It doesn't saying Boeing's design is the safe choice. It says Boeing the company is the safe choice. Publicly, that means they have been around a long time, are reliable, and we can have confidence that they'll succeed (@see Lockheed Martin with the F-35). Privately, that means they can be relied on to give campaign contributions, kickbacks, and/or highly paid consulting jobs after retirement the right people.
Unless you're trying to be an ass and split hairs over the definition of "drone," yes they fucking do. Most off-the shelf drones (for the colloquial use of the word "drone," anyway), including the most popular ones like the Parrot AR.Drone and The Phantom use Wifi.
it also has an "All Out Mode" that would let you knock devices off of any wireless network, not just yours.
The big problem with that is not just that it's not your network, but also that if you switch the device on and it interfered with a drone that's already in the air, it could come crashing down and either seriously hurt somebody or at least cost the drone owner a lot of money. If somebody is spying into your backyard, fine, crash that sucker into the ground (after making sure nobody is around to get hurt), but obviously that's not always the case.
It uses the unique hardware signature that all Wi-Fi devices have to recognize what it's seeing before sending a "deauthentication packet" blocking access.
Okay, so it identifies by mac address, then sends a deauthentication packet (some sort of ARP spoof maybe)? That ought to count as "false signals," do that to somebody else's device and you should get busted for computer intrusion. If it's your own network, then easy peasy, just block the MAC address.
It's not that hard for them to find a dupe. They blast out messages through email and Yahoo chat all the time from textile companies looking for "agents" in the US. They usually have some excuse about how they got your contact info. They blast out enough so the hit ratio can be minuscule. Not everyone is savvy about things related to technology. Most who fall for it are probably idiots, but even people who are intelligent in other things have fallen for it.
The scam goes something like this: You're dupeA, they need an agent in the US to process payments, because the tax law is such that it makes the business taxes they have to pay significantly less than if the payments were processed offshore. Sometimes they do indicate that their avoidance of taxes is a gray area, which discourages people from talking about it with their friends who might tell them what's up. It is your job to simply print the checks (dupeB sent you the blanks) and mail them in the amounts and destination they tell you. In exchange, you get a commission, which essentially means writing yourself a check and depositing it into your bank. DupeB's job was to order the checks online, supposedly because they can only be sent to a US address, and DupeB is given a real bank account number to have put on the checks. DupeC is who gets the check you sent them. DupeC is selling something on craigslist, and the Nigerians have contacted him saying they want to buy his item and they'll arrange for their shipping agent to ship it to them, but the only way they can send DupeC money is by having their client, who already owes them money, send them a check. However, the amount the client owes them is more than the sale price of the craigslist item. So, DupeC needs to go deposit the check from the client (actually DupeA) in his bank, then send the difference to Nigeria via Western Union, minus a little extra for the inconvenience.
And of course, once the checks fail to clear, your bank takes back the amount of the check from your account, and DupeC is screwed out of whatever amount he sent via Western Union.
When was the last time you saw anyone smiling on a plane?
Last time a flew. It was a 2 year old. They're short so the lack of legroom isn't an issue. Of course, the kid started screaming her lungs out right before takeoff because mommy and daddy made her turn off her iPad, but she was smiling before that.
Why is it scummy for airlines to charge extra for better seating?
What's scummy is that they have reduced the "standard" to be so intolerable that it forces people to purchase the premium. If the "standard" was tolerable, but then they charged you extra for something more luxurious, then it wouldn't be scummy. There is a huge difference.
At check-in, United Airlines offers economy seats with much better legroom for a modest upcharge. On a transcontinental flight it's usually around $60 - $70.
But that's per flight, right? So a round trip itinerary with only 1 stop would be $60 x 4 = $240? That's not so modest for many people. Even if it were $60-$70 each way and not each flight, $120 - $140 round trip is not trivial.
If you don't want people stealing your money don't store money online. Don't use credit/debit cards, an online brokerage account, web access to your checking account, etc. If it's out there someone is going to steal it.
Great analogy. Most everyone knows that it's possible for your credit card number to get stolen. Heck, many of us have had our banks cancel our credit card (and send us a new one of course) because it was stolen from some merchant we purchased something from. So, just like using a credit card, if you're going to put nude pictures of yourself on the Internet (or anything on the Internet) then you should know there's a reasonable possibility that it is going to get stolen.
