Re:Microsoft Bans Linux/Android Dual-Booting on Windows 8 AR...
by nitrogen on Monday June 04, 2012 @01:37PM
(#4064964)
Yes, you can call it a computer but you could also call it a heap of atoms - both statements are true, but they are pretty much both just as useless to describe what an android device really is.
I disagree -- knowing something is a computer is knowing that it can be virtually infinitely repurposed. "Computer" is an entirely different kind of thing from anything else, regardless of the form it takes.
[quoted from another post] You guys are completely missing my point.
Don't mistake disagreement for obtuseness.
Also, this thread is too long already, but I wanted to mention the philosophies that seem to be driving our respective arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology
Is a car a physical thing?
Yes, you can call it a computer but you could also call it a heap of atoms - both statements are true, but they are pretty much both just as useless to describe what an android device really is.
Again, my clock, my fridge and my washing machine has a CPU, RAM, storage, input, output and software. By the same argument they are literally and physically the same thing in a different package - which of course is true, but also so very very wrong.