Keep the public scared and you keep getting re-elected. Keep making the opposition government look incompetent then you keep getting re-elected. Thus if someone wants to allow nail clippers it's a two-for-one win: remind people why they're scared and point out how a government agency is too stupid to ban nail clippers.
The incentive program for politicians is wrong, they're not being paid more if they do a good job.
Censorship is what the government does. Private individuals are free to engage in editing and may pick and choose what to allow in their own homes or on their own web sites.
Why did someone mark this as troll? If anything it's snark. Just because someone doesn't agree doesn't it a troll. For example, a troll is me saying that only frothy morons would mark that post as a troll, but of course I would not say that as it would be insulting to frothy morons.
The "unconstitutional" thing is more of the same old gripe that anything the feds are not explicitly allowed in the constitution is forbidden. It's an idea that's been overruled since the first congress was seated.
And of course, the feds are explicitly allowed to regulate interstate commerce by the constitution and the internet fits into that mold easily.
It's hard to call this sort of thing a "driver" since it's so high level. They're basically just decoding the protocol that is used over USB. If they could do the same thing if it used network packets over a wifi connection I doubt they'd call it a device driver.
This should logically not even be up to Microsoft. They're inserting themselves between the customers and the vendors when not asked to do so. They get away with this because they've maintained their OEM practices that have been ruled anti-competitive by the courts. The US will never do it, but if the EU again got the guts to sue Microsoft it wouldn't make a difference because it would take so long that they'd be onto Windows 18 already, and Microsoft would just claim that they're sorry and they won't do it again.
Hmm, is a square acre 4 dimensional or only 3 dimensional. Does squaring double the number of dimensions or only add one dimension? Maybe maybe make this cubic acres just to be sure we're in the head scratching realm.
IoT is a vague concept. I don't think about refrigerators, toasters, or even smart phones, as IoT because those are simple problems to solve. Just but a big noisy access point in the house that everything hears and that is solved, for the consumer electronics stuff that mass media loves to talk about when it says IoT. But for a distributed wireless network of things, running off of batteries that can not be easily recharged, some of which may be moving around, this becomes a very difficult problem.
I have to work with mesh wireless networks and this time is very important to keeping things working. For example if I need to send a packet to my neighbor then I need to know what channel he will be on when my packet transmits; if the other neighbor is asleep and saving power then I need to know exactly when he wakes up and is ready to listen. This is just for basic communication. In the past when I used mesh with TDMA then the more accurate your got your times sychronized then the higher bandwidth and throughput you could get.
However if you have a network of devices that all need to keep in time sync with each other then this gets a lot harder. If there's no global time source that everyone hears (like a wifi access point) then it's harder still as you have to distribute the time synchronization across the network.
Time is a big issue here with RTOS, not just scheduling but the synchronization with other devices. The devices don't have the same clocks so there often needs to be some synchronization when they talk to each other, especially on networks. All of the wireless protocols we have depend upon accurate timing so that each node knows which channels to be on at which time. The tighter and more accurate you can get this time then the better your network performance is, and as a side effect the more power you save (very important if you're on a battery that needs to last for years without recharging).
The internet of things, which is I agree a vague term, will have categories of things which can not use a global beacon sent by an AP and so much synchronize their time in a distributed manner. This is the sort of thing I see the NIST being very interested in.
Your toaster does not need this. The IoT is screwed up by the mass media who don't understand it. The sorts of things that make sense to be networked are off the radar of most mass media journalists who normally write articles about the latest phone apps. Ie, these are electric meters, power transformers, stop lights, street lights, traffic counters, shipping pallets or cargo containers, and plenty of other stuff that has nothing to do with mass market consumer goods.
If something is on a network they very often need accurate time. Wireless networks especially. Even your basic dumb wifi depends on timing signals from the access point, and your dumb smart phones require accurate times from the cell access points. Many medical devices are on a network; it's a method to get data back and forth from the medical device that is in the exam or operating room back to storage for images or patient records.
