1) I completely concur on government staying out of marriage. For sake of argument, let's call "marriage recognized by the state" as "civil union". Two people who enter into a civil union are recognized by the state as having certain benefits, including tax and legal.
2) The question citizens should ask themselves is this: Does allowing homosexual unions into the definition of a "civil union" harm or benefit society? If there's clear evidence that homosexual unions harm society, then let's ban it. But, in the absense of such evidence, the state should not restrict liberties of its citizens.
The reason why I bring up the subject of harm is this: if we allow homosexual unions to be recognized as civil unions, then what is there to stop advocates of other taboo-unions from petitioning for the same opportunity, such as unions of incest or bestiality? Using harm to society as a metric for evaluating these other relationships allows us to allow the former while filtering out the latter. It can be easily argued that incest harm society by its affect on the human gene pool, and bestiality can be negated for either animal cruelty or risk of exposure to disease. But I have yet to see clear justification (beyond biblical refernece) as to harm inflicted upon a society for permitting homosexual unions. Norway and Sweden have allowed them for over a decade, and quality of life in both contries appears to be substantially high.
Actually, I believe it basically should come down to a matter of informed consent. Using that yardstick, bestiality would be automatically invalid, since there is no way that one of the partners could indicate consent or even understanding of the question. Same thing (for the most part) if one or more of the proposed partners is a child or young adult. Incest, on the other hand...as long as both parties are informed and willing, that should be up to them.
Incestual taboos are ancient societal constructs developed to counteract the danger of inbreeding, even before people knew anything about why it is dangerous. If two cousins, siblings, whatever decide that they want to get married, and they prove that they fully understand the risks if they ever decide to have children, then who are we to stop them? Shall we also issue declarations that persons living with AIDS cannot get married because of the danger of infection for the spouse and any potential children? What if one partner contracts AIDS while already married, does that automatically sever the marriage?
I know, the knee-jerk reaction is 'incest...eww!', but hey, for many people that's the same reaction they have to gay relationships, or polygamous ones. Just because it's not 'right' for you or me does not mean it'll never be right for anyone else either.
Do you still have all your receipts and original media for all YOUR media purchases? Take them along during travel do you?
RIAA / MPAA has indeed been known to get law enforcement working for them at an entirely disproportionate level, usually due to a law enfarcement (sic) official getting something under the table and telling his team to focus where and how the money wants.
In the USA, it pays to stay two steps ahead of the corrupt system to avoid harassment.
THIS.
Proof of purchase for my 12 year old Princess Bride DVD? Yeah, good luck. Not to mention for all the second hand DVD's and CD's I have purchased over the years...and I am not likely to be carrying my entire DVD collection with me, cases included, in my carry on or even my packed luggage. Bulky household stuff like that I'd be shipping separately, for sure.
That being said, I have crossed the US border several times, and while a couple of times I have been asked to turn on various electrical devices (I'm a gadget-aholic, you should see the electronics declaration sheets my spouse and I have to fill out for trips...so we don't get charged duty when we return with them:), none of the security or customs agents has done more than wait to see that it is indeed booting up (i.e., it is what it looks like, and not some cleverly disguised bomb) before telling me I can shut it down and proceed.
*shrug* if you're really worried, put it on an encrypted drive before traveling. Back up the drive at home first and give a copy to a friend, in case they do take exception to your encryption and/or confiscate the drive for some other reason. I know what bandwidth costs are like there from traveling in Oz, otherwise I'd recommend uploading to an FTP server (or setting up a drive as an FTP server at a friends house) then downloading when you get to the states...but that may be insanely costly, depending on your region and data load. Of course, if you spread it out over a couple of years...
Yes, you are correct on all points. I refuse to whore out my private contacts to advertisers, even if that would make me more 'acceptable' in the eyes of certain employers, and in this day and age (unfortunately) that does make me a 'wierdo' (do you hear the dolphins dying?)
Email, phone and in person is more than enough to keep current with my group of friends and family. No, I don't have 1,000 paper friends listed on Facebook to impress others: I have a couple dozen close friends with whom I actually share common interests and enjoy spending time with. I am sorry if you can't see the value in not 'friending' every person you have ever met in your life, but I don't feel like short changing the important people in my life in favour of scrambling to keep up with a scattering of acquaintances all clamoring for likes on the latest dog photo they posted. And yes, I did try 'the facebook thing' back when it first came out: that's what I am basing my information on. Perhaps things have gotten better, but from all of the articles I see about it...I suspect it has only gotten worse over time.
The signal to noise ratio is simply way too low for any useful purpose. Of course, if what you prefer is the noise, more power to you. And no, I don't think I 'would want an employee' of you either, it sounds like we simply have two wildly incompatible world views. If you were able to keep your social networking out of the office, then perhaps, but if you insisted on bringing it in where people are trying to do serious work...no, thanks, go waste someone else's time. Frankly, your time spent on (and apparent obsession with) managing your Facebook account should be a huge red flag to any prospective employers, unless maybe you work in marketing or sales.
Notice my Slashot ID is actually quite a bit earlier than yours. I've been around a long time.
The practical realities of business win out here. If someone doesn't have a facebook account you do have to wonder why not. Since most of the non technical staff don't know or care about the nature of what I described as the facebook privacy invasion service finding employees who are self righteous jerks about it tends to mean they aren't going to fit in.
Then shame on you, you should know better!
If a prospective employer ever asked me why I don't have a Facebook account, I would tell them the same things I tell my friends and family (with whom I keep in touch via email, phone calls and plain old FTF visits): I have read through their privacy policy and I don't find it acceptable for me.