The reasoning is this - if Comcast builds out to the entire city, they're building out to highly profitable areas and to less profitable (or even unprofitable) areas.
Okay, except that's not what Comcast did when they first entered most markets. They built out the highly profitable areas long before they built out into less profitable areas. I mean, wow, in what other industry to you get a government enforced (not just allowed) monopoly without all the pesky regulation that other monopolies (like electricity and water) get?
The suck for Comcast is when that coax cable "runs out" of bandwidth and there's no room to cram yet another HD sports channel on.
The problem here isn't simply that they are unable to deliver unlimited bandwidth. The problem is they charge you for it even though they can't deliver it, and they know they can't deliver it when they sell it to you. The non-fraudulent way to say it would be "$A for the first B GBs, plus $C for every additional GB." Instead, they say, "$A for unlimited."
I say again, I'm not on Comcast's side. I just think that describing Comcast's position in hyperbolic terms (such as "blatant lies") will be self-defeating.
If they use the word "unlimited" and/or say "unlimited Internet for $X" but then put a limit on it or charge you more than $X, then it's a lie. If they say or print it openly, then it is blatant. Therefore, it is a blatant lie.
Obligatory car related analogy: Imagine if a gas station put up a sign that says "Unlimited gasoline for $8!" but then charged $6 for every gallon over 2 gallons. Do you think they'd get away with it?
I don't know if Oregon's suit has merit or not, but that sure sounds like my employer's experience with Oracle.
This is pretty much SOP with any big custom system from a big company. Sure, they'll check off the boxes of the requirements, but it'll never work right until you fork over triple what the original contract was for, for "additional implementation." It's essentially extortion because at that point the organization is so many millions of dollars into it that they're willing to spend millions more to make it functional.
I'm very pleased that Oregon is not succumbing to this extortion and are fighting back. Oracle has claimed in the press that it was because the state added additional requirements midstream, but the problem isn't that they didn't implement those additional requirements, it's that they never delivered a functioning product, thus they did not fulfill a single requirement. Even if "it works" wasn't a specific requirement, it should be implied by the existence of any requirement which in itself requires the system to be functional. I hope Oregon gets back every penny they gave to Oracle, and I hope there's a legal reason they can get some massive penalties too.
Considering this is the country that put melamine in milk and cadmium in toys, this speaks volumes.
Except in those cases those things were done in violation of the law. The issue was that it wasn't being enforced, not that it was legal. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I want to know both the "official" and the actual reasons. Oddly, the permits that are being denied are for Bt rice and phytase corn, but they continue to support Bt corn, so environment or food safety doesn't seem like it would be an actual reason, although it could be the "official" reason. A more likely scenario is politics and lobbying (or whatever the Chinese version of lobbying is, they probably just call it bribery).
Perhaps if Fusion is the answer, then the question is "What should we be spending money on developing?"
Which makes more sense: 1. Spend a trillion or so dollars (it's been about $400Billion so far, and rising) on the F-35, which won't be viable for a long time but has already been making a few rich people richer. Money comes from taxpayers, and it's the ultra-wealthy who directly benefit from the contracts who get richer. In reality our actual military power is unchanged.
2. Spend that money instead on R&D for fusion (spend a bit of it on battery research too for electric cars/trucks). The US saves $380Billion per year on oil imports. The economy and thus quality of life for everyone improves. The rich still get richer because manufacturing and transportation costs have been reduced. F-16's, F-18's, etc and UAV's continue to give us military superiority.
This is about the software. Did FoxxConn develop the OS for the iPhone? And even we were talking about hardware design, did FoxxConn design it, or are they just manufacturing it? I'm pretty sure they're just manufacturing it. Did Apple come up with any innovations to manufacturing processes that FoxxConn is now copying to make other devices with? I doubt it.
Ironically, the article flames a company for copying Apple's UI. Conversely, and the sort of article we usually see here, if Apple were trying to prevent anybody from copying it there would be a/. article flaming Apple and saying anybody should be allowed to copy it.
