Which is better: 10,000,000 readers generating no revenue, or 100,000 readers generating $250/year each? If you are an egoist or an evangelist, the former. If you are a business or an individual trying to earn a living, the latter. In this case, it seems as if Mr. Friedman is in the first group, and Newsday is in the second. Their interests no longer line up, so it makes sense for them to part ways. However, my guess is that the vast majority of Newday's employee's are in the second group, and they will not be quitting as a response to their employer attempting to keep them employed.
The author retains copyright of his text, he does not own copyright on the published book. The book contains other work (editing, typesetting, artwork, etc) which has it's own copyright, owned by the publisher. So downloading the Apress version (which is what the GP said) is indeed a violation of the publishers copyright. If he were offering only the original manuscript, then the publisher would not have a copyright claim against the downloader (unless he gave the publisher the right to sue for him). In that case, the publisher would only have a contract dispute with the author.
Also, he could very well wind up being sued be the publisher for breach of contract. Thus, he has screwed several people: himself, and anyone the publisher decides to go after.
I would think fair is: everyone has the same rights. If the player is free to stop playing at any time (and he is), the casino should have the same right. Conversely, if the casino is obligated to keep playing with someone who is beating them, the player should have the same obligation - no matter how badly you are losing, you must keep playing. Would you play in a casino where games are of a fixed length, you are obligated to play the entire time, and the casino is free to change the minimum bet at any time? Of course not. Why should the casino be forced to accept those terms?
Wow. Here's a clue: it is probably going to be a 'long time' before any given machine has a big payout, regardless of when it payed out last. There's this thing call 'probability'. As for the buttons: do you mean the button that says 'the attendant was here', or the button that says 'turn off the flashing lights and bells'? Neither one has anything to do with when it pays out again.
No, because it is not affecting the outcome of the game (as determined by money won or lost). You can card count all you want, as long as you are not making bets. Now, if they were using this machine (or even if the dealer card counted) to decide to reshuffle or change table mins/maxes when the deck went to the players favor, then there would be a problem. As long as BOTH parties are prevented from counting, it is fair. One party counting while not allowing the other party to count would be unfair.
You don't really have an 'opponent' in blackjack. You have a player and a dealer. The dealer gets to make no decisions at all (ie is as moronic as you can get). The player makes all the decisions; how much to bet, whether to take a card, double down, etc. You are right that to 'win' by counting you have to treat it as a job - which is exactly why it is banned. The casinos are not there to provide sources of income to their players, they are there to provide entertainment to their players, at a price. If you want to play against opponents and show off your vast intellect, play poker or enter a blackjack tournament. AFAIK, you can count in a tournament, because the house has no interest in the outcome of the game.
It depends on how you define a fair game. If by fair game you mean that the house and player have equal odds of winning, then obviously it is not fair. However, if casinos were restricted by that definition, there would be no casinos, because it would be impossible to make money (it is really hard to pay employees, build facilities, etc when your net income is zero). If however, by 'fair game' you mean that the games are played within a defined set of rules (which determine the odds), and that neither party is attempting to change the odds, then they clearly are offering fair games. And no, they don't kick people out simply because they win, they kick them out when they consistently win more than the odds of the game suggest they should, because obviously the odds have changed.
If you look at Vegas (or any casinos) as a way to make money, you are in trouble. If you look at it as entertainment, it is not such a bad deal. And they are 'taking peoples money' exactly in the same way as a movie theater, theme park, video game publisher, or anyone else in the entertainment business takes peoples money. If you don't want them to take your money, don't go there.
No, I was not comparing to Dell, I was comparing with high-end offerings from Sun, HP, IBMs own Power6 servers,etc., all of whom happily compare themselves with IBM's system Z. But now that you mention it, why not include Dell? After all, this whole lawsuit is about some companies complaining that their x86 based systems (emulating system Z) are being prevented from competing in the mainframe space. So that must mean that, in fact, those system are considered (at least by the manufactures) to be enterprise class, and thus are fairly considered as competition to system Z. Or is your definition of 'mainframe' so narrow as to only include systems capable of running the same binaries? In that case, every manufacturer of every proprietary product, in any field, is guilty of anti-trust violations.
