
>>>>> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
>>>>> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

>>>> Nope.

>>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
>>> does.

>> Like hell you do.

> Why the hell wouldn't I?

That para at the top proves you don't.

>>> Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?

>> Says he carefully deleting all the rest I said.

> Well, it was basically "Nope" in more and other words.

Another lie.

> Strangely, that isn't less irritating, and yet "Nope" is /more/
> irritating. Something's wrong with the arithmetic, here.

You just hate having your nose rubbed in your error.

[Rod Speed]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

>>>>> ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
>>>>> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
>>>>> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.

>>>> Nope.

>>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
>>> does.

>> We'll see...

>> Have fun listing even a single example of a patent that the
>> courts have upheld where that's actually been the case.

> Why would it matter what the courts do?

Because that's what determines whether the patent is binding on anyone.

> Patents are mainly for intimidating your competitor.

And trying that line at the top doesn't do that.

> Maybe the courts are judicious enough to recognise that
> "word processing on a 3G phone" isn't in itself an innovation
> over "word processing on a 2G phone" or "word processing
> in the 1970s on a desktop typewriter with a screen",

No maybe about it.

> and maybe they aren't.

Have fun listing even a single example of any court
being that stupid in a patent infringement action.

> Supposing that they are, the picture can also be
> confused by including consideration of "wirelessly
> accessed app store", "cloud computing", etc.

Nope. Have fun listing even a single successful patent
action that's worked using that approach with wp.

> I think the odds favour a patent-hoarder finding some
> way to declare their product a "new invention" and thereby
> to prevent competitors from selling something similar.

But you can't actually come up with even a single
example of that actually happening in any court ruling.

> Oh, and I think Apple claim that anyone else calling a small
> application software title an "app" is infringing a trademark,

Like hell they do, and even if they did, no court would
actually be stupid enough to uphold that claim anyway.

That isnt even something that Apple has ever been able
to successfully trademark, let alone prevent anyone from
using that term for anything of their own.

> possibly the name of their fruity logo.
> I don't see this standing up, though.

So its completely irrelevant to that claim you made at the top.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:01:58 -0400, Kip Williams
<mrk...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:eG42s.8385$S52....@newsfe03.iad> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

Nah, *everything* came from the Motherland of Elephants!

Brian

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:47:24 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>
> > Rod Speed wrote
>
> >> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>
> >>> Rod Speed wrote
>
> >>>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>
> >>>>> ...Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
> >>>>> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
> >>>>> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.
> >>>> Nope.
>
> >>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
> >>> does.
>
> >> Like hell you do.
>
> > Why the hell wouldn't I?
>
> That para at the top proves you don't.

You're /Australian/.

Look, I'll tell you something that you evidently don't know about
the U.S. It doesn't exist. Some of us got together and made it up.
We play-act and we talk in funny voices and pretend that we're
Americans, but none of it is in fact real. Obviously you aren't
in the group or you'd already know this.

Now, I invite you to consider just what real grounds you've got
for doubting that. I think you'll find not very much.

I don't actually get my kicks from watching auto accidents or
court cases about patents, but I read about them in the news
from time to time, and I understand theoretically some of the
reasons why they happen.

And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world fiction
that is America. I worked a lot with the guy who played Steve Jobs.
He quit recently. His real name is Barry. I'm hoping we can get
him to do something else in the story, but he thinks that

[Kip Williams]

Robert Carnegie wrote, On 9/6/12 11:10 PM:

> Look, I'll tell you something that you evidently don't know about
> the U.S. It doesn't exist. Some of us got together and made it up.
> We play-act and we talk in funny voices and pretend that we're
> Americans, but none of it is in fact real. Obviously you aren't
> in the group or you'd already know this.
>

...

>
> And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world fiction
> that is America. I worked a lot with the guy who played Steve Jobs.
> He quit recently. His real name is Barry. I'm hoping we can get

> him to do something else �in the story, but he thinks that

[Got him, Dan. Nobody who matters saw anything; nothing we can't
explain. How are you doing re Barry?]


"Kip W"
"rasfw"

[Gene Wirchenko]

And did you know that they stand upside down there?

>I don't actually get my kicks from watching auto accidents or
>court cases about patents, but I read about them in the news
>from time to time, and I understand theoretically some of the
>reasons why they happen.
>
>And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world fiction
>that is America. I worked a lot with the guy who played Steve Jobs.
>He quit recently. His real name is Barry. I'm hoping we can get

>him to do something else ?in the story, but he thinks that

Why did you cut off your comment?

Say hi to Barry for me.

Sincerely,

Gene wirhcenko

[David DeLaney]

Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

>>ctbi...@earthlink.net (Charles Bishop) writes:
>>>Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>>>On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 9:05:13 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
>>>>> Nope.
>>>>
>>>>Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an
>>>>Australian does.
>>>>
>>>>Do you just like saying "Nope", regardless of topic or context?
>>>
>>>Annoying, isn't it. Just the same word, as if that would be enough proof
>>>to change someone's mind.
>>>
>>>'tis: 'tisn't
>>
>>"That's not an argument, that's a contradiction!"
>>
>>(Well, somebody had to say it.)
>
>No, they didn't!

yes they DID.

