I live in suburban Houston. There are cell towers everywhere. But I still can't get a good signal at my house! The only reason I don't complain is that my phone does WiFi calling, which works fine at home.
The real point is, most software patents are abuses of the system. If it becomes necessary to post working code, this will in itself be a huge disincentive for those who are currently using patents inappropriately. Much of the problem will solve itself.
The problem yesterday had nothing to do with sites offloading authentication to Facebook. It was simply sites that have a little Facebook ad--like "what's popular on Facebook." I experienced this yesterday, just looking for a store location--there was a Facebook ad on the page that instantly redirected to Facebook.
Cloud providers won't go to these extremes because they are expensive. They are looking for low hanging fruit, not trying to pick apart your life like a CIA target. Besides, people are all too willing to leave things unencrypted, they don't need to bother with the 1% of users who encrypt their data.
Encryption works for the same reason that image sharing sites add watermarks to their photos. A watermark won't stop a determined abuser, but it will stop other sites from doing wholesale copies of all their images. The same economics are at play here.
The Wal-Mart T-Mobile Unlimited text and Web plan is $30 per month. It's limited to only 100 minutes of voice...but I use Groove IP with Google Voice to use the data for voice calls...so that $30 per months buys me unlimited voice, text, and data.
There is a serious flaw in your analogy. Opening the bridge without finishing one lane would be serious because, when used as designed, it would fail. Java, however, when used as designed, generally does what it is supposed to do. This is evidenced by the success of the Android platform, which relies heavily on Java.
By contrast, the situation described in this article occurs when someone intentionally uses Java in a way that it was specifically NOT designed to be used. So to extend your analogy, the bridge was finished all right (like Java), but they didn't install six-foot chain link fences on top of the guard rails, allowing pedestrians to commit suicide by jumping off. This is a design choice that would likely be put off until it became clear that people would actually start using the bridge in this unintended way. The first jumper would be exploiting a zero-day vulnerability.
But regardless of the analogy, and regardless of the use of the software, there are always tradeoffs made. Always. There is no perfect software. EVERY SINGLE ONE has "known" vulnerabilities. So I'm actually more surprised how "horrified" everybody seems to be, than I am that Java has a vulnerability!
Has nobody on this site actually had to meet a deadline? Has nobody had to make some trade-offs to get a product out the door? Why would Java be different?
If you are working on a non-trivial project, and you don't know about at least half a dozen horrible "zero-day" flaws, then you don't know your project very well!
In real life, businesses have to make trade-offs. They can't fix everything. Every release cycle, product managers have to make decisions about which fixes go in, and which fixes have to wait. I'm no Java fan, but with as many people poking around it as there are, I'm amazed that there aren't many more known vulnerabilities!
It's worse than that. The hackers commandeer computers that do not belong to them, using malware to infect and control other people's computers. So in addition to your union strikers handcuffing themselves together, they would also be handcuffing themselves to uninvolved bystanders to force them to participate in the strike.
People do change their religious convictions. But as a Christian, I agree with your conclusion: There is nothing in the Christian faith that would prohibit taking vaccines. This was simply a woman who made a decision, and then arbitrarily brought "faith" into it to get her way. This is in no way a religious issue.
The first Kindle was released in late 2007. The iPad was released less than three years ago. It seems a bit premature to predict that printed books will keep their traditional place in people's lives. There is still a large segment of the population that has never even tried reading an ebook. Many of those people are older, and have no interest in the "new." But there are already younger, technology-addicted people who rarely, if ever, touch a paper book. They don't have the same fondness for the feel and smell of paper that older people do.
Of course, books will be around forever. Scrolls still exist! So do phonograph records. The question is, what will be the normal way people consume text. I believe the e-reader will obliterate the paper book publishing industry the same way the Web is obliterating the newspaper industry.