I am a private person by nature, and do not feel like being profiled online by anyone who wishes to buy my data. And besides, I value my friends and family enough to want to personally interact with them one on one (well, sometimes many at a time via email, but not often) instead of blindly spamming the whole universe about every detail of my life, in some sort of self-centered ego-feeding frenzy. I have a diary for that, and I am the only one who reads it.
It should not be a surprise to any reasonable person, techie or non, that Facebook et. al. are primarily in business for the money. It also stands to reason that most of those people should realize (if they think about it at all) exactly how these companies make money. It may be an uncomfortable, shoved-to-the-back-of-the-mind realization, like the knowledge that speeding increases the danger of injury if you get into an accident, but it should be there nonetheless. If it is not, if they can't fathom how someone could prefer not to subscribe to the advertising mills, and subject their most personal relationships to the scrutiny of people seeking only to find more effective ways to sell them stuff they neither need nor want: well then I would consider that a very, very bad symptom of widespread Kool-aid consumption and would prefer not to work for that company in any case.
Of course, an argument can be made that the original inventor should be recompensed, and that's fair...to a point. To redress this perceived injustice: patents should expire after a reasonable time, and NOT be renewable beyond a limited extent (say one or two renewals).
Patents do expire after (what Congress has decided is) a reasonable time: twenty years from the date of filing of the application. They are not renewable, period. And they can even expire earlier, if you fail to pay maintenance fees.
Wow, I wasn't aware of the requirement for maintenance fees, very interesting. So essentially, these fees do pretty much as I described, with the exception that the last 'maintenance fee' paid in year 12 extends the patent eight years, instead of only four years for the previous 'maintenance' fees.
Am I correct in assuming that once it expires (for whatever reason), it then gets assigned to the public domain?
So, for example, a filed patent would expire in two years, renewable to up to twice for a maximum length of six years.
The problem there (or rather, not a problem) is that patents aren't just registrations or rubber stamps. They get examined, and that takes time - currently, it's about 4-5 years from filing to granting. So, under your proposal, they could expire before they even make it through the queue to examination. That would be fine, if it was more like copyright and simply paying your $35 registration fee gets you registered, but is not fine with an examination system... and I think the latter is a better system.
Ah, so let the patent term start from the day it's granted, not the day it's filed (I think that's how it works now, isn't it?) That seems fair to everyone. The key takeaway is that patent terms should be drastically shortened, so as not to stifle the very innovations they purport to protect...but OTOH, it doesn't look like the 'maintenance fees' implemented in 1980 are having much of an impact on the patent circus, either.
And this would prevent these 'submarine' patents from almost a quarter-century ago from inhibiting current technology development.
17 years is a lot closer to a 5th of a century than a quarter-century. And the patent will expire in 3 years, long before it gets to a quarter century.
Ah, yes, sorry. Skimmed too fast, thought I read that it was granted in 1993 (no, I don't know where I got that number either). That would be exactly a fifth of a century, true...but still longer than I would consider reasonable.
While encouraging innovation on the surface (by lowering the risk of "reach for the stars"-type innovative startups), it stifles it in the long run by chilling any follow-up innovation. If the first foray into a new field fails, anyone who comes in to try to do a better job is then penalized. It creates a barrier to entry for an empty field.
I especially like this 'condemnation':
And these same U.S. tech companies that rail against patent trolls have few qualms about taking ideas from others. They will buy competitors’ products, conduct teardowns to analyze components and features, and incorporate the best of what they find.
Umm...can you spell 'ideal scenario'? This sort of open source approach to hardware would be the best of all possible outcomes for everyone involved: users get better and better products, product developers are free to add or remove features without fear of reprisals (other than whether the users actually like the new-to-them features or not). Can you say iPad with a USB or microSD port, anyone??
Of course, an argument can be made that the original inventor should be recompensed, and that's fair...to a point. To redress this perceived injustice: patents should expire after a reasonable time, and NOT be renewable beyond a limited extent (say one or two renewals). So, for example, a filed patent would expire in two years, renewable to up to twice for a maximum length of six years. After expiry, it moves into public domain, for anyone to tinker with. The time frame is generous enough that, if the feature is truly unique and useful, companies will not be willing to wait long enough to let the patent expire: they will license the product so that they can use it now. And this would prevent these 'submarine' patents from almost a quarter-century ago from inhibiting current technology development.
Everything is built on the work of others. Remember, you invented neither the hammer nor the anvil.
No, you missed the point. He didn't even consider whether he was in an unsafe situation. The phone rings and somehow it says "deal with me NOW!!!!". That isn't the case with the other tasks; those you do when it suits you. The latter is under your control, the former isn't.
It's like a coworker talking to you when you're in the zone versus you choosing to go for a coffee - you'll do that when you sense you're stuck.
I see it as more like getting incoming mail notifications while you're in the zone...if you're under the gun, you'll ignore them (unless you're needing something that you're expecting to get via email, that is) if not, you'll open it up quick to see if it needs immediate attention or not, then switch back to the task at hand. If I'm 'in the zone', I don't even hear them, and am always surprised at how many messages I have accumulated when I surface for air...
The fact that some people can't assess when to leave it alone and focus, and when it's okay to check and assess (and that applies in all areas of their lives, including and perhaps especially for social media) should not override the fact that the *majority* of people have no problem with this. Unfortunately, it's those relative few with the attention span of a goldfish that crash into things and kill people. These are the same people that used to swerve into oncoming traffic while tuning the radio, or adjusting the air conditioning, or counting the hairs on their knuckles, etc., it's just that now they have some more entertaining knobs to fiddle with.
