I think the opposite is true. This TSA site is needed at all because right now it's hard to prove that you're not on the list of bad guys. If you carry biometrically secure identification and have a unique identifier, that becomes much easier. A lot of the intrusions into our civil liberties and the lack of privacy are a result of not having good identifiers.
In any case, the private sector is already going this route anyway with identification like the Clear card.
I don't think these technologies have the same purpose. Sony's technology is for something like communicating between a cell phone and a printer; the fact that it's short-range is a feature, since placing the devices close together apparently initiates the connection. WUSB is for replacing USB cables, for devices that are several feet away. You could probably adapt WUSB for the same functions as Transferjet, but that's not WUSB's primary use.
Since it's the Pauli exclusion principle (rather than electrostatic interactions) that makes solid matter solid, in a sense, the electrons and atomic nuclei do actually "come into contact". The notion of the atom as being a tiny electron buzzing around a tiny nucleus is as much as a myth as the "we only use 10% of our brain" notion.
Well, it may "turn you off", but why do you have to "protest" it? If big breasted women turn you off, do you go around protesting them as well? If you don't like it, don't watch it, but don't spoil the fun for the rest of us.
Just because occasionally one of those is found out doesn't mean they aren't working. For every one that's found out, there may be many more that aren't found out.
And don't forget astroturfing in posts. And where do you draw the line anyway? I'm pretty sure that Microsoft and Apple employees, for example, post on Slashdot, say bad things about Linux, and say good things about their own company's products. Is that astroturfing or merely corporate group-think?
If this becomes a clear legal precedent, we may be facing legislation that imposes specific, severe penalties merely for "making available", and that would be an overall worse outcome. A bit of legal uncertainty may well be preferable, because it gives judges more leeway and limits severe penalties only to those cases that actually warrant them.
Space exploration crews could conduct global warming research on the International Space Station National Laboratory, while other crews from the public or private sector could rapidly assemble solar energy satellites for clean energy provision to Earth
You do not need "space exploration crews" on the space station do conduct global warming research. In fact, anything in earth orbit can be done robotically or by telepresence.
In fact, the authors seem to presume that "space exploration" means "manned space exploration"; it does not have to. Almost all of the benefits of space exploration are achieved with unmanned and robotic probes for the time being, and far more efficiently. The technology being developed for robotic probes is far more important to our economy than the technology for keeping people alive in space. And we need that technology for manned exploration anyway (since most manned missions will require robotic preparation anyway).
So, let's be honest and let's be clear: space exploration, for the time being, means robotic exploration of space. There is no point in wasting money on sending people to places that are fairly easy to reach (orbit, moon); it only takes away resources from the real prize: planetary and interstellar exploration.
I don't see why CES should use this as an excuse to make life harder for bloggers in general. Anybody who attended CES could have pulled that prank and posted the video. It was a coincidence that it was a blogger for an electronics blog. Actually, all things being equal, I suspect that professional bloggers are still less likely to do this than others, since they have more to lose (individually).
Still, maybe it's time to switch TV remotes to Bluetooth... that would have a whole lot of other advantages besides security anyway.
The people of my generation were constantly told by our parents that if we worked hard, we would be able to do better than they did
Well, and in absolute terms, we are doing a lot better than our parents: we have bigger homes, bigger cars, more food and more food choices, easier transportation, cheaper air travel etc.
However, we aren't doing better relative to the rest of the world (i.e., the rest of the world has improved even more than we have relative to where they were before). That's not exactly surprising. After WWII, the US got a big economic windfall because the rest of the world was in shambles. Of course, that's coming to an end. Europe, Asia, and eventually Africa wan their cut, and they aren't willing to work for peanuts for us anymore.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but there are certain feature sets unique to the iPhone that required a carrier to change their services to work with the iPhone(I believe the visual-voice mail is the example being thrown around). This is the heart of the issue.
