Saying that Apple's relatively small marketshare should immunize it from the same standard....
You are totally missing the point.
Having a monopoly makes you subject to a higher standard, because customers have no choice but to do business with you even if they feel they are being abused. This is not the case with the iPhone.
So you are ok with your kids being on AIM all day looking for older guys who make them feel special?
If a teen is looking for older guys to make them feel special, she is already emotionally vulnerable and needs some help. Cutting off the computer/internet without providing some support will just make her look for someone in real life.
Or surfing porn all day?
Pretty much the same deal. Your job as a parent is not to pretend that porn does not exist, but to explain that the behaviors depicted in it are unrealistic and often unhealthy.
Or, even doing what you want and accidentally running across goatse guy?
Look, sooner or later your precious little angel will see that pic. He or she will also see many other disgusting things, both in real life, on television, and on the web. You can't prevent that, but hopefully you can give enough context to allow little Junior or Princess to assimilate it and get on with his or her life.
He's not looking to be the gestapo. He's looking to have some basic protections in place to protect his children from the unsavory parts of the Internet, and to make sure that they don't abuse the priviledge of having a computer in their rooms.
Look at the age ranges again. They're not going to accept those kinds of top-down restrictions blindly. They'll get that you don't trust them, aren't telling them what they can't see, and become naturally curious about it. And since you've given them no background or explanation at all, they'll have no frame of reference for assimilating it in a healthy way.
... End this, make a stand, Ogg Vorbis or you don't get to play. Period.
The problem is, I'm afraid you'll get your wish. The Mozilla Foundation is going whole-hog on Ogg (Theora, not Vorbis, whatever) and will die for its principles.
And it will die. Because Theora has already lost, at least for the foreseeable future. YouTube and Vimeo are already going with h.264. Other browsers are going with h.264. Firefox will be all alone on its moral high ground, and users (who care little for philosophy or religion in software) will desert it. Firefox simply does not have enough influence to carry the entire web along with it in this fight.
The Mozilla Foundation needs to find a way to live with a world of h.264 video. Maybe a separate library that's a an "optional" install, whatever, but come up with a plan. Otherwise, Firefox will become an irrelevant project, and the FOSS community will lose its most visible and influential citizen.
If Mozilla.org sacrifices Firefox on the altar of video codecs, it would do far more damage to the idea of a free and open Internet than the proliferation of h.264 will
Sure... sure... However, IBM has about 400,000 employees, probably bringin on a few thousand out of each graduating class.
There is usually only one or two 'Lebrons' that show up in a graduating class.
IF we taught mathmatics and statistics to our children, then the choice to go with the (relatively) certain tech job over the (totally) unlikely NBA career would be obvious.
Unfortunately we don't, and our youth suffer as a result
btw, anybody seen 'Hoop Dreams'?
These days, IBM only really hires sales staff and in the US. There are a few legacy technical employees, and a few technical contractors, but they have essentially announced that all new technical staff will be overseas.
I'd say your chances of playing professional b-ball are about as good as your chances of getting hired as an engineer at Big Blue.
Honestly, I can't see any other reason for collection of this data. The government should be 100% color blind. Why collect race data unless you plan to give one race(doesn't matter which) preferential treatment? If you don't plan on providing differential services based on race, why would you care what my race is?
Someone explain this to me. Please.
Because without data, you can't tell whether people are providing differential services or not.
Is the Public Works department neglecting certain neighborhoods, despite similar service needs? Do police patrol certain neighborhoods more frequently, despite similar crime rates? Are banks lending in white neighborhoods more than black neighborhoods, despite similar home values and default rates?
Just because the DPW, PD, and banks are supposed to be colorblind doesn't mean that they actually are. But without data, all you have are anecdotes.
I can appreciate the justification given for the experiment, but real working life doesn't run to that timetable, so unless there's a major shift in that respect, a lot of young adults are going to be in for a bit of a shock when they join the real world and seek employment.
Teenagers are biologically different from adults. By the time they join the adult working world, they'll be biologically adults and better able to handle it.
