Yeah, it's simple. All you need is perfectly designed and implemented software and hardware, and perfect users who never let their guard down. Or leave it disconnected from the network (including sneakernet) at all times.
Re:IBM = Innovator? Not in my lifetime.
on
IBM Turns 100
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· Score: 4, Informative
You seem to be confusing 'hype' with 'innovation' if you think it was led by Microsoft and Apple. There is a reason that there were basically 2 PC architectures - Apple, and (wait for it) 'IBM PC Compatible'. One of those completely swamped the other.
You might want to check out whose systems are behind almost any financial transaction you process. At the other end of the scale, you might want to check out whose processors are in every XBox/360, PS/3, and Wii.
Maybe you have a GPS - want to take a guess on whose semiconductor (SiGe) technology is in there?
You're not suggesting that slavery is illegal and women can vote because of some elite minority are you? Those things happened because a majority of the people wanted them (3/4 of the states). Likewise, if 3/4 of the states decide to reverse those things, they will be reversed. There was undoubtedly very much resistance to those changes, motivated largely by the same things that motivate nuclear opponents (fear). The proponents of those measures were able to convince people to change their minds, and vote for something that they previously thought was not in their best interests. So far, the proponents of nuclear energy are failing to do that.
Sure, why not? If you can't convince 50% of the people that teaching evolution in some way improves their lives or is otherwise important, then why should it be taught? Does the minority have some sort of divine right to decide what is 'best' for everyone else?
Nonsense. Companies are not required (and do not) report on every single transaction that can affect profit. If Apple had been paying Nokia all along would anyone know the details of that? No. This is just a cost increase to Apple, and an income increase to Nokia. That is normal, everyday business.
Who do you think is going to pay for your extensive testing? You are talking probably hundreds of millions of dollars, and hundreds of millions of dollars more to refit planes so they don't have interference problems. Perhaps you haven't read the news lately, but passengers are not really thrilled about paying any more for air travel, and the airlines are not exactly swimming in money.
No, it isn't. You said that, then added a bunch of crap about requiring a loss of property, thereby changing the word you are describing from 'stealing' to 'larceny'. The definitions of stealing absolutely do not require a loss of anything, no matter what you would like to twist them to mean. Also, note that the definition of 'theft' is 'stealing OR larceny'. They are not the same thing. For example, if you commit identity theft, you have STOLEN the victims' identity. Of course, he still has his identity too.
Some, but not all, stealing is larceny. All larceny is stealing. Is that too complicated?
The planes went through extensive certification testing for external interference. They did not go through the same certification for internal interference, which is the entire point of the ban. It's not that the devices WILL cause problems, it's that they haven't been shown to NOT cause problems. New planes are being tested for internal interference (with modifications being made as needed), which is why wifi is now on some planes.
Where did you get that definition? Neither my trusty old Webster's, dictionary.com, no merriam-webster.com offer any such definition. Every one of them only says that you have something without permission, not that the other person has lost anything. Examples:
From merriam-webster.com : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice From dictionary.reference.com: to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment. From my paper Webster's: to get, take, or give without permission.
The word you are describing is larceny: the unlawful taking of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently
In ordinary English usage, copyright infringement is indeed stealing.
So you're saying that things you design and build today will have absolutely no problems with whatever technology is in use 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Bullshit. Planes designed and built NOW are designed to handle RF inside the cabin (which is why some planes can offer wifi, etc). RF inside the cabin was simply not an issue when the majority of planes currently in use were designed and built.
Well there will probably never be a confirmed death due to electronic use, because it is impossible to prove. There have been a few crashes recently where the contributing factors seem to be bad information from sensors, and pilots taking incorrect action. How do you know that the incorrect sensor information wasn't from interference, or that the pilots didn't take the incorrect action because they were distracted by extraneous crap going on from interference?
If this were a truly serious problem, we'd have planes dropping out of the sky like rain.
That's like saying "seatbelts are totally unnecessary because I have been driving for 20 years without one and haven't been injured yet". That, by itself, may be entirely true. But the reason you haven't been injured yet is because you have not yet encountered BOTH the conditions of no seatbelt AND being in a collision.
