However they [land based air] have historically failed at naval defense.
Citation needed.
Pearl Harbor, Philippines, Truk,... (only bothering to mention cases with enemies of comparable capability)
In fact land-based aircraft have every advantage in an engagement with a naval aggressor, assuming anything like parity in technology and funding it's not even a contest.
I suppose it is your turn to offer a citation of successful land based air defense against naval forces between comparable opponents.
When you consider that the US is the only power on Earth still floating full Carrier vessels the argument is even more absurd.
No, the aircraft carrier has two goals. Defense of the sea and the ability to project power inland from unpredictable avenues. You seem to be ignoring the later. With the concentration of people and infrastructure near the coast aircraft carriers can have an immense influence.
The Kuznetsov and their like are not really comparable to our Aircraft Carriers, fielding smaller numbers of less capable aircraft with lighter loadouts using ski-jumps to take off.
No potential enemy has or is close to obtaining the ability to field a Navy inside the operational range of the US Air Force operating from ground-bases without losing it very quickly.
Seriously? Imperial Japan destroyed the the US land based forces in Hawaii and the Philippines on the ground. The B17 bombers that promised exactly the type of defense you propose failed miserably.
The US Navy, with a much larger budget than the US Air Force, would be very hard pressed to challenge the US Air Force today, and no one else on Earth could even come close.
Seriously? With mobility and unpredictability Navy subs could launch cruise missiles with a flight time of a few minutes against runways cratering them or littering them with submunitions (mines) rendering the runways inoperable. As demonstrated at Pearl Harbor a long range naval capability gives a country mobility and initiative, the ability to initiate hostilities at the time and place of its choosing.
Regarding "immobile", aircraft need infrastructure, lots of it... And in a land base that infrastructure is immobile, ie a target.
They sure do, that's the point! Stationing them in an ocean doesnt obviate the need for infrastructure in the slightest, it only makes that infrastructure vastly more expensive to provide and maintain, and vastly more vulnerable to attack... And an Aircraft Carrier is NOT a target? Hello?
It's a very large, very expensive target that doesnt dare move without a full task force to screen and defend it.
Actually the point is that mobility makes one a less vulnerable target. When Imperial Japanese naval forces countered the US invasion of Guadalcanal the US Navy and Marine aircraft on Henderson Field were under frequent attack while those aboard aircraft carriers were safer as the carriers withdrew from the immediate vicinity of the battle.
A strike on an airbase that temporarily disables one runway is a strike that likely would sink a Carrier entirely. And even if the Carrier survives, it's temporarily out of action entirely (it only HAS one runway) and repairing it will take much longer and cost much more than patching up an airbase would.
When an airbase loses its runway it also tends to lose its aircraft minutes later. Furthermore these runways also have a habit of changing hands. Henderson Field on Guadalcanal was taken by the US, Wake Island's airfield was lost by the US, etc. Incidentally, Wake Island's air power was useless since it was not supported by long range naval forces and was simply blockaded and starved.
Britains defense in WWII was overwhelmingly from land-based airfields, which produced much better results at much lower cost. I certainly never claimed that a Navy cannot be used defensively, simply that it makes no sense to build one for that purpose, given the options and the costs involved.
Winston Churchill seemed to think that long range naval power was the foundation for *everything* else that occurred during the war:
"The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939–1945)
History shows otherwise, both early American (1812) and more recent (WW2). Your idea of being safe behind fixed immobile defenses has been shown to be a failed strategy for millennia.
I said nothing about being safe behind immobile defenses first off, that's sheer fabrication.
"... but the same effect can be had for a fraction of the cost with ground bases..."
Ground bases are immobile.
Land-based aircraft are hardly immobile.
However they have historically failed at naval defense. Regarding "immobile", aircraft need infrastructure, lots of it. And in a land base that infrastructure is immobile, ie a target. Witness the plethora of decades old weapons systems that crater runways or bust bunkers protecting aircraft, munitions, fuel, etc. For thirty plus years we've have been watching gun/missile camera footage of land based aircraft being ripped apart, in part, by naval aircraft and missiles.
Littoral vessels are hardly immobile. Hunter-killer submarines are not immobile, and confining them to the vicinity of your coast rather than stationing them all around the world does not make them so.
However that surrenders the initiative to the enemy. Something that from Mahan to Clausewitz to Sun Tzu has been taught to be a losing strategy.
Additionally, it allows you to be strangled economically. England controlled its coastal waters during WW2 for instance, yet there was a danger of starvation and long range naval forces (surface and air) were necessary to break the blockade through convoy escort. Winston Churchill said:
"The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939–1945)
Land based missile launchers are not normally immobile either, and there are plenty of other options. Drawing lessons from the War of 1812 as if the technologies involved havent radically changed the situation is laughable on its own, but you are drawing the wrong lessons from it to boot!