Define 'mainframe' market. From your use of it I am guessing you mean 'systems with IBM's Z architecture'. Well, if you are going to define that market so narrowly, shouldn't you also define the market Apple is in as 'systems sold by Apple'? Why not take a sensible approach and say that IBM is in the 'enterprise server' market, and Apple is in the 'PC' market.
In the enterprise server market, you will find many OS's (various flavors of Unix, Linux, z/OS, even Windows). z/OS has a whopping 9% of this market. There is nothing preventing any company from moving to a different enterprise platform other than the will and money to do it. Companies do it all the time. IBM is not 'strong arming' anyone, but they are under no obligation to make is easier for companies to move away from their products.
IBM can not 'refuse' to allow anyone to make clone hardware (as long as they don't violate patents). IBM can not refuse to let anyone run any OS they like on their hardware, or any cloned hardware. What IBM CAN (and is) doing is refusing to allow THEIR software to run on cloned hardware.
Personal Computer companies: Many
Enterprise Server companies: Many
Apple's share of 'Personal Computer' space: Around 8% z/OS share of 'Enterprise Server' space: 9%
You can't compare some extremely broad class like 'Personal Computers' with an extremely narrow class like 'z/OS systems'. When you compare similar things you will find there is no difference at all. Look hard and you'll see that.
IBM was accused of doing those things in the 50s and 60s. In the 70s, 80s, and early 90s they had plenty of competition in the mainframe market (Hitachi, Amdahl, Fujitsu, etc). By the early 90s the mainframe market was being seriously eroded by competition from other platforms. IBM responded by completely revamping their mainframe line (switching from bi-polar to CMOS technology), which allowed them to drop the price significantly, and remain competitive in the overall server market. The other manufacturers either did not want to make the investment in changing technology, did not want to drop their prices, or bought into the 'mainframe is dead' hype and exited the market.
According to IDC, non-x86 IBM systems (including z and Power) account for 43% of the non-x86 server market. IBM systems running z/OS (which this suit is about) account for just 9% of the server market, hardly what could be a monopoly.
Complaining that IBM has a monopoly on the System z market is about the same as complaining that Coca-Cola has a monopoly on the 'Diet Coke' market.
Do you really believe that invention and improvement have been 'killed off' in the server market? Even if you restrict that statement to your narrow 'mainframe' definition, are you really saying that the mainframes IBM makes today are the same as the ones they were making 15 years (or even 2 years) ago?
IBM is not abusing any position here, they are simply refusing to provide competitors with the gun to shoot them with. Any sane business (or person) would do the same.
That's a good one! It's more like the current generation is extremely poor at analyzing the actual cost of anything. They look at just the cost of downloading a copy of the data and say 'the cost is zero'. But guess what: the server that is hosting the data costs money, the storage costs money, proper backups cost money, electricity and cooling cost money, admins cost money. And, most importantly, the collecting of all that data costs a LOT of money. And remember, this data is the minutiae of court proceedings - the average download rate of each document if probably 1 time or less, which means that that single download must pay for the entire cost of inputting and storing that document forever.
So, how can this guy provide the service for 'free'? Easy - he has no collection costs (he is freeloading off PACER for that), and someone else is footing the hosting bill. If Amazon is providing 'free' hosting, they are making up for it somewhere else (charging for ads, counting it as a marketing cost, etc). In that case, everyone who purchases from Amazon, or one of it's advertisers, is paying that cost. It isn't 'free'.
In a perfectly competitive system, this guy would have his own people and system to collect the data, and he would pay the true cost of hosting. When that happens, compare the prices, and see if they are zero.
He is not doing their job for them, he is doing the trivially easy part of their job for them. The expensive part (collecting all that data) is still being done by the courts, it is just more difficult for them to get paid for it now (and no, they are not funded by taxes).