Dave, and past statistics show it's got an 87% chance retroactively of having
been rod speed
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Robert Carnegie]

> > we can get him to do something else in the story, but he thinks

> > that
>
> Why did you cut off your comment?
>
> Say hi to Barry for me.

That was an accidental send. What Barry thinks is that people will
recognise him if he comes back playing a different part. But there's
the "long-lost brother / cousin" option, I think.

We do need everyone to work to keep the content fresh because I think
the Canadians are getting /really/ suspicious now. We're having a
storyline conference next week with "Mitt Romney" and "Barack Obama".
Speaking of which, one idea is to have a plot line around /another/
new religion getting founded, but have we done that one too many times?
I'm thinking drugs or the Internet as the basis of this one. Like that
Arthur C. Clarke novel where some woman used electronic indoctrination
to found the "Chrislamists". You know this stuff doesn't have to
make sense, of course. Even when people try to actually /do/ it.

[Michael Stemper]

In article <3dc6803e-0786-4318...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes:
>On Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:47:24 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
>> > Rod Speed wrote

>> >>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
>> >>> does.
>>
>> >> Like hell you do.
>>
>> > Why the hell wouldn't I?
>>
>> That para at the top proves you don't.
>
>You're /Australian/.
>
>Look, I'll tell you something that you evidently don't know about
>the U.S. It doesn't exist. Some of us got together and made it up.
>We play-act and we talk in funny voices and pretend that we're
>Americans, but none of it is in fact real.

Hey! Keep it quiet. We don't want everybody to know.

>And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world fiction
>that is America. I worked a lot with the guy who played Steve Jobs.
>He quit recently. His real name is Barry. I'm hoping we can get
>him to do something else

Whose roll is it, anyway?

[Kevrob]

On Sep 7, 8:35 am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper)
wrote:

> In article <3dc6803e-0786-4318...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> writes:
> >On Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:47:24 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:

> >> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote

> >> > Rod Speed wrote
> >> >>> Apparently I know more about the U.S. patent system than an Australian
> >> >>> does.
>
> >> >> Like hell you do.
>
> >> > Why the hell wouldn't I?
>
> >> That para at the top proves you don't.
>
> >You're /Australian/.
>
> >Look, I'll tell you something that you evidently don't know about
> >the U.S.  It doesn't exist.  Some of us got together and made it up.
> >We play-act and we talk in funny voices and pretend that we're
> >Americans, but none of it is in fact real.
>
> Hey! Keep it quiet. We don't want everybody to know.
>
> >And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world fiction
> >that is America.  I worked a lot with the guy who played Steve Jobs.
> >He quit recently.  His real name is Barry.  I'm hoping we can get
> >him to do something else
>
> Whose roll is it, anyway?
>
> --

We're thinking of giving it to Kaiser, Drum or Sweet. Maybe we'll get
some unknown: a John Dough, as it were.

Kevin
(a little half-baked)

[Walter Bushell]

In article <f8a8e0f9-4015-488e...@googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:16:04 PM UTC+1, Greg Goss wrote:
> > That is one advantage of the patent system. While the first patent
> > runs, we exhaust all of the other possible ways of doing things, so
> > when the patent disappears we have far more choices.
>

> I dunno - I think that might happen anyway, just so that your product
> has a unique-selling-point feature (whether better /or/ worse), and,
> on the other hand, patents seem to be written to include "...also,
> any other conceivable way of doing the same thing".
>
> In the field of computer and telecommunications technology,
> patents have been getting rather annoying, since, for one thing,
> on a "smart" phone now you can do a lot of the things that you
> used to do on a computer, but /because/ it's on a phone, somehow
> the desktop computer version doesn't count as "prior art".

> Which means that innovations from the 1980s are locked down now
> until like 2020. And when a new phone technology comes along,
> such as LTE, it seems that all the patents are locked down /again/.
>

> Somewhere in there there may also be "portable computer" and
> "tablet" versions of the same things.
>
> Consequently, the twenty-first century sucks.

A computer is portable is it can be carried by a destroyer.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Kevrob]

On Sep 7, 11:58 am, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <f8a8e0f9-4015-488e...@googlegroups.com>,

Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
tractor-trailer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_home

Kevin

[Greg Goss]

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:

>Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
>tractor-trailer.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_home

My sister works for the Kelowna General Hospital. When the hospital
wanted to expand their parking lot, they had a row of houses to get
rid of. My sister bought one for a trivial amount of money ($1600,
I think).

They prefered one of the two-storey houses, but to get a two-story
house to the main highway, they'd have to cut and re-connect
electrical lines. A one-story house can make it to the highway with
three guys on the roof with insulated poles. Hauling the one-story
house to her mountaintop lot cost CAD$10K while the two-story house
would have cost $25K.

So they bought the one storey house. I told her to rent a camcorder
for the operation, but time ran out before she found a suitable place
to rent one. The house got up to 45 KMH once they got it to the main
highway and the electric-line handlers climbed off.

So, her house was hauled by a tractor-trailer unit in 1998. Does that
make it a mobile home?

(An early thaw made the driveway unusable when the delivery arrived.
They parked the house on a turnaround area of the road until the thaw
completed and more driveway prep could be done. The "second delivery"
cost $5K, and the delivery company ate the extra two months of support
beams and trailer rental. I think that the delivery included a year's
rental on the support beams while the foundations and basement were
built under the house.)