Actually what is laughable is to think that tactical technology somehow invalidates thousands of years of proven strategic thinking and history.
The British had absolute superiority on the sea, the worlds premiere Navy with over 600 military vessels, something the US was not able to even begin to compete with. And yet they did not win. Their Navy alone cost them far more than we even had to spend, we could not even dream of challenging it on the high seas, and yet we defended ourselves and won. Think about it.
Yet a seaborne force was able to land and take the capital Washington DC and burn various buildings including the White House. You consider that a successful defense? I consider that evidence of the failure of the Jeffersonian ideal of a shallow water navy.
Navies aren't really all that useful for defending the country. Sure, they can be parked off our coast and used for that, but the same effect can be had for a fraction of the cost with ground bases.
History shows otherwise, both early American (1812) and more recent (WW2). Your idea of being safe behind fixed immobile defenses has been shown to be a failed strategy for millennia.
The only time you really need a Navy is if you want, not to defend yourself, but to sail around the world attacking or threatening to attack other people in their own homes.
Wrong. If you have international trade and commerce you need a Navy to defend the trade routes. Either your Navy or someone else's friendly Navy.
What makes you think it's illegal to "interfere with a contract between others"?...
My Business Law textbook.
... That's how business runs! Let's say you have a contract to buy 10,000 widgets from me for $100 each, and some bozo comes along and offers them to you for $2 each. He's sure as hell encouraging you to hire a lawyer to find a way to weasel out of the contract with me. Are you saying that's it's illegal for that bozo to undercut me? Why would you even make something like this up?...
"Competition is the essence of business. Successful corporation compete aggressively, and the law permits and expects them to. But there are times when healthy competition becomes illegal interference. This is called tortious interference with business relations. It can take one of two closely related forms - interference with a contract or interference with a prospective advantage."
Business Law, Samuelson and Beatty, Thompson Higher Education, 2007, p.143
"There is nothing wrong with two companies bidding against each other to buy a parcel of land, and nothing wrong with one corporation doing everything possible to convince the seller to ignore all competitors. But once a company has signed a contract to buy the land, it is improper to induce the seller to break the deal."
ibid, p. 144.
.. YANAL. Don't pretend to be one.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Incidentally the reason we non-lawyers take a class in business law is so that we are aware of things like "interference with a contract" and try to avoid getting our own ass sued. Also to know enough to sign purchasing agreements that can be terminated at any time so that we are not locked into one deal should a better deal come along.
Perhaps for the owner of the phone and with respect to copyright, patents, interoperability, etc.
However having a third party such as Toyota encourage someone to violate a contract with Apple is something entirely different. Interfering with a contract between others is something that is against the law in and of itself IIRC.
jobs and woz got their start doing blueboxes... now jobs tries to fucking put kids in jail for doing the same thing.
Jobs is just trying to recreate the conditions that his generation's hackers evolved in. There has to be some risk involved. If there were no risk then jailbreaking is about as much of a hack as putting LEDs in a tower case and installing a transparent side panel.
Then again, given how wild of an exaggeration your "put kids in jail" comment is jailbreaking does seems closer to case mod
'ing than bluebox'ing. The actual risk to some "kid" jailbreaking his phone is more like having to explain to dad/mom that he bricked his phone.:-)
I had no idea that he has a degree in education or did postgraduate studies in education or even home schooled his own children. Is this just as iffy as a Musical composer telling an engineer how to build a bridge?
You are correct, you have no idea. After leaving Apple Wozniak gave back to the community, literally, as a fifth grade teacher at a local public school. He instructs teachers on the use of technology. He also setup and helped maintain, personally, computer labs at local schools. So he does know a little about child education.
Samsung generally doesn't have obvious typos on the front face of its products, eg. "Compiant" instead of compliant , "fie fon" ???, and of course it is hard for an external drive to be USB, SATA, and PATA all at once...especially since it obviously doesn't have SATA or PATA connectors. The last one MIGHT have been excusable since they COULD be referencing the drive itself instead of the device as a whole, but I can't imagine them doing that.
At the local computer swap meet I also avoid the game cartridges labeled Ninfendo.:-)
Science is demonstrable, repeatable and self-correcting. Most
importantly: Science Delivers. Not understanding the intricacies
doesn't make it "faith".
Faith is an idea with no evidence to back it up no matter how adept the 'experts'. Even
more important, the 'experts' often don't agree on even the basics. Witness
all the various religions and factions thereof.
