shinkansen

Is there a live feed anywhere? I love to watch this thing launch in real time!

You're missing the point: The difference between 17 and 16 million, is not a statistically significant /majority/, please be careful when quoting, because you missed the most important piece of what I said above.

17 million as compared to 16 million is not 'a large quantity' more as compared to 16 million.

If you understand that 'most' is the superlative form of 'much' or 'many' you understand that you're saying there is a large amount (more) of iDevices being sold as compared to the number of iPhones being sold, when all things considered that number is less 10%! Hardly a supermajority and very much in the realm of "simple majority."

I brought this up on Freenode in ##English. They were absolutely appalled by your claim, "half plus one is most."

If you have further questions I highly recommend the erudite discussions they can provide. They are quite well versed in English grammar and usage, I think you will find their comments instructive.

Edit: Also I took the liberty of consecrating the discoveries made in the form of a blog post --> http://voxinfinitus.net/blog/articles/2011/01/usage-most

Please see, quoted below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2121525

Now for a quick lesson in grammar, sorry it had to come to this but besides the colloquial instinct, the grammatical roots of 'most' will show, unequivocally, 'most' should not be used as it was.

'Most' is the superlative form of 'many' or 'much'. 'Many' is defined as 'a large number of' and 'much' is defined as 'a large amount'. This naturally implies a statistically significant large majority, not a simple majority such as 51 to 49.

When there is a close division we don't say, 'most of the Senators' we say 'just more than half of the Senators'. This is because we haven't reached a point where we can adequately say that a 'a large number' (as compared to those voting against) 'has voted for'. For this reason we reserve 'most' for situations where more than a simple majority, e.g. often a supermajority, comprises one of the two or more things we are comparing.

Actually, grammatically speaking, superlative adjectives should _only_ be used when three or more things are being compared, however this is a commonly ignored rule.

There is one final point, when one of the two or more things you are comparing reaches a point where it is greater than two thirds of the total, we begin to say 'nearly all,' "Nearly all of the Senators voted to pass the finance reform bill today, voting 89-11."

> Why are you inventing arbitrary rules for the usage of “most” that have never before existed?

I'm not. The rules aren't arbitrary, they're based on the grammatical roots of the word.

Your consistent problem is your assumptions, which run rampant throughout your comments, as evidenced here.

The colloquial meaning and usage of a term will always trump the technical reality.

Commonly, 'most' is used to mean there is more than a simple majority, e.g. a supermajority.

"Most senators voted in favor of the bill," this isn't said when 'most' refers to 51 senators voting in favor of a bill because journalists understand that that would cause confusion. Instead something like, "The Senate was nearly split on the vote, 51 to 49," is used because it is far more descriptive of that actual situation.

The relative position of numbers matters, whether you want to accept that or not. However you sound like a fool promoting ambiguity of information and obfuscation of data.

> The usage of “most” was completely correct...

This is simply wrong.

When dealing with numbers, esp financial data, it is poor form to not make specific analysis in the descriptions of the data.

Saying 'Most iOS sales are not iPhones' is actually very misleading even if generalized sales numbers are included in the same context.

Ugh, this quarter you will receive 'most' of your bonus. Oops, I hope you didn't assume that 'most' meant 95% or even 75% because it actually meant 51%.

> Context matters and it is prudent to assume that HN readers possess basic reading skills.

There is absolutely no reason to not be more specific. You're just defending poor form at this point and it wasn't even your comment.

Lastly, it's always bad to assume. Why should we assume that this won't be quoted out of context? Assumptions lead to bad things in my experience. It's never prudent to assume.

Regardless, saying ~5% is more instructive than simply saying 'most', which might confuse people who aren't reading closely or if it becomes quoted out of context. It's poor form to miss an opportunity to be more specific about data rather than less.

> I would take it to mean that there are slightly more woman in north america than man.

That's a terrible assumption. The problem with 'most' is it doesn't imply an exact number, it could be 0.01% more or 99.9% more and either is 'most'.

Nothing about that statement tells you it's near a 50:50 ratio.

Since we're not dealing with exact numbers (obviously 17 and 16 million units is rounded off) and because the difference is fairly small ~5%, it's less confusing to note a more specified relationship rather than an ambiguous and potentially confusing 'most'. Esp if later it's quoted out of context: "Most iOS device sales are not iPhones," (how many is most? how close is the margin?) is less informative than, "IDevices excluding the iPhone comprise about 5% more sales, with iPhones selling 16m units and other devices selling 17m."

It's a majority, certainly. But isn't it more elucidating to say sales are nearly split between the iPhone and iOS devices other than the iPhone?

'Most', at least colloquially, seems slightly misleading to me. The difference after all is less than 10%.

I couldn't help but notice the timing too. Steve steps out just as Apple is about to post phenomenal earnings: smart moves on Apple's part I think.

>　Most iOS devices being sold are, in fact, not iPhones!

Pedantic reply: half ≠ most, half = half

But that aside, I see your point: clearly iOS can still be influential regardless of the shift in the cellphone market space. What will be interesting to see is how (or if) that changes when Verizon gets the iPhone...

I agree completely. Compared to any other public apology I've seen in Japan, well his simply doesn't compare. Unfortunately I think he comes off as the insensitive-to-cultural-norms American which actually does more damage in Japan than it does to smooth over problems, at least in my experiences living there.

