One could argue that, in software, it's advantageous to have freeloaders. They are regularly viewed by developers as testers. Software with lots of non-programmer users can be among the best, because such users can contribute bug reports ("complaints"), and this information can be used to improve the software.
In this case, they really aren't freeloaders, are they? Real freeloaders are people like Google, who take, and then never contribute ANYTHING back, not even mailing list comments, but instead have their own internal world where everything occurs.
The RealID provisions of the RealID Act are not actually unconstitutional, as RealID is not mandated. It merely is don't-do-it-and-your-residents-won't-be-able-to-use-their-ids-for-anything-federal. Kind of like the 55MPH limit, which was don't-do-it-and-we-won't-give-you-another-penny-for-roads. What I know of the constitutionality complaints are that they are addressing the border construction provisions of the RealID Act.
Well, the bartender probably has no choice in the matter; it is likely the policy of the establishment, with a penalty of being fired for not following the policy. As for the creation of the policy, it prevents the establishment from relying on the possibly inferior judgment of every single employee to avoid the loss of liquor licenses or other consequences should an employee fail to card someone who should be carded.
Humans move to an area and they multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way they can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
A formal system is an initial set of statements and a set of rules that can be applied to those statements to create additional statements. The initial statements are axioms. The additional statements are theorems. Standard logic is one such system, and arithmetic is another.
A statement is decidable if it can be proven true or false; that is, either the statement can be proven true or the negation of the statement can be proven true. A formal system is complete if and only if all statements written in the language of the formal system are decidable. Arithmetic is not complete (see Godel), nor can enough axioms be added to make it complete. Some formal systems can be made complete by adding enough axioms.
This paper states that, given a system that could be made complete, the axioms can be encoded in quantum states, and that repeated measurements corresponding to a statement will either give either an unvarying result or a random one. If the result is unvarying, then the statement is decidable, and if the result is random, then the statement is undecidable.
While this is interesting, they mention in the paper that a classical (read: non-quantum) machine could be built to do the same thing. Further, you never actually prove anything, as n identical results could conceivably occur randomly. Finally, this work only applies to systems that can be made complete, so don't hold your breath waiting for the Riemann hypothesis to be solved using this method.
Actually you can dream up universes where 1+1=2 doesn't hold. It can fail to hold for a variety of reasons.
And down the relativistic shoot we go. Would those reasons be related to physics by any chance? Honestly, I can't see how such an abstract concept such as math could conceivably even hint how 1+1 would not equal 2. If it equals something else, then congratulations, you have created an operator which does not have the quality that simple addition does.
You fail to have enough imagination. As a trivial example of when 1+1=2 doesn't hold, what if addition did not exist? This is not an interesting example, nor can I come up with one that is interesting, but that is what GP said too.
Equally, special numbers such as Pi and e will always output the same pattern of digits in any multi/quasi/supro-uno universe (given a particular base to start with - it doesn't have to be 10 of course).
Ah, something more interesting! Pi only has its familiar value in Euclidean space (which is the space we live in, not so coincidentally). Imagine hyperbolic space, and you have a value for pi that is larger than standard, exactly how much bigger depending on the curvature. Imagine spherical space and don't get anything meaningful at all. If you want a space where the parallel postulate holds, imagine a torus (donut). In all these cases, Pi is different or non-existent, and I imagine e would be too.
I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty pissed if someone walked up to me and spanked me on the arse as an adult. What makes this act ok when children are involved?
There are many things that are allowed to be done to a child that can not be done to an adult. Children are minors, and they do not receive the same rights as adults. Parents regularly and legitimately curtail children; freedom of speech and freedom of action are two obvious ones.
What does it achieve? It certainly doesn't work as a disciplinary measure, what it does do is enforce a pointless cycle of abuse. Didn't finish that TPS report, bookmark your butt with a nice red hand print, 'cause you know, that'll make you get it done on time next week wont it.
Properly used, it does work as a "disciplinary measure" -- however it is often not properly used, and only then might it "enforce a pointless cycle of abuse". The reason that it has been banned in places like schools is that it can be easily abused and misused. I also think that most people who are against spanking have never actually been spanked (abused maybe, but not spanked) and so do not actually see what is going on.