As for verbally composing text messages while driving: as long as there is a) no requirement to look at the screen to verify text, b) minor corrections are relatively simple to achieve verbally (and aren't often required) and c) there is no time limit imposed (i.e., driver can stop dictating as long as necessary to deal with a developing driving situation, then resume dictation after), there is no way it's more distracting than talking to another person in the car. Or 'arguing' with the talk show host on the radio, for that matter:o)
Remember last time when Texas A&M did this? They asked people to LOOK AT THE PHONES AND MAKE SURE THE TEXT WAS CORRECT. Of course it's more distracting. I don't know the details of this study, TFA is light on details and direction (though it mentions the A&M study).
In case no one here was aware - doing anything other than driving, when you're driving, means you aren't driving at 100%/
Precisely. I suspect you have the right of it.
If people were merely using voice control to compose and send texts, without looking at the screen at all, there is no way that this activity could score worse than talking to a passenger. It is not logical.
And how is that situation any different than looking down at the clock on your dashboard? Or the radio? Or the fuel gauge or speedometwr?
Several ways. First, looking at the clock, radio, speedometer, etc is done at a time convenient for and chosen by the driver. There is no sense of urgency about it - it is not an interrupt. Most drivers are not going to be looking at those things except for when it is relatively safe to do so. On the other hand, many (most?) people treat an incoming phone call or text as something that must be dealt with RIGHT NOW.
Secondly, looking at those other things takes very little thought, and thus causes very little distraction. Reading a phone number or name takes a lot more thought, and distracts you for a longer period of time.
Does not compute.
It doesn't sound like jellomizer felt he was in an unsafe driving situation, so he went ahead and to checked out the incoming caller information. He could as easily have been glancing at the satellite radio to see what artist / song name is playing now, or switching the dash display to see what his instantaneous gas mileage is at the moment. As far as he knew, this was a convenient time, so he chose to do so.
Any of these tasks would require at least as much thought as would reading a phone number/name off of a display...should they be prohibited as well? Perhaps every display in the vehicle except the speedometer and odometer should go black as soon as the wheels are rolling?
Taptu is cross platform, and it seems to work quite well, at least for my needs.
You can roll multiple feeds into streams (e.g., combine local news channel and newspaper feeds into one called 'Local news', or take multiple tech forum feeds and roll them into one 'Tech News' stream). Read/unread syncing is pretty reliable, and you can log in using your current Google Reader account to load your feeds directly. Once they're in Taptu, it doesn't matter if they disappear from Google Reader...I think. Guess we'll see in a couple of weeks!
Whoops...one thing I just discovered: there doesn't seem to be any way to directly add an RSS feed that's not curated by their 'Stream Store', at least from the browser interface. That's a bit maddening...oh well, it'll work, for now.
That's why I use Calibre + plugin to strip out the DRM from Amazon e-books. Then I can lend them to whomever I like!
That's why I refuse to buy from Amazon, even their so-called 'DRM-Free' books, because they don't offer eBooks in a universal format.
Buy direct from Baen and O'Reilly or, as a last resort, find the DRM-Free books on Kobo, because at least they offer them as epub downloads. It's not easy to sift the DRM-Free gems from the DRM'd dross at Kobo, but it can be done with patience.
What if I get banned from Xbox Live? Does this 24-hour check-in fail? Am I no longer allowed to play my single player games?
Excellent question!
I look forward to the first full-scale anon attack, cracking random user accounts and behaving in such a way as to get the innocent user banned, thereby rendering their shiny new console into...well, basically an ad-supported suck-ass browser / crappy media player?
I think the bigger issue missed here is that rentals are simply no longer possible with Xbox One.
Microsoft has killed the game rental market in one fell swoop.
Personally, I think this is a dumb move... I've bought many games after trying them out as rentals; I doubt I am alone with that practice. That is a lot of potential marketing tossed down the toilet.
Even if the used game market survives (though I doubt it will ever be a factor again), the rental market is gone, gone,gone.
Not as long as there's still 360's on ebay, and clever people with soldering irons willing to fix them up when they start to die...
I seriously hope they hear crickets on launch day with this...this abomination. This on top of the whole Windows 8 fiasco...I haven't seen a company try so hard to self destruct in a very, very long time.
If it is a 911 emergency, you don't even need an active subscription, just a working phone that can pick up signals from the tower.
Yeah, but grandma's "emergecy phone" is as much for "I got a flat tire" or "my car won't start" as it is for "I've fallen and broken my hip".
We don't want grandma calling 911 when she gets a flat tire.
Precisely. Even my parents were looking high and low for such an option a few (or maybe more like a dozen) years back: neither of them wanted a phone that they would use very often, just one that would let them call and ask if we needed milk, or if they got a flat tire, or (more importantly, probably) let their kids get a hold of them if they (er, we) got in trouble.
We tried pay as you go, but quickly gave that up in frustration since every time they tried to use it, the minutes were 'expired'.
Interesting. But still, nothing stops the carriers from making an arrangement with Samsung so that the "retail price" be $10000 outright or $300 on 2 year. Other than the carriers, only Apple and Google sell phones in Canada. So the suggested retail price could be anything. If the carriers can get their bloat on the phones, they can surely choose the suggested price too.
My bet: no contract prices will continue to go up.
I'm quite sure that Samsung would have to answer some hard questions if their MSRP for a device the US were listed at $700, say, but for Canada it's listed at $10,000...no, the bad press alone wouldn't be worth it, to them. They provide hardware, that's it. I'm pretty sure no single carrier is big enough to sway them to alienate their userbase that badly...there's a lot more than just phones at stake, for them, and they have a *lot* invested in appearing to be an economical and high performance choice when compared to, say, Apple (or even Motorola).
I can't see where it says that the carriers have to comply with this code under penalty of law...am I missing something?