(Because the house crossed a city boundary, it no longer was
"pre-existing construction", and had to meet "new construction"
standards where it arrived. Double-glazed windows, and
humidity-controlled bathroom fans and adequate insulation and grounded
plugs etc cost them something like $60K more than they had been
anticipating.)
--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[Kip Williams]

Kevrob wrote, On 9/7/12 2:17 PM:

> On Sep 7, 11:58 am, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:

>> A computer is portable is it can be carried by a destroyer.
>

> Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
> tractor-trailer.

My electronics teacher explained that if they could nail a handle to the
top of it, it was portable. (I don't think that's changed much since 1973.)


Kip W
rasfw

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 7 Sep 2012 12:35:49 +0000 (UTC), Michael Stemper
<mste...@walkabout.empros.com> wrote in
<news:k2cpn5$mgj$3...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

> In article <3dc6803e-0786-4318...@googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes:

[...]

>> Look, I'll tell you something that you evidently don't
>> know about the U.S. It doesn't exist. Some of us got
>> together and made it up. We play-act and we talk in
>> funny voices and pretend that we're Americans, but none
>> of it is in fact real.

> Hey! Keep it quiet. We don't want everybody to know.

>> And I use that understanding to contribute to the
>> shared-world fiction that is America. I worked a lot
>> with the guy who played Steve Jobs. He quit recently.
>> His real name is Barry. I'm hoping we can get him to do
>> something else

> Whose roll is it, anyway?

The eyes have it.

Brian

[Konrad Gaertner]

Now I'm imagining someone trying to attach a suitcase handle to an
iPod nano.


--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Fri, 7 Sep 2012 04:41:23 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Friday, September 7, 2012 6:05:21 AM UTC+1, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>> On Thu, 6 Sep 2012 20:10:40 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>> > And I use that understanding to contribute to the shared-world
>> > fiction that is America. I worked a lot with the guy who played
>> > Steve Jobs. He quit recently. His real name is Barry. I'm hoping
>> > we can get him to do something else in the story, but he thinks
>> > that
>>
>> Why did you cut off your comment?
>>
>> Say hi to Barry for me.
>
>That was an accidental send. What Barry thinks is that people will
>recognise him if he comes back playing a different part. But there's
>the "long-lost brother / cousin" option, I think.

Pure coincidence. He can just deny it. "Well, as you may have
heard, Jobs is dead. I am not. I am not Elvis either in case you
were wondering about that, too."

>We do need everyone to work to keep the content fresh because I think
>the Canadians are getting /really/ suspicious now. We're having a

Hey, no problem. We are playing along. I would not mind at all
if Harper got zinged a bit though.

>storyline conference next week with "Mitt Romney" and "Barack Obama".
>Speaking of which, one idea is to have a plot line around /another/
>new religion getting founded, but have we done that one too many times?
>I'm thinking drugs or the Internet as the basis of this one. Like that
>Arthur C. Clarke novel where some woman used electronic indoctrination
>to found the "Chrislamists". You know this stuff doesn't have to
>make sense, of course. Even when people try to actually /do/ it.

I want the Big One! (A California earthquake.)

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Greg Goss]

Way, way back when I was working at a BC Hydro district office, our
main server was a PS2 (not that PS2, the earlier one) model 80 that
weighed somewhere upwards of fifty pounds. With a handle on it.

My current household server is another IBM. The case is formed with a
recurved lip at the front that acts as a good handle. IBM likes
making their computers with handles.

Heck, even the one that they CALLED a portable weighed 32 pounds.

I don't think I ever saw a TV over 19 inches with a handle on it.

[Greg Goss]

Konrad Gaertner <kgae...@tx.rr.com> wrote:

>Kip Williams wrote:
>>
>> Kevrob wrote, On 9/7/12 2:17 PM:
>> > On Sep 7, 11:58 am, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> A computer is portable is it can be carried by a destroyer.
>> >
>> > Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
>> > tractor-trailer.
>>
>> My electronics teacher explained that if they could nail a handle to the
>> top of it, it was portable. (I don't think that's changed much since 1973.)
>
>Now I'm imagining someone trying to attach a suitcase handle to an
>iPod nano.

I just destroyed my Android pad a week ago. Why oh why don't they
build lanyard sockets into these things anymore? I've had my phone on
a neck strap ever since 2003, and it's saved it more times than I can
remember.

The pad still works, but I have to spring a corner and reach around
inside with my pocket knife to turn it on. Sometime I'm going to
short the wrong contacts together.

[Thomas Womack]

In article <ab46k8...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Kevrob wrote, On 9/7/12 2:17 PM:
>>> On Sep 7, 11:58 am, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> A computer is portable is it can be carried by a destroyer.
>>>
>>> Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
>>> tractor-trailer.
>>
>>My electronics teacher explained that if they could nail a handle to the
>>top of it, it was portable. (I don't think that's changed much since 1973.)
>
>Way, way back when I was working at a BC Hydro district office, our
>main server was a PS2 (not that PS2, the earlier one) model 80 that
>weighed somewhere upwards of fifty pounds. With a handle on it.

I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles. They are
handles which follow exquisitely the form of the case, but the case is
made of thick aluminium and very heavy, and the handles have sharp
edges; I brought cycling gloves when I collected the machine.

