here have been small pushes in this direction (e.g. the Ubiquity add-on for Firefox [mozillalabs.com] would let you type commands (like "map XXX" or "email page to XXX") and get immediately useful results), but for it to really work, from a user perspective, it has to be available in every application so that it's worth the cost to learn the new style.
I thought exactly the same when I saw the video, this is ubiquity for the whole OS. I have been a ubiquity user for a long time, in fact if you want to try it out there is still a version in development, and I simply can't live without it. So my advice would be to try out the system and *then* criticize the hell out of it, it might be great.
Also, I think that since most users of linux are already CLI power users, this seems like a great tool for the real users of Ubuntu, not the objective market that M. Shuttleworth thinks he has, but for the real one: linux users who don't want too much hassle when configuring the desktop.
I believe this must be the largest virtual protest ever made. It will affect what, 20 million persons? I hope this is enough to get the regular public to know about this law.
The nice thing about how the law has impacted the market is that NO company even thought about selling the phones at full price. Under the new law, you either receive an unlocked phone at a subsidized price by signing an 18-month contract, or you buy an unlocked, provider free phone. In case you want to switch providers mid-contract, you can: a) pay a penalty fee (which is more or less the remaining price of the phone considering how long you've been on contract), or b) give back the phone. I don't think it's a bad deal at all.
From what I've heard recently, the pilgrims went to the US not to escape religious persecution, but to enable it, they went to a land where they could be free to persecute the crap out of whoever they felt like in order to keep their societies pure.
And watching the latest political news they seem to have been widly successful with that goal:P
Actually, this is finance, not (pure) economics. What happens is the following: In the Capital Asset pricing model (CAPM) model, which is the most simple (and therefore widely used) method to value assets that have volatility, the risk-free asset is one of the key pillars. This asset is represented as a sure bet, and is the minimum return an investor is willing to have for a given amount invested. Then any other asset is simply a function of the risk free asset, the expected return, and the risk premium of the volatility.
If there were no US treasury bonds, this risk free asset would "disappear", so the whole method of valuation of assets would be impacted. Actually, this is a real problem right now in finance, since after the discussion of the US debt the question of whether the risk free asset should be the US treasury bond or other asset (for example, the German treasury bond was an option, or a "pool" of different treasury bonds) was starting to be discussed. Google it, there are several papers about it. So, yeah, actually eliminating the treasury bond would have a much deeper impact than it would appear at first glance.
Many authors need editors in order to produce a worthwhile product. A few don't. Expect the average quality of writing to decline.
...Or expect a service of editor-for-hire to appear. If there are freelance writers created by this change, why not freelance editors? I'll be surprised if it doesn't exist already.
To put this in a bit of context, Robinson Crusoe Island (Isla Juan Fernandez is the official name) is very isolated and mostly inhabited by fishermen, and some scientific personnel. It was heavily struck by the tsunami after the earthquake last year, so the national state TV (TVN) conducted a series of short shows about the reconstruction of the island. The flight was carrying personnel to record a follow-up show.
This was a military operated flight, but only brought civilians (two well-known TV presenters, persons from the National Culture Council, camera men, producers, and people related with the TV network, a businessman and philanthropist which had a ONG regarding the reconstruction, and personnel of said ONG) to record the show, so to answer your question, no, probably there were no problems regarding the tracking of military operations.
So far the weather conditions plus the fact that the plane crashed at sea has caused that only few bodies have been found (4 confirmed out of 21), so the signal from the iPhone was an important lead to the victims' bodies whereabouts. It certainly beats the clairvoyants they are also using (seriously).
About the insurance companies: from several years they have been developing techniques to improve insurance pricing using the information available on the internet. I work in credit risk and data mining, so I've discussed the issue with some of the people working in the industry (the credit history is also used to price insurances). The main idea is that the "risky" behaviour can be detected if the browsing history of the person is disclosed, so tracking and profiling people is a potentially useful and profitable idea... to them obviously.
Actually, probably this is my fault, by getting lost in the translation. The intention of the law is that the ISP cannot use your data in order to identify you for using the web, and at the same time, they must make sure that their services (servers and such, not your PC) do not get infected by viruses or other malware. What you get onto your own computer is your business, and they can't monitor that. Sorry for the faulty translation.:P
I wonder how this conflicts with the laws about Privacy of Data. For example, if a company shares a dataset that contains sensible information with a University (this CAN be done, at least in my country, with a contract. We compromise to safeguard the data and to not violate Privacy laws, consultants also do this everywhere) for the purpose of developing a model or some other application that needs the data.
The professor then publishes a paper with the main (non-corporate secret) results, and uses public funds for an undergrad or something. Does this mean the professor can be sued into giving the information away? Doing this clearly violates the laws on privacy, but would conflict directly with the Freedom of Information Act. Compelling with one law contradicts the other...
I do not think that this can be upheld in court for EVERY case, instead it would have to be analyzed in a case-by-case basis using (possible costly) lawsuits. Then again, IANAL, so maybe I'm wrong...
(Full disclosure: I am a researcher in data mining)
I'm a measure this type of things in a company and I think the best way to go is to measure the value of the time everyone else gains because of your existence.
Example: If you help people with IE and they use it to enter other systems, then it's time they gain because they can readily do their jobs. Estimate (just ask) the salary of the average Joe who works there and simply multiply that for all the time they could be without using the system (estimate it again). Adding up every other function you perform and substracting your salary gives your net value... It WILL be greater than zero, probably by a large margin.