I can definitely see that being able to claim that your company complies with the Code would be a great advertising feature, but what's to stop them from saying "that's nice" and continuing on with business as usual?
The commission currently has some jurisdiction over the provision of local landline telephone service in Canada. This is largely limited to the major incumbent carriers, such as Bell Canada and Telus, for traditional landline service (but not Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)). It has begun the gradual deregulation of such services where, in the commission's opinion, a sufficient level of competition exists.[11]
The CRTC is sometimes blamed for the current state of the mobile phone industry in Canada, in which there are only three national mobile network operators – Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility, and Rogers Wireless – as well as a handful of MVNOs operating on these networks. In fact, the commission has very little to do with the regulation of mobile phone service, outside of "undue preference" issues (for example, a carrier offering a superior rate or service to some subscribers and not others without a good reason). It does not regulate service rates, service quality, or other business practices, and commission approval is not necessary for wireless provider sales or mergers as in the broadcasting industry.[12] Moreover, it does not deal with the availability of spectrum for mobile phone service, which is part of the Industry Canada mandate, nor the maintenance of competition, which is largely the responsibility of The Competition Bureau.
1. General
A service provider must keep open the accounts of customers with prepaid cards for at least seven calendar days following the expiration of an activated card, at no charge, to give the customer more time to “top up” their account and retain their prepaid balance.
In my opinion, prepaid phone cards should be considered the same as gift cards: they should never expire, they can only be used up by the customer. They essentially represent a cash transaction, same as a gift card.
The only difference is, there may be some *slight* cost to the provider to keep that phone number active in their system (I can't right now think of what would cost them money, exactly, but there might be). To cover those costs, the provider could be allowed to deduct a very small 'Idle' fee from the prepaid balance for each month that the user does not use their prepaid minutes. I'm talking 50 cents or a dollar per month, something like that. That way, if Grandma wants to have an emergency cell phone, she can buy $50 worth of minutes and use them up over the next three or four years, not worrying about having to try to add minutes to her phone in an emergency because the old card expired...
2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
Bell, Telus and Rogers announced that you can now get the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S5 for $300 on two years, or $10000 outright. That's a subsidy of $9700. You have the option to cancel anytime, provided that you refund Bell, Telus or Rogers that $9700 subsidy they were so kind to give you in the first place.
They did cover off this dodge, at least:
G->2.->ii) When calculating the early cancellation fee,
a) the value of the device subsidy is the retail price of the device minus the amount that the customer paid for the device when the contract was agreed to; and
b) the retail price of the device is the lesser of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price or the price set for the device when it is purchased from the service provider without a contract.
Lots of things are against the law. I am trying to figure out the logic why.
Because it prevents fair competition. It's like NewEgg trying to dictate to their suppliers that nobody else that the supplier provides the widget for can offer it for a lower price than NewEgg has it posted for, ever. Nobody else can offer that same widget on a 24-hour sale, or for a Black Friday sale, or whatever.
Pricing should be based on market demands and the internal business models of whomever is offering the widget (or ebook) to the end user, not arbitrarily dictated by one supplier in the market. If supplier B wants to offer a week long half off sale or something to drum up traffic, they should be able to if it meets their business goals and as long as the manufacturer (or publisher) is still getting their agreed upon price. Likewise, the manufacturer or publisher should be free to drive the best negotiated deal they can with various suppliers, and if that means a lower cost per unit (but many more units) for supplier B, then that is in their best interest, even if supplier A(pple) doesn't like it...
The only thing that is tricky in this case is the 'per unit' evaluation. Since ebooks are not physical objects, I'm pretty sure that suppliers don't pre-pay for a fixed number of them, then have to go back and purchase more when they 'run out'. Regardless, though, price determination should ultimately rest with the supplier, and if they want to offer the ebook (or widget) as a loss leader (i.e., at a lower price than they actually paid for it) in order to bring more traffic to the site and potentially drive up sales in other areas, that should be entirely up to them, not at the discretion of some random, third party competitor.
Basically it comes down to this: if supplier B's business model is more competitive than supplier A's, then they can and should win the battle for customers in an open and free market, whether that be through better advertising (e.g., Nike), selling in bulk quantities (e.g., Costco), better quality (e.g., DeWalt) or offering reduced retail pricing through bulk purchase agreements and warehousing by the supplier (e.g., Amazon and WalMart). Price fixing breaks this model, so it is considered anti-competitive, and therefore illegal in a nominally free market society.
I mean, in what reality are people actually using a PC or game console that is not connected to a network?
In the surprisingly widespread reality in which people don't play on-line games and don't care about on-line content.
The current XBox can be ran just fine without a network connection, and just because you can't imagine a world in which people do that, it doesn't mean that a lot of us don't do it.
This.
One of our favorite things is to get together at someone's house or the cabin and play XBox Trivial Pursuit with family and friends. While I appreciate the ability to connect in order to purchase and download additional question packs, if it required a network connection all the time just to play the game...well, I guess we'd just have to dust off the old board and even older question packs. Not even sure we'd be able to find all the wedge pieces anymore...
Slashdot Mirror
1) I completely concur on government staying out of marriage. For sake of argument, let's call "marriage recognized by the state" as "civil union". Two people who enter into a civil union are recognized by the state as having certain benefits, including tax and legal.
2) The question citizens should ask themselves is this: Does allowing homosexual unions into the definition of a "civil union" harm or benefit society? If there's clear evidence that homosexual unions harm society, then let's ban it. But, in the absense of such evidence, the state should not restrict liberties of its citizens.
