Of course nobody believes there are 900 mln unique users for Facebook. There may be 900 mln unique accounts though.
Anyway even if the actual number of unique users is just half of the number of accounts, that's still a significant number, and will easily put Facebook on top of the pack.
I would write a data reader/writer module for the program.
This would handle the data storage, and if later requirements change it's a relatively small part of the program that changes. The rest of the program doesn't have to care how it's stored externally: it just cares about having function calls available to do a read, write, maybe search. This makes it also relatively easy to expand.
And when in future there is a need for say more sophisticated search options, you can rewrite that one module so it starts to interact with a MySQL or Postgres database or so. Even the data format conversion becomes a breeze that way as all you do is read from the old system and write to the new system.
Further in the future maybe your external db goes out of business, and again it's a relatively easy change to a new db.
Well when it comes to US taxes I'd wager it falls in the "vast amounts of data". However I can imagine it takes really long to change the storage methods, if only because you have to be really sure it Just Works and the old system does just that.
That said a lot of my small business info I store in spreadsheets. A perfect in-between: human readable, and with the AutoFilter function easily searchable by column. And with a couple hundred records a year no need for anything more fancy.
Even with "carbon off-set credits" you are generally not carbon neutral.
Carbon neutral to me means: not adding any extra carbon to the atmosphere (typically as CO2). This means that for ever ton of carbon emitted thanks to burning of fossil fuels for electricity for office, or for fuel for a trip by plane, you would have to take out a ton of carbon back from the atmosphere.
Growing trees is not doing much: only when a tree grows it takes in carbon. Most forests, when fully grown, don't take in much, as the dead wood rots away, and carbon is released again in the process. There is not much we can really do at the moment to take the carbon back from the atmosphere.
So sequestering carbon may work - but I wonder whether that's in a commercial workable state already. As far as I know it's just experimental, and the scale must become enormous to make our world carbon neutral. The CO2 in our air is also only about 0.3% so that's not easy to filter out in really large quantities, and the next problem is where/how to store it permanently.
Solar energy may be a true carbon neutral option, as soon as you can use just solar energy to make more PV panels or other types of solar power plants. Same for wind/wave/tidal powers. Nuclear fission or fusion should be carbon neutral too.
What, are all OWS detainees winning the grand prize of an FBI file? Are they now considered domestic terrorists?
Well why? Of course they are terrorists. Haven't you been paying attention over the last decade on what's been going on in the US, the UK and several other countries in the world?
Step 1: push through laws that allow police to detain "suspected terrorists" without charges for undetermined lenghts of time. Push through laws that take all normal detainee rights away from "suspected terrorists". In the meantime you leave all other crimes alone, as of course only those horrible "suspected terrorists" need their rights taken away to prevent further terrorism to occur.
This is sold to the public as "only for those heinous terrorists" while everyone else's rights are not in danger. Because only if you're a terrorist you should be afraid. And the system will never make a mistake in arresting suspects, would they?
Step 2: now whenever you want to arrest someone, simply label them "suspected terrorist" to take away all their rights and your own duty to provide any evidence that suggest the detainee is involved in this terrorism. And gain bragging rights on the evening news where you can tell the people how well you protect them by rounding up more suspected terrorists that may have had the idea to start planning some far-fetched terrorist plot to destablise the country or whatever.
That's what's being done, and that's why all those "anti-terrorism" laws scare the hell out of me. These laws will always go in the lines of "if we think you're a terrorist, we can put you away forever and you have no rights to do anything about it". While normally someone arrested for a crime must be charged within a certain period (usually days) or released unconditionally. And even when charged they can not be held forever without trial or bail - they must ask the judge time and again to extend pre-trial detention. Unless of course this person is a "suspected terrorist".
This is a prime example of how this tactic can be used against basically anyone. I have no idea what this protest was about, but just label the protestors "terrorists" out to "destabilise the country" or something in those terms and, from a law enforcement pov, life suddenly gets a lot easier.
Most people will simply have two phones for two SIM cards. Swapping them out sucks, no matter how easy the process is. And there are quite some dual-SIM phones that allow you to have a second SIM (targeted at frequent travelers to have a home number and a foreign number, and save on roaming cost).