I don't see the issue. Several carriers were willing to do this, but Apple restricted the iPhone to a single carrier. Visual voice mail is not necessary for the phone to function correctly, so it would have been fine to offer the phone as an unlocked phone, in addition to working with any carrier who wanted to offer visual voice mail.
Furthermore, visual voice mail is not unique to the iPhone, and the iPhone wasn't even the first to offer it. I have a 3G phone and just get visual voice mail through a web-based service; no need for the carrier to do anything. Furthermore, even Apple-style visual voice mail doesn't need to be provided through the carrier, it can be provided through a third party. If the iPhone requires anything special to be done for visual voice mail, it's yet another way in which the iPhone is taking us backwards.
In the meantime, Apple not only has provided a pretty darned good phone, they have tweaked the industry a bit (like the article states) and managed to create a pretty decent money making scheme in the process. Can you really blame them?
I blame them for claiming that they are "forcing open" the wireless industry when, in fact, they are re-establishing bad habits like carrier-locked phones, non-standard SIM cards, proprietary protocols, and programming restrictions.
There is so much nitrogen being produced as animal and human waste products that fertilization shouldn't be a problem. And since switchgrass isn't a food product, it's not necessary to be particularly careful about how to deliver it.
But the REASON it is only on AT&T is because the other carriers didn't want to risk working with Apple. Now they are all second guessing themselves.
No, that's not the reason. The iPhone is a GSM phone; Apple didn't have to tie it to a carrier at all, they could have sold it unlocked. Furthermore, multiple carriers wanted to have the iPhone in several markets, but Apple only gave it to one carrier. The reason the iPhone is on one carrier only and carrier-locked is because Apple wanted it that way.
The one that talks in length about how the iPhone will pretty much break the existing stranglehold the carriers hold over phones
Yes. The article is bullshit. GSM carriers already don't have a stranglehold over phones. They choose to sell lousy phones, but you can use whatever phone you like. The Nokia N95, for example, seems to be quite popular and works like a charm even though no carrier sells it.
The iPhone is a step backwards because it is actually carrier locked, isn't programmable, and doesn't even let you change your SIM card.
I'm just curious to what downsides are so bad that they cancel out the real innovations such as the slick touch screen and the visual-voice mail.
There are plenty of touch screen phones, and visual voice mail isn't an innovation either. And nice and intuitive as the iPhone UI is, it's actually not that great for serious users.
The iPhone is actually a well-designed fashion phone with a good UI. And it's true that US carriers are obnoxious, moderately overpriced, and sell dumbed-down phones. But to claim that the iPhone is doing anything to change that is ridiculous. The iPhone is more proprietary and more locked down than almost any other AT&T phone.
Reasonable? are you on drugs? Who in their right mind can call the Slow ISDN speeds we get at $49.99 a month reasonable? That kind of data rate is reasonable at $19.95 a month.
US wireless data rates are maybe 30-50% higher than what they should be, but that's not the issue here. Here, we're comparing iPhone to other smartphones and smartphone plans. For about the same amount of money that buys you EDGE speed access with an iPhone (with its limited set of applications), you can get unrestricted, unlimited 3G access with another phone and even use it as a laptop modem. That's what's relevant to this discussion.
Yes, if you want to replace your DSL line with 3G and run web servers over it, you are SOL. But that's not what those plans are there for, even in countries where they are priced better.
hey might not be carrier exclusives [...] but both are ALSO tied to their own exclusive programs
You're bullshitting. Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile have been available unlocked and have not been tied to any carrier for years.
and both at first where also non-programmable (yes they where and anyone who says otherwise is a liar), and only opened up a year or two later.
Again, totally wrong. All three of those systems developed out of programmable PDA platforms. Even if they had been non-programmable a decade ago, it's 2008, and the standard is that smartphones are user-programmable today, both via native APIs and via Java. Apple's iPhone is neither, and it's carrier locked, and it is tied to Apple's desktop.
It has not even been a year for Apples product and they have already promised to open up their programing before the year mark.