The reason why I bring up the subject of harm is this: if we allow homosexual unions to be recognized as civil unions, then what is there to stop advocates of other taboo-unions from petitioning for the same opportunity, such as unions of incest or bestiality? Using harm to society as a metric for evaluating these other relationships allows us to allow the former while filtering out the latter. It can be easily argued that incest harm society by its affect on the human gene pool, and bestiality can be negated for either animal cruelty or risk of exposure to disease. But I have yet to see clear justification (beyond biblical refernece) as to harm inflicted upon a society for permitting homosexual unions. Norway and Sweden have allowed them for over a decade, and quality of life in both contries appears to be substantially high.
Actually, I believe it basically should come down to a matter of informed consent. Using that yardstick, bestiality would be automatically invalid, since there is no way that one of the partners could indicate consent or even understanding of the question. Same thing (for the most part) if one or more of the proposed partners is a child or young adult. Incest, on the other hand...as long as both parties are informed and willing, that should be up to them.
Incestual taboos are ancient societal constructs developed to counteract the danger of inbreeding, even before people knew anything about why it is dangerous. If two cousins, siblings, whatever decide that they want to get married, and they prove that they fully understand the risks if they ever decide to have children, then who are we to stop them? Shall we also issue declarations that persons living with AIDS cannot get married because of the danger of infection for the spouse and any potential children? What if one partner contracts AIDS while already married, does that automatically sever the marriage?
I know, the knee-jerk reaction is 'incest...eww!', but hey, for many people that's the same reaction they have to gay relationships, or polygamous ones. Just because it's not 'right' for you or me does not mean it'll never be right for anyone else either.
Harm to society shouldn't trump freedom. If it did, then tobacco, alcohol, gambling, high fructose corn syrup & reality TV would all be banned.
Yet marijuana, cocaine and heroin are.
Don't look for consistency in legal systems, you'll just give yourself a headache.
Do you still have all your receipts and original media for all YOUR media purchases? Take them along during travel do you?
RIAA / MPAA has indeed been known to get law enforcement working for them at an entirely disproportionate level, usually due to a law enfarcement (sic) official getting something under the table and telling his team to focus where and how the money wants.
In the USA, it pays to stay two steps ahead of the corrupt system to avoid harassment.
THIS.
Proof of purchase for my 12 year old Princess Bride DVD? Yeah, good luck. Not to mention for all the second hand DVD's and CD's I have purchased over the years...and I am not likely to be carrying my entire DVD collection with me, cases included, in my carry on or even my packed luggage. Bulky household stuff like that I'd be shipping separately, for sure.
That being said, I have crossed the US border several times, and while a couple of times I have been asked to turn on various electrical devices (I'm a gadget-aholic, you should see the electronics declaration sheets my spouse and I have to fill out for trips...so we don't get charged duty when we return with them :), none of the security or customs agents has done more than wait to see that it is indeed booting up (i.e., it is what it looks like, and not some cleverly disguised bomb) before telling me I can shut it down and proceed.
*shrug* if you're really worried, put it on an encrypted drive before traveling. Back up the drive at home first and give a copy to a friend, in case they do take exception to your encryption and/or confiscate the drive for some other reason. I know what bandwidth costs are like there from traveling in Oz, otherwise I'd recommend uploading to an FTP server (or setting up a drive as an FTP server at a friends house) then downloading when you get to the states...but that may be insanely costly, depending on your region and data load. Of course, if you spread it out over a couple of years...
In fact, the law specifically states you are allowed one (1) copy for backup purposes
According to any good admin, it's not backed-up until you have 3 copies, with at least one copy on a different media than the other 2.
Don't forget to keep at least one backup off site...so, at a friends house? :o)
Yes, you are correct on all points. I refuse to whore out my private contacts to advertisers, even if that would make me more 'acceptable' in the eyes of certain employers, and in this day and age (unfortunately) that does make me a 'wierdo' (do you hear the dolphins dying?)
Email, phone and in person is more than enough to keep current with my group of friends and family. No, I don't have 1,000 paper friends listed on Facebook to impress others: I have a couple dozen close friends with whom I actually share common interests and enjoy spending time with. I am sorry if you can't see the value in not 'friending' every person you have ever met in your life, but I don't feel like short changing the important people in my life in favour of scrambling to keep up with a scattering of acquaintances all clamoring for likes on the latest dog photo they posted. And yes, I did try 'the facebook thing' back when it first came out: that's what I am basing my information on. Perhaps things have gotten better, but from all of the articles I see about it...I suspect it has only gotten worse over time.
The signal to noise ratio is simply way too low for any useful purpose. Of course, if what you prefer is the noise, more power to you. And no, I don't think I 'would want an employee' of you either, it sounds like we simply have two wildly incompatible world views. If you were able to keep your social networking out of the office, then perhaps, but if you insisted on bringing it in where people are trying to do serious work...no, thanks, go waste someone else's time. Frankly, your time spent on (and apparent obsession with) managing your Facebook account should be a huge red flag to any prospective employers, unless maybe you work in marketing or sales.
Notice my Slashot ID is actually quite a bit earlier than yours. I've been around a long time.
The practical realities of business win out here. If someone doesn't have a facebook account you do have to wonder why not. Since most of the non technical staff don't know or care about the nature of what I described as the facebook privacy invasion service finding employees who are self righteous jerks about it tends to mean they aren't going to fit in.
Then shame on you, you should know better!
If a prospective employer ever asked me why I don't have a Facebook account, I would tell them the same things I tell my friends and family (with whom I keep in touch via email, phone calls and plain old FTF visits): I have read through their privacy policy and I don't find it acceptable for me.