Yep. True of any big undertaking when contractors are involved (whether it's government or a large corporation hiring the contractors for a big project). How about this: -The defense department undertook the development of F-35 and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices... -[The task] was a complex effort with compressed time frames. To be expedient, DoD issued task orders... when key technical requirements were unknown... -DoD identified major performance issues... but took only limited steps to hold Lockheed Martin accountable. -DoD gave a lot more money to Lockheed due to changes such as new requirements and other enhancements...
The difference between healthcare.gov and any other big project is the politicalization of it. On one hand, you have the people who want health insurance so they can get medical care. On the other hand, you have insurance companies that want to keep the old system because they make higher profits. With the F-35 you only have one side...the defense contractors who want to make tons of money.
One would assume that this would be basic common sense.
Not really, from the defense contractor's point of view. If they do have a breach, it is in their best interest to cover it up. Without any rules in place, they are not violating any rules. If there are rules in place, then covering it up would be a violation of those rules, so in some cases it would be in their best interest not to cover it up (risk/reward).
The article does not say that Apple contacted law enforcement because he searched on it. The article is sensationalistic click bait. Pretty much every search engine logs what you search on. Whether it's Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc etc etc. Even if it doesn't your browser is probably logging it in the history. Why would you expect Siri to be any different? It's really just a search engine with voice recognition. And, in a murder investigation, it's going to be standard procedure to investigate all of your browsing history and other activity leading up to and after the time of the murder. Nowhere in the article does it say they did any of this without a warrant. When they have lots of probable cause already and the suspect has already been arrested, it's not hard to get warrants to search their whole life to build a case (and if they find exculpatory evidence they are compelled to hand it over to the defense).
Now, if Apple sent law enforcement notification that said, "look, here's a list of people that searched for suspicious things" that would be an entirely different story. And, if law enforcement tried to get Apple to give them the information without a proper warrant (like if they sent them an NSL) then that would be a different story too. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of instances of corporations and law enforcement being scumbags and violating the constitution, but this doesn't appear to be one of those instances.
Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?
Dunno about the built-in flashlight that's in iOS7 (with Control Center), but the 3rd party flashlight apps tend to have ads. If it has ads, then it's being logged somewhere.
Re:And this is the same for copyrights.
on
Patents That Kill
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For copyrights, the content creator's remaining natural life plus ten years, or 40 years total, which ever is longer.
Ok, so, since corporations are people too, then if a corporation is the creator (and in the law it really means copyright owner), then as long as that corporation doesn't go out of business the copyright never expires? Doesn't seem so different from how it is now, other than a few remaining old copyrights that were owned by individuals (and now their estates).
I think the copyright term should most certainly be shortened, by a lot, but shouldn't have anything to do with the creator/copyright owner's lifetime. The benefits of copyright are how certain careers get paid. Your family should get to reap the benefits of it for the same term as if you were alive. After all, in other careers where you get paid on delivery, you get to leave all that money to your family, not just a shortened portion of it because you died (okay, estate tax might complicate that a bit, IANAAccountant). The problem is, now the copyright term is soooo long. If it were shortened to something reasonable like 10 years then allowing your family to retain the copyright for the remainder of the 10 years would seem fair. Shortening the copyright term is by far the #1 reform that would seriously improve copyright law.
With patents, which is what the article is about, there's more to it than that. Sure, we can shorten the patent term (which is a helluva lot less than copyright term), but it's not the #1 thing. The #1 problem with patents IMO is obviousness, you're not supposed to be able to patent something that's obvious, but too many patents are obvious. Hint: if a dozen people come up with the same way of doing something without copying your patent, it's FUCKING OBVIOUS. When a new technology comes out (say, putting GPS inside a phone) then it's always a race to patent every use of it anybody can think of. If it's a race to patent something, then that something is obvious. The point of a patent, and the reason it's not supposed to be obvious, isn't that you were the first one to come up with an idea, or the first one to file the patent for it, but it's supposed to be that the idea (for a method or thing) wouldn't have been thought of anytime soon by somebody else.
rules are different for them than they would be if NASA themselves built the rockets
And if they were to follow their theory on the F-35, they would not only stop giving Lockheed Martin more money, but would charge Lockheed Martin money for every mission that they missed out on had it been delivered on time.