Apple has been vague on the specifics; just because Jobs calls it "programmable" doesn't mean it is. iPods are "programmable" as well, that doesn't mean that ISVs can create software and offer it for download. Furthermore, iPhones remain locked and tied to Apple's desktop.
So your argument is basically null and void.
You are an Apple apologist, and you don't even know your facts.
and makes the point that traditional mobile phone handset businesses has been stifled and denied the opportunity to innovate by network operators.
In fact, several major US carriers (AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, probably others) have had GSM systems for years. They work with third party GSM phones, including the fully programmable Palm, Windows Mobile, and Nokia devices. Furthermore, you can get unlimited data for fairly reasonable monthly fees in the US.
The notion that Apple is doing anything to rescue us from carries is laughable. Apple's iPhone is a big step backwards: it's carrier locked, it's tied to Apple's desktop application (the only way to get updates), and it's non-programmable (at least for now).
The iPhone is a giant step backwards for smartphones and innovation.
If you want an innovative phone that doesn't try to shackle you, get a Symbian, Palm, or Windows Mobile phone.
BTW, even originally, that was a political compromise to make the union happen at all; people did not necessarily view it as the best possible form of government.
You apparently aren't familiar with the relevant parts of our history.
as a rhetorical device rather than believe you're trolling.
Since you seem to be incapable of understanding rhetorical devices, let me spell it out for you: it is inappropriate to refer to Guantanamo as "taking a vacation in Cuba". The issue here is that you associate Cuba with an American problem.
Slashdot Mirror
There have been lots of discussions on that; just search the web.
I think the real question to ask is whether ZFS provides anything you actually need. If not, it's probably better to stick with your current system.
Real ID is going to be a nightmare.
I think the opposite is true. This TSA site is needed at all because right now it's hard to prove that you're not on the list of bad guys. If you carry biometrically secure identification and have a unique identifier, that becomes much easier. A lot of the intrusions into our civil liberties and the lack of privacy are a result of not having good identifiers.
In any case, the private sector is already going this route anyway with identification like the Clear card.
it's just that ZFS has been developed without the traditional and orthodox methods of disk-partition-filesystem and put everything on a single "layer"
Those layers weren't invented to make life complicated, they serve important functions.
Some kind of device-spanning file system other than what Linux already has may be a good idea; ZFS is not it.
I don't think these technologies have the same purpose. Sony's technology is for something like communicating between a cell phone and a printer; the fact that it's short-range is a feature, since placing the devices close together apparently initiates the connection. WUSB is for replacing USB cables, for devices that are several feet away. You could probably adapt WUSB for the same functions as Transferjet, but that's not WUSB's primary use.
On a geological timeframe humanity is insignificant, and on a universal scale we are merely a static crack
That remains to be seen; humanity is very young, but it has the potential of lasting billions of years and spreading across the galaxy.
Since it's the Pauli exclusion principle (rather than electrostatic interactions) that makes solid matter solid, in a sense, the electrons and atomic nuclei do actually "come into contact". The notion of the atom as being a tiny electron buzzing around a tiny nucleus is as much as a myth as the "we only use 10% of our brain" notion.
Complain to your elected representatives with a short, politely worded letter. That's the most likely to get these practices stopped.
Well, it may "turn you off", but why do you have to "protest" it? If big breasted women turn you off, do you go around protesting them as well? If you don't like it, don't watch it, but don't spoil the fun for the rest of us.
Just because occasionally one of those is found out doesn't mean they aren't working. For every one that's found out, there may be many more that aren't found out.
And don't forget astroturfing in posts. And where do you draw the line anyway? I'm pretty sure that Microsoft and Apple employees, for example, post on Slashdot, say bad things about Linux, and say good things about their own company's products. Is that astroturfing or merely corporate group-think?