Actually faith is simply trusting a person or thing. Science is faith based, it trusts in human interpretations of observations. Your reference to self-correction implies that such faith/trust is sometimes found to be unwarranted or mistaken. For example consider the history of the current theory for the origin of the universe: the big bang. It was originally rejected by some eminent scientists of its day because the theory was developed by a catholic priest(*) and as these scientists commented: it smelled of creationism. Hardly a testament to open mindedness, more an expression of faith in the narrow religious sense you offer - merely an expression of the opposite polarity, anti rather than pro. To return to the broader and more accurate definition of faith, trust, many lesser scientists then had faith/trust in the opinion of these eminent scientists.
That said, I agree that we are better off that our faith/trust is based in the scientific process. I just recognize that using or acting upon fallible human interpretations does require a certain level of faith.
(*) "Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a priest from the Catholic University of Louvain, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom". The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts — an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
"... 'L33t is obviously a respelling and a contraction [of elite],' says Diamond, 'so it would be a separate entry, and yes it is familiar to me, so I think it's something we would consider for inclusion.'"
On the plus side, I no longer feel guilty about using dictionary.reference.com rather than the Oxford English Dictionary.
Murder is a person to person action. War is a state to state action. So yes, war is murder, but on a state level, not a personal level.
Murder is an illegal killing. State approved killings - self defense, defense of another (often police), execution of a death warrant (prison), military combat against combatants - are legal and thus not murder.
Certainly, Linux dominates in the android vs windows mobile market, and it dominates in the server appliance market over windows. But that's about it.
I don't think it is accurate to describe an Android win as a Linux win. To say Android based phones indicate Linux's success seems about as logical as saying Mac OS X's success demonstrates FreeBSD's triumph over Linux. As nearly all Mac users don't know or care about the FreeBSD underpinnings, nearly all Android users don't know or care about the Linux underpinnings.
But MS is still really big in the server market. Yes, Linux is big in webserver market. However that isn't the only server market out there. Where MS is really big server (and desktop) wise is enterprise servers.
Linux really beat the traditional unix vendors (Sun, SGI, SCO, etc) not so much Microsoft. Both Linux and Microsoft went after the traditional unix vendor's market and as you point out both got their piece of the pie. Its natural that Linux did well given that the market was already unix based. What is more remarkable is that Microsoft has been as successful as it is, when fighting on unix home turf Linux had the advantage.
Sadly, professors still live in the past, and they are not going to allow you to use a cellphone during an exam due to fear of cheating/etc.
I've been to grad school in the recent past. Some professors allowed laptops with the caveat that the wifi was disabled and of course no wired connection. Some classes were mathematically oriented and we needed to run specialty computational apps or use a spreadsheet, other classes had essay type answers and the professor wanted electronic submissions of answers. For similarly minded professors they could require that the phone be in "airplane mode" where all wireless circuitry is powered down. There is hope and I expect this trend to continue. I'm sure there were professors in the 1970s who didn't allow calculators.
Also, "Nobody has ever been fired for buying IBM" applies in this field too, and no scientist is going to do any important calculation with some app he downloaded from the market. Same goes for doctors, engineers, etc.
The same could have been said for spreadsheets and accounting software from new firms in the 1980s as personal computers emerged (Apple II, various CP/M machines, etc - pre IBM PC so brand name was not an issue). With familiarity comes acceptances.
That said, I understand this sentiment. I share such concerns to a degree. We have a background in computational chemistry so we take such things a little more seriously than some other developers may.
The lucky grad students are the ones that don't get stuck with the night job in the Rat Room. No amount of washing will diminish the smell to the point of your being able to get a date. Your only hope is if the poor soul curating the dead shark collection is of the opposite sex.
I had English after Biology. Soon after entering the room our English instructor asked when we were going to be done dissecting those damn sharks. We told her we finished last week.
Fortunately this was high school so the male/female ratio in biology class was better than in college so there was some hope.
Looks like it's got a ways to go to catch up even with my good old TI85. No graphs, no matrix math, no stored variables (?), and no scripts. Oh, and it needs a chemistry mode and a units conversion mode. Not saying it is useless but I am not buying it just yet.
Fair enough, however the handhelds that I am referring to are simpler than the TI85. Perpenso Calc is competing against the $30-$50 handhelds from TI and HP, not the $100'ish handhelds. Thats for future versions.:-)
I appreciate the feedback. Its sometimes more useful to hear from those who chose not to buy than those who did.
Just like the TI calculators. Yep, those never go down in value, always the same price since the 90s.
I'd say the price points go back to the 1970s.
A shameless plug but you can get the functionality of several dedicated handheld calculators in a single app for your smartphone these days: Perpenso Calc. Scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill/tip. You can even cherry pick the functionality you want and only pay for the "calculators" you need. Handheld calculators are going to largely become a victim of the convergence/consolidation of digital devices. Far fewer people are going to need/want the standalone handheld calculator.