Reckless driving (in NY) is defined as 'unreasonably endangering' others. And it is serious - a misdemeanor, not just a traffic violation. Do you have a crystal-clear definition of 'unreasonably endangering'? Does texting fall into that definition? The combination of the vague wording and the seriousness of the offence practically guarantees a jury trial. Reckless driving laws are best applied to really egregious cases, not something endlessly debatable like the safety of texting.
I agree that an education campaign is all that SHOULD be necessary, but there are a lot of idiots who think 'I can do it safely'. A potential hit to the wallet in terms of fines and insurance rates has a big effect on many people.
That is true only if you only look at the enforcement side. However, the basic expectation of law is that people obey it, even if no-one is watching. If people are obeying the no-texting law, then they are not texting, and we are safer.
The problem with using reckless driving types laws is that they are too late. Once you are exhibiting a behavior which is reckless (lane changes, etc) the only thing that separates that from a accident is that no-one else had the misfortune of being there at the time. The purpose of texting bans, etc is to stop a behavior which is likely to be a problem BEFORE it is actually a problem.
Broad laws are OK after the fact - you crashed, so it is reasonable to say you were reckless. Broad laws to prevent behavior are horrible, they put way to much discretion into the hands of the police. Some cops may think texting is reckless, some may think talking with a passenger is reckless, some may think driving with head-pounding music blasting is reckless, etc. That is why it is important the specific behaviors are specified.
Hands-free is not the same as an in-car conversation. If you are having an in-car conversation and some potentially dangerous driving situation arises, you can do something that takes no attention or time at all: shut up. Except for very young children, it will be immediately obvious to all in the car why you are no longer talking, and that perhaps it is in their best interest to also shut up. If you are on the phone and shut up, you will be barraged by incessant 'can you hear me', 'are you there', 'is everything ok' type questions, increasing your frustration and making the situation even more dangerous. If you hang up (which is itself a distraction), the other person will think the call dropped, and call back - also not helpful.
The post I was replying to specifically says 'we already have distracted driving, reckless driving, and probably a half a dozen other laws that already cover texting'. My reply specifically says 'NYS'. New York State has a reckless driving law. It has no 'distracted driving' law or any other law that covers texting. In fact, there are only 4 states that have 'distracted driving' laws (Connecticut, DC, Maine, and Nevada). So I don't think using 'reckless driving' as my example of the fallacy of that statement is in any way a strawman. It is the ONLY law in 92% of the states that is general enough to cover texting.
The broad laws, in general, are reserved for cases where it is blatantly obvious that an action is reckless (driving through a school zone at 90MPH 5 min after dismissal), or after an accident has already occurred (you killed 5 people, obviously that was reckless). They are never used to PREVENT dangerous behavior, which is the purpose of texting laws (you are not going to get pulled over and charged with reckless driving just for texting).
Finally, in NY (and I am guessing every other state), text bans and such ARE amendments to existing law - the Vehicle and Traffic Code. It's not like they are creating a whole new code for 'texting'. They are simply adding one or two sentences to existing law. I fail to see any substantial difference between adding a new paragraph to the V&T code, and adding 'texting' to a list of distractions. They both require the same legislative action to enact, they both carry the same weight of law, they both have the same effect. Either one is preferable to some open-ended 'distracted driving' law that the police and courts are free to interpret in any way they wish.
I don't see why the specific law is stupid. The purpose of these types of laws is to stop a specific behavior BEFORE it is a problem. 'Wait until the driver is seen crossing a lane', etc doesn't do that - it is too late.
Now, if you want to argue that texting itself is reckless, and therefore you can be pulled over for it, who decides that? Do you really want the police, without any specific law allowing it, to be able to cite you for any reason at all? 'I saw you singing to the radio, so you were distracted in my opinion, so you are charged with reckless driving'.
It is MUCH better to have specific laws giving the police specific powers than some general 'you can be arrested for any reason I dream up' type law.
The definition that New York State has of reckless is 'unreasonably endangers others'. And if you are convicted of it, it is a misdemeanor. Texting doesn't really seem to fall into that category. 90MPH through a school zone is reckless. Texting is just stupid.