The strange thing about our society is, there are two camps when it comes to teenagers: One that wants to treat them like forty-year-olds, and another that wants to treat them like four-year-olds. No wonder they're so screwed up.
The difference may be something glossed over in schools in the US, but the different was *important* to the people who created the US's system of government.
Because there isn't a difference. Republicanism is a way of implementing democracy.
Just because the US "Republican" Party and the US "Democratic" party are at loggerheads doesn't mean the concepts of republicanism and democracy are in any way opposed
Having a reliable warning period of several minutes before seizures makes no difference legally. (This is just continued whining now.) But tactically it makes a huge difference. I managed to hide my condition from the medical community in California for several years. I fibbed to doctors and didn't let them know. If I saw an aura from a rising seizure, I made an immediate exit and found a good place to hide (or I ran outside, into the woods, wherever)....
I'm sorry you have this condition, and I sympathize with the disruption it causes, but I'm glad I don't have to share the road with you. Sometimes, even if you have half an hour's warning, you just can't safely get off the road. You have no business driving a car, I'm sorry to say.
Yes, there are jerks on the roads today that are probably more dangerous than you would be. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and they're still allowed to drive. That does not, however, mean that you should be as well.
* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers
This fits closely.
Again, there's nothing in TFS or TFA that explains what exactly the patent is about or what the alleged infringements are. So you're saying, without knowing anything about the patent, that there is no way any search engine company could be infringing it?
One of the Slashdot posts suggests it is a patent that covers (what looks like) suggesting a refined search query based on documents that matched the original query. Google does have a feature that does just that. This may or may not be the patent in question.
Now, there may be prior art, or the "invention" may be obvious, or Google's implementation may be different from the patent, or it may be invalid for some other reason But none of that is patent trolling.
Besides, why did they wait 10 years to file this suit? I'll tell you why: There is no patent infringement, but XEROX is looking for an easy settlement to fatten the piggy bank.
Assuming this is the right patent, it was granted in late 2004, which is not a long time at all for lawyers.
I don't see Xerox intending on doing an internet search engine...ever. So, you're kind of wrong on that count.
There's nothing to suggest that the patents have anything to do with an "Internet search engine."
Some other posts suggest that they have to do with refining search queries (I think.) Xerox probably does have some product or service that takes search queries and returns scanned documents. If it doesn't already, its a logical business avenue for Xerox.
I know it's in vogue here on Slashdot to scream "Troll!" anytime a patent holder sues for infringement, but "patent troll" really means something distinct from "patent suit."
From the Wiki, a patent troll is someone who: * Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent; * Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service; * Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base * Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights. * Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers
TFA and TFS are thin on details, so there is no evidence to support the idea that Xerox is doing any one of these.
Despite the summary's gas-good/electric-bad tilt, there is nothing new or experimental about electric ice resurfacers. The Zamboni company's site claims to have been making them for fifty years now.
For indoor ice rinks they have obvious advantages. Greenhouse gasses are one thing, but CO poisoning is quite another. (Though this could also be ameliorated by ventilation.)
You know what's great at combating malaria? DDT. Does anyone know of any negative side effects of indoor use of DDT, to the inhabitants or the environment?
Yeah, DDT was great, before mosquitoes started developing resistance to it. Good thing we stopped using it like a sledgehammer, or they'd all be resistant by now.
(Oh, and there's the bird thing, but who really needs birds, anyway?)
I would also like to add, that cheating is far worse in the US since the teachers grade the students instead of third party independent testing organisations who are contracted to create unique material for each test.
Umm, citation needed?
Are you accusing the teachers of helping the students to cheat? If so, outside tests don't help. Thanks to the All Children Kept Behind act, every public school has been using third-party independent testing. Since the teachers and districts are evaluated based on their students' performance, the teachers and administrators themselves have been caught helping students cheat (either by giving away answers during tests, or by editing students' responses before submitting them.)
Or perhaps you're suggesting that somehow tests produced by teachers are easier to cheat on, because the teachers ask the same questions on every exam. Well, only lazy (or stupid) teachers do that; a good teacher will subtly vary the questions each time a test is given; a teacher can do this as effectively (and often moreso) than a huge testing organization. And a good teacher will be familiar enough with his or her students to know when a low performer starts scoring well.