The biggest problem with software patents, it seems to me, is that the USPTO has strayed from its roots in applying patents to software. For example:
- A working model is required for an application for a "traditional" patent. Why not software patents? Requiring a working model alone would eliminate a large portion of software patents. - Instructions for replicating the patented item are required for traditional patents, thus making it useful in the public domain when the patent expires. Why is software exempted? - Traditional patents exclude patenting of an idea. Why is software excluded from this restriction?
Maybe not ALL software patents are bad. But if we went back to the roots of the patent concept, most of the frivolous patents would go away.
The issue with the App Store trademark is not legal defense, but the fact that Apple ever thought it could own such a generic term. It would be like attempting to trademark "Computer Store" or "Furniture Store." One of the basic criteria for trademarks is that they cannot be generic terms; this is what the court recognized. Trademarks that were once valid can become so generic that they lose their protection. Aspirin, Yo-Yo, and Escalator are all examples of trademarks that lost their legal protection because they became used so widely as generic terms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark#Examples.
The head-scratching is not about the fact that Apple would try to defend its trademarks, but that it would think it could own "App Store" in the first place.
Nostalgia aside, there are significant parallels to the wild west.
- The Internet has been a place of wide open spaces and unparalleled freedom. - Everybody who wanted to could go stake a claim (domain name) somewhere, for next to nothing. - If you don't protect your own turf (Web site, community, etc.), often nobody else will. - Peddlers (Web ads) roam around selling goods you probably don't want or need, only to disappear when the goods don't turn out to be what was advertised. - Outlaws lurk around the periphery, and sometimes roam around causing damage to established communities, or you own computer.
The wild west could not stay wild. As it became a more popular place to live, the old free-for-all could no longer be sustained. People demanded security and enforcement of laws to protect themselves and their communities. Whether we like it or not, the same thing will happen / is happening to the Internet. We must be vigilant to ensure that the new, "civilized" Internet is a place where people will want to live.
What's the first thing you do when you set up a new Android phone? Log in to your Google account. You probably search for things on Google using your Google account. If you use Chrome, you probably log in with your Google account. Who is the biggest Internet advertiser?
It already doesn't matter what device you are using.
My company uses Vipre. But it regularly (every day or two) locked up my computer so tightly that I had to do a hard power-off to regain use of my computer. The same behavior was experienced by several other developers. Vipre support didn't have a clue what was going on. Finally, the company relented and let us (just our department) switch to MSIE. There is no way, in my book, that Vipre gets a higher score than MSIE!
You have a point. It's like 3D movies...3D is cool, but 3D movies can't resist shoving things in your face just to make the point that they are 3D. The rest of the movie is often just mediocre. That's why the original Wii was so successful...they didn't go for the best graphics or most powerful processor. Instead, they focused on making it fun to play!
Hamas is using a completely public, insecure medium for communication. Why wouldn't that be a good thing for Israel? Seems to me Mr. Poe should want Hamas to continue using Twitter!
Based on today's (11/19/12) activity, Apple's stock price is on pace to reach 13,888.25 in one year. You'd better start buying up Apple stock NOW!
Global temperatures, according to the article, have risen by 0.8 degrees. Sure, that's "on pace" to reach 4 degrees by the end of the century. But that assumes that global temperatures will not fluctuate. The fact is, they will fluctuate.
If you're making up a fake resume, you can say whatever you want to...whatever you know recruiters are looking for! Why is it so surprising that a custom-tailored--but false--resume would attract attention from recruiters? Real resumes usually carry some baggage, and other less-than-ideal unless you've had a flawless career. Fake ones can be perfect.
Apple (Steve Jobs) was known for telling customers that it "just works" and for having limited options because the way it works is--obviously--the "best" way.
I wonder if Jobs ran his company that way too...just telling his people what to do, rather than teaching them how to arrive at good decisions or good designs on their own. If so, then they really wouldn't have a clue what to do now that he's gone.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in suburban Houston. There are cell towers everywhere. But I still can't get a good signal at my house! The only reason I don't complain is that my phone does WiFi calling, which works fine at home.
The real point is, most software patents are abuses of the system. If it becomes necessary to post working code, this will in itself be a huge disincentive for those who are currently using patents inappropriately. Much of the problem will solve itself.