As to your 'need to show a sign that you are drunk to begin with' comment - no, you don't. You could be stopped for an equipment violation (eg license plate unlit). You could be stopped at a checkpoint, etc.
I am not sure by what you mean 'prove' you are texting. What 'proof' is there of any traffic violation? If a cop says he saw you run a stop sign, it is assumed he is telling the truth. If he says he saw you staring at the phone in your hand, it is assumed you were texting and he is telling the truth. If you are referring to charging you AFTER an accident, they don't really need to do that, as they already have whatever specific thing you did that caused the accident (following too close, failure to keep right, etc). There is no reason to bring texting into it after the fact, unless it is obvious.
Legislatures create laws, police enforce them, and courts adjudicate. What you are suggesting (using umbrella laws) puts way too much power into the hands of the police and courts. The full text of the NYS reckless driving law is as follows:
1212. Reckless driving. Reckless driving shall mean driving or using any motor vehicle, motorcycle or any other vehicle propelled by any power other than muscular power or any appliance or accessory thereof in a manner which unreasonably interferes with the free and proper use of the public highway, or unreasonably endangers users of the public highway. Reckless driving is prohibited. Every person violating this provision shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
When a law is a vague as this (unreasonably endangers) it is best left to serious situations where it is clear that the driver was unreasonably endangering others. Who's call is it that texting is an unreasonable danger? The individual police officer? What if he also thinks that having loud music interferes with your thinking, and therefore anyone with a loud radio is unreasonably endangering others? It is far better to have specific laws, created by the people elected to create them, covering specific prohibited behaviors than it is to have a broad law that can be interpreted in many ways.
Finally, note the last sentence of that law: reckless driving is a misdemeanor. That means a criminal record (including fingerprinting, etc), possible jail time, etc. Seems a little excessive for looking at a text message, doesn't it? (For comparison, using a cell phone is a traffic violation, max $100 fine).
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Right, there is no way to legally watch a digital copy of a movie without a DVD. Except for Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, On Demand cable tv, lodgenet...
Which is better: 10,000,000 readers generating no revenue, or 100,000 readers generating $250/year each? If you are an egoist or an evangelist, the former. If you are a business or an individual trying to earn a living, the latter. In this case, it seems as if Mr. Friedman is in the first group, and Newsday is in the second. Their interests no longer line up, so it makes sense for them to part ways. However, my guess is that the vast majority of Newday's employee's are in the second group, and they will not be quitting as a response to their employer attempting to keep them employed.
The author retains copyright of his text, he does not own copyright on the published book. The book contains other work (editing, typesetting, artwork, etc) which has it's own copyright, owned by the publisher. So downloading the Apress version (which is what the GP said) is indeed a violation of the publishers copyright. If he were offering only the original manuscript, then the publisher would not have a copyright claim against the downloader (unless he gave the publisher the right to sue for him). In that case, the publisher would only have a contract dispute with the author.
Also, he could very well wind up being sued be the publisher for breach of contract. Thus, he has screwed several people: himself, and anyone the publisher decides to go after.
I would think fair is: everyone has the same rights. If the player is free to stop playing at any time (and he is), the casino should have the same right. Conversely, if the casino is obligated to keep playing with someone who is beating them, the player should have the same obligation - no matter how badly you are losing, you must keep playing. Would you play in a casino where games are of a fixed length, you are obligated to play the entire time, and the casino is free to change the minimum bet at any time? Of course not. Why should the casino be forced to accept those terms?
Wow. Here's a clue: it is probably going to be a 'long time' before any given machine has a big payout, regardless of when it payed out last. There's this thing call 'probability'. As for the buttons: do you mean the button that says 'the attendant was here', or the button that says 'turn off the flashing lights and bells'? Neither one has anything to do with when it pays out again.
No, because it is not affecting the outcome of the game (as determined by money won or lost). You can card count all you want, as long as you are not making bets. Now, if they were using this machine (or even if the dealer card counted) to decide to reshuffle or change table mins/maxes when the deck went to the players favor, then there would be a problem. As long as BOTH parties are prevented from counting, it is fair. One party counting while not allowing the other party to count would be unfair.
