NSA: go f*** yourself. If you want to send you computer geeks at me feel free. They'll find it hard to come up with a distributed algorithm to solve me hitting them ni the head with a hatchet. Jihad, boom, London Olympics - helpful keywords to help them catalog this post.
So challenge and overturn the patents. The patent offices need to get stricter and more knowledgeable about tech but at the same a company isn't guilty for taking the patents they can get, especially when their is a patent war to defend yourself against every stinking year.
So... do you think patients on "non-intellectual" property is okay? What exactly is non-intellectual property anyways? How to build a better car engine? Oh wait someone had to think about it to come up with it. A new type of dirt, oh wait you can't patent nature.
Intellectual property needs to be patentable IMHO for the precise reason that is it intellectual. The reasoning I would use is as follows:
1) it can take an insane amount of thinking/people/rare talented people to come up with an idea. 2) once the idea is discovered it is really easy to learn/imitate. 3) with things that don't need large manufacturing know how to produce the first mover advantage is very small 4) it is fair I think that the person/group that comes up with an idea should be able to recoup their costs in sufficient manner to reward them for the difficulty and rarity of people with successful ideas. Without patents their is no way to ensure this happens. A bunch of manufacturing subcontractors with spare capacity could quite likely start copying things quicker than the original creator can build up the infrastructure to do so. For IP it can be even worse: existing people in the market can add your new distinguishing feature to their existing product and use the benefits of network effects to continue to beat you over the head.
there wasn't a law against being successful. Customers choosing to buy your products because of the features doesn't mean that everyone else should get those features without having the talent/R&D spending in the space to justify it. Waiting until something like the iPad comes out then cloning it, right down to the form factor and styling, once the market has been proven is pretty shady.
If it really is as important as Google thinks it is than everyone is free to copy designs/protocols/whatever once the patent has expired just like it works in every other industry.
You mean normal users? I realize this is something that is going to blow a lot of minds on/. but not everyone is interested in computers and most people don't care how they work. To most users it isn't a computer it is that box with that think on it that I click and get stuff done. You change that thing they click or move it and they will be really frustrated because they'll be forced to have to relearn things and they have absolutely no interest in learning about computers they just want to do accounting, order entry or whatever. It seems insane to us geeks but how many people really care to learn all about a car? All they care is that they turn the key and they step on the peddle as a wise man once said "Make it go, we are strong".
+1 Exactly what should happen I know it will bring back worries of communism but there is something to be said for freeing up a large (just guessing from what is around my house and work but ~10%) of land in suburban environments. It seems silly to me when there are traffic jams because the average car has ~1.3 people in it during rush hour. Doubly bad to tie up land all day for non-productive use. Automated cars if they work as advertised they could crank up the speed and force people to car pool: ie you can drive in manual mode at the speed limit with as many passengers as you choose or you can plug your car into the "auto grid" and drive at 200km/h but the car will stop to pick people up along the way and when you aren't using it (with appropriate paybacks to make sure that no one leeches the system/complains that their car broke because someone "borrowed" it).
I'd gladly go the speed limit if it means I can do something else while I "get there". Who cares if it takes 1.25 hrs rather than 1hr if you can actually read/program/whatever for those extra 15min? I think the bragging factor might become who has the best mobile office in their car, complete with Aeron chairs, dual mon etc. After all if the car is completely automatic you probably don't have to worry about keeping visibility in the windows any more. Any cameras used to drive can be displayed on a HUD for the times when the passenger decides they want to drive.
Not just compute performance either. There was a period from 1990-2000 or so where the way you got more storage was buying a new computer (well not really but it was a part of the justification IMHO). You'd say oh 5GB just isn't enough anymore I need that new 20GB HDD + new processor plus better screen resolution. Now pretty much any desktop bought in the last 5 years will have a HD screen, 1TB+ HDD etc. Heck I dual boot at home off of a 1TB harddrive split evenly and never even feel the need for more than 500GB of space. Get low on space I just delete content I've watched already. Even if I was one of the paranoid people that never want to delete season 1 of the simpsons just in case external drives are so cheap and relatively quick (you can stream HD content off them no problem so for media storage you don't need anything better) you no longer upgrade for anything you need anymore for the most part. Now work/dev machines are another thing but home use don't need much.