In short, lazy, badly motivated, and dumb teachers promote cheating. Adding bureaucracy won't help.
Those with unusually long memories will remember that, in the '80s, the Macintosh (and while it lasted, the Lisa) were Apple's Serious Business Computers. The Apple II was the home/education line.
The Mac had networking built-in from the beginning. (Not very useful for home users, essential for offices.) It had a black-and-white screen. (Not very useful for games or creative work.) Advertising almost exclusively focused on how a Mac could make businesses more efficient by reducing training and support costs. Watch:
For about fifteen years, Apple desperately wanted to be taken seriously by business users, who dismissed Macs as incompatible and expensive (with good reason.) Apple lost loads of money during this period. Meanwhile, Apple's sales were coming entirely from home users, artists, and education sales.
One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned was shit-can that approach and release the cute, cuddly, home-student oriented iMac. And whaddya know, the company suddenly started making money.
Slashdot Mirror
There is one thing worse than a bad password, and that is one that needs to be written down on a post-it note.
Bull. A bad password can be guessed by some guy in China and used to compromise everything.
A good password on a Post-it can be found by the cleaning staff, which already has access to the building and everything in it.
Saying that Apple's relatively small marketshare should immunize it from the same standard....
You are totally missing the point.
Having a monopoly makes you subject to a higher standard, because customers have no choice but to do business with you even if they feel they are being abused. This is not the case with the iPhone.
...you're asked to throw a 'TM' after a product name, only to find out later it's not really trademarked
Slapping that TM after a product name does trademark it, unless some direct competitor has already trademarked that same name first.
Only the (R) (for Registered trademark) has to be...well, registered.
I can do this most of the time with both eyes closed. I guess I have x-ray vision?
So you are ok with your kids being on AIM all day looking for older guys who make them feel special?
If a teen is looking for older guys to make them feel special, she is already emotionally vulnerable and needs some help. Cutting off the computer/internet without providing some support will just make her look for someone in real life.
Or surfing porn all day?
Pretty much the same deal. Your job as a parent is not to pretend that porn does not exist, but to explain that the behaviors depicted in it are unrealistic and often unhealthy.
Or, even doing what you want and accidentally running across goatse guy?
Look, sooner or later your precious little angel will see that pic. He or she will also see many other disgusting things, both in real life, on television, and on the web. You can't prevent that, but hopefully you can give enough context to allow little Junior or Princess to assimilate it and get on with his or her life.
He's not looking to be the gestapo. He's looking to have some basic protections in place to protect his children from the unsavory parts of the Internet, and to make sure that they don't abuse the priviledge of having a computer in their rooms.
Look at the age ranges again. They're not going to accept those kinds of top-down restrictions blindly. They'll get that you don't trust them, aren't telling them what they can't see, and become naturally curious about it. And since you've given them no background or explanation at all, they'll have no frame of reference for assimilating it in a healthy way.
I don't see how this would be useful - an Apple search engine would only return ONE result.
iMFeeingLucky?
iPad : Computer :: Disney's Epcot Center : Real Town
And strangely, thousands of people pay big money every day to spend just one day at Epcot, when they could walk around their hometown for nothing.
Sounds like Apple's going to reap big bucks on this.
... End this, make a stand, Ogg Vorbis or you don't get to play. Period.
The problem is, I'm afraid you'll get your wish. The Mozilla Foundation is going whole-hog on Ogg (Theora, not Vorbis, whatever) and will die for its principles.
And it will die. Because Theora has already lost, at least for the foreseeable future. YouTube and Vimeo are already going with h.264. Other browsers are going with h.264. Firefox will be all alone on its moral high ground, and users (who care little for philosophy or religion in software) will desert it. Firefox simply does not have enough influence to carry the entire web along with it in this fight.
The Mozilla Foundation needs to find a way to live with a world of h.264 video. Maybe a separate library that's a an "optional" install, whatever, but come up with a plan. Otherwise, Firefox will become an irrelevant project, and the FOSS community will lose its most visible and influential citizen.