The problem yesterday had nothing to do with sites offloading authentication to Facebook. It was simply sites that have a little Facebook ad--like "what's popular on Facebook." I experienced this yesterday, just looking for a store location--there was a Facebook ad on the page that instantly redirected to Facebook.
My father remembers that in the outhouse back on the farm, the black-and-white pages in the Sears Roebuck catalog always went first!
Cloud providers won't go to these extremes because they are expensive. They are looking for low hanging fruit, not trying to pick apart your life like a CIA target. Besides, people are all too willing to leave things unencrypted, they don't need to bother with the 1% of users who encrypt their data.
Encryption works for the same reason that image sharing sites add watermarks to their photos. A watermark won't stop a determined abuser, but it will stop other sites from doing wholesale copies of all their images. The same economics are at play here.
The Wal-Mart T-Mobile Unlimited text and Web plan is $30 per month. It's limited to only 100 minutes of voice...but I use Groove IP with Google Voice to use the data for voice calls...so that $30 per months buys me unlimited voice, text, and data.
Seems Google wants to keep all the tracking to itself!
There is a serious flaw in your analogy. Opening the bridge without finishing one lane would be serious because, when used as designed, it would fail. Java, however, when used as designed, generally does what it is supposed to do. This is evidenced by the success of the Android platform, which relies heavily on Java.
By contrast, the situation described in this article occurs when someone intentionally uses Java in a way that it was specifically NOT designed to be used. So to extend your analogy, the bridge was finished all right (like Java), but they didn't install six-foot chain link fences on top of the guard rails, allowing pedestrians to commit suicide by jumping off. This is a design choice that would likely be put off until it became clear that people would actually start using the bridge in this unintended way. The first jumper would be exploiting a zero-day vulnerability.
But regardless of the analogy, and regardless of the use of the software, there are always tradeoffs made. Always. There is no perfect software. EVERY SINGLE ONE has "known" vulnerabilities. So I'm actually more surprised how "horrified" everybody seems to be, than I am that Java has a vulnerability!
Has nobody on this site actually had to meet a deadline? Has nobody had to make some trade-offs to get a product out the door? Why would Java be different?
If you are working on a non-trivial project, and you don't know about at least half a dozen horrible "zero-day" flaws, then you don't know your project very well!
In real life, businesses have to make trade-offs. They can't fix everything. Every release cycle, product managers have to make decisions about which fixes go in, and which fixes have to wait. I'm no Java fan, but with as many people poking around it as there are, I'm amazed that there aren't many more known vulnerabilities!
It's worse than that. The hackers commandeer computers that do not belong to them, using malware to infect and control other people's computers. So in addition to your union strikers handcuffing themselves together, they would also be handcuffing themselves to uninvolved bystanders to force them to participate in the strike.
People do change their religious convictions. But as a Christian, I agree with your conclusion: There is nothing in the Christian faith that would prohibit taking vaccines. This was simply a woman who made a decision, and then arbitrarily brought "faith" into it to get her way. This is in no way a religious issue.
The first Kindle was released in late 2007. The iPad was released less than three years ago. It seems a bit premature to predict that printed books will keep their traditional place in people's lives. There is still a large segment of the population that has never even tried reading an ebook. Many of those people are older, and have no interest in the "new." But there are already younger, technology-addicted people who rarely, if ever, touch a paper book. They don't have the same fondness for the feel and smell of paper that older people do.
Of course, books will be around forever. Scrolls still exist! So do phonograph records. The question is, what will be the normal way people consume text. I believe the e-reader will obliterate the paper book publishing industry the same way the Web is obliterating the newspaper industry.
The biggest problem with software patents, it seems to me, is that the USPTO has strayed from its roots in applying patents to software. For example:
- A working model is required for an application for a "traditional" patent. Why not software patents? Requiring a working model alone would eliminate a large portion of software patents.
- Instructions for replicating the patented item are required for traditional patents, thus making it useful in the public domain when the patent expires. Why is software exempted?