Computers are cheap enough now that people in the developed and near-developed world already own them. So you just get baseline replacement sales. Developing countries people can't really afford a PC and a tablet/smartphone but they "need" a phone so they just buy the one device and use if for everything. I realize I'm overly generalizing but I'm a physicist +- an order of magnitude and I'm happy:)
But in my case "bugs" usually are just desired features. The couple users I have internally at work just will say "yeah but I really think it should be this way". Basically it goes into the email cloud. If it is easy and gets done before it gets buried by other email than it gets done. If not unless I hear about it again or have nothing better to do I assume it isn't important and don't bother with it. Basically it is prioritization by liberal use of the squeaky wheel method.
A case in point of an ad that pisses me off: I've been on Ryanairs website the last couple days planning a trip. They have pop unders that load when you click the "book now" button. For some reason my browser freezes for several seconds when I click the button the first time. Since I'm using a crappy wireless connection I'm pirating from my girlfriend's neighbor I'm never sure if it is just the site being slow, the connection or the stupid pop under delay.
That is another instant killer for me people with google analytics or banner ads that load slow and before the actual content of the site. I'm sorry but if I have to wait 5+ second with a 75Mbps connection for your site to fetch some ads to show me before content I'll go somewhere else. Like other people posted I don't use AdBlock heavily (only occasionally if I have something I really have to go to that has this problem) or no script I just avoid sites that don't play nice like the plague.
And you're sure that they had everything that should have been redundant actually setup as required to work in AWS? Or did they just have redundant db and webservers but some stupid master index that everything has to pass through running in a single zone? 9/10 that is the problem. People can justify multiple dbs because of performance and data integrity needs. People justify multiple webservers so that they can get low lantency to different areas of the globe and under load. Then someone throws on top a cassandra or memcache layer or whatever and plays with it in one zone... then goes live... in one zone. Opps.
Why exactly would a cable operator bother with backup power? I mean if the neighborhood has now power than people aren't running T.V.s or computers (unless laptops but still their modem would be down). It is probably a different beast with something the size of a Amazon datacentre though, they probably can go to the ISP and say "hey look we'll by 5M a month of internet for you but we need redundancy. Piss on all your home users for all we care but we get internet no matter what.".
In the bathroom by choking on the toenail of a tranny hooker. You might as well add some joy to people's life with your death because you did nothing useful in life.
We got a MIAA notice when I was a network admin in Germany. Someone on our network was seeding a camera rip of an in theater movie. We threw out the email but my boss also started checking for high traffic hosts and blocking ports that aren't standard HTTP chatter. At some level it doesn't matter if the law doesn't apply to you the time it takes for you to say "hey dumbass we still are not in the US" isn't worth it to IT at ISPs/companies. So the laws get defacto enforced. Not to mention international agreements/bodies (WTO?) have a lot of pressure from the US to protect IP since that is pretty much the only thing made in the USA anymore. "We'll lower our tariff on your wheat if you work harder catching internet pirates" kind of things.
Bandwidth through the atmosphere to a satellite isn't fat as shit and even if it was it would probably being used to beam back data for I don't know military purposes.
I think most are just cheap bastards that are upset that their one server $30/month setup didn't by a redundant datacentre and that opps maybe they should have listened went people said that geo-redundancy: "It's a good thing" TM.
They expect the customers to pay for the redundancy by using multiple servers in different geographical locations. People buying one server or a bunch only in one datacentre are taking a risk already. I'm assuming someone in Amazon said lets build a few datacentres and skimp on the redundancy at each one. The redundancy is at the multi-datacentre level not at the multi-UPs multi-connection etc level at each datacentre.
I don't know if the state or even just the city is without power it is quite possible the ISPs are borked in the area. After all why bother with too much redundancy if you customers don't have power for their computers than they aren't using the internet anyways. Then Amazon plops down a 200M datacentre in town and... shit happens.
Don't see why not. The dev tools are the same, the OS at least at the app layer is identical or nearly so. Assuming people like Surface I'm sure a Surface Phone version wouldn't be that hard to fire out.
Slashdot Mirror
NSA: go f*** yourself. If you want to send you computer geeks at me feel free. They'll find it hard to come up with a distributed algorithm to solve me hitting them ni the head with a hatchet. Jihad, boom, London Olympics - helpful keywords to help them catalog this post.