For large areas in many developing countries it's the only option you have on telephony, as they never had wired networks installed. After all installing a wired network costs a lot more than building up a wireless network (saves digging up every single street to every single home to get a cable in the ground). Their major cities may have a wired network, but the countryside not.
Possibly in some developing countries they have analogue networks, but that will be rare. Just like developed countries have upgraded their analogue networks by now; this is again relatively cheap to do compared to upgrading say copper to fibre.
Not going to argue about whether Windows can run alternative UIs (I take your word for that), you should compare Windows to a Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu.
Windows comes, out of the box, with a few extras such as a web browser, media player, and a text editor. No word processor, no alternative UI, no alternative web browser, no image editor, no serious e-mail application. And it tends to ship with not enough drivers to get it even running on some random hardware - which all comes with their own Windows drivers to patch it up.
Ubuntu comes, out of the box, with basically anything that you could possibly need, and more. Including office suite (OOo or LibreOffice), web browsers (several usually), media players (plural), image editing software, programming tools.
Sure you can get all those for Windows as well. Lots of it. Probably more software available for Windows than for Linux. But you'll have to hunt it all down yourself, one by one, from various different sources. Or is there something comparable to Ubuntu Software Centre in terms of ease-of-use and completeness?
They may give you a discount on the purchase of the new OS when you turn in the old one. Just like when you go the other way around and return Windows in favour of Linux.
Now it seems to me that (almost) all Linux vendors charge you a price that's equal to the return value of the Windows... it's as if they're forming a cartel!
The difficulty with the N900 was that they introduced one phone.
Now I can think of a certain company that did quite well on just a single model phone. Just one model, their very first model, and it was a big hit. Every year or so an update on that one model, maybe selling the older model in tandem for a while, but basically their whole phone line-up is just one model.
Now I know that DVD is an as-good-as obsolete format (my computers do without optical drive for the better part of the last decade), but simply dropping DVD play-back support from your mainstream distribution that sounds a little premature to me!
While their ideas may be true, by my understanding it's mainly the free porn sites that are riskiest. It used to be that they set up expensive dialers, or other ways to make money. I believe it's a way for them to make money other than by serving ads or selling subscriptions, and that actually webmasters installed that stuff on their sites. Those dialers at least tended to be called after porn sites, and actually gave (paid) access to the sites.
Dialers don't work anymore these days of course, with no-one using modems and dial-up. And maybe webmasters have cleaned up their act too.
Now those religious sites, they are usually set up by people with a passion - to spread a certain message, about a religion or otherwise, and that are often people with little or no knowledge on setting up a website and keeping it malware free. As such I would expect such sites to be a relatively soft target for malware attackers, that then use the site to distribute their wares without the webmaster knowing. A very different scenario.
That porn sites are often in it for the money, will definitely also help. At least they'll have someone around that knows how to secure a web site.
Many people argue that OBL was not the brains behind the operation, though he was the man with the charisma and an inspiration to many of his followers. You still hear regularly about "al quaeda affiliated" groups - they probably never had contact with the "real thing", but are highly inspired by Osama's ideas.
Yet no matter what even with so many people living in that compound, possibly a significant part of the Pakistan military knowing about it, and him keeping active contact with the outside world, it took some of the best spies of the US (I may assume at least they used some their best) many years to track him down. Which to me proves he did a pretty good job in staying under the radar.
If he's worried that these intermediates would access and/or abuse the information they are entrusted to transfer, those intermediates do not have the level of trust needed to be an intermediate to someone like Osama bin Laden to begin with.
Depending on the job at hand, it's certainly true. One of the major things of having a degree is that it proves you have a certain learning capability, and self discipline to get it done. And after a few years, degrees count less and less, as actual job experience takes over.
Though especially the more technical fields where the actual background/scientific knowledge counts it's not "just any" degree that will land you such a job.
Besides, I'm used to employers taking a resume for granted, and not doing much of checking (as long as the whole thing makes sense). Yet for a CEO function I'd expect a bit more of background checks being done. A simple call to the university the person says to have graduated from would suffice to confirm he actually has that degree. Or not, in this case.