If Mozilla.org sacrifices Firefox on the altar of video codecs, it would do far more damage to the idea of a free and open Internet than the proliferation of h.264 will
Sure... sure... However, IBM has about 400,000 employees, probably bringin on a few thousand out of each graduating class.
There is usually only one or two 'Lebrons' that show up in a graduating class.
IF we taught mathmatics and statistics to our children, then the choice to go with the (relatively) certain tech job over the (totally) unlikely NBA career would be obvious.
Unfortunately we don't, and our youth suffer as a result
btw, anybody seen 'Hoop Dreams'?
These days, IBM only really hires sales staff and in the US. There are a few legacy technical employees, and a few technical contractors, but they have essentially announced that all new technical staff will be overseas.
I'd say your chances of playing professional b-ball are about as good as your chances of getting hired as an engineer at Big Blue.
Honestly, I can't see any other reason for collection of this data. The government should be 100% color blind. Why collect race data unless you plan to give one race(doesn't matter which) preferential treatment? If you don't plan on providing differential services based on race, why would you care what my race is?
Someone explain this to me. Please.
Because without data, you can't tell whether people are providing differential services or not.
Is the Public Works department neglecting certain neighborhoods, despite similar service needs? Do police patrol certain neighborhoods more frequently, despite similar crime rates? Are banks lending in white neighborhoods more than black neighborhoods, despite similar home values and default rates?
Just because the DPW, PD, and banks are supposed to be colorblind doesn't mean that they actually are. But without data, all you have are anecdotes.
Aren't there like laws and stuff against intentionally limiting competition?
Nope. Not unless you're the only game in town already, or you conspire with your "competitors" to freeze others out.
Apple is only one of many players in the smartphone market, so consumers have plenty of alternatives. No harm done.
I can appreciate the justification given for the experiment, but real working life doesn't run to that timetable, so unless there's a major shift in that respect, a lot of young adults are going to be in for a bit of a shock when they join the real world and seek employment.
Teenagers are biologically different from adults. By the time they join the adult working world, they'll be biologically adults and better able to handle it.
The strange thing about our society is, there are two camps when it comes to teenagers: One that wants to treat them like forty-year-olds, and another that wants to treat them like four-year-olds. No wonder they're so screwed up.
The US is a republic, not a democracy.
The difference may be something glossed over in schools in the US, but the different was *important* to the people who created the US's system of government.
Because there isn't a difference. Republicanism is a way of implementing democracy.
Just because the US "Republican" Party and the US "Democratic" party are at loggerheads doesn't mean the concepts of republicanism and democracy are in any way opposed
The CONTRACTUAL entitlement mindset is a VERY good thing. Commerce depends on it.
Commerce got along just fine for thousands of years under the simple disclaimer "Caveat emptor."
Okay, I'll save them a million right here. "The" cause is that humans make mistakes. Cars are designed, assembled, and operated by humans.
Having a reliable warning period of several minutes before seizures makes no difference legally. (This is just continued whining now.) But tactically it makes a huge difference. I managed to hide my condition from the medical community in California for several years. I fibbed to doctors and didn't let them know. If I saw an aura from a rising seizure, I made an immediate exit and found a good place to hide (or I ran outside, into the woods, wherever). ...
I'm sorry you have this condition, and I sympathize with the disruption it causes, but I'm glad I don't have to share the road with you. Sometimes, even if you have half an hour's warning, you just can't safely get off the road. You have no business driving a car, I'm sorry to say.
Yes, there are jerks on the roads today that are probably more dangerous than you would be. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and they're still allowed to drive. That does not, however, mean that you should be as well.
* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers
This fits closely.
Again, there's nothing in TFS or TFA that explains what exactly the patent is about or what the alleged infringements are. So you're saying, without knowing anything about the patent, that there is no way any search engine company could be infringing it?
One of the Slashdot posts suggests it is a patent that covers (what looks like) suggesting a refined search query based on documents that matched the original query. Google does have a feature that does just that. This may or may not be the patent in question.
Now, there may be prior art, or the "invention" may be obvious, or Google's implementation may be different from the patent, or it may be invalid for some other reason But none of that is patent trolling.