This breaks the model of every government contract that has ever been. And frankly, SpaceX is doing pretty frickin' well compared to other aerospace contracts.
the average human head would occupy less than 1 pixel regardless of which axis it was observed across.
No, that would be low resolution. This is high resolution. Use a shot where the face is at the intersection of 4 pixels. There, I just quadrupled your resolution!
Of course, the headline (which seemingly has nothing to do with the articles or even the summary) says see your face from space, not identify your face from space. If your face is represented in 1-4 pixels, which could potentially be distinguished as a face by those pixels' colors in comparison to neighboring pixels, isn't it technically seeing your face?
The fertilizers used on lawns is blamed for the red tide outbreaks by feeding the organisms, it is believed.
Not to mention that most people (pro landscapers included) dump a lot more phosphorus than is necessary. A mature lawn needs very little phosphorus fertilizer, and in most areas none at all because the soil has enough. Using a phosphorus free fertilizer, which still contains the nutrients the plant needs such as nitrogen and potassium, is sufficient in most areas. And yet, general purpose fertilizer is often used (flowers and fruit needs phosphorus), and even fertilizer marketed for lawns usually unnecessarily contains fertilizer. And that's all about marketing and distribution. The fertilizer companies want to produce stuff they can market everywhere. Additionally, what are most people who don't know anybody going to buy, the fertilizer that says "27-3-10" or the one that says "27-0-10." The former of course, because 3 is better than 0! And lots of "lawn food" products contain plenty just for good measure without even having the N-P-K ratio on the label.
Education in this area would go a loooong way. Educate the public, the professional landscapers, and the fertilizer suppliers. There are even some municipalities where it's illegal to dump phosphorus containing fertilizer on lawns. Yes, it's easy to get away with breaking that ordinance (especially with the pretty labels at Home Depot), but what having the ordnance does in particular is educate the landscapers who will then buy phosphorus free fertilizer, which will in turn educate (to some degree) the public, and make phosphorus free fertilizer more available and the de facto standard.
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It doesn't saying Boeing's design is the safe choice. It says Boeing the company is the safe choice. Publicly, that means they have been around a long time, are reliable, and we can have confidence that they'll succeed (@see Lockheed Martin with the F-35). Privately, that means they can be relied on to give campaign contributions, kickbacks, and/or highly paid consulting jobs after retirement the right people.
Drones do not use wifi.
Unless you're trying to be an ass and split hairs over the definition of "drone," yes they fucking do. Most off-the shelf drones (for the colloquial use of the word "drone," anyway), including the most popular ones like the Parrot AR.Drone and The Phantom use Wifi.
Other than this (FTA):
it also has an "All Out Mode" that would let you knock devices off of any wireless network, not just yours.
The big problem with that is not just that it's not your network, but also that if you switch the device on and it interfered with a drone that's already in the air, it could come crashing down and either seriously hurt somebody or at least cost the drone owner a lot of money. If somebody is spying into your backyard, fine, crash that sucker into the ground (after making sure nobody is around to get hurt), but obviously that's not always the case.
It uses the unique hardware signature that all Wi-Fi devices have to recognize what it's seeing before sending a "deauthentication packet" blocking access.
Okay, so it identifies by mac address, then sends a deauthentication packet (some sort of ARP spoof maybe)? That ought to count as "false signals," do that to somebody else's device and you should get busted for computer intrusion. If it's your own network, then easy peasy, just block the MAC address.
I wonder how much they are duped.
It's not that hard for them to find a dupe. They blast out messages through email and Yahoo chat all the time from textile companies looking for "agents" in the US. They usually have some excuse about how they got your contact info. They blast out enough so the hit ratio can be minuscule. Not everyone is savvy about things related to technology. Most who fall for it are probably idiots, but even people who are intelligent in other things have fallen for it.
