natininja

The market clearly wants greater storage amounts, since apparently a lot of people by 32 and 64GB tablets when the base models are typically 16GB. The idea that people would rather shell out $100 for an extra 16GB when they could just buy a high quality 16GB (micro)SD card for about $10 is laughable. I would think movies are the primary driver of people wanting lots of space. Music and games are up there as well. I bought some extra RAM when I bought a laptop last year because the post-market memory was cheaper. Manufacturers charge out the nose for the same components you can buy much cheaper after market. This is a perfect example of the fact that this "convenience cost" is more akin to price-gouging. Only, when the product can't even be upgraded after market, it is a step further. It's all about preying upon people's stupidity. If they knew that undoing a couple screws and popping in a memory stick was as easy as it is, no one would ever get RAM upgrades from the manufacturer. Or maybe they would, since the manufacturer would charge a more reasonable price for the upgrade -- they must get bulk discounts on the RAM units, after all. I suppose people want specifically for their devices to need proprietary tools for opening them, right? It's just a response to the market! http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110125/02072212812/apple-using-special-new-screws-so-you-cant-open-your-iphone.shtml They want you to be dependent upon them for everything. To nickel and dime you (or Grant and Benjamin you) for every thing they possibly can. They intentionally cripple devices and dupe consumers in order to do so.

The first? Really?? Google has been using the cloud from jump, the cloud is the backbone of their mobile OS. Look at Gmail, your gmail, contact, tasks are stored in the cloud no more syncing as you had to do with Apple or Microsoft. Having said that, please explain to me how Apple was first? Re-read. I said they were the first to eliminate expandable storage. Maybe that is not true, sorry to insult your Google fanboyism. I have an Android and not an iPad, but I have things I hate about both. Whoever did it first sucks. And I don't mean cloud computing, but removing expandable storage with the goal of selling cloud storage. Most people do not own an Apple, so that's certainly not what the market says. The market is not monolithic. Regardless, people appreciate when things are less expensive. Even people who buy iPads probably wish the storage were expandable. Especially people who buy a model above the base (= the same product but with a few overpriced GBs added on).

Damon Zex?

Apple paved the way in showing just how profitable it could be to cripple your products in creative ways to encourage/force consumers to spend money on things they wouldn't need to buy otherwise. They were also the first to apply this to expandable storage and to tie that idea with their iCloud.

Sorry if I came off as being a d*ck. I might have been a little more tactful if I knew you made these (I actually thought they were professionally done!). What program did you use to make them?

I meant the changes in the counties' margins of victory, as a percentage of the county vote. Like if Franklin went 55-45 Dem in 2008, then 60-40 in 2012, the value 5% Dem would be reflected. If you do % increase as a total of the state, then you run into the problem that the intensity of shifts in smaller counties aren't displayed. Which is the problem I have regarding the larger counties in the maps shown. A 20k+ increase in Hamilton, Franklin, Cuyahoga, etc., is not that interesting. Bring that shift to Stark county, and it's fairly big. Bring it to Erie County, and you're talking about practically every voter changing her mind.

These are only really useful for the less populous counties. They'd be more interesting if they controlled for population, showing vote percent increases instead of raw vote increases.

^ You do realize the media would have a field day with anything whatever. If your suggestion had been executed, they would have had a field day with that. So would COAST and etc. I don't know what the particulars are of the crazy they would inevitably conjure, but it might go something like "We are spending X million on an unnecessary stage of a project that is low on resources as it is!" or maybe "See? We can just run a bus and forget the streetcar! Look at the bus doing the exact same thing as the streetcar will do!" You mention the streetcar stops, and that first criticism was waged toward them, except the funding for them was in the thousands. Sometimes I get the sense you would be a critic of your own ideas, were the city to have come up with them before you.

Could add plugs to already solar powered things. Like streetlights in urban areas.

^^ I would get a Nexus 10, if I were purchasing an Android tablet today. Lame that they skipped expandable storage, though! Everyone is starting to copy the worst things Apple does.

Whenever I feel at peace with the world, I come to this thread. It depresses me right up!

I really like the inclusion of maps.

