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boner confessor posted:i mean, isn't it also a lot easier to email your uncle now than it was in the 70's? can't necessarily lay the credit for that one on the iphone I don't know. I was born in the 80s.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:22
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Ratoslov posted:Are you even aware of what point you're arguing anymore here? yeah, the same point i've been arguing all along - there are as many downsides as upsides to widespread smartphone use, as well as examples where it's not really a grand leap in technology versus just a convenience, and i'm baffled by the amount of pushback i'm getting on this frankly self evident point like for as many videos people take of police misconduct and extrajudicial murder, there are videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsDCk1a6TY4 boner confessor fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Nov 1, 2016 |
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Nov 1, 2016 07:25
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boner confessor posted:yeah, the same point i've been arguing all along - there are as many downsides as upsides to widespread smartphone use, as well as examples where it's not really a grand leap in technology versus just a convenience, and i'm baffled by the amount of pushback i'm getting on this frankly self evident point Hint: Because it is not self evident, and you are wrong.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:27
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reminder that the concept of what we now call a smartphone is what happened when they started integrating phone functions into PDAs in the late 90s two decades ago palm and nokia had devices that could send email and handle instant messaging as well as calls people who love the idea that smartphones suddenly took over the world always seem like they're too young to remember the treo or the blackberry or whatever the hell ericsson was calling theirs in 2004 these weren't niche devices either - palm paid good money to have their product placed front and center in the splinter cell games as your inventory/pause screen to beat out all that 2002 competition. college students had them. the major difference is that now they're in the hands of every highschool student, which is an important difference, almost as important as how much more common having a computer at home to plug it into is between 1996 and nowadays
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Nov 1, 2016 07:30
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boner confessor posted:i mean, isn't it also a lot easier to email your uncle now than it was in the 70's? can't necessarily lay the credit for that one on the iphone The iPhone let me read your awful argument from my toilet using a connection comprised of wireless signals while I download a 20GB file on my laptop on the same connection the same time as my house phone rang, all the while my friend from Sweden texted me to let me know about his band's new single that they will be posting on Bandcamp to be shared with the entire world, so long as they have access to the Bandcamp app/site Frankly I think you're full of poo poo about smartphones not being a wildly useful and monumental achievement of technology, considering that 15 years ago my primary connection to the Internet was a Mac G3 connected via a 56k modem on my family's only phone line. Smart phones have been one of the most important advances of the past decade, culminating now in being used as everything in my daily life from phone calling, instant messaging, TV show streaming, FM radio streaming, audiobook playing, literal book reading, photo/video capturing, video game playing, navigation, and interacting with the entire world at large with a device that I carry with me everywhere that has a signal 99% of the time. I honestly can't fathom how you can think about smart phones as a ridiculously accessible and mobile gateway to all of these things, and think "nah not as important a development as, say, the Home PC" when smart phones hit on all the same importance of a Home PC x100. Accessible, affordable, convenient, multi-purposed, all this poo poo means that I know people who can't afford a TV or home internet set-up, but can afford an iPhone 5C to interact with the world at large in ways that everyone has dreamed of but nobody expected would take place in a brick the size of a goddamn playing card.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:31
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Like, the single largest consumer tech achievement before the smartphone was the Internet, before that the Home PC. Now I carry a Home PC in my pocket that is my connection to the Internet. How is that not revolutionary when loving anybody in the world can now get one and it puts them on the same network?