There is a wide range of things that can happen between 'no effect at all' and 'plane crashes'. Most of them are probably very minor - just annoyances to the pilot. But you probably wouldn't want to be on the plane where there actually was a real (non-interference related) problem going on AND the pilot was getting confusing or distracting information because of some idiot with a cell phone.
but using "anecdotal evidence" to make decisions is very bad.
No, it isn't. Not when the consequences of the wrong decision are very unequal. If you ban devices and are wrong, you have mildly inconvenienced some people. If you allow devices and are wrong, you may have just killed a few hundred people. One of these is not like the other.
It doesn't really matter if the problem is the way the plane is constructed or the devices themselves. The fact is, there can be interference (yes, I do trust an Associate Technical Fellow at Boeing more than random slashdotters). So now the question is: what to do about it?
Option 1 is to refit all the planes currently in use so they are not susceptible to interference. Since the airlines are already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and the flying public has shown no taste at all for increased fares and fees, this option is DOA.
Option 2 is to make new planes not susceptible to interference. This is, in fact, what the industry is doing.
Yep , that would make things a whole lot better. After all, as soon as WB makes back the cost of production after the first couple of weeks they immediately drop the price of theater showings, DVDs, TV rights, etc to only the actual cost of the distribution, right?
Those companies exist solely to make a profit, and by profit I mean balance-sheet profit, not 'an individual movie was profitable'. The only thing that would happen as a result of your plan is that the individual writers have little upside potential or downside risk, and the companies that hired them have more potential and risk. From a consumer point of view absolutely nothing would change.
Yeah, that's exactly the same thing. I mean, it's not like the government specifies exactly what work is to be done, selects a bidder that can do the job, then draws up contracts for that job. That would work just great for creative works. How would you possibly specify the job to be done? How would you decide who gets the job? What would the contract say - would the government have to approve the work?
Did you know that engineers and programmers get paid by some other entity, and the money to pay them does not come out of thin air? If you are an engineer or programmer working for a company in the consumer products field (which is what books are) the company you work for will build profit into the cost of each and every item sold (you just won't see any of it). If they sell your product for a hundred years they will still be collecting profit on each and every item sold.
So who is going to pay the author by the hour? The publisher? And do you really think that if that were the case the publisher, unlike every other industry, would magically stop adding profit to the cost of the book after some magical amount of sales?
What you are trying to do is turn authoring into factory work, without any of the benefits of factory work. If I work in a factory I get paid for my time. If the company I work for sells everything I made I get paid. If they don't sell a single item I still get paid. Your proposal would have the author get paid a fixed amount, but ONLY if he sells enough copies to make that amount. If he sells less than that, he earns less.
Of course the way factories deal with this is to try to make only things that are going to be profitable. Is that what you want authors to do - only write sure bestsellers?
If an author can write a huge bestseller in a year, and live off his earnings from that while he writes a scholarly tome (that will never ever come close to selling enough copies to live on), why should he be prevented from doing that?
I really don't understand people who value something by the cost to produce. If an indie movie cost $1M to produce, and the latest blockbuster cost $500M to produce, would you really say that viewing the blockbuster should cost 500 times the indie movie? By far, most people would say no, in fact they may be willing to pay more for the indie movie because it provides them with more value (better entertainment).
Seems like it would be good for any multi-player games where a player would want to keep something secret from other players. If you're playing a sports game, make your play selection on the handheld screen, then do the actual playing on the TV. Make your car selection (Mario Kart) on the handheld, etc. In addition, it opens up all kinds of possibilities with card games, word games, board game simulations, etc.
Why are you just starting to like Russia? They have hundreds of years of history of ensuring that individuals can never advance themselves, earn money, or own anything substantial.
Uh, yes, I did think about that. I don't see what point you are trying to make. A website with pure graphical content is a shitty website, and unusable by anyone with vision problems. There is no excuse for that except lazy and/or incompetent developers.
My assumption was that your website was supposed to do something useful (product catalog, ordering, contacts, etc). From the sound of it, you are already compliant. Your website is equally useless for sighted and vision impaired people, so no discrimination.