Hmm, I'm doing IoT using a mix of C and assembler. Not outsourced though. I can guarantee that the outsourced people will not be going python or java except as back office data churning or mock-ups to show to the investors.
GPS is expensive though, especially when these IoT devices may be running on batteries that are not being recharged nightly. GPS is good when you have it, but it's still just a starting point as some networks may require a tighter synchronization of time than GPS offers.
Accurate time(clock) is very necessary to wireless networking, point to point or meshed. A node must know when its neighbors are hopping to new channels. Almost all of the internet-of-things protocols and techniques are not going to be relying on some global beacon to keep things in sync (except for the dumb IoT stuff that's merely bluetooth to your phone). Either that's requires a distributed beacon or a distributed time synchronization method.
Even with self driving cars that matters. The car may want to communicate when a sensor or device in the stoplight up ahead or embedded in the road. This means that time should be kept in sync even as the car moves around in the network and a few milliseconds of difference can disrupt the communication.
There are plenty of games with "M" ratings without any violent sex or depictions of sex. You don't have to push very hard to get that. There is a a more restricted rating of "A" for adults, but that generally hurts sales of games.
The reason is that these boards are not federal agencies. These are industry groups created in order to prevent or delay the government from doing their own oversight. Ie, like the comics book code, self imposed restrictions are created out of worry that the ongoing scandal will drive away customers and attract even more government scrutiny. Or the Hays movie code that had self censorship to avoid government censorship (and to be fair some movies ended up being incomprehensible after being hacked up by state censors). Often there's a mix of enlightened self interest along with corrupt self interest.
One problem often is that the general public becomes confused and thinks that these self imposed regulatory bodies are the same as legitimate government regulators.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep the public scared and you keep getting re-elected. Keep making the opposition government look incompetent then you keep getting re-elected. Thus if someone wants to allow nail clippers it's a two-for-one win: remind people why they're scared and point out how a government agency is too stupid to ban nail clippers.
The incentive program for politicians is wrong, they're not being paid more if they do a good job.
Censorship is what the government does. Private individuals are free to engage in editing and may pick and choose what to allow in their own homes or on their own web sites.
Your honor, I object on the grounds that counsel is a poopy head.
Why did someone mark this as troll? If anything it's snark. Just because someone doesn't agree doesn't it a troll. For example, a troll is me saying that only frothy morons would mark that post as a troll, but of course I would not say that as it would be insulting to frothy morons.
The "unconstitutional" thing is more of the same old gripe that anything the feds are not explicitly allowed in the constitution is forbidden. It's an idea that's been overruled since the first congress was seated.
And of course, the feds are explicitly allowed to regulate interstate commerce by the constitution and the internet fits into that mold easily.
It's hard to call this sort of thing a "driver" since it's so high level. They're basically just decoding the protocol that is used over USB. If they could do the same thing if it used network packets over a wifi connection I doubt they'd call it a device driver.
This should logically not even be up to Microsoft. They're inserting themselves between the customers and the vendors when not asked to do so. They get away with this because they've maintained their OEM practices that have been ruled anti-competitive by the courts. The US will never do it, but if the EU again got the guts to sue Microsoft it wouldn't make a difference because it would take so long that they'd be onto Windows 18 already, and Microsoft would just claim that they're sorry and they won't do it again.
But this costs the vendors some money, whereas just ignoring those unix people is free.
Use the pre-installed Windows 10 as a very slow and cumbersome boot loader?
This is like DRM for hardware, we don't own it but we can use it if the manufacturer gives us permission.
Hmm, is a square acre 4 dimensional or only 3 dimensional. Does squaring double the number of dimensions or only add one dimension? Maybe maybe make this cubic acres just to be sure we're in the head scratching realm.
IoT is a vague concept. I don't think about refrigerators, toasters, or even smart phones, as IoT because those are simple problems to solve. Just but a big noisy access point in the house that everything hears and that is solved, for the consumer electronics stuff that mass media loves to talk about when it says IoT. But for a distributed wireless network of things, running off of batteries that can not be easily recharged, some of which may be moving around, this becomes a very difficult problem.