So challenge and overturn the patents. The patent offices need to get stricter and more knowledgeable about tech but at the same a company isn't guilty for taking the patents they can get, especially when their is a patent war to defend yourself against every stinking year.
So ... do you think patients on "non-intellectual" property is okay? What exactly is non-intellectual property anyways? How to build a better car engine? Oh wait someone had to think about it to come up with it. A new type of dirt, oh wait you can't patent nature.
Intellectual property needs to be patentable IMHO for the precise reason that is it intellectual. The reasoning I would use is as follows:
1) it can take an insane amount of thinking/people/rare talented people to come up with an idea.
2) once the idea is discovered it is really easy to learn/imitate.
3) with things that don't need large manufacturing know how to produce the first mover advantage is very small
4) it is fair I think that the person/group that comes up with an idea should be able to recoup their costs in sufficient manner to reward them for the difficulty and rarity of people with successful ideas. Without patents their is no way to ensure this happens. A bunch of manufacturing subcontractors with spare capacity could quite likely start copying things quicker than the original creator can build up the infrastructure to do so. For IP it can be even worse: existing people in the market can add your new distinguishing feature to their existing product and use the benefits of network effects to continue to beat you over the head.
there wasn't a law against being successful. Customers choosing to buy your products because of the features doesn't mean that everyone else should get those features without having the talent/R&D spending in the space to justify it. Waiting until something like the iPad comes out then cloning it, right down to the form factor and styling, once the market has been proven is pretty shady.
If it really is as important as Google thinks it is than everyone is free to copy designs/protocols/whatever once the patent has expired just like it works in every other industry.
Simple Picard only needed three buttons "Number One", "pull up pants", and "Earl Grey, hot".
You mean normal users? I realize this is something that is going to blow a lot of minds on /. but not everyone is interested in computers and most people don't care how they work. To most users it isn't a computer it is that box with that think on it that I click and get stuff done. You change that thing they click or move it and they will be really frustrated because they'll be forced to have to relearn things and they have absolutely no interest in learning about computers they just want to do accounting, order entry or whatever. It seems insane to us geeks but how many people really care to learn all about a car? All they care is that they turn the key and they step on the peddle as a wise man once said "Make it go, we are strong".
+1 Exactly what should happen I know it will bring back worries of communism but there is something to be said for freeing up a large (just guessing from what is around my house and work but ~10%) of land in suburban environments. It seems silly to me when there are traffic jams because the average car has ~1.3 people in it during rush hour. Doubly bad to tie up land all day for non-productive use. Automated cars if they work as advertised they could crank up the speed and force people to car pool: ie you can drive in manual mode at the speed limit with as many passengers as you choose or you can plug your car into the "auto grid" and drive at 200km/h but the car will stop to pick people up along the way and when you aren't using it (with appropriate paybacks to make sure that no one leeches the system/complains that their car broke because someone "borrowed" it).
I'd gladly go the speed limit if it means I can do something else while I "get there". Who cares if it takes 1.25 hrs rather than 1hr if you can actually read/program/whatever for those extra 15min? I think the bragging factor might become who has the best mobile office in their car, complete with Aeron chairs, dual mon etc. After all if the car is completely automatic you probably don't have to worry about keeping visibility in the windows any more. Any cameras used to drive can be displayed on a HUD for the times when the passenger decides they want to drive.
Not just compute performance either. There was a period from 1990-2000 or so where the way you got more storage was buying a new computer (well not really but it was a part of the justification IMHO). You'd say oh 5GB just isn't enough anymore I need that new 20GB HDD + new processor plus better screen resolution. Now pretty much any desktop bought in the last 5 years will have a HD screen, 1TB+ HDD etc. Heck I dual boot at home off of a 1TB harddrive split evenly and never even feel the need for more than 500GB of space. Get low on space I just delete content I've watched already. Even if I was one of the paranoid people that never want to delete season 1 of the simpsons just in case external drives are so cheap and relatively quick (you can stream HD content off them no problem so for media storage you don't need anything better) you no longer upgrade for anything you need anymore for the most part. Now work/dev machines are another thing but home use don't need much.