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Nov 1, 2016 07:34
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thecluckmeme posted:The iPhone let me read your awful argument from my toilet using a connection comprised of wireless signals while I download a 20GB file on my laptop on the same connection the same time as my house phone rang, all the while my friend from Sweden texted me to let me know about his band's new single that they will be posting on Bandcamp to be shared with the entire world, so long as they have access to the Bandcamp app/site how can you attribute the existence of your home network and other devices with you posting while making GBS threads? i'm specifically talking about having the internet in your pocket, not the internet in general, and how having the internet in your pocket isn't really all that much of a big life changing phenomenon - you even said you have another computer! it kind of proves my point about smartphones being largely a distraction, that you just admitted you can't even take a poo poo without checking the internet to keep yourself entertained. god i hope you sanitize your phone
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Nov 1, 2016 07:34
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boner confessor posted:how can you attribute the existence of your home network and other devices with you posting while making GBS threads? i'm specifically talking about having the internet in your pocket, not the internet in general, and how having the internet in your pocket isn't really all that much of a big advancement. it kind of proves my point about smartphones being largely a distraction, that you just admitted you can't even take a poo poo without checking the internet. god i hope you sanitize your phone I can do my job from my phone. I have, in fact. I have remote connected to a server from the comfort of my porcelain throne and troubleshooted a problem, fixed it, and then switched back to my hour sheet app to log the time, then called a customer back on the same device to let them know the problem was resolved The last decade is phenomenal
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Nov 1, 2016 07:37
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personally, i don't think it's all that laudable that your employers can bother you to work even while you're excreting, or that this is something worth celebrating. next you'll be telling me it's great you can answer support tickets while humping your significant other. this is some soylent level work/life imbalance
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Nov 1, 2016 07:40
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boner confessor posted:just one in a string of critical revolutions, soon to be superceded by other more critical more revolutionary revolutions, which really calls into question if we can accurately judge what a revolution even is right now Man, that goalpost flew past so fast it nearly took my arm off. boner confessor posted:yeah, the same point i've been arguing all along - there are as many downsides as upsides to widespread smartphone use, as well as examples where it's not really a grand leap in technology versus just a convenience, and i'm baffled by the amount of pushback i'm getting on this frankly self evident point You just conceded the entire opposing argument, then tempered it with "but phones are also used for dumb, therefore they are useless". boner confessor posted:from my perspective, there's really nothing smartphones do for me that i can't just do myself. i'm good with directions and navigation, i dont have trouble remembering how much cash is in my bank account and it's not too much trouble to go cash a check if i need to, i already have ample ways to get in touch with people with a dumb phone, i have no pressing need to keep up with any sports, media feed, music on the go, etc. and i've already got so much access to the internet i dont need to have more of it anywhere i am. that's probably why i see the things more as an expensive distraction than a handy tool You are literally describing your own confirmation bias. I don't particularly care about either argument but you should stop debating and/or discussing this point. You are extremely bad at both of those activities.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:46
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boner confessor posted:personally, i don't think it's all that laudable that your employers can bother you to work even while you're excreting, or that this is something worth celebrating. next you'll be telling me it's great you can answer support tickets while humping your significant other. this is some soylent level work/life imbalance While I agree with this partly from a labor exploitation standpoint the alternative may be that he would've had to spend more time physically at the office for no reason other then to push a button he can now push remotely from the toilet.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:46
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boner confessor posted:personally, i don't think it's all that laudable that your employers can bother you to work even while you're excreting, or that this is something worth celebrating. next you'll be telling me it's great you can answer support tickets while humping your significant other. this is some soylent level work/life imbalance Some times IT professionals work on-call, and i have a Remote Desktop app on my phone. It's not only laudable that I can do it so quickly and easily using such a small and simple device, it's a great example of how I can do this anywhere, any time. Hell, I can give all this information to a person who only had a smart phone and cell service in a country anywhere in the world, and they could stand on top of a hill in Bumfuck Nowhere, Any Country, and do it. They aren't just Idiot Boxes used by the youth to play candy crush, and the entire line of argument laid out is just "but people just distract themselves with them" is monumentally shortsighted and so devoid of any real substance behind it that the only argument I can think of equivalent to it is people calling TVs the boob tube, or people thinking computers are only used for games and porn. It's the "some gizmo" politoon given a veneer of seriousness without any substance.
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Nov 1, 2016 07:48
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Panfilo posted:While I agree with this partly from a labor exploitation standpoint the alternative may be that he would've had to spend more time physically at the office for no reason other then to push a button he can now push remotely from the toilet. not really, i mean i'm in the same industry so the alternative is to just, you know not work when you're not on the clock? even in an emergency there's really no server fuckup so severe that it can't wait until you're done taking a crap, washing your hands, and then logging on from some other terminal. cluckmeme is just bragging about how technology empowers him to inject work related activities into the most private of personal time and i, for one, do not think that is a notable activity or one which advances the human species as a whole you don't even need a smartphone to have access to rdp, you actually have to go out of your way to put this kind of functionality on a phone. pointing out you've installed these apps so you're available on call 24/7/365 no matter what is just an example of how this level of intimate access with the internet severely erodes necessary barriers between work and not work. really it just underscores my basic point that much of the reason people don't like what i'm saying here is that i'm directly questioning people's addiction to information and access. like if you can't put down your phone for five minutes to poo poo in peace and quiet maybe you have a serious problem boner confessor fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Nov 1, 2016 |
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Nov 1, 2016 07:53
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I think the problem with what you're saying is that it works both ways. Classes of people that are isolated due to circumstance have been given more access by virtue of ubiquitious pocket internet, whether it's a farmer/fisher in a third world country, the homeless, single mums, the list goes on. It makes it possible for them to survive or even actively participate in the economy (like the washing machine and other home automations freed up plenty of labour hours) The flip side is this access swings both ways and companies and governments have far more avenues of control than ever, we're reaching technology where it really can swing either way as being a social positive depending on how things play out.
