Jake

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 12, 2014 -> 07:08 AM) PreOrdered the 6 this morning. No problems. Thought for sure I'd be too late and get backordered. I read the other day that Apple can make ~50 million iPhones per month. I'm sure they're ready.

I know with my family plan, AT&T Next indisputably costs more because there is no savings on the plan from opting out of the subsidy. In that case, Next only makes sense if the ability to upgrade is very important or the ability to not be on the contract (though you kind of are since ending service means you have to pay the rest of the phone's value, an even more stringent ETF in effect) is important.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) Yeah as I posted somewhere else, that was probably the stupidest article I've ever read. When one of the worst plays of the week was a 3rd and 1 that was an incomplete pass to Holmes that was a horrible play call more then anything else (nothing Jay did on the play was wrong). We just didn't execute. It is absolutely absurd. What this article is telling you that in a back and forth, overall close game, every play that changes posession is going to have significant impacts in win probability. Since the game was extremely tight (and late in the game too) vs. the majority of the games in the week, it shouldn't be a shock that our change of possessions ended up having an impact on the game. It's just that our win probability went way down on that play. The assignment of blame is completely up in the air, though we certainly hope/believe the best QBs generally get it done in those spots.

I don't own a mega-phone, but everyone I've ever seen who has something like a Note says they absolutely love it and have no qualms about owning such a big phone. This could be just cognitive dissonance at work, who knows. Maybe lots of people are returning them or everyone just knows what they like before they buy things. Or we're able to tolerate much larger phones than we think we can.

I, my entire family, and the vast majority of my social group had iPhones when I started college...I've never once had someone try to initiate a FaceTime session, suggest one, do it by accident, I've never considered doing it or remembered that it was an option...well, you get the point. I have witnessed several people desire to have video chats in the very non-tech portion of my social group in the past few months. Of these three pairs of people, only one pair was iPhone-less. The two that had Android tablets used Hangouts to video chat. The two pairs that had iPhones/iPads downloaded Skype, (one person created a Skype account), and then video chatted on Apple devices with Skype. So there's that. People forget that you can "Skype" using something other than Skype, which is probably the worst at video chat. Nobody fears downloading stuff. Some estimates have Chrome browser taking up 75% market share. People are willing to use non-default apps. One of the original marketing points for iPhones, and one that people will still tell you about when you shop for phones, is the app store. "There's an app for that." Many people love app exploration, at least some of the time.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 9, 2014 -> 11:59 PM) I thought we were going to be more like the Yankees after we won it all in 05. I was hoping we'd always re-stock with GOOD free agents. This other way isn't going to get the Sox back into the postseason anytime soon. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 07:29 AM) If it was that easy to always re-stock with good free agents, the Yankees wouldn't be missing the playoffs again and wouldn't be on 5 years without a WS appearance. Especially since the market dictates that you must sign them to long term-deals, through their down years. Yeah I think the Yankees are a very good demonstration of the flaws in the Yankee way. Now, that isn't to say it is without its positives, but damn is that an unexciting team right now. Much like the Tigers will feel totally justified if they get a WS win out of their spending sprees, we would feel the same. It's the aftermath (and risk that there is no ultimate payoff) that sucks.

I was all for keeping McCown and investing a high draft pick in a QB. I don't expect McCown, if he was on the Bears, to lead the league in damn near every advanced metric like last year, but I'd expect remarkably close if not superior results in terms of W-L compared to Cutler. Considering the cost of keeping Cutler, that was my preference. IMO, you only want QBs off their rookie contract if they are: a. great or b. journeyman/system guy/placeholder for rookie contract player

Rarely are things built into Android OS that aren't working very well. The openness, though, allows the third-party vendors to use customers like lab rats/beta testers. I don't think the desktop OS comparisons quite work. There are shades of Windows and Linux. It is like Linux to the extent that there are lots of versions, it is appealing to developers and tweakers, and there is an active community trying to build new features itself and/or fix annoyances in the OS. But, like Windows, it is the un-glamorous and widely available option. Much like Windows has usually come to describe "all which is not Mac," that is close to true with Android as well. Like Windows, more features are there but haven't always been well-marketed or super-refined when they reach the end user. Design hasn't always been a priority, much like Windows. The reputation that comes with running on low-end devices is there, too. I know a bunch of people who will never touch an Android device because they bought a s***ty phone that ran Gingerbread in 2011 and they assume everyone's experience must be like that.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 12:14 PM) I was watching the cubs yesterday because of the Blue Jays starting pitcher and Len Kasper seems to almost be over the top in trying to use advanced metics to explain the game. He was trying at one point to explain how Jose Bautista was clutch but that there is no such thing as clutch he is just a very good hitter. There seems to be this growing crowd that feels that baseball is a mathematical problem to be solved with each pitch and the game itself and score is secondary. kasper is damn good but sometimes I was like......huh? Sounds like the only thing worse than preferring SABR or old school stuff is trying to simultaneously endorse both philosophies wholeheartedly