I should also mention that I (first) got this out of my constitutional law class -- and since we disagree, therefore one can not always trust what one learns in school. I learned about warrants, and at the same all the other ways that you and your effects may be searched/seized without them -- the plain view doctrine, Terry frisks, vehicle searches, searches pursuant to an arrest, and others I am sure I have forgotten. Warrants are only one way of getting evidence; there are many others, and if you want to be able to properly contain illegal police behavior, you must know all legal behavior.
Because some see OSS as a political movement, not a tool.
Actually, "Free Software" is a political movement (freedom is good), while "Open Source Software" is a tool (open source is benefitial). Search for "free versus open source software" and you will see this. The problem is that people lump them together, and think one is the other.
I played Dark Castle years ago, and it turns out that on Dec 25th, the castle has Christmas decorations. That undermined my trust in the product since the developers were massaging their own egos. Since they showed the desire to hide "secret features", I started to wonder what possibly malignant functionality existed.
Read up on the plain view doctrine. It is what allows you to be arrested for marijuana possession if you have a bag of it sitting on your desk when the cop is in your house for some other reason (like a warrant). As long as he is not taking any action that does not pertain to the warrant, then when he sees that bag of marijuana, you can get arrested. Glancing around a room from a position the warrant allows is an action that is allowed. Searching for the thing mentioned in the warrant is allowed. He may not be searching for anything not on the warrant, but happening to see something not on the warrant that is clearly illegal can be used, as long as only allowed actions were used to find it. Do note that the thing has to be clearly evidence immediately upon viewing. If any uncertainty occurs, such as having to run an outside check or to make closer inspection of any type, then that is not immediately apparent, and is disallowed.
Two defining cases here are as follows: In the first case, a robbery occurred, with known weapons and stolen goods. A warrant was issued for the goods only. When the officer went to the residence with the warrant, he happened upon and seized the weapons as evidence. It was permissible to do so, as the weapons were clearly evidence, in plain view, and the officer was lawfully present.
In the second case, police entered a residence as a result of a shooting, and in the course of their actions, noticed some stereo equipment and ran a check on the serial numbers. They were stolen, and they were seized. This is not legal, as the equipment was not immediately apparent as evidence.
Word History: The words check, chess, and shah are all related. Shah, as one might think, is a borrowing into English of the Persian title for the monarch of that country. The Persian word shah was also a term used in chess, a game played in Persia long before it was introduced to Europe. One said shah as a warning when the opponent's king was under attack. The Persian word in this sense, after passing through Arabic, probably Old Spanish, and then Old French, came into Middle English as chek about seven hundred years ago. Chess itself comes from a plural form of the Old French word that gave us the word check. Checkmate, the next stage after check, goes back to the Arabic phrase shah mat, meaning "the king is dead." Through a complex development having to do with senses that evolved from the notion of checking the king, check came to mean something used to ensure accuracy or authenticity. One such means was a counterfoil, a part of a check, for example, retained by the issuer as documentation of a transaction. Check first meant "counterfoil" and then came to mean anything, such as a bill or bank draft, with a counterfoil -- or eventually even without one.
I mean geez...if you can't afford to go out to eat with the group, don't go. Sure sometimes you pay a little more...some times a little less..but, it adds up in the end.
Unless you are the dude who doesn't buy the expensive drinks because you don't like them or the expensive meals because you are vegetarian and so end up subsidizing others' eating by $5 a pop every time. As you say, it adds up in the end.
In the United States, even if the search is legal (based on a search warrant), if they find something illegal that is not mentioned in the warrant, they can't use it as evidence.
to mean "something illegal not mentioned in the warrant found during a legal search can't be used as evidence" which is false as long as the object is "immediately apparent" as illegal (note other requirements defining "legal search"). It's kind of like saying a cop can't give you a speeding ticket if he doesn't know what your speed is -- he can if he judges you to be driving at an unsafe speed. I object to the blanket sounding statement you made, since it sounds to me to be the exact opposite of the truth, which is "In the United States, if the search is legal (based on a search warrant), if they find something immediately apparent as illegal that is not mentioned in the warrant, they can use it as evidence".
Wrong. If, during the legal course of police activity, there is probable cause, the item may be seized by the plain view doctrine. There are restrictions defining "the legal course of police activity", such as the officer may not be searching for anything other than what is in the warrant, the officer may not used enhanced observation, the illegality must be "immediately apparent", etc.