Tom

[Greg Goss]

Like so much Apple stuff, it's designed to look good ("equisiitely")
but not be very practical in use.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, September 9, 2012 7:50:57 PM UTC+1, Greg Goss wrote:
> I just destroyed my Android pad a week ago. Why oh why don't they
> build lanyard sockets into these things anymore? I've had my phone on
> a neck strap ever since 2003, and it's saved it more times than I can
> remember.
>
> The pad still works, but I have to spring a corner and reach around
> inside with my pocket knife to turn it on. Sometime I'm going to
> short the wrong contacts together.

This isn't going to help you much, but you can put these things into
e.g. silicone covers for some protection against fumbles.
Alternatively, youican do a lot with cloth-reinforced adhesive tape.

I briefly tried doing /this/ >>> with a Samsung Galaxy Tab:

http://www.comicvine.com/awesome-andy/29-4944/all-images/108-215408/5121-awesome-andy/105-144622/

Then I glued-and-taped it inside a hardcover diary binding, with more
tape to keep the "book" closed when not in use, and with lanyard holes
in the piece of cover that /isn't/ glued to the back of the device.

Another alternative product is a handle that glues, or velcros, onto
the rear of, for instance or specifically, a standard iPad.

I don't have any of these accessories for a Dell Latitude ST
Windows tablet, and I have dropped it a few times due to dozing off
while sitting reading it late at night! But I hate it anyway...

[Greg Goss]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, September 9, 2012 7:50:57 PM UTC+1, Greg Goss wrote:
>> I just destroyed my Android pad a week ago. Why oh why don't they
>> build lanyard sockets into these things anymore? I've had my phone on
>> a neck strap ever since 2003, and it's saved it more times than I can
>> remember.

...

>
>This isn't going to help you much, but you can put these things into
>e.g. silicone covers for some protection against fumbles.
>Alternatively, youican do a lot with cloth-reinforced adhesive tape.
>
>I briefly tried doing /this/ >>> with a Samsung Galaxy Tab:
>
>http://www.comicvine.com/awesome-andy/29-4944/all-images/108-215408/5121-awesome-andy/105-144622/
>
>Then I glued-and-taped it inside a hardcover diary binding, with more
>tape to keep the "book" closed when not in use, and with lanyard holes
>in the piece of cover that /isn't/ glued to the back of the device.
>
>Another alternative product is a handle that glues, or velcros, onto
>the rear of, for instance or specifically, a standard iPad.

I intend to buy another identical Android. Almost bought one when I
saw a deal on a version 2.2 model on the local internet classifieds,
but was scared off by a two-point OS release gap.

On my next one, I intend to glue a key ring near one edge, where the
curvature of the back will create enough gap to thread a string. But
that will impair setting this on a table. From Y2K up until the
iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this
disappeared.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:44:15 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> From Y2K up until the
>iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this
>disappeared.

No phone I've ever had has ever had a lanyard hole. From 1996 I've had
Samsung (2), Nokia (at least 7), Motorola(1), iPhones (3). Different
geographic market, but I don't know how much difference that'll have
made.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex."
-- Marvin the Martian

[david.sh...@ymail.com]

On Sep 10, 2:16 pm, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
wrote:

>
> No phone I've ever had has ever had a lanyard hole. From 1996 I've had
> Samsung (2), Nokia (at least 7), Motorola(1), iPhones (3). Different
> geographic market, but I don't know how much difference that'll have
> made.

My Motorola flip-phone has a tiny hole that really requires taking
the back of off to thread the cell-phone strap I'm using.
And I do mean thread -- it looks like Kevlar embroidery thread.

[Greg Goss]

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:44:15 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
>> From Y2K up until the
>>iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this
>>disappeared.
>
>No phone I've ever had has ever had a lanyard hole. From 1996 I've had
>Samsung (2), Nokia (at least 7), Motorola(1), iPhones (3). Different
>geographic market, but I don't know how much difference that'll have
>made.

In that time, I've had a Siemens, an Ericsson, and two Nokias. They
all had places to attach strings. My late wife had another
(different) Ericsson. My current wife has had a pair of Samsungs,
each with the hole.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:37:28 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:44:15 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>>> From Y2K up until the
>>>iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this
>>>disappeared.
>>
>>No phone I've ever had has ever had a lanyard hole. From 1996 I've had
>>Samsung (2), Nokia (at least 7), Motorola(1), iPhones (3). Different
>>geographic market, but I don't know how much difference that'll have
>>made.
>
>In that time, I've had a Siemens, an Ericsson, and two Nokias. They
>all had places to attach strings. My late wife had another
>(different) Ericsson. My current wife has had a pair of Samsungs,
>each with the hole.

Maybe it is a market thing then. Huh.

Add one Ericsson to my tally as well, but I can't recall if that did
or not - it was back in the 90s. I've still got about half those
phones, and I did go check in case I just hadn't noticed the lanyard
anchors - not a sausage.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
If you think it's simple, then you have misunderstood the problem
-- Bjarne Stroustrup

[Rod Speed]

"Greg Goss" <go...@gossg.org> wrote in message
news:ab5p4e...@mid.individual.net...

That's overstated with the latest stuff, the ipods, ipads and iphones.