The topic at hand was the accessibility of web sites. It does not matter what business you are in, there is no excuse for not having an accessible web site.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it's simple. All you need is perfectly designed and implemented software and hardware, and perfect users who never let their guard down. Or leave it disconnected from the network (including sneakernet) at all times.
You seem to be confusing 'hype' with 'innovation' if you think it was led by Microsoft and Apple. There is a reason that there were basically 2 PC architectures - Apple, and (wait for it) 'IBM PC Compatible'. One of those completely swamped the other.
You might want to check out whose systems are behind almost any financial transaction you process. At the other end of the scale, you might want to check out whose processors are in every XBox/360, PS/3, and Wii.
Maybe you have a GPS - want to take a guess on whose semiconductor (SiGe) technology is in there?
You're not suggesting that slavery is illegal and women can vote because of some elite minority are you? Those things happened because a majority of the people wanted them (3/4 of the states). Likewise, if 3/4 of the states decide to reverse those things, they will be reversed. There was undoubtedly very much resistance to those changes, motivated largely by the same things that motivate nuclear opponents (fear). The proponents of those measures were able to convince people to change their minds, and vote for something that they previously thought was not in their best interests. So far, the proponents of nuclear energy are failing to do that.
And even that can be changed if enough people want it.
Sure, why not? If you can't convince 50% of the people that teaching evolution in some way improves their lives or is otherwise important, then why should it be taught? Does the minority have some sort of divine right to decide what is 'best' for everyone else?
Nonsense. Companies are not required (and do not) report on every single transaction that can affect profit. If Apple had been paying Nokia all along would anyone know the details of that? No. This is just a cost increase to Apple, and an income increase to Nokia. That is normal, everyday business.
It is the same story. The older article just had a bad title.
Who do you think is going to pay for your extensive testing? You are talking probably hundreds of millions of dollars, and hundreds of millions of dollars more to refit planes so they don't have interference problems. Perhaps you haven't read the news lately, but passengers are not really thrilled about paying any more for air travel, and the airlines are not exactly swimming in money.
No, it isn't. You said that, then added a bunch of crap about requiring a loss of property, thereby changing the word you are describing from 'stealing' to 'larceny'. The definitions of stealing absolutely do not require a loss of anything, no matter what you would like to twist them to mean. Also, note that the definition of 'theft' is 'stealing OR larceny'. They are not the same thing. For example, if you commit identity theft, you have STOLEN the victims' identity. Of course, he still has his identity too.
Some, but not all, stealing is larceny. All larceny is stealing. Is that too complicated?
The planes went through extensive certification testing for external interference. They did not go through the same certification for internal interference, which is the entire point of the ban. It's not that the devices WILL cause problems, it's that they haven't been shown to NOT cause problems. New planes are being tested for internal interference (with modifications being made as needed), which is why wifi is now on some planes.
Where did you get that definition? Neither my trusty old Webster's, dictionary.com, no merriam-webster.com offer any such definition. Every one of them only says that you have something without permission, not that the other person has lost anything. Examples:
From merriam-webster.com : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice
From dictionary.reference.com: to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
From my paper Webster's: to get, take, or give without permission.
The word you are describing is larceny:
the unlawful taking of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently
In ordinary English usage, copyright infringement is indeed stealing.
So you're saying that things you design and build today will have absolutely no problems with whatever technology is in use 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Bullshit. Planes designed and built NOW are designed to handle RF inside the cabin (which is why some planes can offer wifi, etc). RF inside the cabin was simply not an issue when the majority of planes currently in use were designed and built.
Well there will probably never be a confirmed death due to electronic use, because it is impossible to prove. There have been a few crashes recently where the contributing factors seem to be bad information from sensors, and pilots taking incorrect action. How do you know that the incorrect sensor information wasn't from interference, or that the pilots didn't take the incorrect action because they were distracted by extraneous crap going on from interference?
If this were a truly serious problem, we'd have planes dropping out of the sky like rain.
That's like saying "seatbelts are totally unnecessary because I have been driving for 20 years without one and haven't been injured yet". That, by itself, may be entirely true. But the reason you haven't been injured yet is because you have not yet encountered BOTH the conditions of no seatbelt AND being in a collision.