The fourth amendment disallowed general search warrants, which allowed searching without specifying a crime or the evidence to be seized. In the US, both those must be specified, and no actions are allowed that do not pertain to the warrant unless authorized by the owner or other specific circumstances apply, such as consent of the owner.
| Administration has gotten plenty of feedback
WTF?
try "received"
Administration has received plenty of feedback
Much better.
What's wrong with gotten? It's a pp of get. Like "have taken". Try googling it. One thing to note is that it has dialectical variations -- "have got" and "have gotten" are different in some dialects but not others.
I find it interesting that Asimov's story has not shown up in the discussion: The Ugly Little Boy. It is quite a touching story of a neanderthal child. The researchers treat it as a mentally inferior object of study, while the hired nurse eventually understands that it is a person, a child. The story warns against doing things without thinking through the ethics, and a strike against assumptions of inferiority of others. It was written in 1958 -- the parallel to blacks is obvious.
Oh, I suppose so, but my point was really that there is no guarantee that all theories are broken. A lot of chemistry, for example, is pretty solid, and it would be stunning if certain things were shown problematic.
I basically agree. Nissan does attempt lockdown. However, the difference is between making it difficult, and invoking law.
Nissan invokes law when they can. They've stopped "gray market" imports using trademark law. They've taken "nissan.com" from a guy named Nissan. Any of these corporations will use whatever laws they can to improve profits.
Pure technicality: they tried (and failed) to take nissan.com.
Anyway, my point was that it was silly to shun the silly little iPod for ideological reasons when the car company that built the car has no moral or ethical claim above Apple.
I have never quite understood the instance, some people seem to have, that you cannot prove God exists while insisting it is possible to prove he doesn't.
Well, there are a number of things which can be proven one way but not the other. For example, "Between now and the heat death of the universe, there will be faster than light travel." It can be proven true by actually witnessing it, but it could never be proven false. Not that I think the existence of God falls into this category, but there are some that do.
I knew a paraplegic that had after market modifications made to a van that replaced the standard control with a panel board, removed the driver's seat, and added a ramp and pathway to the driver's seat.
So you couldn't rig an iPod with external hardware? If there was demand for a big external LCD screen on an iPod, it could be done. It's not like you need Nissan's (or Apple's) permission to make hardware mods.
The reason this is analogous is that the dashboard of a car is the car's interface, just as iTunes is the iPod's interface. Nissan is not stopping someone from doing this, but now Apple is.
My father's truck consists of a 49 Ford pickup with a 67 Chevy engine, with an adapter to interface the two.
Neither the '49 Ford nor the '67 Chevy has a computer, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. You could probably rig up a FrankenPod if you really wanted to with an "adapter". I mean, here's a guy who hooked up his iPod to a full-sized hard drive for some reason.
Just another example. Given that you mentioned the car computer, which is part of the engine really, then one could consider the entire chassis/body as the interface and replace that. If you want an example with a computer, I know someone who dropped a 2005(?) Toyota engine into a 1980's Jeep.
No one wants to use a car's computer apart from the engine.
True, but lots of people tune their engines by changing the ROMs - no thanks to the car companies. It's such a headache that aftermarket companies like Haltech make a good living selling entirely new engine management systems, despite the OEM hardware being perfectly capable. I've never modded a Nissan, but my understanding is that you have to solder the boards.
And Nissan doesn't stop you, which was the point.
But you don't have to play with the computer to see how much the car companies screw you. Proprietary connectors abound, no more grease fittings, you need weird tools that are specific to brand - if not model. Hell, they even make the warranties dependent on using their fluids now.
I basically agree. Nissan does attempt lockdown. However, the difference is between making it difficult, and invoking law.
As for implying lockdown - I probably chose a bad portion of your message to quote. I will say, however, that it's very hard to think of a case where proprietary parts are present and yet there is no attempt at lockdown.
Again, I basically agree. The cases I think of are where pluggability is important (you can swap hard drives, monitors, etc. all you want in a computer), where the vendor does not see a possible revenue stream (some devices have the spec open for people to write Linux drivers), or where the item is low tech (furniture, clothing).
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Why is it that people even have to identify rhetorical questions? This is a rhetorical question, don't bother replying.
One could argue that, in software, it's advantageous to have freeloaders. They are regularly viewed by developers as testers. Software with lots of non-programmer users can be among the best, because such users can contribute bug reports ("complaints"), and this information can be used to improve the software.