[Rod Speed]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote

>> Greg Goss wrote

>>> I just destroyed my Android pad a week ago. Why oh why don't they
>>> build lanyard sockets into these things anymore? I've had my phone on
>>> a neck strap ever since 2003, and it's saved it more times than I can
>>> remember.

>> This isn't going to help you much, but you can put these things
>> into e.g. silicone covers for some protection against fumbles.
>> Alternatively, youican do a lot with cloth-reinforced adhesive tape.

>> I briefly tried doing /this/ >>> with a Samsung Galaxy Tab:

>> http://www.comicvine.com/awesome-andy/29-4944/all-images/108-215408/5121-awesome-andy/105-144622/

>> Then I glued-and-taped it inside a hardcover diary binding, with more
>> tape to keep the "book" closed when not in use, and with lanyard holes
>> in the piece of cover that /isn't/ glued to the back of the device.

>> Another alternative product is a handle that glues, or velcros, onto
>> the rear of, for instance or specifically, a standard iPad.

> I intend to buy another identical Android. Almost bought one
> when I saw a deal on a version 2.2 model on the local internet
> classifieds, but was scared off by a two-point OS release gap.

> On my next one, I intend to glue a key ring near one edge, where
> the curvature of the back will create enough gap to thread a string.
> But that will impair setting this on a table. From Y2K up until the
> iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor,

Plenty of the Nokias didn't.

> then suddenly this disappeared.

I do recall seeing it still on something, forget which tho.

[Howard Brazee]

On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack

<two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles. They are
>handles which follow exquisitely the form of the case, but the case is
>made of thick aluminium and very heavy, and the handles have sharp
>edges; I brought cycling gloves when I collected the machine.

My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
Store. Mine, unaccountably doesn't have that little tab.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Greg Goss]

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>>>On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:44:15 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> From Y2K up until the
>>>>iPhone, all cell phones had a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this
>>>>disappeared.
>

>Add one Ericsson to my tally as well, but I can't recall if that did
>or not - it was back in the 90s. I've still got about half those
>phones, and I did go check in case I just hadn't noticed the lanyard
>anchors - not a sausage.

The "in the 90s" phone probably didn't. I don't think the neck strap
hooks arrived until the phones were small enough for a shirt pocket.
My StarTac (1999) probably didn't -- I never thought to look.

[Greg Goss]

These are they guys who never noticed that they had put the antenna
where a customer's hand (including Jobs at the introduction demo)
would short out the antenna. Good looking, but not practical.

My nano 3 was great. But the newer ones are touch screen -- you have
to pull the thing out of your pocket to see the controls to use the
thing.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 11/09/2012 4:40 AM, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
[SNIP]

>
> Maybe it is a market thing then. Huh.
>
> Add one Ericsson to my tally as well, but I can't recall if that did
> or not - it was back in the 90s. I've still got about half those
> phones, and I did go check in case I just hadn't noticed the lanyard
> anchors - not a sausage.
>

Odd, all my and sundry others Nokias have them - currently E-72,
previously 3200, 1100, 2110, other numbers escape me, but back unto the
mid-1990's, all GSM and subsequent, not analog.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:10:38 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

[snip]

>>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles. They are
>>handles which follow exquisitely the form of the case, but the case is
>>made of thick aluminium and very heavy, and the handles have sharp
>>edges; I brought cycling gloves when I collected the machine.
>
>Like so much Apple stuff, it's designed to look good ("equisiitely")
>but not be very practical in use.
>--
>I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
>Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
>wouldn't have rusted like this.

Was it an Apple mind?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Rod Speed]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote
> Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote

>>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

>>>>> From Y2K up until the iPhone, all cell phones had
>>>>> a lanyard anchor, then suddenly this disappeared.

>> Add one Ericsson to my tally as well, but I can't recall if that did
>> or not - it was back in the 90s. I've still got about half those
>> phones, and I did go check in case I just hadn't noticed the lanyard
>> anchors - not a sausage.

> The "in the 90s" phone probably didn't. I don't think the neck strap
> hooks arrived until the phones were small enough for a shirt pocket.
> My StarTac (1999) probably didn't -- I never thought to look.

That line can't fly. Neither the Nokia 5110 nor the 6310i have neck
strap hooks and both of those are small enough for a shirt pocket.

The Nokia N95 does have one.

[Rod Speed]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

>>> Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote
>>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

>>>>> Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>> Kevrob wrote

>>>>>>> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote

>>>>>>>> A computer is portable is it can be carried by a destroyer.

>>>>>>> Sure. Just like a home can be "mobile" if it can be hauled by a
>>>>>>> tractor-trailer.

>>>>>> My electronics teacher explained that if they could nail a handle to
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> top of it, it was portable. (I don't think that's changed much since
>>>>>> 1973.)

>>>>> Way, way back when I was working at a BC Hydro district office, our
>>>>> main server was a PS2 (not that PS2, the earlier one) model 80 that
>>>>> weighed somewhere upwards of fifty pounds. With a handle on it.

>>>> I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>>> Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles. They are
>>>> handles which follow exquisitely the form of the case, but the case is
>>>> made of thick aluminium and very heavy, and the handles have sharp
>>>> edges; I brought cycling gloves when I collected the machine.

>>> Like so much Apple stuff, it's designed to look good ("equisiitely")
>>> but not be very practical in use.