Does this mean video and audio codecs are also not copyrightable? They're also just complex stream of bits, afterall, and has no particular source code attached to them.
Interesting question. Aren't some of these things covered by Patents rather than copyrights? AAC mentions patents in their license Faq.
Yes, they are.
It also highlights the issue of software patents.
Traditionally patents were related to machines and mechanical devices, which means they cover a certain implementation to solve a problem. There may be a dozen methods to solve a certain problem (e.g. peeling a potato), with identical results (a nice and clean potato), and all of them are patentable. Yet you're free to invent a 13th method to solve this same problem, and patent it again.
Yet software patents often revolve around algorithms, such as how to compress sound or video streams. Mathematical algorithms have traditionally been excluded from patents. Now when implemented in software it can be patented, such as the mp3 patent(s), which effectively patents the end result and with that the underlying algorithm, and not the implementation of how to get that result. A subtle yet important difference.
These "rounded corners" can be protected in very specific situations, notably design patents. You're probably referring to Apple vs Samsung and cases like that. When you create a design (outlook) for a device then you may patent that. This device can be anything: mobile phones, laptops, car, machinery, whatever. It means that while that patent is valid no-one is allowed to make a lookalike device.
So if you make a phone that looks exactly like an iPhone, Apple may prevent you from selling it based on their design patent. Now how same this "looks exactly like" should be, that's up to the courts, and there is definitely no clear borderline. And it's definitely more than just "rounded corners".
Another place where this "rounded corners" issue appears is in trademarks and branding. I'm sure the Coca Cola bottle design with it's narrow waist is well protected, by design patents and/or by trademarking. After all this design is very important for Coca Cola as even from a km distance many people will instantly recognise it's shape, and know the product it belongs to. Now you may be allowed to make a bottle with a narrow waist, but to get away with it you have to make it obviously different.
Most of the power use of a plane will be for cruise. Take-off uses a lot of horsepower but that's fairly short.
Electrical engines and battery packs do very well when it comes to delivering a power boost, like you need to get a plane off the ground. That's also why a hybrid car can do with a much smaller petrol engine than a similar petrol-only car: the petrol engine needs to provide the cruise-level power only in a hybrid, no need to be able to output the peak requirement.
Cruise is when you want the petrol engine to run: steadily humming away running at its optimal pace, charging the battery pack that in turn powers the prop.
Indeed at lower air pressure a petrol engine has a problem. But couldn't you design your petrol engine to expect lower air pressures (again mostly running at cruise altitude) or add an air compressor in the intake to compensate?
Excellent point. My auto mechanic tells me that his hybrid customers refuse to spend $5000 to replace the battery pack when it goes tits-up and just run on gasoline.
And lose air-worthyness certification? It seems the electrical part is what keeps the thing flying. The gas engine is no way powerful enough to power that plane on its own. It's fine for cruising, but won't do for take-off or for any other manouvres that require a power boost.
You cant ignore a plane like 99% of all car owners do to their cars. The wings have to be replaced after XXXX hours, engine needs to be completely overhauled every XXXX hours... and those numbers are small, most around the 2500 hour mark.
I'd wager only the electrical engine and its battery pack need these checks - and I have the feeling that the overhaul/inspection of an electrical engine is much cheaper than that of a gas engine. The gasoline engine of this plane is not flight critical. Without it you just have a very short range but it won't cause you to fall out of the sky.
Oh and I should add: the gasoline engine doesn't have to be so over-engineerd and über-reliable as the one of the Cessna. It's not flight-critical, so regular (and nowadays highly reliable) car engines could be used, saving a lot of cost. It kicks in at 25% battery power, so if failing still 25% battery or some 75 miles of flying left. With such a range it shouldn't be too hard to find a place to land.
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Of course nobody believes there are 900 mln unique users for Facebook. There may be 900 mln unique accounts though.
Anyway even if the actual number of unique users is just half of the number of accounts, that's still a significant number, and will easily put Facebook on top of the pack.
I would write a data reader/writer module for the program.