In this case, they really aren't freeloaders, are they? Real freeloaders are people like Google, who take, and then never contribute ANYTHING back, not even mailing list comments, but instead have their own internal world where everything occurs.
vice sera
You want to give me pain, don't you? And vice versa, I'll have you know.
The RealID provisions of the RealID Act are not actually unconstitutional, as RealID is not mandated. It merely is don't-do-it-and-your-residents-won't-be-able-to-use-their-ids-for-anything-federal. Kind of like the 55MPH limit, which was don't-do-it-and-we-won't-give-you-another-penny-for-roads. What I know of the constitutionality complaints are that they are addressing the border construction provisions of the RealID Act.
Well, the bartender probably has no choice in the matter; it is likely the policy of the establishment, with a penalty of being fired for not following the policy. As for the creation of the policy, it prevents the establishment from relying on the possibly inferior judgment of every single employee to avoid the loss of liquor licenses or other consequences should an employee fail to card someone who should be carded.
Humans move to an area and they multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way they can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
Okay, I'll try.
A formal system is an initial set of statements and a set of rules that can be applied to those statements to create additional statements. The initial statements are axioms. The additional statements are theorems. Standard logic is one such system, and arithmetic is another.
A statement is decidable if it can be proven true or false; that is, either the statement can be proven true or the negation of the statement can be proven true. A formal system is complete if and only if all statements written in the language of the formal system are decidable. Arithmetic is not complete (see Godel), nor can enough axioms be added to make it complete. Some formal systems can be made complete by adding enough axioms.
This paper states that, given a system that could be made complete, the axioms can be encoded in quantum states, and that repeated measurements corresponding to a statement will either give either an unvarying result or a random one. If the result is unvarying, then the statement is decidable, and if the result is random, then the statement is undecidable.
While this is interesting, they mention in the paper that a classical (read: non-quantum) machine could be built to do the same thing. Further, you never actually prove anything, as n identical results could conceivably occur randomly. Finally, this work only applies to systems that can be made complete, so don't hold your breath waiting for the Riemann hypothesis to be solved using this method.
Actually you can dream up universes where 1+1=2 doesn't hold. It can fail to hold for a variety of reasons.
And down the relativistic shoot we go. Would those reasons be related to physics by any chance? Honestly, I can't see how such an abstract concept such as math could conceivably even hint how 1+1 would not equal 2. If it equals something else, then congratulations, you have created an operator which does not have the quality that simple addition does.
You fail to have enough imagination. As a trivial example of when 1+1=2 doesn't hold, what if addition did not exist? This is not an interesting example, nor can I come up with one that is interesting, but that is what GP said too.
Equally, special numbers such as Pi and e will always output the same pattern of digits in any multi/quasi/supro-uno universe (given a particular base to start with - it doesn't have to be 10 of course).
Ah, something more interesting! Pi only has its familiar value in Euclidean space (which is the space we live in, not so coincidentally). Imagine hyperbolic space, and you have a value for pi that is larger than standard, exactly how much bigger depending on the curvature. Imagine spherical space and don't get anything meaningful at all. If you want a space where the parallel postulate holds, imagine a torus (donut). In all these cases, Pi is different or non-existent, and I imagine e would be too.
I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty pissed if someone walked up to me and spanked me on the arse as an adult. What makes this act ok when children are involved?
There are many things that are allowed to be done to a child that can not be done to an adult. Children are minors, and they do not receive the same rights as adults. Parents regularly and legitimately curtail children; freedom of speech and freedom of action are two obvious ones.
What does it achieve? It certainly doesn't work as a disciplinary measure, what it does do is enforce a pointless cycle of abuse. Didn't finish that TPS report, bookmark your butt with a nice red hand print, 'cause you know, that'll make you get it done on time next week wont it.
Properly used, it does work as a "disciplinary measure" -- however it is often not properly used, and only then might it "enforce a pointless cycle of abuse". The reason that it has been banned in places like schools is that it can be easily abused and misused. I also think that most people who are against spanking have never actually been spanked (abused maybe, but not spanked) and so do not actually see what is going on.
I should also mention that I (first) got this out of my constitutional law class -- and since we disagree, therefore one can not always trust what one learns in school. I learned about warrants, and at the same all the other ways that you and your effects may be searched/seized without them -- the plain view doctrine, Terry frisks, vehicle searches, searches pursuant to an arrest, and others I am sure I have forgotten. Warrants are only one way of getting evidence; there are many others, and if you want to be able to properly contain illegal police behavior, you must know all legal behavior.