>> That's overstated with the latest stuff, the ipods, ipads and iphones.

> These are they guys who never noticed that they had put the antenna
> where a customer's hand (including Jobs at the introduction demo)
> would short out the antenna. Good looking, but not practical.

That was just one of the iphones and it isnt just the placement that's the
problem.

> My nano 3 was great. But the newer ones are touch screen -- you have
> to pull the thing out of your pocket to see the controls to use the thing.

Sure, but that's true of any touch screen system, nothing like the original
claim.

If you don't like a touch screen ipod, you are free to buy a non touch
screen one.

[Greg Goss]

"Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Sure, but that's true of any touch screen system, nothing like the original
>claim.

The claim is that Apple products look good but sometimes aren't as
practical as they might be. A handle that cuts into your hands or a
phone that can't contact the cell network fit the claim well.

>If you don't like a touch screen ipod, you are free to buy a non touch
>screen one.

Touch screens are "cool". So they're adding them into cars. Well
designed buttons can be controlled by feel. Touch screens must be
watched.

Free to buy a non-touch nano? I just bought another mod three. Then
never used it as a software bypassed the sucky software my telco
overlaid onto my XpressMusic cell phone and I now use my
(buttons-based) cell phone as my MP3 player.

[Rod Speed]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>> Sure, but that's true of any touch screen
>> system, nothing like the original claim.

> The claim is that Apple products look good but
> sometimes aren't as practical as they might be.

And that is just plain wrong about the touch screen system.

They do offer most of their ipods without a touch screen,
so you are welcome to buy on of those if you prefer an
ipod which does not have a touch screen so you don't
have to take it out of your pocket to change the tune etc.

Corse most have enough of a clue to have that functionality
in their phone so that that is all in one device etc and Apple's
phones do have that functionality too.

I actually prefer a touch screen system for that functionality,
essentially because I normally play podcasts that run for an
hour and want to select the podcast to play before I put
the phone in my pocket and leave it there till the podcast
is finished. I can step back and forward in the podcast as
required using the bluetooth headset without needing to
take the phone out of my pocket. Works very well indeed.

> A handle that cuts into your hands

Yes, but that's only happened the once with one of their devices.

> or a phone that can't contact the cell network

The iphone 4 can contact the cell network fine, you
just have to be careful how you hold it at times and
that's just with one of their phones anyway.

> fit the claim well.

Have fun listing even a single manufacturer that hasn't
ever had even a single glitch in any of their products.

>> If you don't like a touch screen ipod, you
>> are free to buy a non touch screen one.

> Touch screens are "cool".

And the best way to do some types of very portable devices.

> So they're adding them into cars.

They are also the best way to do a lot of stuff like
phones, tablets, self checkout machines etc etc etc.

> Well designed buttons can be controlled
> by feel. Touch screens must be watched.

You're free to buy a non touch ipod if you want one.

> Free to buy a non-touch nano?

Free to buy a non touch ipod.

> I just bought another mod three. Then never used it
> as a software bypassed the sucky software my telco
> overlaid onto my XpressMusic cell phone and I now
> use my (buttons-based) cell phone as my MP3 player.

Anyone with even half a clue uses their phone to play MP3s.

You are free to use a button based phone if you want to.

No one ever said that Apple always provides what some
with the more obscure requirements wants to buy.

[Greg Goss]

"Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

>> Touch screens are "cool".
>
>And the best way to do some types of very portable devices.
>
>> So they're adding them into cars.
>
>They are also the best way to do a lot of stuff like
>phones, tablets, self checkout machines etc etc etc.
>
>> Well designed buttons can be controlled
>> by feel. Touch screens must be watched.
>
>You're free to buy a non touch ipod if you want one.

This paragraph is talking about cars. It is hard to commute to work
on an iPod nano 3. You've gotta read more than a quarter sentence at
a time if you ever want to comprehend what people are writing.

>Anyone with even half a clue uses their phone to play MP3s.

My telco didn't have that half-clue and replaced Nokia's music player
with something helpless in my phone. A software upgrade later
accidentally re-installed the usable Nokia player.

[David DeLaney]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>Touch screens are "cool". So they're adding them into cars. Well
>designed buttons can be controlled by feel. Touch screens must be
>watched.

Oh hey, this means the blind will finally be able to drive!

Dave, ... ... waitaminnit
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Michael Stemper]

In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.

>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>Store.

Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 9/11/12 12:54 PM, Michael Stemper wrote:
> In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>> On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>> I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>> Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.
>
>> My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>> and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>> included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>> Store.
>
> Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?
>

Regularly? Not really. I've visited the stores more often to buy NEW
things than I have to bring old things in to be fixed.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Michael Stemper]

In article <k2nsfp$9cu$2...@dont-email.me>, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> writes:
>On 9/11/12 12:54 PM, Michael Stemper wrote:
>> In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>>> On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>>>> I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>>> Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.
>>
>>> My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>> and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>> included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>> Store.
>>
>> Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?
>
> Regularly? Not really. I've visited the stores more often to buy NEW
>things than I have to bring old things in to be fixed.

That's what I would expect. However, the two posts upstream of mine
both discussed "carrying it in to the Apple Store" as a common task.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:54:21 +0000 (UTC),
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

>In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>>On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.
>
>>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>Store.
>
>Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?