I have a tablet, and I have to say that, other than reading during my commute, there are very few things it is decently good at. The web browser crashes a lot, especially when watching video. All these damn mobile websites are atrocious. The apps water down my computing experience: the YouTube app has no comments, the Google Chat app will not let me send SMS messages. I've had it for about a year, so I guess the newer models might be better. But I'm sure those needless software limitations are still there. And this is an Android device. Maybe an iPad has less trouble with some things, like crashing, but the software lock-down problem would be even worse. I would not buy one of these suckers to just use around the house. Not worth it. Not in their current state. Way too limited versus the fully computer experience. Mice are nice, too. Though I know some tablets (like Microsoft Surface) have a touch-mouse on their keyboard peripherals. Not sure about the iPad. Tablets have some serious growing-up to do. I'm surprised they are as popular as they are. It's a luxury item complete with a healthy dose of frustration.

Will Apple follow suit? I'm super tired of tech companies trying to force changes in the market. Especially with planned/artificial obsolescence. Intel to kill off desktop as we know it, reports claim http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57555305-92/intel-to-kill-off-desktop-as-we-know-it-reports-claim/ And on the small-desktop topic: Intel's tiny desktop PC for DIYers coming this month http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57547955-75/intels-tiny-desktop-pc-for-diyers-coming-this-month/

If you aren't going to be carting something around, the need for it to be compact is greatly diminished. The advantages of having a desktop are complemented by having a larger form factor. You can fit in more graphics cards, more hard drives, more memory, more processing power, more everything. Plus, you can get more bang for your buck on things that are bigger. There is a price premium for compactness on everything. For these reasons, I don't see compact desktops picking up a great deal of steam. Now, the exception to that might come when we get to the point of having processing power outsourced into the cloud. Then all of our computers -- desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones -- might get much smaller since they just serve as I/O interfaces. Still, as technology advances, I expect that at the point we are capable of outsourcing all our current computation needs to the cloud, there will probably be new applications which become commonplace which would be too bandwidth heavy for cloud computation. In this way, cloud computation will be like the tablet/ultrabook of the future: fine for casual use, but insufficient for many applications. The line between tablet and ultrabook and laptop is already thinning quite a bit. I think that will continue, and so your coffee shop example will kind of be incoherent. Everything will soon have a touch screen, but with cloud processing we won't have these tablet/laptop devices as we know them. If the internet does not become super-reliable, I could see there being local (LAN) cloud computers -- basically desktop PCs that you interface through a router. No one wants to lose their ability to do everything computer-related just because the internet crashes. It's hard to predict future technology. ;) Oh yeah, Apple. :shoot:

Rave cave!

It would make sense that the non-renewal is a decision by the owner (now the city) rather than the tenants. That all of these places would suddenly be deciding their businesses are not successful enough to stay open would seem rather bizarre. So maybe we should view it as a sign of progress. What could they be clearing out the space for?

Unless those leases were extraordinarily long, I still wonder why now after all these years. Especially with Downtown on an upswing overall. Maybe they are the canary in the coal mine for restaurant saturation? Maybe people just don't particularly like a mall food court in an urban center, and now there are so many other options they just aren't going there? It's one thing that had weathered fairly well through all those years of decline, and now...

My bet is what sounded good to dunnhumby at first became a drag over time (could be many reasons, maybe the speed at which things were coming together for the residential component creating uncertainty and slowing the whole project down). Since they felt it was a bit of a hassle, they just said, no thanks. The need for room doesn't make sense, since they could have just built taller.

^^ LOL, I forgot about Damon Zex. Thanks for the reminder. ^ Yeah, especially with the lectures. Portions of those are frustrating to listen to, when the speaker is referring to something on a slide or whatever they are showing.

Wow. I wonder what the sudden change was. May have been a serendipitous time for the city to snatch the property up. I just can't imagine what they will do with it.

Pitiful. So much short-sightedness. If this is all about moving freight, let's ban personal automobiles on the current bridge. If it's about alleviating congestion, let's add congestion pricing to river crossings. We don't have money for this bridgedoggle. It's unnecessary and ignores devastating land use implications of induced travel, as well as long term trends of decreasing vehicle miles traveled. We struggle to pay for maintaining the infrastructure we have. At least, with tolls, this bridge should (hopefully) not be eating into maintenance dollars for other infrastructure. How many historic structures and homes will be torn down to make room for commuters from exurban McMansions?

Or he might be back more often. Sounds like it would be good for ratings.

So what was the altercation about?

The building was built with the expectation that a tower would be built on top of it. I'm sure the developers expected it to happen much closer to the time of original construction, but it didn't. Only now that Fifth Third is nearing the expiration of their air rights has this proposal come forward. Seems like they are scared that if they don't take advantage, someone else will. All the apartments being built in OTR and Downtown are being snatched up as soon as they come on the market. Until that slows down, it seems Cincinnati's population is very capable of "using all these effectively."