Because some see OSS as a political movement, not a tool.
Actually, "Free Software" is a political movement (freedom is good), while "Open Source Software" is a tool (open source is benefitial). Search for "free versus open source software" and you will see this. The problem is that people lump them together, and think one is the other.
I played Dark Castle years ago, and it turns out that on Dec 25th, the castle has Christmas decorations. That undermined my trust in the product since the developers were massaging their own egos. Since they showed the desire to hide "secret features", I started to wonder what possibly malignant functionality existed.
But the Easter Egg was fun anyway.
Read up on the plain view doctrine. It is what allows you to be arrested for marijuana possession if you have a bag of it sitting on your desk when the cop is in your house for some other reason (like a warrant). As long as he is not taking any action that does not pertain to the warrant, then when he sees that bag of marijuana, you can get arrested. Glancing around a room from a position the warrant allows is an action that is allowed. Searching for the thing mentioned in the warrant is allowed. He may not be searching for anything not on the warrant, but happening to see something not on the warrant that is clearly illegal can be used, as long as only allowed actions were used to find it. Do note that the thing has to be clearly evidence immediately upon viewing. If any uncertainty occurs, such as having to run an outside check or to make closer inspection of any type, then that is not immediately apparent, and is disallowed.
Two defining cases here are as follows: In the first case, a robbery occurred, with known weapons and stolen goods. A warrant was issued for the goods only. When the officer went to the residence with the warrant, he happened upon and seized the weapons as evidence. It was permissible to do so, as the weapons were clearly evidence, in plain view, and the officer was lawfully present.
In the second case, police entered a residence as a result of a shooting, and in the course of their actions, noticed some stereo equipment and ran a check on the serial numbers. They were stolen, and they were seized. This is not legal, as the equipment was not immediately apparent as evidence.
Some links:
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/plainv.htm
http://www.policelink.com/training/articles/2043-plain-view-doctrine-
http://people.w3.org/~djweitzner/blog/?p=77
http://www.google.com/search?q=search+warrant+plain+view+doctrine
Word History: The words check, chess, and shah are all related. Shah, as one might think, is a borrowing into English of the Persian title for the monarch of that country. The Persian word shah was also a term used in chess, a game played in Persia long before it was introduced to Europe. One said shah as a warning when the opponent's king was under attack. The Persian word in this sense, after passing through Arabic, probably Old Spanish, and then Old French, came into Middle English as chek about seven hundred years ago. Chess itself comes from a plural form of the Old French word that gave us the word check. Checkmate, the next stage after check, goes back to the Arabic phrase shah mat, meaning "the king is dead." Through a complex development having to do with senses that evolved from the notion of checking the king, check came to mean something used to ensure accuracy or authenticity. One such means was a counterfoil, a part of a check, for example, retained by the issuer as documentation of a transaction. Check first meant "counterfoil" and then came to mean anything, such as a bill or bank draft, with a counterfoil -- or eventually even without one.
I mean geez...if you can't afford to go out to eat with the group, don't go. Sure sometimes you pay a little more...some times a little less..but, it adds up in the end.
Unless you are the dude who doesn't buy the expensive drinks because you don't like them or the expensive meals because you are vegetarian and so end up subsidizing others' eating by $5 a pop every time. As you say, it adds up in the end.
In the United States, even if the search is legal (based on a search warrant), if they find something illegal that is not mentioned in the warrant, they can't use it as evidence.
to mean "something illegal not mentioned in the warrant found during a legal search can't be used as evidence" which is false as long as the object is "immediately apparent" as illegal (note other requirements defining "legal search"). It's kind of like saying a cop can't give you a speeding ticket if he doesn't know what your speed is -- he can if he judges you to be driving at an unsafe speed. I object to the blanket sounding statement you made, since it sounds to me to be the exact opposite of the truth, which is "In the United States, if the search is legal (based on a search warrant), if they find something immediately apparent as illegal that is not mentioned in the warrant, they can use it as evidence".
Wrong. If, during the legal course of police activity, there is probable cause, the item may be seized by the plain view doctrine. There are restrictions defining "the legal course of police activity", such as the officer may not be searching for anything other than what is in the warrant, the officer may not used enhanced observation, the illegality must be "immediately apparent", etc.
