I've heard it suggested that every law should automatically expire after a fixed period, such as one year or five years. Not only would the legislature be kept busy with votes for the laws that obviously should be kept ("Uh oh, armed robbery is going to become legalized on Wednesday...")...
I wonder what would be added to that new armed robbery legislation at 11pm on Tuesday. ("Ha ha! Now you either have to fund my pet project or be in favor of armed robbery.") Eleventh-hour riders to must-pass appropriations are sleazy enough. This could add a whole slew of new opportunities for this kind of abuse.
Besides, as others have pointed out, if people want to use Reader on your site's content, then there is something wrong with your design.
Exactly. I've been using Readability (upon which Reader seems to be based) for a while now and found that I never bother using it on, for instance, Ars Technica. Their site is clean enough that Readability doesn't really offer much benefit.
...develop new propulsion, energy, life support etc for a new manned directive in the future.
But without a manned space program, is there any motivation to develop these new technologies? Or will those programs just languish on a back burner until they are eventually cut?
The article seems to be pretty light on technical details. I wonder what the API will be like. What language will they use? What kind of application framework will be available? Will they develop their own IDE? How much access does the developer have to the hardware? How does the developer distribute software for testing?
Perhaps all of these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of Soap?
Now the ecozealots will decry our spoiling of the natural martial environment, and will protest any attempt at colonization or terraformation as the destruction of a precious natural world.
have a read of kim stanley robinson's mars trilogy. that's *exactly* what happens.
I was amused by Robinson's choice of names for the political factions. In the books, it's those who are opposed to preserving the natural environment who are called "Greens".
Excellent books, by the way. I highly recommend them.
This must be one of the worst cases of CYA that I have ever seen
CYA was pretty standard. The incidence of CYA seemed to be directly related to both risk and pay grade. So when top executives suddenly faced the risk of jail time... big time CYA.
This was a fortune 500 company. We had many accountants. And many lawyers. My involvement was mainly informational. Since I was involved with patching software that was then sent to customers, I was told what I could and couldn't do and why. I was also asked how it would impact my work.
you were selling a (product-)lifetime subscription
Our products were not sold as a subscription service. But it's interesting that you bring up subscriptions in this context. I've heard that is why iPhone customers get free software updates while iPod Touch customers have to pay. The iPhone revenue is amortized because it is treated like a service contract, while the iPod Touch revenue is booked all at once because it is treated like a single sale.
ok, I'll bite with my ignorance of why this then only applied to Apple, not other US IT companies?
When SOX was passed, there was a lot of discussion about what it meant for the company I was working for at the time. SOX made the CEO and CFO personally liable for the company's compliance with accounting rules. As an engineer, a lot of the discussion in my area centered on software upgrades. How did we have to account for upgrades and bug fixes?
As I recall, selling a product with the expectation of future free upgrades could be interpreted as booking revenue in advance of sales. If the customer's decision to buy was based on the expectation of the upgrade, and the seller books the revenue at the time of the sale, then the seller has booked revenue for a non-existent sale -- the future upgrade. By giving away free upgrades, the company could be establishing the expectation of future free upgrades, making the CEO and CFO potentially liable for accounting malpractice.
In the end, we decided what a lot of tech companies, including Apple, seem to have decided -- bug fixes would continue to be free, since they are addressing a product defect and not enabling new functionality. Upgrades, even if it was just to enable a latent feature of the hardware, would not be free.
I'm sick of companies selling services they know they can't deliver and then just hoping that enough customers don't actually use what they paid for. Then they whine about it when it all comes crashing down. "Unlimited" means "Unlimited". If you can't deliver it, then don't sell it. Trying to reap the profits of selling "unlimited" while not paying the costs of delivering "unlimited" is just dishonest. Huh, "dishonest". Now there's a word you hardly ever hear applied to large corporations./sarcasm. Just for the record, I don't own a smartphone.
Actually I read the summary and decided it was stupid. Sort of like, "I want to make a ham sandwich. Conventionally these contain bread and ham, but I'm an idiot so I want to make it from dog hair and epoxy resin".
I think the poster posed a perfectly valid question. The way I read the summary was (using your analogy) more like,
I want to make a ham sandwich. The last time I checked, these were made with Wonder bread and Oscar Meyer ham. Since then, has anyone discovered a better recipe?
Of course, while your analogy is somewhat amusing, it is not necessarily the most appropriate one since computer tech changes significantly faster than ham sandwich tech.:)
This sounds like it could be the beginning one of those horrible direct-to-video Sci Fi movies. Probably starring Stephen Baldwin as the Cassandra-like scientist trying to warn everyone of the danger while the only one to believe him is a local fisherman and his beautiful daughter...
As I understand it, flying wings were difficult to fly, in part because of the lack of vertical stabilizers. I remember reading somewhere that because of this instability, the flying wing design was not practical until the advent of fly-by-wire.
Slashdot Mirror
it is quite simple to set your policy to being discouraged by any ad you see from purchasing from the sponsor.
Meanwhile, for those of us who are human... :)
If it were that simple, there would be no money in advertising.
it'd hardly be rocket surgery to rig up a stand to hold the smartphone/camera.
Like this Do-It-Yourself Book Scanner?
I've heard it suggested that every law should automatically expire after a fixed period, such as one year or five years. Not only would the legislature be kept busy with votes for the laws that obviously should be kept ("Uh oh, armed robbery is going to become legalized on Wednesday...")...
I wonder what would be added to that new armed robbery legislation at 11pm on Tuesday. ("Ha ha! Now you either have to fund my pet project or be in favor of armed robbery.") Eleventh-hour riders to must-pass appropriations are sleazy enough. This could add a whole slew of new opportunities for this kind of abuse.