If this becomes a clear legal precedent, we may be facing legislation that imposes specific, severe penalties merely for "making available", and that would be an overall worse outcome. A bit of legal uncertainty may well be preferable, because it gives judges more leeway and limits severe penalties only to those cases that actually warrant them.
You do not need "space exploration crews" on the space station do conduct global warming research. In fact, anything in earth orbit can be done robotically or by telepresence.
In fact, the authors seem to presume that "space exploration" means "manned space exploration"; it does not have to. Almost all of the benefits of space exploration are achieved with unmanned and robotic probes for the time being, and far more efficiently. The technology being developed for robotic probes is far more important to our economy than the technology for keeping people alive in space. And we need that technology for manned exploration anyway (since most manned missions will require robotic preparation anyway).
So, let's be honest and let's be clear: space exploration, for the time being, means robotic exploration of space. There is no point in wasting money on sending people to places that are fairly easy to reach (orbit, moon); it only takes away resources from the real prize: planetary and interstellar exploration.
I don't see why CES should use this as an excuse to make life harder for bloggers in general. Anybody who attended CES could have pulled that prank and posted the video. It was a coincidence that it was a blogger for an electronics blog. Actually, all things being equal, I suspect that professional bloggers are still less likely to do this than others, since they have more to lose (individually).
Still, maybe it's time to switch TV remotes to Bluetooth... that would have a whole lot of other advantages besides security anyway.
The people of my generation were constantly told by our parents that if we worked hard, we would be able to do better than they did
Well, and in absolute terms, we are doing a lot better than our parents: we have bigger homes, bigger cars, more food and more food choices, easier transportation, cheaper air travel etc.
However, we aren't doing better relative to the rest of the world (i.e., the rest of the world has improved even more than we have relative to where they were before). That's not exactly surprising. After WWII, the US got a big economic windfall because the rest of the world was in shambles. Of course, that's coming to an end. Europe, Asia, and eventually Africa wan their cut, and they aren't willing to work for peanuts for us anymore.
Take a big hammer to them. The drive magnets you get out of them are kind of fun to play with.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but there are certain feature sets unique to the iPhone that required a carrier to change their services to work with the iPhone(I believe the visual-voice mail is the example being thrown around). This is the heart of the issue.
I don't see the issue. Several carriers were willing to do this, but Apple restricted the iPhone to a single carrier. Visual voice mail is not necessary for the phone to function correctly, so it would have been fine to offer the phone as an unlocked phone, in addition to working with any carrier who wanted to offer visual voice mail.
Furthermore, visual voice mail is not unique to the iPhone, and the iPhone wasn't even the first to offer it. I have a 3G phone and just get visual voice mail through a web-based service; no need for the carrier to do anything. Furthermore, even Apple-style visual voice mail doesn't need to be provided through the carrier, it can be provided through a third party. If the iPhone requires anything special to be done for visual voice mail, it's yet another way in which the iPhone is taking us backwards.
In the meantime, Apple not only has provided a pretty darned good phone, they have tweaked the industry a bit (like the article states) and managed to create a pretty decent money making scheme in the process. Can you really blame them?
I blame them for claiming that they are "forcing open" the wireless industry when, in fact, they are re-establishing bad habits like carrier-locked phones, non-standard SIM cards, proprietary protocols, and programming restrictions.
There is so much nitrogen being produced as animal and human waste products that fertilization shouldn't be a problem. And since switchgrass isn't a food product, it's not necessary to be particularly careful about how to deliver it.
Manipulating your resume is a waste of time: yours and your prospective employer's; people will figure it out when they interview you.
But the REASON it is only on AT&T is because the other carriers didn't want to risk working with Apple. Now they are all second guessing themselves.
No, that's not the reason. The iPhone is a GSM phone; Apple didn't have to tie it to a carrier at all, they could have sold it unlocked. Furthermore, multiple carriers wanted to have the iPhone in several markets, but Apple only gave it to one carrier. The reason the iPhone is on one carrier only and carrier-locked is because Apple wanted it that way.