You don't really have an 'opponent' in blackjack. You have a player and a dealer. The dealer gets to make no decisions at all (ie is as moronic as you can get). The player makes all the decisions; how much to bet, whether to take a card, double down, etc. You are right that to 'win' by counting you have to treat it as a job - which is exactly why it is banned. The casinos are not there to provide sources of income to their players, they are there to provide entertainment to their players, at a price. If you want to play against opponents and show off your vast intellect, play poker or enter a blackjack tournament. AFAIK, you can count in a tournament, because the house has no interest in the outcome of the game.
Well, many people on here expect that. I am not one of them.
It depends on how you define a fair game. If by fair game you mean that the house and player have equal odds of winning, then obviously it is not fair. However, if casinos were restricted by that definition, there would be no casinos, because it would be impossible to make money (it is really hard to pay employees, build facilities, etc when your net income is zero). If however, by 'fair game' you mean that the games are played within a defined set of rules (which determine the odds), and that neither party is attempting to change the odds, then they clearly are offering fair games. And no, they don't kick people out simply because they win, they kick them out when they consistently win more than the odds of the game suggest they should, because obviously the odds have changed.
If you look at Vegas (or any casinos) as a way to make money, you are in trouble. If you look at it as entertainment, it is not such a bad deal. And they are 'taking peoples money' exactly in the same way as a movie theater, theme park, video game publisher, or anyone else in the entertainment business takes peoples money. If you don't want them to take your money, don't go there.
No, I was not comparing to Dell, I was comparing with high-end offerings from Sun, HP, IBMs own Power6 servers,etc., all of whom happily compare themselves with IBM's system Z. But now that you mention it, why not include Dell? After all, this whole lawsuit is about some companies complaining that their x86 based systems (emulating system Z) are being prevented from competing in the mainframe space. So that must mean that, in fact, those system are considered (at least by the manufactures) to be enterprise class, and thus are fairly considered as competition to system Z. Or is your definition of 'mainframe' so narrow as to only include systems capable of running the same binaries? In that case, every manufacturer of every proprietary product, in any field, is guilty of anti-trust violations.
Define 'mainframe' market. From your use of it I am guessing you mean 'systems with IBM's Z architecture'. Well, if you are going to define that market so narrowly, shouldn't you also define the market Apple is in as 'systems sold by Apple'? Why not take a sensible approach and say that IBM is in the 'enterprise server' market, and Apple is in the 'PC' market.
In the enterprise server market, you will find many OS's (various flavors of Unix, Linux, z/OS, even Windows). z/OS has a whopping 9% of this market. There is nothing preventing any company from moving to a different enterprise platform other than the will and money to do it. Companies do it all the time. IBM is not 'strong arming' anyone, but they are under no obligation to make is easier for companies to move away from their products.
IBM can not 'refuse' to allow anyone to make clone hardware (as long as they don't violate patents). IBM can not refuse to let anyone run any OS they like on their hardware, or any cloned hardware. What IBM CAN (and is) doing is refusing to allow THEIR software to run on cloned hardware.
Personal Computer companies: Many
Enterprise Server companies: Many
Apple's share of 'Personal Computer' space: Around 8%
z/OS share of 'Enterprise Server' space: 9%
You can't compare some extremely broad class like 'Personal Computers' with an extremely narrow class like 'z/OS systems'. When you compare similar things you will find there is no difference at all. Look hard and you'll see that.
IBM was accused of doing those things in the 50s and 60s. In the 70s, 80s, and early 90s they had plenty of competition in the mainframe market (Hitachi, Amdahl, Fujitsu, etc). By the early 90s the mainframe market was being seriously eroded by competition from other platforms. IBM responded by completely revamping their mainframe line (switching from bi-polar to CMOS technology), which allowed them to drop the price significantly, and remain competitive in the overall server market. The other manufacturers either did not want to make the investment in changing technology, did not want to drop their prices, or bought into the 'mainframe is dead' hype and exited the market.