Computers are cheap enough now that people in the developed and near-developed world already own them. So you just get baseline replacement sales. Developing countries people can't really afford a PC and a tablet/smartphone but they "need" a phone so they just buy the one device and use if for everything. I realize I'm overly generalizing but I'm a physicist +- an order of magnitude and I'm happy :)
But in my case "bugs" usually are just desired features. The couple users I have internally at work just will say "yeah but I really think it should be this way". Basically it goes into the email cloud. If it is easy and gets done before it gets buried by other email than it gets done. If not unless I hear about it again or have nothing better to do I assume it isn't important and don't bother with it. Basically it is prioritization by liberal use of the squeaky wheel method.
A case in point of an ad that pisses me off: I've been on Ryanairs website the last couple days planning a trip. They have pop unders that load when you click the "book now" button. For some reason my browser freezes for several seconds when I click the button the first time. Since I'm using a crappy wireless connection I'm pirating from my girlfriend's neighbor I'm never sure if it is just the site being slow, the connection or the stupid pop under delay.
That is another instant killer for me people with google analytics or banner ads that load slow and before the actual content of the site. I'm sorry but if I have to wait 5+ second with a 75Mbps connection for your site to fetch some ads to show me before content I'll go somewhere else. Like other people posted I don't use AdBlock heavily (only occasionally if I have something I really have to go to that has this problem) or no script I just avoid sites that don't play nice like the plague.
And your ip phone is going to work when your house has no power?
And you're sure that they had everything that should have been redundant actually setup as required to work in AWS? Or did they just have redundant db and webservers but some stupid master index that everything has to pass through running in a single zone? 9/10 that is the problem. People can justify multiple dbs because of performance and data integrity needs. People justify multiple webservers so that they can get low lantency to different areas of the globe and under load. Then someone throws on top a cassandra or memcache layer or whatever and plays with it in one zone ... then goes live ... in one zone. Opps.
Why exactly would a cable operator bother with backup power? I mean if the neighborhood has now power than people aren't running T.V.s or computers (unless laptops but still their modem would be down). It is probably a different beast with something the size of a Amazon datacentre though, they probably can go to the ISP and say "hey look we'll by 5M a month of internet for you but we need redundancy. Piss on all your home users for all we care but we get internet no matter what.".
In the bathroom by choking on the toenail of a tranny hooker. You might as well add some joy to people's life with your death because you did nothing useful in life.
We got a MIAA notice when I was a network admin in Germany. Someone on our network was seeding a camera rip of an in theater movie. We threw out the email but my boss also started checking for high traffic hosts and blocking ports that aren't standard HTTP chatter. At some level it doesn't matter if the law doesn't apply to you the time it takes for you to say "hey dumbass we still are not in the US" isn't worth it to IT at ISPs/companies. So the laws get defacto enforced. Not to mention international agreements/bodies (WTO?) have a lot of pressure from the US to protect IP since that is pretty much the only thing made in the USA anymore. "We'll lower our tariff on your wheat if you work harder catching internet pirates" kind of things.
Bandwidth through the atmosphere to a satellite isn't fat as shit and even if it was it would probably being used to beam back data for I don't know military purposes.
What ever happened to taking turns dressing up as women and having dances?
The high number of "In the Navy" views on YouTube originating from the IP will give them away.
I think most are just cheap bastards that are upset that their one server $30/month setup didn't by a redundant datacentre and that opps maybe they should have listened went people said that geo-redundancy: "It's a good thing" TM.
They expect the customers to pay for the redundancy by using multiple servers in different geographical locations. People buying one server or a bunch only in one datacentre are taking a risk already. I'm assuming someone in Amazon said lets build a few datacentres and skimp on the redundancy at each one. The redundancy is at the multi-datacentre level not at the multi-UPs multi-connection etc level at each datacentre.
I don't know if the state or even just the city is without power it is quite possible the ISPs are borked in the area. After all why bother with too much redundancy if you customers don't have power for their computers than they aren't using the internet anyways. Then Amazon plops down a 200M datacentre in town and ... shit happens.
Yeah every other day is patch Tuesday.
Don't see why not. The dev tools are the same, the OS at least at the app layer is identical or nearly so. Assuming people like Surface I'm sure a Surface Phone version wouldn't be that hard to fire out.