Once across five desktops and about eight laptops since 2005, here.
Screen connector cable failure in a MacBook.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my
wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone
-- Bjarne Stroustrup

[Rod Speed]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote

>>> Touch screens are "cool".

>> And the best way to do some types of very portable devices.

>>> So they're adding them into cars.

>> They are also the best way to do a lot of stuff like
>> phones, tablets, self checkout machines etc etc etc.

>>> Well designed buttons can be controlled
>>> by feel. Touch screens must be watched.

>> You're free to buy a non touch ipod if you want one.

> This paragraph is talking about cars.

Its true of some devices in cars, most obviously with the GPS.

There are other alternatives too, like voice input that works well in cars.

> It is hard to commute to work on an iPod nano 3.

Not the way I do it, where I set up what I want to listen to before
starting off, and at most might want to step back and then forward
a bit within a podcast at times while actually driving.

A touch screen system still works a lot better with an ipod or a GPS
than the physical button alternative and a voice system combined
with the touch system which is used while you are stationary when
setting up what you want it to do while actually driving.

A voice system alone isnt as good as a combined touch/voice system.

> You've gotta read more than a quarter sentence at a time
> if you ever want to comprehend what people are writing.

I read the whole of your post before I replied to it.

>> Anyone with even half a clue uses their phone to play MP3s.

> My telco didn't have that half-clue and replaced Nokia's
> music player with something helpless in my phone.

Only an eejut lets any telco do anything like that.

> A software upgrade later accidentally
> re-installed the usable Nokia player.

Irrelevant to what was being discussed, whether Apple's very
low end products are generally very well designed or not.

Yes, there are some aspects of their designs that I don't
personally care for much at all, particularly the way they
try to lock people into doing things the way they want
you to do things and I don't like at all the way is very
very hard to actually do any physical maintenance on
their very low end devices like changing the battery etc.

I MUCH prefer the ease with which you can change the
battery on Nokias and the way they use very few batterys
across their entire range of products, so you can get VERY
cheap replacement batterys when you need them and
change them yourself even if you are a technoklutz.

[Rod Speed]

"Michael Stemper" <mste...@walkabout.empros.com> wrote in message
news:k2nqbt$r1f$1...@dont-email.me...

> In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee
> <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>>On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack
>><two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.
>
>>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>Store.
>
> Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?

It did in those days for stuff as basic as upgrades.

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:54:21 +0000 (UTC),
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

>>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>Store.
>
>Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?

Ownership of a Mac enables us to take it into the shop for free. I've
had other computers where I would have done so, if that had been an
option.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 14:53:28 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
wrote:

>On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:54:21 +0000 (UTC),
>mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>
>>>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>>Store.
>>
>>Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?
>
>Ownership of a Mac enables us to take it into the shop for free. I've
>had other computers where I would have done so, if that had been an
>option.

There's that, certainly. A colleague just took his 2008 MacBook Air in
with a dodgy hinge, got a new top half of the laptop for free. It's
nice to see a company putting some of its spare dollars into customer
service (even if it was due to badly design parts in the first place).

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"History repeats itself. Has to. No one listens." -- Steve Turner

[Thomas Womack]

In article <k2nqbt$r1f$1...@dont-email.me>,

Michael Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>In article <6jos48p9bu8i3sp97...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>>On 10 Sep 2012 08:41:41 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>>I have made the mistake of carrying the office Mac Pro to the Apple
>>>Store in the middle of the local mall by its handles.
>
>>My wife's iMac is a year older than mine (hers had the old keyboard
>>and won't upgrade to Mountain Lion). Hers came with a box that
>>included a tab that keeps the box shut when we carry it to the Apple
>>Store.
>
>Does ownership of a Mac require regularly taking it in to the shop?

Hard drives break in Macs as they do in all other computers; carrying
the machine to the shop was the easiest way of getting the drive
replaced under warranty, because the shop has drives with OS X on them
already and has the slightly unusual tools required safely to open an
iMac.

Tom

[Thomas Womack]

In article <ab7ijp...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>My nano 3 was great. But the newer ones are touch screen -- you have
>to pull the thing out of your pocket to see the controls to use the
>thing.

Is there not a clicky-thing on the headphone cable for 'louder',
'quieter', 'pause' and 'next song', which is most of what you need to
use the thing?

Tom

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:07:40 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>>Ownership of a Mac enables us to take it into the shop for free. I've
>>had other computers where I would have done so, if that had been an
>>option.
>
>There's that, certainly. A colleague just took his 2008 MacBook Air in
>with a dodgy hinge, got a new top half of the laptop for free. It's
>nice to see a company putting some of its spare dollars into customer
>service (even if it was due to badly design parts in the first place).

The Apple stores are the most profitable stores per square foot of any
stores. That kind of service works.

[Rod Speed]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote

> Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote

>>> Ownership of a Mac enables us to take it into the shop for free.
>>> I've had other computers where I would have done so, if that
>>> had been an option.

>>There's that, certainly. A colleague just took his 2008 MacBook Air
>> in with a dodgy hinge, got a new top half of the laptop for free. It's
>> nice to see a company putting some of its spare dollars into customer
>> service (even if it was due to badly design parts in the first place).

> The Apple stores are the most profitable stores per square foot of any
> stores.

That's very arguable indeed.