According to IDC, non-x86 IBM systems (including z and Power) account for 43% of the non-x86 server market. IBM systems running z/OS (which this suit is about) account for just 9% of the server market, hardly what could be a monopoly.
Complaining that IBM has a monopoly on the System z market is about the same as complaining that Coca-Cola has a monopoly on the 'Diet Coke' market.
Do you really believe that invention and improvement have been 'killed off' in the server market? Even if you restrict that statement to your narrow 'mainframe' definition, are you really saying that the mainframes IBM makes today are the same as the ones they were making 15 years (or even 2 years) ago?
IBM is not abusing any position here, they are simply refusing to provide competitors with the gun to shoot them with. Any sane business (or person) would do the same.
That's a good one! It's more like the current generation is extremely poor at analyzing the actual cost of anything. They look at just the cost of downloading a copy of the data and say 'the cost is zero'. But guess what: the server that is hosting the data costs money, the storage costs money, proper backups cost money, electricity and cooling cost money, admins cost money. And, most importantly, the collecting of all that data costs a LOT of money. And remember, this data is the minutiae of court proceedings - the average download rate of each document if probably 1 time or less, which means that that single download must pay for the entire cost of inputting and storing that document forever.
So, how can this guy provide the service for 'free'? Easy - he has no collection costs (he is freeloading off PACER for that), and someone else is footing the hosting bill. If Amazon is providing 'free' hosting, they are making up for it somewhere else (charging for ads, counting it as a marketing cost, etc). In that case, everyone who purchases from Amazon, or one of it's advertisers, is paying that cost. It isn't 'free'.
In a perfectly competitive system, this guy would have his own people and system to collect the data, and he would pay the true cost of hosting. When that happens, compare the prices, and see if they are zero.
He is not doing their job for them, he is doing the trivially easy part of their job for them. The expensive part (collecting all that data) is still being done by the courts, it is just more difficult for them to get paid for it now (and no, they are not funded by taxes).
Reckless driving (in NY) is defined as 'unreasonably endangering' others. And it is serious - a misdemeanor, not just a traffic violation. Do you have a crystal-clear definition of 'unreasonably endangering'? Does texting fall into that definition? The combination of the vague wording and the seriousness of the offence practically guarantees a jury trial. Reckless driving laws are best applied to really egregious cases, not something endlessly debatable like the safety of texting.
I agree that an education campaign is all that SHOULD be necessary, but there are a lot of idiots who think 'I can do it safely'. A potential hit to the wallet in terms of fines and insurance rates has a big effect on many people.
That is true only if you only look at the enforcement side. However, the basic expectation of law is that people obey it, even if no-one is watching. If people are obeying the no-texting law, then they are not texting, and we are safer.
The problem with using reckless driving types laws is that they are too late. Once you are exhibiting a behavior which is reckless (lane changes, etc) the only thing that separates that from a accident is that no-one else had the misfortune of being there at the time. The purpose of texting bans, etc is to stop a behavior which is likely to be a problem BEFORE it is actually a problem.
Broad laws are OK after the fact - you crashed, so it is reasonable to say you were reckless. Broad laws to prevent behavior are horrible, they put way to much discretion into the hands of the police. Some cops may think texting is reckless, some may think talking with a passenger is reckless, some may think driving with head-pounding music blasting is reckless, etc. That is why it is important the specific behaviors are specified.
Hands-free is not the same as an in-car conversation. If you are having an in-car conversation and some potentially dangerous driving situation arises, you can do something that takes no attention or time at all: shut up. Except for very young children, it will be immediately obvious to all in the car why you are no longer talking, and that perhaps it is in their best interest to also shut up. If you are on the phone and shut up, you will be barraged by incessant 'can you hear me', 'are you there', 'is everything ok' type questions, increasing your frustration and making the situation even more dangerous. If you hang up (which is itself a distraction), the other person will think the call dropped, and call back - also not helpful.