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Nov 1, 2016 08:05
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Maluco Marinero posted:I think the problem with what you're saying is that it works both ways. that's not even a problem with my argument, that's exactly what my argument is. there are as many negative aspects of widespread smartphone use as there are positives, and for some odd reason this is a viciously controversial position to take
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Nov 1, 2016 08:09
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I have spent years in some of the poorest countries on the planet, both before and after the rise of smart phones, and the difference in society is breathtaking. It literally allows for commerce that wasn't possible 10 years ago. I have personally seen it revolutionize entire towns' ability to do business. People who had never used the internet before, and still would have no access to it otherwise, are now able to access it and use it in remarkably creative ways that has really kickstarted their lives. One of the families I talked to told me his apple output was a lot higher because of things he read and had access to. Stuff the rest of the world had access to for decades before him. His smartphone closed the gap
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Nov 1, 2016 10:54
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Smartphones make things incredibly convenient, but you don't necessarily need smartphones. That's the basic gist of boner confessor's argument, right? On the other hand, saying that smartphones aren't the revolutionary tool that others make them out to be is a bit disingenuous. Being able to have what's essentially a pocket computer with a relatively cheap cost of entry is a lot better than, say, relying solely on your local library because you don't have a PC or internet access (or both) at home. And with more and more things being done solely online (job applications and the like), people will have a growing need for smartphones. Hell, I might actually have to buy a smartphone sooner or later (because I have a dumbphone right now).
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Nov 1, 2016 11:38
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Domestic Amuse posted:Smartphones make things incredibly convenient, but you don't necessarily need smartphones. That's the basic gist of boner confessor's argument, right? The people I am talking about need it to put money into a bank. Without a phone with internet access they don't have the basic right to use a modern financial system. That's pretty revolutionary.
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Nov 1, 2016 11:54
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:reminder that the concept of what we now call a smartphone is what happened when they started integrating phone functions into PDAs in the late 90s PDAs exist in the lineage that eventually became smart phones but they absolutely weren't. Like they got the little touch screen computer part down way before the iphone but palms and stuff lacked cellular internet and only the top models had wifi, so no email, text messages, facebook, whatever in most cases. they also did not typically have cameras, or gps, and generally had storage in the 16-32mb range which drastically limited their use as media players. PDAs basically worked on the interface side of the thing that would become a smart phone. the Palm os is actually quite similar to how ios or android navigates. But all the actual functions of a smart phone all came later from other placed.
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Nov 1, 2016 12:24
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Hey, do any of you guys know where the unicorn tech thread went? No? Guess I'll just post this here:http://www.cityam.com/252594/goldman-sachs-said-powa-clear-path-50bn-valuation-shortly posted:Goldman Sachs suggested Powa was on a "clear path" to a $50bn valuation in a presentation just months before the so-called British tech unicorn sensationally collapsed. And what did this "British equivalent of Google" do? quote:In the document, Powa, whose technology allowed consumers to point their phones at adverts or products to be taken to an online shopping cart, is referred to as the "tech investment of the decade". The management team, including founder Dan Wagner, is described as "visionary". Elsewhere: quote:Powa Technologies, once valued at more than $1bn making it one of Britain's rare breed of so-called unicorns, collapsed into tech myth earlier this year. And: quote:On 25 February 2016, Business Insider revealed that most of Powa's 'contracts' had in fact only been non-binding Letters of Intent.
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Nov 1, 2016 13:03
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outlier posted:In the document, Powa, whose technology allowed consumers to point their phones at adverts or products to be taken to an online shopping cart, is referred to as the "tech investment of the decade". The management team, including founder Dan Wagner, is described as "visionary". Isn't that already a thing that retail stores do? Target, for example, has an app that let's you scan a barcode with your phone and it opens the store webpage for it.