This would handle the data storage, and if later requirements change it's a relatively small part of the program that changes. The rest of the program doesn't have to care how it's stored externally: it just cares about having function calls available to do a read, write, maybe search. This makes it also relatively easy to expand.
And when in future there is a need for say more sophisticated search options, you can rewrite that one module so it starts to interact with a MySQL or Postgres database or so. Even the data format conversion becomes a breeze that way as all you do is read from the old system and write to the new system.
Further in the future maybe your external db goes out of business, and again it's a relatively easy change to a new db.
Well when it comes to US taxes I'd wager it falls in the "vast amounts of data". However I can imagine it takes really long to change the storage methods, if only because you have to be really sure it Just Works and the old system does just that.
That said a lot of my small business info I store in spreadsheets. A perfect in-between: human readable, and with the AutoFilter function easily searchable by column. And with a couple hundred records a year no need for anything more fancy.
Even with "carbon off-set credits" you are generally not carbon neutral.
Carbon neutral to me means: not adding any extra carbon to the atmosphere (typically as CO2). This means that for ever ton of carbon emitted thanks to burning of fossil fuels for electricity for office, or for fuel for a trip by plane, you would have to take out a ton of carbon back from the atmosphere.
Growing trees is not doing much: only when a tree grows it takes in carbon. Most forests, when fully grown, don't take in much, as the dead wood rots away, and carbon is released again in the process. There is not much we can really do at the moment to take the carbon back from the atmosphere.
So sequestering carbon may work - but I wonder whether that's in a commercial workable state already. As far as I know it's just experimental, and the scale must become enormous to make our world carbon neutral. The CO2 in our air is also only about 0.3% so that's not easy to filter out in really large quantities, and the next problem is where/how to store it permanently.
Solar energy may be a true carbon neutral option, as soon as you can use just solar energy to make more PV panels or other types of solar power plants. Same for wind/wave/tidal powers. Nuclear fission or fusion should be carbon neutral too.
What, are all OWS detainees winning the grand prize of an FBI file? Are they now considered domestic terrorists?
Well why? Of course they are terrorists. Haven't you been paying attention over the last decade on what's been going on in the US, the UK and several other countries in the world?
Step 1: push through laws that allow police to detain "suspected terrorists" without charges for undetermined lenghts of time. Push through laws that take all normal detainee rights away from "suspected terrorists". In the meantime you leave all other crimes alone, as of course only those horrible "suspected terrorists" need their rights taken away to prevent further terrorism to occur.
This is sold to the public as "only for those heinous terrorists" while everyone else's rights are not in danger. Because only if you're a terrorist you should be afraid. And the system will never make a mistake in arresting suspects, would they?
Step 2: now whenever you want to arrest someone, simply label them "suspected terrorist" to take away all their rights and your own duty to provide any evidence that suggest the detainee is involved in this terrorism. And gain bragging rights on the evening news where you can tell the people how well you protect them by rounding up more suspected terrorists that may have had the idea to start planning some far-fetched terrorist plot to destablise the country or whatever.
That's what's being done, and that's why all those "anti-terrorism" laws scare the hell out of me. These laws will always go in the lines of "if we think you're a terrorist, we can put you away forever and you have no rights to do anything about it". While normally someone arrested for a crime must be charged within a certain period (usually days) or released unconditionally. And even when charged they can not be held forever without trial or bail - they must ask the judge time and again to extend pre-trial detention. Unless of course this person is a "suspected terrorist".
This is a prime example of how this tactic can be used against basically anyone. I have no idea what this protest was about, but just label the protestors "terrorists" out to "destabilise the country" or something in those terms and, from a law enforcement pov, life suddenly gets a lot easier.
Most people will simply have two phones for two SIM cards. Swapping them out sucks, no matter how easy the process is. And there are quite some dual-SIM phones that allow you to have a second SIM (targeted at frequent travelers to have a home number and a foreign number, and save on roaming cost).
For large areas in many developing countries it's the only option you have on telephony, as they never had wired networks installed. After all installing a wired network costs a lot more than building up a wireless network (saves digging up every single street to every single home to get a cable in the ground). Their major cities may have a wired network, but the countryside not.