The scam goes something like this: You're dupeA, they need an agent in the US to process payments, because the tax law is such that it makes the business taxes they have to pay significantly less than if the payments were processed offshore. Sometimes they do indicate that their avoidance of taxes is a gray area, which discourages people from talking about it with their friends who might tell them what's up. It is your job to simply print the checks (dupeB sent you the blanks) and mail them in the amounts and destination they tell you. In exchange, you get a commission, which essentially means writing yourself a check and depositing it into your bank. DupeB's job was to order the checks online, supposedly because they can only be sent to a US address, and DupeB is given a real bank account number to have put on the checks. DupeC is who gets the check you sent them. DupeC is selling something on craigslist, and the Nigerians have contacted him saying they want to buy his item and they'll arrange for their shipping agent to ship it to them, but the only way they can send DupeC money is by having their client, who already owes them money, send them a check. However, the amount the client owes them is more than the sale price of the craigslist item. So, DupeC needs to go deposit the check from the client (actually DupeA) in his bank, then send the difference to Nigeria via Western Union, minus a little extra for the inconvenience.
And of course, once the checks fail to clear, your bank takes back the amount of the check from your account, and DupeC is screwed out of whatever amount he sent via Western Union.
When was the last time you saw anyone smiling on a plane?
Last time a flew. It was a 2 year old. They're short so the lack of legroom isn't an issue. Of course, the kid started screaming her lungs out right before takeoff because mommy and daddy made her turn off her iPad, but she was smiling before that.
Oh yeah, and don't forget that if you're not flying by yourself you have to multiply that cost by the number of people in your family.
Why is it scummy for airlines to charge extra for better seating?
What's scummy is that they have reduced the "standard" to be so intolerable that it forces people to purchase the premium. If the "standard" was tolerable, but then they charged you extra for something more luxurious, then it wouldn't be scummy. There is a huge difference.
At check-in, United Airlines offers economy seats with much better legroom for a modest upcharge. On a transcontinental flight it's usually around $60 - $70.
But that's per flight, right? So a round trip itinerary with only 1 stop would be $60 x 4 = $240? That's not so modest for many people. Even if it were $60-$70 each way and not each flight, $120 - $140 round trip is not trivial.
If you don't want people stealing your money don't store money online. Don't use credit/debit cards, an online brokerage account, web access to your checking account, etc. If it's out there someone is going to steal it.
Great analogy. Most everyone knows that it's possible for your credit card number to get stolen. Heck, many of us have had our banks cancel our credit card (and send us a new one of course) because it was stolen from some merchant we purchased something from. So, just like using a credit card, if you're going to put nude pictures of yourself on the Internet (or anything on the Internet) then you should know there's a reasonable possibility that it is going to get stolen.
The reasoning is this - if Comcast builds out to the entire city, they're building out to highly profitable areas and to less profitable (or even unprofitable) areas.
Okay, except that's not what Comcast did when they first entered most markets. They built out the highly profitable areas long before they built out into less profitable areas. I mean, wow, in what other industry to you get a government enforced (not just allowed) monopoly without all the pesky regulation that other monopolies (like electricity and water) get?
The suck for Comcast is when that coax cable "runs out" of bandwidth and there's no room to cram yet another HD sports channel on.
The problem here isn't simply that they are unable to deliver unlimited bandwidth. The problem is they charge you for it even though they can't deliver it, and they know they can't deliver it when they sell it to you. The non-fraudulent way to say it would be "$A for the first B GBs, plus $C for every additional GB." Instead, they say, "$A for unlimited."
I say again, I'm not on Comcast's side. I just think that describing Comcast's position in hyperbolic terms (such as "blatant lies") will be self-defeating.
If they use the word "unlimited" and/or say "unlimited Internet for $X" but then put a limit on it or charge you more than $X, then it's a lie. If they say or print it openly, then it is blatant. Therefore, it is a blatant lie.
Obligatory car related analogy: Imagine if a gas station put up a sign that says "Unlimited gasoline for $8!" but then charged $6 for every gallon over 2 gallons. Do you think they'd get away with it?
I don't know if Oregon's suit has merit or not, but that sure sounds like my employer's experience with Oracle.
This is pretty much SOP with any big custom system from a big company. Sure, they'll check off the boxes of the requirements, but it'll never work right until you fork over triple what the original contract was for, for "additional implementation." It's essentially extortion because at that point the organization is so many millions of dollars into it that they're willing to spend millions more to make it functional.