No, we do not. Only three states (Connecticut, Maine, Nevada) and DC have such laws (distracted driving/negligent driving). http://www.aaapublicaffairs.com/Assets/Files/20099111616410.DistractedDrivingLaws.doc
The post I was replying to specifically says 'we already have distracted driving, reckless driving, and probably a half a dozen other laws that already cover texting'. My reply specifically says 'NYS'. New York State has a reckless driving law. It has no 'distracted driving' law or any other law that covers texting. In fact, there are only 4 states that have 'distracted driving' laws (Connecticut, DC, Maine, and Nevada). So I don't think using 'reckless driving' as my example of the fallacy of that statement is in any way a strawman. It is the ONLY law in 92% of the states that is general enough to cover texting.
The broad laws, in general, are reserved for cases where it is blatantly obvious that an action is reckless (driving through a school zone at 90MPH 5 min after dismissal), or after an accident has already occurred (you killed 5 people, obviously that was reckless). They are never used to PREVENT dangerous behavior, which is the purpose of texting laws (you are not going to get pulled over and charged with reckless driving just for texting).
Finally, in NY (and I am guessing every other state), text bans and such ARE amendments to existing law - the Vehicle and Traffic Code. It's not like they are creating a whole new code for 'texting'. They are simply adding one or two sentences to existing law. I fail to see any substantial difference between adding a new paragraph to the V&T code, and adding 'texting' to a list of distractions. They both require the same legislative action to enact, they both carry the same weight of law, they both have the same effect. Either one is preferable to some open-ended 'distracted driving' law that the police and courts are free to interpret in any way they wish.
I don't see why the specific law is stupid. The purpose of these types of laws is to stop a specific behavior BEFORE it is a problem. 'Wait until the driver is seen crossing a lane', etc doesn't do that - it is too late.
Now, if you want to argue that texting itself is reckless, and therefore you can be pulled over for it, who decides that? Do you really want the police, without any specific law allowing it, to be able to cite you for any reason at all? 'I saw you singing to the radio, so you were distracted in my opinion, so you are charged with reckless driving'.
It is MUCH better to have specific laws giving the police specific powers than some general 'you can be arrested for any reason I dream up' type law.
The definition that New York State has of reckless is 'unreasonably endangers others'. And if you are convicted of it, it is a misdemeanor. Texting doesn't really seem to fall into that category. 90MPH through a school zone is reckless. Texting is just stupid.
As to your 'need to show a sign that you are drunk to begin with' comment - no, you don't. You could be stopped for an equipment violation (eg license plate unlit). You could be stopped at a checkpoint, etc.
I am not sure by what you mean 'prove' you are texting. What 'proof' is there of any traffic violation? If a cop says he saw you run a stop sign, it is assumed he is telling the truth. If he says he saw you staring at the phone in your hand, it is assumed you were texting and he is telling the truth. If you are referring to charging you AFTER an accident, they don't really need to do that, as they already have whatever specific thing you did that caused the accident (following too close, failure to keep right, etc). There is no reason to bring texting into it after the fact, unless it is obvious.
Legislatures create laws, police enforce them, and courts adjudicate. What you are suggesting (using umbrella laws) puts way too much power into the hands of the police and courts. The full text of the NYS reckless driving law is as follows:
1212. Reckless driving. Reckless driving shall mean driving or using any motor vehicle, motorcycle or any other vehicle propelled by any power other than muscular power or any appliance or accessory thereof in a manner which unreasonably interferes with the free and proper use of the public highway, or unreasonably endangers users of the public highway. Reckless driving is prohibited. Every person violating this provision shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
When a law is a vague as this (unreasonably endangers) it is best left to serious situations where it is clear that the driver was unreasonably endangering others. Who's call is it that texting is an unreasonable danger? The individual police officer? What if he also thinks that having loud music interferes with your thinking, and therefore anyone with a loud radio is unreasonably endangering others? It is far better to have specific laws, created by the people elected to create them, covering specific prohibited behaviors than it is to have a broad law that can be interpreted in many ways.
Finally, note the last sentence of that law: reckless driving is a misdemeanor. That means a criminal record (including fingerprinting, etc), possible jail time, etc. Seems a little excessive for looking at a text message, doesn't it? (For comparison, using a cell phone is a traffic violation, max $100 fine).