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/09/09/ip...right-by-users/ A more sober Android-centric look at iPhone 6/+/iOS 8:

Saw this on Twitter and I can't resist...and yes, of course it's not a legitimate comparison yada yada

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 08:45 AM) We want to think of 16 year olds as having the mental development of adults all the time, but there's plenty of evidence that says they don't. Particularly when it comes to things like privacy. A colleague of mine did some research on how young adults and older adults differ on perspectives on privacy and they actually found that young people are more privacy-minded...except that young people were only use their aptitude to remain private to elude their parents. They didn't, by and large, think about the general public as someone to hide from

Everyone, including Apple so far, have been trying to sell their smart watch. Nobody is investing the time/effort in selling smart watches in general. A lot of people scoffed at smartphones as a luxury or toy, but then their utility was demonstrated. If smart watches want to catch on, they have to sell the idea of the device before they can sell the specific device. I showed my girlfriend the Apple Watch, the Moto 360, the Samsung watches, the Pebble. Her take was, basically, "meh." Then I showed her the lone Android Wear commercial made by Google - she suddenly goes, "I want a watch with that." Google wasn't selling a particular watch so they could make an ad that was all about how we might find a smart watch useful rather than "this watch is round/has a leather strap/is shiny/etc"

QUOTE (chw42 @ Sep 9, 2014 -> 04:19 PM) I own 4 wireless chargers. I use them all the time. I hate plugging the USB cable into my phone, especially in the car, which is why I have a wireless charging dock. I also have two chargers near my bed for my phone and tablet. You just set them on the charger and that's it. Much easier than finding a cord, making sure it's oriented correctly, and then plugging it in. It's a solution to a small inconvenience, but I feel like it's worth it considering you can get a wireless charger for like $20. See my thing, I guess, is that I often want to operate and charge my phone simultaneously

It's hard to believe that people would do something so cruel, particularly to such an undeserving victim. With that said, I'm pretty uncomfortable with some of the vigilante justice that folks appear to be asking for.

I'd rather pay Scherzer 7/200 than Shields 5/100

Tyler Flowers = John Buck

I think wireless charging is a big waste of time. A neutral development at best from a practical standpoint. I'd love to be convinced otherwise but I just don't see it. Was necessary on the watch, of course, given the form factor

IMO, the future of the laptop looks a lot like the MS Surface Pro 3. It would raise an interesting semantic question as to whether that means tablets or laptops "won."

A 5.5" phone is no replacement for a tablet. With that said, larger phones will increase the demand for smart watches - the watch will seem more and more useful as the phones become unwieldy. One thing I do think is essentially true is this: there is a fight going on between phones, tablets, and laptops. Two can win, but one must lose. I'm not sure which it will be. Will our main computers become very tablet-like (Surface Pro) with larger phones, with no dedicated tablets? Will our phones get big and we stick with conventional laptops for heavier tasks, with no tablets? Will phones get enormous, essentially becoming tablets, while we leave the heavy tasks to laptops? Do we find tablets acceptable for computer tasks and ditch computers as we currently know them entirely?

Oh, and it is not called "iWatch" - it will be Apple Watch

Will be $349 sometime in early 2015. From the sound of it, it might not last more than just a day. They haven't said anything definitive about battery life, but have talked about charging at night as if it will be a nightly ritual

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 9, 2014 -> 02:17 PM) Gotta disagree with you here, with the sheer options, some of them looked really great. Still not my thing though, I have no use for a smartwatch. The thing I've learned about smart watches is that they look much more massive in person than they do in the pictures, which is part of my observation re: iWatch. I have little doubt, given similar Android and Tizen-based watches, that this thing will look like a big goofy calculator watch on a person's arm. The scale never looks right until you get it up close. I'd like Android Wear to become compatible with iPhone, but I doubt the APIs will be there for that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 9, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) I like iOS default email client far more than Gmail. I'm unaware of whether it's changed much since iOS 6 - the last one I used extensively. Are there no longer any restrictions with file attachments, etc.? My mother reports it still won't play nice with her hotmail account, though I wouldn't rule out user error. It treats it as a POP3 account.

And since I mentioned the iWatch, I should also add that Motorola screwed the pooch with the great white hope for Android Wear, the Moto 360. It's still beautiful, but they put a 4-year-old bulky and inefficient processor in there along with a small battery and the reviews are predictably very negative in regard to battery life. People basically saying that if you do more with it than just look at it now and then, it won't last the day. That's the ONE minimum thing a smart watch needs to do - provide worry-free single day battery life. Ideally, far longer than that.