I have to work with mesh wireless networks and this time is very important to keeping things working. For example if I need to send a packet to my neighbor then I need to know what channel he will be on when my packet transmits; if the other neighbor is asleep and saving power then I need to know exactly when he wakes up and is ready to listen. This is just for basic communication. In the past when I used mesh with TDMA then the more accurate your got your times sychronized then the higher bandwidth and throughput you could get.
However if you have a network of devices that all need to keep in time sync with each other then this gets a lot harder. If there's no global time source that everyone hears (like a wifi access point) then it's harder still as you have to distribute the time synchronization across the network.
Time is a big issue here with RTOS, not just scheduling but the synchronization with other devices. The devices don't have the same clocks so there often needs to be some synchronization when they talk to each other, especially on networks. All of the wireless protocols we have depend upon accurate timing so that each node knows which channels to be on at which time. The tighter and more accurate you can get this time then the better your network performance is, and as a side effect the more power you save (very important if you're on a battery that needs to last for years without recharging).
The internet of things, which is I agree a vague term, will have categories of things which can not use a global beacon sent by an AP and so much synchronize their time in a distributed manner. This is the sort of thing I see the NIST being very interested in.
Your toaster does not need this. The IoT is screwed up by the mass media who don't understand it. The sorts of things that make sense to be networked are off the radar of most mass media journalists who normally write articles about the latest phone apps. Ie, these are electric meters, power transformers, stop lights, street lights, traffic counters, shipping pallets or cargo containers, and plenty of other stuff that has nothing to do with mass market consumer goods.
If something is on a network they very often need accurate time. Wireless networks especially. Even your basic dumb wifi depends on timing signals from the access point, and your dumb smart phones require accurate times from the cell access points. Many medical devices are on a network; it's a method to get data back and forth from the medical device that is in the exam or operating room back to storage for images or patient records.
If you don't want your utilities to spy on how much of their resources you are using, then disconnect from the grid and the pipes.
Hmm, I'm doing IoT using a mix of C and assembler. Not outsourced though. I can guarantee that the outsourced people will not be going python or java except as back office data churning or mock-ups to show to the investors.
Nothing doing IoT should be doing "standard OS" anyway.
GPS is expensive though, especially when these IoT devices may be running on batteries that are not being recharged nightly. GPS is good when you have it, but it's still just a starting point as some networks may require a tighter synchronization of time than GPS offers.
Accurate time(clock) is very necessary to wireless networking, point to point or meshed. A node must know when its neighbors are hopping to new channels. Almost all of the internet-of-things protocols and techniques are not going to be relying on some global beacon to keep things in sync (except for the dumb IoT stuff that's merely bluetooth to your phone). Either that's requires a distributed beacon or a distributed time synchronization method.
Even with self driving cars that matters. The car may want to communicate when a sensor or device in the stoplight up ahead or embedded in the road. This means that time should be kept in sync even as the car moves around in the network and a few milliseconds of difference can disrupt the communication.
Fallout 3 and Skyrim get the "M" rating, and these are extremely tame compared to those games.
There are plenty of games with "M" ratings without any violent sex or depictions of sex. You don't have to push very hard to get that. There is a a more restricted rating of "A" for adults, but that generally hurts sales of games.
The reason is that these boards are not federal agencies. These are industry groups created in order to prevent or delay the government from doing their own oversight. Ie, like the comics book code, self imposed restrictions are created out of worry that the ongoing scandal will drive away customers and attract even more government scrutiny. Or the Hays movie code that had self censorship to avoid government censorship (and to be fair some movies ended up being incomprehensible after being hacked up by state censors). Often there's a mix of enlightened self interest along with corrupt self interest.
One problem often is that the general public becomes confused and thinks that these self imposed regulatory bodies are the same as legitimate government regulators.
Uber has countless problems and is in lots of legal difficulties. And yet the fans STILL defend it.