The one that talks in length about how the iPhone will pretty much break the existing stranglehold the carriers hold over phones
Yes. The article is bullshit. GSM carriers already don't have a stranglehold over phones. They choose to sell lousy phones, but you can use whatever phone you like. The Nokia N95, for example, seems to be quite popular and works like a charm even though no carrier sells it.
The iPhone is a step backwards because it is actually carrier locked, isn't programmable, and doesn't even let you change your SIM card.
I'm just curious to what downsides are so bad that they cancel out the real innovations such as the slick touch screen and the visual-voice mail.
There are plenty of touch screen phones, and visual voice mail isn't an innovation either. And nice and intuitive as the iPhone UI is, it's actually not that great for serious users.
The iPhone is actually a well-designed fashion phone with a good UI. And it's true that US carriers are obnoxious, moderately overpriced, and sell dumbed-down phones. But to claim that the iPhone is doing anything to change that is ridiculous. The iPhone is more proprietary and more locked down than almost any other AT&T phone.
Reasonable? are you on drugs? Who in their right mind can call the Slow ISDN speeds we get at $49.99 a month reasonable? That kind of data rate is reasonable at $19.95 a month.
US wireless data rates are maybe 30-50% higher than what they should be, but that's not the issue here. Here, we're comparing iPhone to other smartphones and smartphone plans. For about the same amount of money that buys you EDGE speed access with an iPhone (with its limited set of applications), you can get unrestricted, unlimited 3G access with another phone and even use it as a laptop modem. That's what's relevant to this discussion.
Yes, if you want to replace your DSL line with 3G and run web servers over it, you are SOL. But that's not what those plans are there for, even in countries where they are priced better.
hey might not be carrier exclusives [...] but both are ALSO tied to their own exclusive programs
You're bullshitting. Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile have been available unlocked and have not been tied to any carrier for years.
and both at first where also non-programmable (yes they where and anyone who says otherwise is a liar), and only opened up a year or two later.
Again, totally wrong. All three of those systems developed out of programmable PDA platforms. Even if they had been non-programmable a decade ago, it's 2008, and the standard is that smartphones are user-programmable today, both via native APIs and via Java. Apple's iPhone is neither, and it's carrier locked, and it is tied to Apple's desktop.
It has not even been a year for Apples product and they have already promised to open up their programing before the year mark.
Apple has been vague on the specifics; just because Jobs calls it "programmable" doesn't mean it is. iPods are "programmable" as well, that doesn't mean that ISVs can create software and offer it for download. Furthermore, iPhones remain locked and tied to Apple's desktop.
So your argument is basically null and void.
You are an Apple apologist, and you don't even know your facts.
and makes the point that traditional mobile phone handset businesses has been stifled and denied the opportunity to innovate by network operators.
In fact, several major US carriers (AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, probably others) have had GSM systems for years. They work with third party GSM phones, including the fully programmable Palm, Windows Mobile, and Nokia devices. Furthermore, you can get unlimited data for fairly reasonable monthly fees in the US.
The notion that Apple is doing anything to rescue us from carries is laughable. Apple's iPhone is a big step backwards: it's carrier locked, it's tied to Apple's desktop application (the only way to get updates), and it's non-programmable (at least for now).
The iPhone is a giant step backwards for smartphones and innovation.
If you want an innovative phone that doesn't try to shackle you, get a Symbian, Palm, or Windows Mobile phone.
Sun is probably not going to be around in 2015 anymore anyway.
BTW, even originally, that was a political compromise to make the union happen at all; people did not necessarily view it as the best possible form of government.
Yes, our history [...]
You apparently aren't familiar with the relevant parts of our history.
as a rhetorical device rather than believe you're trolling.
Since you seem to be incapable of understanding rhetorical devices, let me spell it out for you: it is inappropriate to refer to Guantanamo as "taking a vacation in Cuba". The issue here is that you associate Cuba with an American problem.