There is a wide range of things that can happen between 'no effect at all' and 'plane crashes'. Most of them are probably very minor - just annoyances to the pilot. But you probably wouldn't want to be on the plane where there actually was a real (non-interference related) problem going on AND the pilot was getting confusing or distracting information because of some idiot with a cell phone.
but using "anecdotal evidence" to make decisions is very bad.
No, it isn't. Not when the consequences of the wrong decision are very unequal. If you ban devices and are wrong, you have mildly inconvenienced some people. If you allow devices and are wrong, you may have just killed a few hundred people. One of these is not like the other.
It doesn't really matter if the problem is the way the plane is constructed or the devices themselves. The fact is, there can be interference (yes, I do trust an Associate Technical Fellow at Boeing more than random slashdotters). So now the question is: what to do about it?
Option 1 is to refit all the planes currently in use so they are not susceptible to interference. Since the airlines are already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and the flying public has shown no taste at all for increased fares and fees, this option is DOA.
Option 2 is to make new planes not susceptible to interference. This is, in fact, what the industry is doing.
Yep , that would make things a whole lot better. After all, as soon as WB makes back the cost of production after the first couple of weeks they immediately drop the price of theater showings, DVDs, TV rights, etc to only the actual cost of the distribution, right?
Those companies exist solely to make a profit, and by profit I mean balance-sheet profit, not 'an individual movie was profitable'. The only thing that would happen as a result of your plan is that the individual writers have little upside potential or downside risk, and the companies that hired them have more potential and risk. From a consumer point of view absolutely nothing would change.
Yeah, that's exactly the same thing. I mean, it's not like the government specifies exactly what work is to be done, selects a bidder that can do the job, then draws up contracts for that job. That would work just great for creative works. How would you possibly specify the job to be done? How would you decide who gets the job? What would the contract say - would the government have to approve the work?
If the game is that bad, why is it being pirated?
Did you know that engineers and programmers get paid by some other entity, and the money to pay them does not come out of thin air? If you are an engineer or programmer working for a company in the consumer products field (which is what books are) the company you work for will build profit into the cost of each and every item sold (you just won't see any of it). If they sell your product for a hundred years they will still be collecting profit on each and every item sold.
So who is going to pay the author by the hour? The publisher? And do you really think that if that were the case the publisher, unlike every other industry, would magically stop adding profit to the cost of the book after some magical amount of sales?
What you are trying to do is turn authoring into factory work, without any of the benefits of factory work. If I work in a factory I get paid for my time. If the company I work for sells everything I made I get paid. If they don't sell a single item I still get paid. Your proposal would have the author get paid a fixed amount, but ONLY if he sells enough copies to make that amount. If he sells less than that, he earns less.
Of course the way factories deal with this is to try to make only things that are going to be profitable. Is that what you want authors to do - only write sure bestsellers?
If an author can write a huge bestseller in a year, and live off his earnings from that while he writes a scholarly tome (that will never ever come close to selling enough copies to live on), why should he be prevented from doing that?
I really don't understand people who value something by the cost to produce. If an indie movie cost $1M to produce, and the latest blockbuster cost $500M to produce, would you really say that viewing the blockbuster should cost 500 times the indie movie? By far, most people would say no, in fact they may be willing to pay more for the indie movie because it provides them with more value (better entertainment).
Seems like it would be good for any multi-player games where a player would want to keep something secret from other players. If you're playing a sports game, make your play selection on the handheld screen, then do the actual playing on the TV. Make your car selection (Mario Kart) on the handheld, etc. In addition, it opens up all kinds of possibilities with card games, word games, board game simulations, etc.
Why are you just starting to like Russia? They have hundreds of years of history of ensuring that individuals can never advance themselves, earn money, or own anything substantial.
Uh, yes, I did think about that. I don't see what point you are trying to make. A website with pure graphical content is a shitty website, and unusable by anyone with vision problems. There is no excuse for that except lazy and/or incompetent developers.
My assumption was that your website was supposed to do something useful (product catalog, ordering, contacts, etc). From the sound of it, you are already compliant. Your website is equally useless for sighted and vision impaired people, so no discrimination.
The topic at hand was the accessibility of web sites. It does not matter what business you are in, there is no excuse for not having an accessible web site.