Besides, why did they wait 10 years to file this suit? I'll tell you why: There is no patent infringement, but XEROX is looking for an easy settlement to fatten the piggy bank.
Assuming this is the right patent, it was granted in late 2004, which is not a long time at all for lawyers.
I don't see Xerox intending on doing an internet search engine...ever. So, you're kind of wrong on that count.
There's nothing to suggest that the patents have anything to do with an "Internet search engine."
Some other posts suggest that they have to do with refining search queries (I think.) Xerox probably does have some product or service that takes search queries and returns scanned documents. If it doesn't already, its a logical business avenue for Xerox.
I can: PATENT TROLL.
I know it's in vogue here on Slashdot to scream "Troll!" anytime a patent holder sues for infringement, but "patent troll" really means something distinct from "patent suit."
From the Wiki, a patent troll is someone who:
* Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent;
* Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service;
* Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base
* Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights.
* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers
TFA and TFS are thin on details, so there is no evidence to support the idea that Xerox is doing any one of these.
Despite the summary's gas-good/electric-bad tilt, there is nothing new or experimental about electric ice resurfacers. The Zamboni company's site claims to have been making them for fifty years now.
For indoor ice rinks they have obvious advantages. Greenhouse gasses are one thing, but CO poisoning is quite another. (Though this could also be ameliorated by ventilation.)
I don't think HTML5 video will ever be successful, flash video/flv is very dominant.
I don't think Flash video will ever be successful, since RealPlayer is very dominant.
Sincerely,
1999.
...You can opt out by not using it. Forward the mail to some other email account.
That like saying, I want to opt-out of Starbucks coffee.
That's like saying, "You can opt-out of Starbucks coffee by pouring it into a Dunkin Donuts cup."
Some people don't want Google's servers to be mining their email. Forwarding it doesn't accomplish that.
You know what's great at combating malaria? DDT. Does anyone know of any negative side effects of indoor use of DDT, to the inhabitants or the environment?
Yeah, DDT was great, before mosquitoes started developing resistance to it. Good thing we stopped using it like a sledgehammer, or they'd all be resistant by now.
(Oh, and there's the bird thing, but who really needs birds, anyway?)
I would also like to add, that cheating is far worse in the US since the teachers grade the students instead of third party independent testing organisations who are contracted to create unique material for each test.
Umm, citation needed?
Are you accusing the teachers of helping the students to cheat? If so, outside tests don't help. Thanks to the All Children Kept Behind act, every public school has been using third-party independent testing. Since the teachers and districts are evaluated based on their students' performance, the teachers and administrators themselves have been caught helping students cheat (either by giving away answers during tests, or by editing students' responses before submitting them.)
Or perhaps you're suggesting that somehow tests produced by teachers are easier to cheat on, because the teachers ask the same questions on every exam. Well, only lazy (or stupid) teachers do that; a good teacher will subtly vary the questions each time a test is given; a teacher can do this as effectively (and often moreso) than a huge testing organization. And a good teacher will be familiar enough with his or her students to know when a low performer starts scoring well.
In short, lazy, badly motivated, and dumb teachers promote cheating. Adding bureaucracy won't help.
Those with unusually long memories will remember that, in the '80s, the Macintosh (and while it lasted, the Lisa) were Apple's Serious Business Computers. The Apple II was the home/education line.
The Mac had networking built-in from the beginning. (Not very useful for home users, essential for offices.) It had a black-and-white screen. (Not very useful for games or creative work.) Advertising almost exclusively focused on how a Mac could make businesses more efficient by reducing training and support costs. Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MaDXt30xSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqLT0UBPx0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcuSOfjR6w
Print ads, too:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad1.jpg and http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad2.jpg
For about fifteen years, Apple desperately wanted to be taken seriously by business users, who dismissed Macs as incompatible and expensive (with good reason.) Apple lost loads of money during this period. Meanwhile, Apple's sales were coming entirely from home users, artists, and education sales.
One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned was shit-can that approach and release the cute, cuddly, home-student oriented iMac. And whaddya know, the company suddenly started making money.