The fourth amendment disallowed general search warrants, which allowed searching without specifying a crime or the evidence to be seized. In the US, both those must be specified, and no actions are allowed that do not pertain to the warrant unless authorized by the owner or other specific circumstances apply, such as consent of the owner.
| Administration has gotten plenty of feedback WTF? try "received" Administration has received plenty of feedback Much better.
What's wrong with gotten? It's a pp of get. Like "have taken". Try googling it. One thing to note is that it has dialectical variations -- "have got" and "have gotten" are different in some dialects but not others.
Um, yes it is. Do you think it is made of oil? Or maybe you are being a pedant, since sweat is impure water containing salts and such.
I find it interesting that Asimov's story has not shown up in the discussion: The Ugly Little Boy. It is quite a touching story of a neanderthal child. The researchers treat it as a mentally inferior object of study, while the hired nurse eventually understands that it is a person, a child. The story warns against doing things without thinking through the ethics, and a strike against assumptions of inferiority of others. It was written in 1958 -- the parallel to blacks is obvious.
Oh, I suppose so, but my point was really that there is no guarantee that all theories are broken. A lot of chemistry, for example, is pretty solid, and it would be stunning if certain things were shown problematic.
I basically agree. Nissan does attempt lockdown. However, the difference is between making it difficult, and invoking law.
Nissan invokes law when they can. They've stopped "gray market" imports using trademark law. They've taken "nissan.com" from a guy named Nissan. Any of these corporations will use whatever laws they can to improve profits.
Pure technicality: they tried (and failed) to take nissan.com.
Anyway, my point was that it was silly to shun the silly little iPod for ideological reasons when the car company that built the car has no moral or ethical claim above Apple.
Point accepted.
In other words, all scientific theories will eventually be proven wrong when better data is available.
Actually, it's "all scientific theories could eventually be proven wrong when better data is available."
I have never quite understood the instance, some people seem to have, that you cannot prove God exists while insisting it is possible to prove he doesn't.
Well, there are a number of things which can be proven one way but not the other. For example, "Between now and the heat death of the universe, there will be faster than light travel." It can be proven true by actually witnessing it, but it could never be proven false. Not that I think the existence of God falls into this category, but there are some that do.
I knew a paraplegic that had after market modifications made to a van that replaced the standard control with a panel board, removed the driver's seat, and added a ramp and pathway to the driver's seat.
So you couldn't rig an iPod with external hardware? If there was demand for a big external LCD screen on an iPod, it could be done. It's not like you need Nissan's (or Apple's) permission to make hardware mods.
The reason this is analogous is that the dashboard of a car is the car's interface, just as iTunes is the iPod's interface. Nissan is not stopping someone from doing this, but now Apple is.
My father's truck consists of a 49 Ford pickup with a 67 Chevy engine, with an adapter to interface the two.
Neither the '49 Ford nor the '67 Chevy has a computer, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. You could probably rig up a FrankenPod if you really wanted to with an "adapter". I mean, here's a guy who hooked up his iPod to a full-sized hard drive for some reason.
Just another example. Given that you mentioned the car computer, which is part of the engine really, then one could consider the entire chassis/body as the interface and replace that. If you want an example with a computer, I know someone who dropped a 2005(?) Toyota engine into a 1980's Jeep.
No one wants to use a car's computer apart from the engine.
True, but lots of people tune their engines by changing the ROMs - no thanks to the car companies. It's such a headache that aftermarket companies like Haltech make a good living selling entirely new engine management systems, despite the OEM hardware being perfectly capable. I've never modded a Nissan, but my understanding is that you have to solder the boards.
And Nissan doesn't stop you, which was the point.
But you don't have to play with the computer to see how much the car companies screw you. Proprietary connectors abound, no more grease fittings, you need weird tools that are specific to brand - if not model. Hell, they even make the warranties dependent on using their fluids now.
I basically agree. Nissan does attempt lockdown. However, the difference is between making it difficult, and invoking law.
As for implying lockdown - I probably chose a bad portion of your message to quote. I will say, however, that it's very hard to think of a case where proprietary parts are present and yet there is no attempt at lockdown.
Again, I basically agree. The cases I think of are where pluggability is important (you can swap hard drives, monitors, etc. all you want in a computer), where the vendor does not see a possible revenue stream (some devices have the spec open for people to write Linux drivers), or where the item is low tech (furniture, clothing).