- Traditional patents exclude patenting of an idea. Why is software excluded from this restriction?
Maybe not ALL software patents are bad. But if we went back to the roots of the patent concept, most of the frivolous patents would go away.
The issue with the App Store trademark is not legal defense, but the fact that Apple ever thought it could own such a generic term. It would be like attempting to trademark "Computer Store" or "Furniture Store." One of the basic criteria for trademarks is that they cannot be generic terms; this is what the court recognized. Trademarks that were once valid can become so generic that they lose their protection. Aspirin, Yo-Yo, and Escalator are all examples of trademarks that lost their legal protection because they became used so widely as generic terms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark#Examples.
The head-scratching is not about the fact that Apple would try to defend its trademarks, but that it would think it could own "App Store" in the first place.
Nostalgia aside, there are significant parallels to the wild west.
- The Internet has been a place of wide open spaces and unparalleled freedom.
- Everybody who wanted to could go stake a claim (domain name) somewhere, for next to nothing.
- If you don't protect your own turf (Web site, community, etc.), often nobody else will.
- Peddlers (Web ads) roam around selling goods you probably don't want or need, only to disappear when the goods don't turn out to be what was advertised.
- Outlaws lurk around the periphery, and sometimes roam around causing damage to established communities, or you own computer.
The wild west could not stay wild. As it became a more popular place to live, the old free-for-all could no longer be sustained. People demanded security and enforcement of laws to protect themselves and their communities. Whether we like it or not, the same thing will happen / is happening to the Internet. We must be vigilant to ensure that the new, "civilized" Internet is a place where people will want to live.
Clearly, you are not a typical Android user.
What's the first thing you do when you set up a new Android phone? Log in to your Google account.
You probably search for things on Google using your Google account.
If you use Chrome, you probably log in with your Google account.
Who is the biggest Internet advertiser?
It already doesn't matter what device you are using.
My company uses Vipre. But it regularly (every day or two) locked up my computer so tightly that I had to do a hard power-off to regain use of my computer. The same behavior was experienced by several other developers. Vipre support didn't have a clue what was going on. Finally, the company relented and let us (just our department) switch to MSIE. There is no way, in my book, that Vipre gets a higher score than MSIE!
You have a point. It's like 3D movies...3D is cool, but 3D movies can't resist shoving things in your face just to make the point that they are 3D. The rest of the movie is often just mediocre. That's why the original Wii was so successful...they didn't go for the best graphics or most powerful processor. Instead, they focused on making it fun to play!
Hamas is using a completely public, insecure medium for communication. Why wouldn't that be a good thing for Israel? Seems to me Mr. Poe should want Hamas to continue using Twitter!
Some people can't easily be fixed...especially when they are your boss!
Based on today's (11/19/12) activity, Apple's stock price is on pace to reach 13,888.25 in one year. You'd better start buying up Apple stock NOW!
Global temperatures, according to the article, have risen by 0.8 degrees. Sure, that's "on pace" to reach 4 degrees by the end of the century. But that assumes that global temperatures will not fluctuate. The fact is, they will fluctuate.
If you're making up a fake resume, you can say whatever you want to...whatever you know recruiters are looking for! Why is it so surprising that a custom-tailored--but false--resume would attract attention from recruiters? Real resumes usually carry some baggage, and other less-than-ideal unless you've had a flawless career. Fake ones can be perfect.
You know, this makes me wonder...
Apple (Steve Jobs) was known for telling customers that it "just works" and for having limited options because the way it works is--obviously--the "best" way.
I wonder if Jobs ran his company that way too...just telling his people what to do, rather than teaching them how to arrive at good decisions or good designs on their own. If so, then they really wouldn't have a clue what to do now that he's gone.
with the airlines sandwiched between rising costs for fuel and unsteady demand from price-sensitive consumers
Really? Actually, jet fuel prices have leveled off in the last six months.
Not all the airlines are doing badly. Southwest--a low-fare carrier--is doing just fine. Maybe there are other problems at the "traditional" airlines.