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Nov 1, 2016 13:55
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Schubalts posted:Isn't that already a thing that retail stores do? Target, for example, has an app that let's you scan a barcode with your phone and it opens the store webpage for it. It's something the amazon app already does, take a photo of a product and it'll search their inventory for it.
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Nov 1, 2016 14:54
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Guys, it's a total waste of time to argue with someone about technology who doesn't have a smartphone in 2016.
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Nov 1, 2016 17:35
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asdf32 posted:The 20th century saw people who grew up on farms with horses retire in the middle class with a car in their garage and pictures of trips to london and paris on the walls. There is something different about the physical transformation that represents, along with the standard of living increases that came with it. Equating these two types of completely different progress seems to be a Silicon Valley pastime. Typing "broncos game" into Google on my smartphone gave me the latest game result since at least 2009. Sure living standards are down in the US, but semantic search has gotten marginally better! Owlofcreamcheese posted:PDAs exist in the lineage that eventually became smart phones but they absolutely weren't. Like they got the little touch screen computer part down way before the iphone but palms and stuff lacked cellular internet and only the top models had wifi, so no email, text messages, facebook, whatever in most cases. they also did not typically have cameras, or gps, and generally had storage in the 16-32mb range which drastically limited their use as media players. This isn't true at all either, my Palm Treo predated the iPhone and had cellular internet, as well as a camera and installable apps.
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Nov 1, 2016 18:12
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call to action posted:Sure living standards are down in the US, but semantic search has gotten marginally better! Living standards are only down because you didn't study STEM and don't work hard enough! Meritocracy wooo!
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Nov 1, 2016 18:29
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call to action posted:This isn't true at all either, my Palm Treo predated the iPhone and had cellular internet, as well as a camera and installable apps. Truth is, so did I, the iphone in june 2007 wasn't actually the first actual smart phone and stuff that was doing the same stuff came out months before it, but for talking about it calling the iphone the first smart phone and ignoring relatively obscure stuff just is close enough. palm phones from around the iphone launch really did do many of the things the iphone did. much more than earlier palm devices did. It's like the videogame "SiN", it basically did all the things halflife 1 did but a few months before halflife came out, no one really remembers it though because they came out in the same generation and halflife was better.
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Nov 1, 2016 18:51
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call to action posted:
Does "living standards" include "owning a detached home"?
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Nov 1, 2016 18:54
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:It's like the videogame "SiN", it basically did all the things halflife 1 did but a few months before halflife came out, no one really remembers it though because they came out in the same generation and halflife was better. meh not really, sin was interactive but not too much more than quake 2 was. sin also iirc had third person cutscenes and fade to black loading screens, where one of the big innovations of half life is that it maintained a seamless first person narrative from beginning to end - after half life, first person shooters largely shifted towards that narrative style - you can see this in call of duty today, which loves big flashy stupid first person setpieces also sin was buggy as hell, probably because they were trying to beat half life to market. half life's real competition was unreal, which had massive outdoor environments
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Nov 1, 2016 18:58
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call to action posted:This isn't true at all either, my Palm Treo predated the iPhone and had cellular internet, as well as a camera and installable apps. LGD fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Nov 1, 2016 |
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Nov 1, 2016 19:02
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outlier posted:Hey, do any of you guys know where the unicorn tech thread went? No? Guess I'll just post this here: "My tower of LoI's collapsed, lol so random!"