I'm very pleased that Oregon is not succumbing to this extortion and are fighting back. Oracle has claimed in the press that it was because the state added additional requirements midstream, but the problem isn't that they didn't implement those additional requirements, it's that they never delivered a functioning product, thus they did not fulfill a single requirement. Even if "it works" wasn't a specific requirement, it should be implied by the existence of any requirement which in itself requires the system to be functional. I hope Oregon gets back every penny they gave to Oracle, and I hope there's a legal reason they can get some massive penalties too.
Although that sounds vaguely like the premise of some sort of science fiction story
@see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6...
Considering this is the country that put melamine in milk and cadmium in toys, this speaks volumes.
Except in those cases those things were done in violation of the law. The issue was that it wasn't being enforced, not that it was legal. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I want to know both the "official" and the actual reasons. Oddly, the permits that are being denied are for Bt rice and phytase corn, but they continue to support Bt corn, so environment or food safety doesn't seem like it would be an actual reason, although it could be the "official" reason. A more likely scenario is politics and lobbying (or whatever the Chinese version of lobbying is, they probably just call it bribery).
Perhaps if Fusion is the answer, then the question is "What should we be spending money on developing?"
Which makes more sense:
1. Spend a trillion or so dollars (it's been about $400Billion so far, and rising) on the F-35, which won't be viable for a long time but has already been making a few rich people richer. Money comes from taxpayers, and it's the ultra-wealthy who directly benefit from the contracts who get richer. In reality our actual military power is unchanged.
2. Spend that money instead on R&D for fusion (spend a bit of it on battery research too for electric cars/trucks). The US saves $380Billion per year on oil imports. The economy and thus quality of life for everyone improves. The rich still get richer because manufacturing and transportation costs have been reduced. F-16's, F-18's, etc and UAV's continue to give us military superiority.
This is about the software. Did FoxxConn develop the OS for the iPhone? And even we were talking about hardware design, did FoxxConn design it, or are they just manufacturing it? I'm pretty sure they're just manufacturing it. Did Apple come up with any innovations to manufacturing processes that FoxxConn is now copying to make other devices with? I doubt it.
Ironically, the article flames a company for copying Apple's UI. Conversely, and the sort of article we usually see here, if Apple were trying to prevent anybody from copying it there would be a /. article flaming Apple and saying anybody should be allowed to copy it.
it was a giant clusterfuck...also, water is wet
Yep. True of any big undertaking when contractors are involved (whether it's government or a large corporation hiring the contractors for a big project). How about this: ... when key technical requirements were unknown... ... but took only limited steps to hold Lockheed Martin accountable.
-The defense department undertook the development of F-35 and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices...
-[The task] was a complex effort with compressed time frames. To be expedient, DoD issued task orders
-DoD identified major performance issues
-DoD gave a lot more money to Lockheed due to changes such as new requirements and other enhancements...
The difference between healthcare.gov and any other big project is the politicalization of it. On one hand, you have the people who want health insurance so they can get medical care. On the other hand, you have insurance companies that want to keep the old system because they make higher profits. With the F-35 you only have one side...the defense contractors who want to make tons of money.
One would assume that this would be basic common sense.
Not really, from the defense contractor's point of view. If they do have a breach, it is in their best interest to cover it up. Without any rules in place, they are not violating any rules. If there are rules in place, then covering it up would be a violation of those rules, so in some cases it would be in their best interest not to cover it up (risk/reward).
The article does not say that Apple contacted law enforcement because he searched on it. The article is sensationalistic click bait. Pretty much every search engine logs what you search on. Whether it's Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc etc etc. Even if it doesn't your browser is probably logging it in the history. Why would you expect Siri to be any different? It's really just a search engine with voice recognition. And, in a murder investigation, it's going to be standard procedure to investigate all of your browsing history and other activity leading up to and after the time of the murder. Nowhere in the article does it say they did any of this without a warrant. When they have lots of probable cause already and the suspect has already been arrested, it's not hard to get warrants to search their whole life to build a case (and if they find exculpatory evidence they are compelled to hand it over to the defense).
Now, if Apple sent law enforcement notification that said, "look, here's a list of people that searched for suspicious things" that would be an entirely different story. And, if law enforcement tried to get Apple to give them the information without a proper warrant (like if they sent them an NSL) then that would be a different story too. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of instances of corporations and law enforcement being scumbags and violating the constitution, but this doesn't appear to be one of those instances.
Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?
Dunno about the built-in flashlight that's in iOS7 (with Control Center), but the 3rd party flashlight apps tend to have ads. If it has ads, then it's being logged somewhere.
For copyrights, the content creator's remaining natural life plus ten years, or 40 years total, which ever is longer.
Ok, so, since corporations are people too, then if a corporation is the creator (and in the law it really means copyright owner), then as long as that corporation doesn't go out of business the copyright never expires? Doesn't seem so different from how it is now, other than a few remaining old copyrights that were owned by individuals (and now their estates).
I think the copyright term should most certainly be shortened, by a lot, but shouldn't have anything to do with the creator/copyright owner's lifetime. The benefits of copyright are how certain careers get paid. Your family should get to reap the benefits of it for the same term as if you were alive. After all, in other careers where you get paid on delivery, you get to leave all that money to your family, not just a shortened portion of it because you died (okay, estate tax might complicate that a bit, IANAAccountant). The problem is, now the copyright term is soooo long. If it were shortened to something reasonable like 10 years then allowing your family to retain the copyright for the remainder of the 10 years would seem fair. Shortening the copyright term is by far the #1 reform that would seriously improve copyright law.
With patents, which is what the article is about, there's more to it than that. Sure, we can shorten the patent term (which is a helluva lot less than copyright term), but it's not the #1 thing. The #1 problem with patents IMO is obviousness, you're not supposed to be able to patent something that's obvious, but too many patents are obvious. Hint: if a dozen people come up with the same way of doing something without copying your patent, it's FUCKING OBVIOUS. When a new technology comes out (say, putting GPS inside a phone) then it's always a race to patent every use of it anybody can think of. If it's a race to patent something, then that something is obvious. The point of a patent, and the reason it's not supposed to be obvious, isn't that you were the first one to come up with an idea, or the first one to file the patent for it, but it's supposed to be that the idea (for a method or thing) wouldn't have been thought of anytime soon by somebody else.
rules are different for them than they would be if NASA themselves built the rockets
And if they were to follow their theory on the F-35, they would not only stop giving Lockheed Martin more money, but would charge Lockheed Martin money for every mission that they missed out on had it been delivered on time.
This breaks the model of every government contract that has ever been. And frankly, SpaceX is doing pretty frickin' well compared to other aerospace contracts.
the average human head would occupy less than 1 pixel regardless of which axis it was observed across.
No, that would be low resolution. This is high resolution. Use a shot where the face is at the intersection of 4 pixels. There, I just quadrupled your resolution!
Of course, the headline (which seemingly has nothing to do with the articles or even the summary) says see your face from space, not identify your face from space. If your face is represented in 1-4 pixels, which could potentially be distinguished as a face by those pixels' colors in comparison to neighboring pixels, isn't it technically seeing your face?
The fertilizers used on lawns is blamed for the red tide outbreaks by feeding the organisms, it is believed.
Not to mention that most people (pro landscapers included) dump a lot more phosphorus than is necessary. A mature lawn needs very little phosphorus fertilizer, and in most areas none at all because the soil has enough. Using a phosphorus free fertilizer, which still contains the nutrients the plant needs such as nitrogen and potassium, is sufficient in most areas. And yet, general purpose fertilizer is often used (flowers and fruit needs phosphorus), and even fertilizer marketed for lawns usually unnecessarily contains fertilizer. And that's all about marketing and distribution. The fertilizer companies want to produce stuff they can market everywhere. Additionally, what are most people who don't know anybody going to buy, the fertilizer that says "27-3-10" or the one that says "27-0-10." The former of course, because 3 is better than 0! And lots of "lawn food" products contain plenty just for good measure without even having the N-P-K ratio on the label.
Education in this area would go a loooong way. Educate the public, the professional landscapers, and the fertilizer suppliers. There are even some municipalities where it's illegal to dump phosphorus containing fertilizer on lawns. Yes, it's easy to get away with breaking that ordinance (especially with the pretty labels at Home Depot), but what having the ordnance does in particular is educate the landscapers who will then buy phosphorus free fertilizer, which will in turn educate (to some degree) the public, and make phosphorus free fertilizer more available and the de facto standard.