Possibly in some developing countries they have analogue networks, but that will be rare. Just like developed countries have upgraded their analogue networks by now; this is again relatively cheap to do compared to upgrading say copper to fibre.
Desktop. That's singular. Sounds about right.
Not going to argue about whether Windows can run alternative UIs (I take your word for that), you should compare Windows to a Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu.
Windows comes, out of the box, with a few extras such as a web browser, media player, and a text editor. No word processor, no alternative UI, no alternative web browser, no image editor, no serious e-mail application. And it tends to ship with not enough drivers to get it even running on some random hardware - which all comes with their own Windows drivers to patch it up.
Ubuntu comes, out of the box, with basically anything that you could possibly need, and more. Including office suite (OOo or LibreOffice), web browsers (several usually), media players (plural), image editing software, programming tools.
Sure you can get all those for Windows as well. Lots of it. Probably more software available for Windows than for Linux. But you'll have to hunt it all down yourself, one by one, from various different sources. Or is there something comparable to Ubuntu Software Centre in terms of ease-of-use and completeness?
They may give you a discount on the purchase of the new OS when you turn in the old one. Just like when you go the other way around and return Windows in favour of Linux.
Now it seems to me that (almost) all Linux vendors charge you a price that's equal to the return value of the Windows... it's as if they're forming a cartel!
in such situations good luck getting anyone to take care of you - emergency services will be overloaded too.
The difficulty with the N900 was that they introduced one phone.
Now I can think of a certain company that did quite well on just a single model phone. Just one model, their very first model, and it was a big hit. Every year or so an update on that one model, maybe selling the older model in tandem for a while, but basically their whole phone line-up is just one model.
Now I know that DVD is an as-good-as obsolete format (my computers do without optical drive for the better part of the last decade), but simply dropping DVD play-back support from your mainstream distribution that sounds a little premature to me!
While their ideas may be true, by my understanding it's mainly the free porn sites that are riskiest. It used to be that they set up expensive dialers, or other ways to make money. I believe it's a way for them to make money other than by serving ads or selling subscriptions, and that actually webmasters installed that stuff on their sites. Those dialers at least tended to be called after porn sites, and actually gave (paid) access to the sites.
Dialers don't work anymore these days of course, with no-one using modems and dial-up. And maybe webmasters have cleaned up their act too.
Now those religious sites, they are usually set up by people with a passion - to spread a certain message, about a religion or otherwise, and that are often people with little or no knowledge on setting up a website and keeping it malware free. As such I would expect such sites to be a relatively soft target for malware attackers, that then use the site to distribute their wares without the webmaster knowing. A very different scenario.
That porn sites are often in it for the money, will definitely also help. At least they'll have someone around that knows how to secure a web site.
Many people argue that OBL was not the brains behind the operation, though he was the man with the charisma and an inspiration to many of his followers. You still hear regularly about "al quaeda affiliated" groups - they probably never had contact with the "real thing", but are highly inspired by Osama's ideas.
Yet no matter what even with so many people living in that compound, possibly a significant part of the Pakistan military knowing about it, and him keeping active contact with the outside world, it took some of the best spies of the US (I may assume at least they used some their best) many years to track him down. Which to me proves he did a pretty good job in staying under the radar.
No-one encrypts their files, or their e-mails, so why would he do it? I bet he also didn't keep backups, again just like the rest of us.
This just proves that Osama bin Laden was just a normal guy. Except maybe for his passion to kill, that is.
If he's worried that these intermediates would access and/or abuse the information they are entrusted to transfer, those intermediates do not have the level of trust needed to be an intermediate to someone like Osama bin Laden to begin with.
Depending on the job at hand, it's certainly true. One of the major things of having a degree is that it proves you have a certain learning capability, and self discipline to get it done. And after a few years, degrees count less and less, as actual job experience takes over.
Though especially the more technical fields where the actual background/scientific knowledge counts it's not "just any" degree that will land you such a job.
Besides, I'm used to employers taking a resume for granted, and not doing much of checking (as long as the whole thing makes sense). Yet for a CEO function I'd expect a bit more of background checks being done. A simple call to the university the person says to have graduated from would suffice to confirm he actually has that degree. Or not, in this case.