Hope it helps.
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here have been small pushes in this direction (e.g. the Ubiquity add-on for Firefox [mozillalabs.com] would let you type commands (like "map XXX" or "email page to XXX") and get immediately useful results), but for it to really work, from a user perspective, it has to be available in every application so that it's worth the cost to learn the new style.
I thought exactly the same when I saw the video, this is ubiquity for the whole OS. I have been a ubiquity user for a long time, in fact if you want to try it out there is still a version in development, and I simply can't live without it. So my advice would be to try out the system and *then* criticize the hell out of it, it might be great.
Also, I think that since most users of linux are already CLI power users, this seems like a great tool for the real users of Ubuntu, not the objective market that M. Shuttleworth thinks he has, but for the real one: linux users who don't want too much hassle when configuring the desktop.
I believe this must be the largest virtual protest ever made. It will affect what, 20 million persons? I hope this is enough to get the regular public to know about this law.
Thing is, if you already own a smartphone and you hire one of those plans, then the price is exactly the same as if you also had a phone tied up.
The nice thing about how the law has impacted the market is that NO company even thought about selling the phones at full price. Under the new law, you either receive an unlocked phone at a subsidized price by signing an 18-month contract, or you buy an unlocked, provider free phone. In case you want to switch providers mid-contract, you can: a) pay a penalty fee (which is more or less the remaining price of the phone considering how long you've been on contract), or b) give back the phone. I don't think it's a bad deal at all.
From what I've heard recently, the pilgrims went to the US not to escape religious persecution, but to enable it, they went to a land where they could be free to persecute the crap out of whoever they felt like in order to keep their societies pure.
And watching the latest political news they seem to have been widly successful with that goal :P
Actually, this is finance, not (pure) economics. What happens is the following: In the Capital Asset pricing model (CAPM) model, which is the most simple (and therefore widely used) method to value assets that have volatility, the risk-free asset is one of the key pillars. This asset is represented as a sure bet, and is the minimum return an investor is willing to have for a given amount invested. Then any other asset is simply a function of the risk free asset, the expected return, and the risk premium of the volatility.
If there were no US treasury bonds, this risk free asset would "disappear", so the whole method of valuation of assets would be impacted. Actually, this is a real problem right now in finance, since after the discussion of the US debt the question of whether the risk free asset should be the US treasury bond or other asset (for example, the German treasury bond was an option, or a "pool" of different treasury bonds) was starting to be discussed. Google it, there are several papers about it. So, yeah, actually eliminating the treasury bond would have a much deeper impact than it would appear at first glance.
Many authors need editors in order to produce a worthwhile product. A few don't. Expect the average quality of writing to decline.
...Or expect a service of editor-for-hire to appear. If there are freelance writers created by this change, why not freelance editors? I'll be surprised if it doesn't exist already.
As parent says, Prey project is a must in any laptop. Since nobody posted it here's the link [preyproject.com].
This was a military operated flight, but only brought civilians (two well-known TV presenters, persons from the National Culture Council, camera men, producers, and people related with the TV network, a businessman and philanthropist which had a ONG regarding the reconstruction, and personnel of said ONG) to record the show, so to answer your question, no, probably there were no problems regarding the tracking of military operations.
So far the weather conditions plus the fact that the plane crashed at sea has caused that only few bodies have been found (4 confirmed out of 21), so the signal from the iPhone was an important lead to the victims' bodies whereabouts. It certainly beats the clairvoyants they are also using (seriously).
About the insurance companies: from several years they have been developing techniques to improve insurance pricing using the information available on the internet. I work in credit risk and data mining, so I've discussed the issue with some of the people working in the industry (the credit history is also used to price insurances). The main idea is that the "risky" behaviour can be detected if the browsing history of the person is disclosed, so tracking and profiling people is a potentially useful and profitable idea... to them obviously.
Actually, probably this is my fault, by getting lost in the translation. The intention of the law is that the ISP cannot use your data in order to identify you for using the web, and at the same time, they must make sure that their services (servers and such, not your PC) do not get infected by viruses or other malware. What you get onto your own computer is your business, and they can't monitor that. Sorry for the faulty translation. :P
I wonder how this conflicts with the laws about Privacy of Data. For example, if a company shares a dataset that contains sensible information with a University (this CAN be done, at least in my country, with a contract. We compromise to safeguard the data and to not violate Privacy laws, consultants also do this everywhere) for the purpose of developing a model or some other application that needs the data. The professor then publishes a paper with the main (non-corporate secret) results, and uses public funds for an undergrad or something. Does this mean the professor can be sued into giving the information away? Doing this clearly violates the laws on privacy, but would conflict directly with the Freedom of Information Act. Compelling with one law contradicts the other... I do not think that this can be upheld in court for EVERY case, instead it would have to be analyzed in a case-by-case basis using (possible costly) lawsuits. Then again, IANAL, so maybe I'm wrong... (Full disclosure: I am a researcher in data mining)
I'm a measure this type of things in a company and I think the best way to go is to measure the value of the time everyone else gains because of your existence. Example: If you help people with IE and they use it to enter other systems, then it's time they gain because they can readily do their jobs. Estimate (just ask) the salary of the average Joe who works there and simply multiply that for all the time they could be without using the system (estimate it again). Adding up every other function you perform and substracting your salary gives your net value... It WILL be greater than zero, probably by a large margin. Hope it helps.