Besides, as others have pointed out, if people want to use Reader on your site's content, then there is something wrong with your design.
Exactly. I've been using Readability (upon which Reader seems to be based) for a while now and found that I never bother using it on, for instance, Ars Technica. Their site is clean enough that Readability doesn't really offer much benefit.
...develop new propulsion, energy, life support etc for a new manned directive in the future.
But without a manned space program, is there any motivation to develop these new technologies? Or will those programs just languish on a back burner until they are eventually cut?
I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone.
I remember riding in a car when the driver was pulled over for going 58 in a 55. Under "speed", the officer wrote "over 55".
I haven't seen a floppy in almost 10 years.
I have a box on floppies on my desk that I use for propping up books because I'm too lazy to buy a book stand. :)
Apple's new MacBook lineup has launched with a refresh to the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models.
I'm pretty sure that only the MacBook Pro models have been updated. The MacBook and MacBook Air seem the same.
It is not a mistake. Languages evolve. Keep up or get left behind.
Well, "kkjs iie;;slkdk, skkdjie skkkd;wporuvm" to you, then!
The article seems to be pretty light on technical details. I wonder what the API will be like. What language will they use? What kind of application framework will be available? Will they develop their own IDE? How much access does the developer have to the hardware? How does the developer distribute software for testing?
Perhaps all of these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of Soap?
Now the ecozealots will decry our spoiling of the natural martial environment, and will protest any attempt at colonization or terraformation as the destruction of a precious natural world.
have a read of kim stanley robinson's mars trilogy. that's *exactly* what happens.
I was amused by Robinson's choice of names for the political factions. In the books, it's those who are opposed to preserving the natural environment who are called "Greens".
Excellent books, by the way. I highly recommend them.
This must be one of the worst cases of CYA that I have ever seen
CYA was pretty standard. The incidence of CYA seemed to be directly related to both risk and pay grade. So when top executives suddenly faced the risk of jail time ... big time CYA.
For this type of stuff, I hire an accountant.
This was a fortune 500 company. We had many accountants. And many lawyers. My involvement was mainly informational. Since I was involved with patching software that was then sent to customers, I was told what I could and couldn't do and why. I was also asked how it would impact my work.
you were selling a (product-)lifetime subscription
Our products were not sold as a subscription service. But it's interesting that you bring up subscriptions in this context. I've heard that is why iPhone customers get free software updates while iPod Touch customers have to pay. The iPhone revenue is amortized because it is treated like a service contract, while the iPod Touch revenue is booked all at once because it is treated like a single sale.
ok, I'll bite with my ignorance of why this then only applied to Apple, not other US IT companies?
When SOX was passed, there was a lot of discussion about what it meant for the company I was working for at the time. SOX made the CEO and CFO personally liable for the company's compliance with accounting rules. As an engineer, a lot of the discussion in my area centered on software upgrades. How did we have to account for upgrades and bug fixes?
As I recall, selling a product with the expectation of future free upgrades could be interpreted as booking revenue in advance of sales. If the customer's decision to buy was based on the expectation of the upgrade, and the seller books the revenue at the time of the sale, then the seller has booked revenue for a non-existent sale -- the future upgrade. By giving away free upgrades, the company could be establishing the expectation of future free upgrades, making the CEO and CFO potentially liable for accounting malpractice.
In the end, we decided what a lot of tech companies, including Apple, seem to have decided -- bug fixes would continue to be free, since they are addressing a product defect and not enabling new functionality. Upgrades, even if it was just to enable a latent feature of the hardware, would not be free.
I'm sick of companies selling services they know they can't deliver and then just hoping that enough customers don't actually use what they paid for. Then they whine about it when it all comes crashing down. "Unlimited" means "Unlimited". If you can't deliver it, then don't sell it. Trying to reap the profits of selling "unlimited" while not paying the costs of delivering "unlimited" is just dishonest. Huh, "dishonest". Now there's a word you hardly ever hear applied to large corporations. /sarcasm. Just for the record, I don't own a smartphone.
But one of the nice things about electric cars is that they're so quiet. Can you turn the sound off?
If it can't be turned off, then I, for one, won't be buying one. Modern life is noisy enough as it is.
I would love to find some links
They're not exactly stock and not driven at normal road speeds, but here's what I was able to find:
http://www.netcomposites.com/news.asp?3291
http://www.shell.com/home/content/eco-marathon-en/europe/faqs/faq.html#6
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2003060314877
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
- Linus Torvalds
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
Actually I read the summary and decided it was stupid. Sort of like, "I want to make a ham sandwich. Conventionally these contain bread and ham, but I'm an idiot so I want to make it from dog hair and epoxy resin".
I think the poster posed a perfectly valid question. The way I read the summary was (using your analogy) more like,
I want to make a ham sandwich. The last time I checked, these were made with Wonder bread and Oscar Meyer ham. Since then, has anyone discovered a better recipe?
Of course, while your analogy is somewhat amusing, it is not necessarily the most appropriate one since computer tech changes significantly faster than ham sandwich tech. :)
This sounds like it could be the beginning one of those horrible direct-to-video Sci Fi movies. Probably starring Stephen Baldwin as the Cassandra-like scientist trying to warn everyone of the danger while the only one to believe him is a local fisherman and his beautiful daughter...
We will send out robots. With our brains uploaded into them.
This is one of the themes of a great novel by Greg Egan called Diaspora.
As I understand it, flying wings were difficult to fly, in part because of the lack of vertical stabilizers. I remember reading somewhere that because of this instability, the flying wing design was not practical until the advent of fly-by-wire.