Does this mean video and audio codecs are also not copyrightable? They're also just complex stream of bits, afterall, and has no particular source code attached to them.
Interesting question. Aren't some of these things covered by Patents rather than copyrights?
AAC mentions patents in their license Faq.
Yes, they are.
It also highlights the issue of software patents.
Traditionally patents were related to machines and mechanical devices, which means they cover a certain implementation to solve a problem. There may be a dozen methods to solve a certain problem (e.g. peeling a potato), with identical results (a nice and clean potato), and all of them are patentable. Yet you're free to invent a 13th method to solve this same problem, and patent it again.
Yet software patents often revolve around algorithms, such as how to compress sound or video streams. Mathematical algorithms have traditionally been excluded from patents. Now when implemented in software it can be patented, such as the mp3 patent(s), which effectively patents the end result and with that the underlying algorithm, and not the implementation of how to get that result. A subtle yet important difference.
But rounded corners? Still protected?
That has never been a copyright issue.
These "rounded corners" can be protected in very specific situations, notably design patents. You're probably referring to Apple vs Samsung and cases like that. When you create a design (outlook) for a device then you may patent that. This device can be anything: mobile phones, laptops, car, machinery, whatever. It means that while that patent is valid no-one is allowed to make a lookalike device.
So if you make a phone that looks exactly like an iPhone, Apple may prevent you from selling it based on their design patent. Now how same this "looks exactly like" should be, that's up to the courts, and there is definitely no clear borderline. And it's definitely more than just "rounded corners".
Another place where this "rounded corners" issue appears is in trademarks and branding. I'm sure the Coca Cola bottle design with it's narrow waist is well protected, by design patents and/or by trademarking. After all this design is very important for Coca Cola as even from a km distance many people will instantly recognise it's shape, and know the product it belongs to. Now you may be allowed to make a bottle with a narrow waist, but to get away with it you have to make it obviously different.
Of course, when there's a known problem you fix that first.
But if your petrol engine breaks down (or won't start) in-flight, it's not an emergency. It's just a reason to go to the nearest airfield for repairs.
This in contrast to the electrical part of the system, which is critical, and should be treated as such.
Most of the power use of a plane will be for cruise. Take-off uses a lot of horsepower but that's fairly short.
Electrical engines and battery packs do very well when it comes to delivering a power boost, like you need to get a plane off the ground. That's also why a hybrid car can do with a much smaller petrol engine than a similar petrol-only car: the petrol engine needs to provide the cruise-level power only in a hybrid, no need to be able to output the peak requirement.
Cruise is when you want the petrol engine to run: steadily humming away running at its optimal pace, charging the battery pack that in turn powers the prop.
Indeed at lower air pressure a petrol engine has a problem. But couldn't you design your petrol engine to expect lower air pressures (again mostly running at cruise altitude) or add an air compressor in the intake to compensate?
Excellent point. My auto mechanic tells me that his hybrid customers refuse to spend $5000 to replace the battery pack when it goes tits-up and just run on gasoline.
And lose air-worthyness certification? It seems the electrical part is what keeps the thing flying. The gas engine is no way powerful enough to power that plane on its own. It's fine for cruising, but won't do for take-off or for any other manouvres that require a power boost.
You cant ignore a plane like 99% of all car owners do to their cars. The wings have to be replaced after XXXX hours, engine needs to be completely overhauled every XXXX hours... and those numbers are small, most around the 2500 hour mark.
I'd wager only the electrical engine and its battery pack need these checks - and I have the feeling that the overhaul/inspection of an electrical engine is much cheaper than that of a gas engine. The gasoline engine of this plane is not flight critical. Without it you just have a very short range but it won't cause you to fall out of the sky.
Oh and I should add: the gasoline engine doesn't have to be so over-engineerd and über-reliable as the one of the Cessna. It's not flight-critical, so regular (and nowadays highly reliable) car engines could be used, saving a lot of cost. It kicks in at 25% battery power, so if failing still 25% battery or some 75 miles of flying left. With such a range it shouldn't be too hard to find a place to land.