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Nov 1, 2016 19:04
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boner confessor posted:meh not really, sin was interactive but not too much more than quake 2 was. sin also iirc had third person cutscenes and fade to black loading screens, where one of the big innovations of half life is that it maintained a seamless first person narrative from beginning to end - after half life, first person shooters largely shifted towards that narrative style - you can see this in call of duty today, which loves big flashy stupid first person setpieces I think this is a pretty accurate summary of smartphones previous to iphone/android. They kinda sorta had all the features except they weren't implemented well and didn't work right and pretty much don't count but technically did still beat the more well known thing to the market so get some abstract "first" designation on a lot of stuff.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:06
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LGD posted:They did all of those things very poorly by comparison and despite protestations to the contrary were definitely "niche." It's the equivalent of a Veteran/early Brass-era car- a novelty for the upper class (and upper-middle class enthusiasts) with some utility and a harbinger of things to come, and many similar-looking checklist features to its successors, but not anywhere near important or socially transformative as the standardized mass-market models that appeared within the next decade or two (except insofar as their shortcomings and continual refinement paved the way for those later vehicles). And when we look back at technologies like this, it is usually the version that spurs mass adoption that we single out as "revolutionary," even though there are frequently a lot of obvious technical ancedents. I don't think this is the wrong way to look at it either- while it's cool to go back and look at the earliest iterations of something and give credit to the forward thinking people who pressed a technology ahead, that doesn't usually matter nearly as much on a societal level as the refined iteration that people actually use and begin structuring their lives/behavior/assumptions around. I think you're conflating the device with the ecosystem. The Palm Treo 650 really was comparable to the 1st gen iPhone (better, in fact, since iPhone didn't launch with an App Store) - it could access the same websites, do banking-by-SMS, etc. but the popularity of the iPhone spurred people to develop mobile internet infrastructure. The whole pocket library, gives banking access to marginalized people, etc. could have been done with a Treo just as effectively, but it wasn't marketed or positioned well. Kinda goes to show how marketing can make a positive difference on the world.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:10
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call to action posted:I think you're conflating the device with the ecosystem. The Palm Treo 650 really was comparable to the 1st gen iPhone (better, in fact, since iPhone didn't launch with an App Store) - it could access the same websites, do banking-by-SMS, etc. but the popularity of the iPhone spurred people to develop mobile internet infrastructure. They were just a lot more clunky to use, too, and that really matters when targetting normal people. Palm devices were aimed at the busy tech nerd, not the average person. The iPhone Just Works, no messing around with setup or pairing or synching.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:14
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BarbarianElephant posted:They were just a lot more clunky to use, too, and that really matters when targetting normal people. Palm devices were aimed at the busy tech nerd, not the average person. The iPhone Just Works, no messing around with setup or pairing or synching. remember the pushback when the first iphone came out? people had been using the blackberry's chiclet keyboard for a few years at that point and saw the touchscreen as pointlessly inaccurate and difficult to use
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Nov 1, 2016 19:18
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JawnV6 posted:It's pretty amazing that he scraped together hundreds of millions of dollars without any investor performing basic due diligence. I can't quite tell if he was actively fraudulent or just too dumb to follow what made the money pipe flow the first time and pattern matched it as best he could. It's similar to Theranos in regards to lack of diligence. Investors threw money at them despite there being no peer review of their science, and no pharmaceutical company funding them.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:19
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:remember the pushback when the first iphone came out? people had been using the blackberry's chiclet keyboard for a few years at that point and saw the touchscreen as pointlessly inaccurate and difficult to use No, I just remember people creaming themselves over the iPhone. I'm sure some old fuddy-duddy businessmen couldn't get used to it.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:29
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BarbarianElephant posted:They were just a lot more clunky to use, too, and that really matters when targetting normal people. Palm devices were aimed at the busy tech nerd, not the average person. The iPhone Just Works, no messing around with setup or pairing or synching. I think you guys are kinda forgetting what the first iPhone was like. You had to sync your iPhone just like a Palm Treo in many cases. The first iPhone was also 2G only which was essentially useless, whereas the Treo had 3G.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:33
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BarbarianElephant posted:No, I just remember people creaming themselves over the iPhone. I'm sure some old fuddy-duddy businessmen couldn't get used to it. People were 100% creaming themselves but there were also a lot of people who were extremely skeptical about using a touchscreen for input (which they had good reason to be based on their last decade of experiences). Remember that high-end phone usage was very centered around professionals using Blackberries, so a phone without a physical keyboard to write long emails on the go seemed like a major downside for a lot of the existing user-base. That the iPhone managed to expand that user-base so much beyond lawyers/doctors/executives is why it will be remembered as the beginning of the smartphone era, despite its genuine initial deficiencies.
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Nov 1, 2016 19:35
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Serious businesspeople and politicians held onto their Blackberries for a long time after everyone else wanted iPhones. I didn't actually own an iPhone until the iPhone 4, just coded for them, so I'm not 100% on the user experience. The development environment was night-and-day better.
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Nov 1, 2016 20:02
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what kinda touchscreen doesn't use a stylus this is insanity i tell you
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Nov 1, 2016 20:04
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