I am a private person by nature, and do not feel like being profiled online by anyone who wishes to buy my data. And besides, I value my friends and family enough to want to personally interact with them one on one (well, sometimes many at a time via email, but not often) instead of blindly spamming the whole universe about every detail of my life, in some sort of self-centered ego-feeding frenzy. I have a diary for that, and I am the only one who reads it.
It should not be a surprise to any reasonable person, techie or non, that Facebook et. al. are primarily in business for the money. It also stands to reason that most of those people should realize (if they think about it at all) exactly how these companies make money. It may be an uncomfortable, shoved-to-the-back-of-the-mind realization, like the knowledge that speeding increases the danger of injury if you get into an accident, but it should be there nonetheless. If it is not, if they can't fathom how someone could prefer not to subscribe to the advertising mills, and subject their most personal relationships to the scrutiny of people seeking only to find more effective ways to sell them stuff they neither need nor want: well then I would consider that a very, very bad symptom of widespread Kool-aid consumption and would prefer not to work for that company in any case.
Of course, an argument can be made that the original inventor should be recompensed, and that's fair...to a point. To redress this perceived injustice: patents should expire after a reasonable time, and NOT be renewable beyond a limited extent (say one or two renewals).
Patents do expire after (what Congress has decided is) a reasonable time: twenty years from the date of filing of the application. They are not renewable, period. And they can even expire earlier, if you fail to pay maintenance fees.
Wow, I wasn't aware of the requirement for maintenance fees, very interesting. So essentially, these fees do pretty much as I described, with the exception that the last 'maintenance fee' paid in year 12 extends the patent eight years, instead of only four years for the previous 'maintenance' fees.
Am I correct in assuming that once it expires (for whatever reason), it then gets assigned to the public domain?
So, for example, a filed patent would expire in two years, renewable to up to twice for a maximum length of six years.
The problem there (or rather, not a problem) is that patents aren't just registrations or rubber stamps. They get examined, and that takes time - currently, it's about 4-5 years from filing to granting. So, under your proposal, they could expire before they even make it through the queue to examination. That would be fine, if it was more like copyright and simply paying your $35 registration fee gets you registered, but is not fine with an examination system... and I think the latter is a better system.
Ah, so let the patent term start from the day it's granted, not the day it's filed (I think that's how it works now, isn't it?) That seems fair to everyone. The key takeaway is that patent terms should be drastically shortened, so as not to stifle the very innovations they purport to protect...but OTOH, it doesn't look like the 'maintenance fees' implemented in 1980 are having much of an impact on the patent circus, either.
And this would prevent these 'submarine' patents from almost a quarter-century ago from inhibiting current technology development.
17 years is a lot closer to a 5th of a century than a quarter-century. And the patent will expire in 3 years, long before it gets to a quarter century.
Ah, yes, sorry. Skimmed too fast, thought I read that it was granted in 1993 (no, I don't know where I got that number either). That would be exactly a fifth of a century, true...but still longer than I would consider reasonable.
If I remember the laws correctly, you either fall into:
1. Gift cards -- Not taxed on sale and are treated as cash in terms of its issuing currency
I foresee a brisk business in Bitcoin Gift Cards coming up...
While encouraging innovation on the surface (by lowering the risk of "reach for the stars"-type innovative startups), it stifles it in the long run by chilling any follow-up innovation. If the first foray into a new field fails, anyone who comes in to try to do a better job is then penalized. It creates a barrier to entry for an empty field.
I especially like this 'condemnation':
And these same U.S. tech companies that rail against patent trolls have few qualms about taking ideas from others. They will buy competitors’ products, conduct teardowns to analyze components and features, and incorporate the best of what they find.
Umm...can you spell 'ideal scenario'? This sort of open source approach to hardware would be the best of all possible outcomes for everyone involved: users get better and better products, product developers are free to add or remove features without fear of reprisals (other than whether the users actually like the new-to-them features or not). Can you say iPad with a USB or microSD port, anyone??
Of course, an argument can be made that the original inventor should be recompensed, and that's fair...to a point. To redress this perceived injustice: patents should expire after a reasonable time, and NOT be renewable beyond a limited extent (say one or two renewals). So, for example, a filed patent would expire in two years, renewable to up to twice for a maximum length of six years. After expiry, it moves into public domain, for anyone to tinker with. The time frame is generous enough that, if the feature is truly unique and useful, companies will not be willing to wait long enough to let the patent expire: they will license the product so that they can use it now. And this would prevent these 'submarine' patents from almost a quarter-century ago from inhibiting current technology development.
Everything is built on the work of others. Remember, you invented neither the hammer nor the anvil.
No, you missed the point. He didn't even consider whether he was in an unsafe situation. The phone rings and somehow it says "deal with me NOW!!!!". That isn't the case with the other tasks; those you do when it suits you. The latter is under your control, the former isn't.
It's like a coworker talking to you when you're in the zone versus you choosing to go for a coffee - you'll do that when you sense you're stuck.
I see it as more like getting incoming mail notifications while you're in the zone...if you're under the gun, you'll ignore them (unless you're needing something that you're expecting to get via email, that is) if not, you'll open it up quick to see if it needs immediate attention or not, then switch back to the task at hand. If I'm 'in the zone', I don't even hear them, and am always surprised at how many messages I have accumulated when I surface for air...
The fact that some people can't assess when to leave it alone and focus, and when it's okay to check and assess (and that applies in all areas of their lives, including and perhaps especially for social media) should not override the fact that the *majority* of people have no problem with this. Unfortunately, it's those relative few with the attention span of a goldfish that crash into things and kill people. These are the same people that used to swerve into oncoming traffic while tuning the radio, or adjusting the air conditioning, or counting the hairs on their knuckles, etc., it's just that now they have some more entertaining knobs to fiddle with.