> In many ways, Job's eventual departure (hopefully based on choice, rather than necessity) could be good for Apple...[i]t won't be exactly the Apple of today, but given some of the…hostile decisions over the last 3 years, it might actually be an improvement.

I certainly hope so.

I agree, but I think it's less of an internal logistics issue and much more of a public image issue: Steve Jobs is so much the face of Apple as it sits currently, every time there's news about his health the stock fluctuates and that isn't good.

Yep, no doubt. If only for this reason, Apple needs to figure out Apple sans Jobs.

> Yes, that's pretty much the human intuition for why no one doubts that White will win. But it is very, very far from a mathematical proof.

White will win if he plays perfectly: this is mathematically assured because white has an advantage of nine points. The only way for white to lose or to draw is by extreme error. The article assumes a perfect game, so I too assume that white will play a perfect game.

> Let me remind you that each ply has a branching factor of about 20, which means each move has a branching factor of several hundred. In most positions you'd be lucky to be able to calculate even one or two forced exchanges, let alone all the way to the end of the game.

As I recall, Deep Blue was calculating at a depth of more than eight moves...

> The Deep Blue chess computer which defeated Kasparov in 1997 would typically search to a depth of between six and eight moves to a maximum of twenty or even more moves in some situations. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)

I find it difficult to believe that this wouldn't have improved or could not be improved upon, since this was based on the technology available in 1997. It's safe to say we've made progress since then.

While you may not be able to calculate an entire game, you could certainly calculate all the exchanges required to reach a properly winnable and calculable endgame. This is pretty damn close to being able to calculate a whole game...and you're assured victory.

As I said, once you get to a point of two kings and a queen, it's trivial.

> What if we make things easier for the machine? It is obvious to a rank beginner that a perfect game with a rook handicap is a win for the side with the material advantage. No, make it a queen! Surely that must be a provable win?

Hm, I'm sure it must be. Although I don't know how you go about proving it, it's a simple matter to force equal trades; black cannot avoid the exchange of pieces forever, and if white plays a perfect game he will always win, without doubt.

> Not so fast. Even against a crushing asymmetry in material, it is not too hard to avoid mate for a couple of dozen moves, which means that calculating all the way to the end of the game is beyond the reach of search-based algorithms.

Okay, just calculate the moves it would take to force the equal exchange of material from a given position. Generally as the game progresses and the board opens up it becomes inescapable.

After a certain point, when enough material has been removed from the board, looking for mate becomes trivial. Esp if you operate with such a commanding advantage as a queen...assuming you can force the equal exchange of all other material, it is possible to calculate checkmate within a couple of moves.

> I would like to see them be a bit more focused and present themselves more coherently.

Same here. I'm happy using the theme, eGTK and the Nautilus mod, but I absolutely agree that they need to find their direction.

I think ultimately they want to make it a distro, but for now it only seems to exist as a theme.

I've been using the "eGTK" (Elementary GTK) theme for just about a year now. For my money, it's the cleanest, best designed GTK theme Gnome has yet seen. It still doesn't feel as smooth as I'd like, this due I suppose in part to Gnome and the way the desktop environment is integrated, but that said it's still quite nice to look at.

> I am assuming the worst possible situation here. I do firmly believe that OS X will eventually be just like iOS...

This will never happen. As others have already stated, Apple would lose their developers and because they don't command the market with OS X they would never risk doing that. Let's not forget the professionals that use Macs: the design industry, the film industry, the music industry: these rely in some cases on third-party applications like the Adobe Suite, these industries are another reason why OS X cannot ever become iOS; they require a fundamentally open, extensible environment. Add that to the fact Apple has stated that the App Store will never be the only method through which developers may publish their applications to the OS X platform, and it just will not happen.

Your paranoia is irrational.

It seems like ever since the conception of iPhone people have worried that somehow OS X will merge with iOS and the desktop platform will be completely closed and therefore dead, leaving only Windows and Linux.

I just don't see it.

> But if we are to follow precedence set by other Apple products, the Mac will become more closed than ever, with the Web as our only option to access the outside world. Much like the iPhone and the iPad. As a Mac owner, the writing is on the wall, a closed computer is my future.

What's all the rage? It's an application distribution platform. You can still and will still be able to install applications of your choosing. The operating system is still and will still be largely open source (http://opensource.apple.com/). Compared to Microsoft and Windows, OS X is a paragon of openness.

Will Apple encourage people to use the App Store? No doubt. But that doesn't mean the door is closed to other distribution methods.

The fact remains that the operating system is far from closed, and there doesn't seem to be ANY indication that that will change in the near or even distant future; it would serve very little purpose as Apple does not have a commanding market share with OS X.

It struck me that that her cells were taken without her consent and that she and her family seemingly did not benefit. I'm not sure how profit-sharing would work in a situation like this or even how much money has actually been made due directly to the sale of her cells. However it's depressing to read that her family isn't able to benefit financially while others may be. Although it's a great contribution to research the ethics seem to be questionable. At least some of any money made should be in part awarded to her family and children.

In fact some States (e.g. WA was like this) only allow voting by mail. Potentially disenfranchising perhaps; how do I vote if I'm homeless?