> That kind of service works.

It isnt the service that delivers that result.

[Greg Goss]

Forgot about that. The sucky Nokia smartphone I briefly owned earlier
this year came with a "smart" headphone like that, but it doesn't work
on anything have now, so I forgot it. If there are external buttons,
then I withdraw my complaint about touch-screen Nanos and other Apples
that ship with those headphones.

On my XpressMusic, a popup says that an unrecognized device has been
connected. On everything else, the smart headphones just act like
dollarmart headphones. Nothing I own is new enough to know about
those headphones, assuming that they're standardized.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 9/11/12 9:42 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
> Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> In article <ab7ijp...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>>> My nano 3 was great. But the newer ones are touch screen -- you have
>>> to pull the thing out of your pocket to see the controls to use the
>>> thing.
>>
>> Is there not a clicky-thing on the headphone cable for 'louder',
>> 'quieter', 'pause' and 'next song', which is most of what you need to
>> use the thing?
>
> Forgot about that. The sucky Nokia smartphone I briefly owned earlier
> this year came with a "smart" headphone like that, but it doesn't work
> on anything have now, so I forgot it. If there are external buttons,
> then I withdraw my complaint about touch-screen Nanos and other Apples
> that ship with those headphones.
>

They ship with something called "earbuds" which are not in any way
usable headphones. I have NO idea how anyone uses those things. The only
way I can imagine them staying in my ears is if I was willing to
superglue them in, which would pose some problems in removing them later.

Took me a while to find any actual headphones that were wearable and
usable for my iPhone. And they were kinda pricey.

[Greg Goss]

I'm old. I remember when "kinda pricey" was approaching a hundred
bucks. I've owned two or three pairs at that level of lightweight "on
the ear" units, including a Sony for $80. Yesterday, we bought a pair
of Sony on-the-ear headphones for my wife's transcription course, and
the clearance outlet wanted $18, which sticker-shocked my wife.

There are two kinds of earbuds. Some are hard and fairly flat, which
don't work for me. Some are very soft and the insert point is almost
spherical. Those work very well for me, and the dollarmart stores
sell 'em at $1.25 (who decided on the "loony mart" term in a world
with inflation, anyhow?) for units that last me three to six months
each. They're comfortable, accurate enough for my mangled hearing,
and disposable since I lose stuff like this.

We haven't opened the Sony set yet, so I don't know if they're "smart"
or not. It shouldn't be hard to put the smart control in a shirt-clip
unit where with the controls and a socket for YOUR headphones.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:23:21 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>On 9/11/12 9:42 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
>> Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> In article <ab7ijp...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> My nano 3 was great. But the newer ones are touch screen -- you have
>>>> to pull the thing out of your pocket to see the controls to use the
>>>> thing.
>>>
>>> Is there not a clicky-thing on the headphone cable for 'louder',
>>> 'quieter', 'pause' and 'next song', which is most of what you need to
>>> use the thing?
>>
>> Forgot about that. The sucky Nokia smartphone I briefly owned earlier
>> this year came with a "smart" headphone like that, but it doesn't work
>> on anything have now, so I forgot it. If there are external buttons,
>> then I withdraw my complaint about touch-screen Nanos and other Apples
>> that ship with those headphones.
>>
>
> They ship with something called "earbuds" which are not in any way
>usable headphones. I have NO idea how anyone uses those things. The only
>way I can imagine them staying in my ears is if I was willing to
>superglue them in, which would pose some problems in removing them later.

Other people use them by having different shaped ears. They come in
two basic types - sit precariously in the middle curve of your ear,
and wedge directly into the canal. The former are what Apple give you
in the pack, the latter have reasonable sound quality and (importantly
to me) it all goes into your own ears rather than leaking out in a
TSHH TSHH TSHH sort of way to everyone nearby. I don't commend these,
but as an example: http://www.apple.com/uk/ipod/in-ear-headphones/

> Took me a while to find any actual headphones that were wearable and
>usable for my iPhone. And they were kinda pricey.

That's normal. I don't think I've ever owned a reasonable pair of
headphones that were less than about �80 (~$120 after tax
differences). I nearly sprung for a set of fancy �400 ones recently,
but reined myself back in.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Many people in this group spent their school years taking illogical, pointless
orders from morons and having their will to live systematically crushed.
And people say school doesn't prepare kids for the real world. -- Rayner, asr

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Yes, that would be today.

I've owned two or three pairs at that level of lightweight "on
> the ear" units, including a Sony for $80.

That's very kinda pricey.

> There are two kinds of earbuds. Some are hard and fairly flat, which
> don't work for me. Some are very soft and the insert point is almost
> spherical.

Neither type work for me. They sit there for at most a few minutes,
then if I turn my head, or tilt it in any significant way, they drop out.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 9/12/12 4:42 AM, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> That's normal. I don't think I've ever owned a reasonable pair of
> headphones that were less than about �80 (~$120 after tax
> differences). I nearly sprung for a set of fancy �400 ones recently,
> but reined myself back in.
>

Holy crap, you're talking about spending on headphones what I'd be
spending on a slightly-discounted widescreen TV.

I've never owned a pair of headphones that cost MORE than $100, and
can't imagine paying that much for something whose function is simply to
let me listen to music and shut out the rest of the world so I can write.