As for verbally composing text messages while driving: as long as there is a) no requirement to look at the screen to verify text, b) minor corrections are relatively simple to achieve verbally (and aren't often required) and c) there is no time limit imposed (i.e., driver can stop dictating as long as necessary to deal with a developing driving situation, then resume dictation after), there is no way it's more distracting than talking to another person in the car. Or 'arguing' with the talk show host on the radio, for that matter :o)
There has been a recent uptick in sales of Faraday Bags...all cash sales, of course.
Remember last time when Texas A&M did this? They asked people to LOOK AT THE PHONES AND MAKE SURE THE TEXT WAS CORRECT. Of course it's more distracting. I don't know the details of this study, TFA is light on details and direction (though it mentions the A&M study).
In case no one here was aware - doing anything other than driving, when you're driving, means you aren't driving at 100%/
Precisely. I suspect you have the right of it.
If people were merely using voice control to compose and send texts, without looking at the screen at all, there is no way that this activity could score worse than talking to a passenger. It is not logical.
And how is that situation any different than looking down at the clock on your dashboard? Or the radio? Or the fuel gauge or speedometwr?
Several ways. First, looking at the clock, radio, speedometer, etc is done at a time convenient for and chosen by the driver. There is no sense of urgency about it - it is not an interrupt. Most drivers are not going to be looking at those things except for when it is relatively safe to do so. On the other hand, many (most?) people treat an incoming phone call or text as something that must be dealt with RIGHT NOW.
Secondly, looking at those other things takes very little thought, and thus causes very little distraction. Reading a phone number or name takes a lot more thought, and distracts you for a longer period of time.
Does not compute.
It doesn't sound like jellomizer felt he was in an unsafe driving situation, so he went ahead and to checked out the incoming caller information. He could as easily have been glancing at the satellite radio to see what artist / song name is playing now, or switching the dash display to see what his instantaneous gas mileage is at the moment. As far as he knew, this was a convenient time, so he chose to do so.
Any of these tasks would require at least as much thought as would reading a phone number/name off of a display...should they be prohibited as well? Perhaps every display in the vehicle except the speedometer and odometer should go black as soon as the wheels are rolling?
Taptu is cross platform, and it seems to work quite well, at least for my needs.
You can roll multiple feeds into streams (e.g., combine local news channel and newspaper feeds into one called 'Local news', or take multiple tech forum feeds and roll them into one 'Tech News' stream). Read/unread syncing is pretty reliable, and you can log in using your current Google Reader account to load your feeds directly. Once they're in Taptu, it doesn't matter if they disappear from Google Reader...I think. Guess we'll see in a couple of weeks!
Whoops...one thing I just discovered: there doesn't seem to be any way to directly add an RSS feed that's not curated by their 'Stream Store', at least from the browser interface. That's a bit maddening...oh well, it'll work, for now.
That's why I use Calibre + plugin to strip out the DRM from Amazon e-books. Then I can lend them to whomever I like!
That's why I refuse to buy from Amazon, even their so-called 'DRM-Free' books, because they don't offer eBooks in a universal format.
Buy direct from Baen and O'Reilly or, as a last resort, find the DRM-Free books on Kobo, because at least they offer them as epub downloads. It's not easy to sift the DRM-Free gems from the DRM'd dross at Kobo, but it can be done with patience.
What if I get banned from Xbox Live? Does this 24-hour check-in fail? Am I no longer allowed to play my single player games?
Excellent question!
I look forward to the first full-scale anon attack, cracking random user accounts and behaving in such a way as to get the innocent user banned, thereby rendering their shiny new console into...well, basically an ad-supported suck-ass browser / crappy media player?
better not get too attached to those games...
I think the bigger issue missed here is that rentals are simply no longer possible with Xbox One.
Microsoft has killed the game rental market in one fell swoop.
Personally, I think this is a dumb move... I've bought many games after trying them out as rentals; I doubt I am alone with that practice. That is a lot of potential marketing tossed down the toilet.
Even if the used game market survives (though I doubt it will ever be a factor again), the rental market is gone, gone,gone.
Not as long as there's still 360's on ebay, and clever people with soldering irons willing to fix them up when they start to die...
I seriously hope they hear crickets on launch day with this...this abomination. This on top of the whole Windows 8 fiasco...I haven't seen a company try so hard to self destruct in a very, very long time.
The plan includes five executive actions...
Me: Whoah...that's a bit harsh, don't you think? I'd think we can get by with a simple public caning, maybe some time spent in the stocks...
If it is a 911 emergency, you don't even need an active subscription, just a working phone that can pick up signals from the tower.
Yeah, but grandma's "emergecy phone" is as much for "I got a flat tire" or "my car won't start" as it is for "I've fallen and broken my hip".
We don't want grandma calling 911 when she gets a flat tire.
Precisely. Even my parents were looking high and low for such an option a few (or maybe more like a dozen) years back: neither of them wanted a phone that they would use very often, just one that would let them call and ask if we needed milk, or if they got a flat tire, or (more importantly, probably) let their kids get a hold of them if they (er, we) got in trouble.
We tried pay as you go, but quickly gave that up in frustration since every time they tried to use it, the minutes were 'expired'.
Interesting.
But still, nothing stops the carriers from making an arrangement with Samsung so that the "retail price" be $10000 outright or $300 on 2 year.
Other than the carriers, only Apple and Google sell phones in Canada. So the suggested retail price could be anything. If the carriers can get their bloat on the phones, they can surely choose the suggested price too.
My bet: no contract prices will continue to go up.
I'm quite sure that Samsung would have to answer some hard questions if their MSRP for a device the US were listed at $700, say, but for Canada it's listed at $10,000...no, the bad press alone wouldn't be worth it, to them. They provide hardware, that's it. I'm pretty sure no single carrier is big enough to sway them to alienate their userbase that badly...there's a lot more than just phones at stake, for them, and they have a *lot* invested in appearing to be an economical and high performance choice when compared to, say, Apple (or even Motorola).
I can't see where it says that the carriers have to comply with this code under penalty of law...am I missing something?
I can definitely see that being able to claim that your company complies with the Code would be a great advertising feature, but what's to stop them from saying "that's nice" and continuing on with business as usual?
As per the wikipedia article on the CRTC:
Regulation of telephone service
The commission currently has some jurisdiction over the provision of local landline telephone service in Canada. This is largely limited to the major incumbent carriers, such as Bell Canada and Telus, for traditional landline service (but not Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)). It has begun the gradual deregulation of such services where, in the commission's opinion, a sufficient level of competition exists.[11]
The CRTC is sometimes blamed for the current state of the mobile phone industry in Canada, in which there are only three national mobile network operators – Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility, and Rogers Wireless – as well as a handful of MVNOs operating on these networks. In fact, the commission has very little to do with the regulation of mobile phone service, outside of "undue preference" issues (for example, a carrier offering a superior rate or service to some subscribers and not others without a good reason). It does not regulate service rates, service quality, or other business practices, and commission approval is not necessary for wireless provider sales or mergers as in the broadcasting industry.[12] Moreover, it does not deal with the availability of spectrum for mobile phone service, which is part of the Industry Canada mandate, nor the maintenance of competition, which is largely the responsibility of The Competition Bureau.
So...they're expanding their mandate?
Hmm...interesting times.
Here's their mandate on prepaid cards:
J. Expiration of prepaid cards
1. General
A service provider must keep open the accounts of customers with prepaid cards for at least seven calendar days following the expiration of an activated card, at no charge, to give the customer more time to “top up” their account and retain their prepaid balance.
In my opinion, prepaid phone cards should be considered the same as gift cards: they should never expire, they can only be used up by the customer. They essentially represent a cash transaction, same as a gift card.
The only difference is, there may be some *slight* cost to the provider to keep that phone number active in their system (I can't right now think of what would cost them money, exactly, but there might be). To cover those costs, the provider could be allowed to deduct a very small 'Idle' fee from the prepaid balance for each month that the user does not use their prepaid minutes. I'm talking 50 cents or a dollar per month, something like that. That way, if Grandma wants to have an emergency cell phone, she can buy $50 worth of minutes and use them up over the next three or four years, not worrying about having to try to add minutes to her phone in an emergency because the old card expired...
2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
Bell, Telus and Rogers announced that you can now get the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S5 for $300 on two years, or $10000 outright. That's a subsidy of $9700.
You have the option to cancel anytime, provided that you refund Bell, Telus or Rogers that $9700 subsidy they were so kind to give you in the first place.
They did cover off this dodge, at least:
G->2.->ii) When calculating the early cancellation fee,
a) the value of the device subsidy is the retail price of the device minus the amount that the customer paid for the device when the contract was agreed to; and
b) the retail price of the device is the lesser of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price or the price set for the device when it is purchased from the service provider without a contract.
Lots of things are against the law. I am trying to figure out the logic why.
Because it prevents fair competition. It's like NewEgg trying to dictate to their suppliers that nobody else that the supplier provides the widget for can offer it for a lower price than NewEgg has it posted for, ever. Nobody else can offer that same widget on a 24-hour sale, or for a Black Friday sale, or whatever.
Pricing should be based on market demands and the internal business models of whomever is offering the widget (or ebook) to the end user, not arbitrarily dictated by one supplier in the market. If supplier B wants to offer a week long half off sale or something to drum up traffic, they should be able to if it meets their business goals and as long as the manufacturer (or publisher) is still getting their agreed upon price. Likewise, the manufacturer or publisher should be free to drive the best negotiated deal they can with various suppliers, and if that means a lower cost per unit (but many more units) for supplier B, then that is in their best interest, even if supplier A(pple) doesn't like it...
The only thing that is tricky in this case is the 'per unit' evaluation. Since ebooks are not physical objects, I'm pretty sure that suppliers don't pre-pay for a fixed number of them, then have to go back and purchase more when they 'run out'. Regardless, though, price determination should ultimately rest with the supplier, and if they want to offer the ebook (or widget) as a loss leader (i.e., at a lower price than they actually paid for it) in order to bring more traffic to the site and potentially drive up sales in other areas, that should be entirely up to them, not at the discretion of some random, third party competitor.
Basically it comes down to this: if supplier B's business model is more competitive than supplier A's, then they can and should win the battle for customers in an open and free market, whether that be through better advertising (e.g., Nike), selling in bulk quantities (e.g., Costco), better quality (e.g., DeWalt) or offering reduced retail pricing through bulk purchase agreements and warehousing by the supplier (e.g., Amazon and WalMart). Price fixing breaks this model, so it is considered anti-competitive, and therefore illegal in a nominally free market society.
In the surprisingly widespread reality in which people don't play on-line games and don't care about on-line content.
The current XBox can be ran just fine without a network connection, and just because you can't imagine a world in which people do that, it doesn't mean that a lot of us don't do it.
This.
One of our favorite things is to get together at someone's house or the cabin and play XBox Trivial Pursuit with family and friends. While I appreciate the ability to connect in order to purchase and download additional question packs, if it required a network connection all the time just to play the game...well, I guess we'd just have to dust off the old board and even older question packs. Not even sure we'd be able to find all the wedge pieces anymore...