Although what we REALLY need a class on is "common sense" how to deal with money. Interest, balancing a 'checkbook'/banking account. Hell I'd settle for 'this is how you count back money.'
That's what Home Economics used to be...
Perhaps revisiting the math education system of the 1940s/1950s would be helpful. Here's what I learned from my grandmother recently. What they got wrong back then was that there was some prejudgement as to whether or not a student was college material. If you were judged a "not" it was difficult to get into the college prep classes. What they got right was that in high school there was four years of math, period. You were either in the college prep math series or the practical/vocational math series. The later included balancing your checkbook, making sure your paycheck was correct (1.5x for overtime, 2x for sundays, etc), converting between units and using fractions in cooking recipe and lumber yard type applications, etc.
When I was in high school only one year of math was required - pitiful. Perhaps we need to bring back the practical/vocation type of math classes (modernized of course) and require three or four years of math?
GE pays taxes in the country where the profits are "made". GE engineers its business so that the profits are generated in countries other than the US, countries that have lower tax rates than the US. So if GE entered the drug trade the Columbian subsidiary of GE would sell the drugs to the US subsidiary of GE at about the US retail rate. So all the profits would be "made" by the Columbian subsidiary and only Columbia would collect taxes on the drug profits. The global business would be engineered so that the US subsidiary just breaks even.
Next you will be telling me we can clone dinosaurs from the blood in amber trapped mosquito.
FWIW. There is an important distinction between Sum of All Fears (Clancy) and Jurassic Park (Crichton). Cloning dino is pure speculative fiction but building an atomic bomb is historic fact. Atomic bombs represented 50 or so year old technology and processes at the time of Clancy's writing. Also where the key in JP was finding usable DNA from the bug in amber the key in SOAF was finding usable parts from a damaged nuclear weapon built by an existing nuclear power. What served Clancy for many years was keeping his fiction closer to the plausibility line. This is just a distinction, not a measurement of goodness. I've enjoyed Crichton's work too.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Sum Of All Fears - not the movie (which almost completely missed the point) but the book, which goes into a fair amount of detail as to the exact amount of work it would take to manufacture not just a fission bomb (a la the bombings in Japan) but a two-stage thermonuclear fusion bomb. Even back then (and this was written in 1992) it would have been well within the reach of a moderately wealthy industrialist....
FWIW Tom Clancy (the author of Sum of All Fears) worked with actual nuclear weapons experts to make sure the details and procedures he depicted in the book were wrong. He wanted the book to sound correct but not actually be correct. You could say something similar for much of what appears in his techno thriller fiction books, sounds correct but is really quite heavy with artistic license.
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However they [land based air] have historically failed at naval defense.
Citation needed.
Pearl Harbor, Philippines, Truk, ... (only bothering to mention cases with enemies of comparable capability)
In fact land-based aircraft have every advantage in an engagement with a naval aggressor, assuming anything like parity in technology and funding it's not even a contest.
I suppose it is your turn to offer a citation of successful land based air defense against naval forces between comparable opponents.
When you consider that the US is the only power on Earth still floating full Carrier vessels the argument is even more absurd.
No, the aircraft carrier has two goals. Defense of the sea and the ability to project power inland from unpredictable avenues. You seem to be ignoring the later. With the concentration of people and infrastructure near the coast aircraft carriers can have an immense influence.
The Kuznetsov and their like are not really comparable to our Aircraft Carriers, fielding smaller numbers of less capable aircraft with lighter loadouts using ski-jumps to take off.
No potential enemy has or is close to obtaining the ability to field a Navy inside the operational range of the US Air Force operating from ground-bases without losing it very quickly.
Seriously? Imperial Japan destroyed the the US land based forces in Hawaii and the Philippines on the ground. The B17 bombers that promised exactly the type of defense you propose failed miserably.
The US Navy, with a much larger budget than the US Air Force, would be very hard pressed to challenge the US Air Force today, and no one else on Earth could even come close.
Seriously? With mobility and unpredictability Navy subs could launch cruise missiles with a flight time of a few minutes against runways cratering them or littering them with submunitions (mines) rendering the runways inoperable. As demonstrated at Pearl Harbor a long range naval capability gives a country mobility and initiative, the ability to initiate hostilities at the time and place of its choosing.
Regarding "immobile", aircraft need infrastructure, lots of it ... And in a land base that infrastructure is immobile, ie a target.
They sure do, that's the point! Stationing them in an ocean doesnt obviate the need for infrastructure in the slightest, it only makes that infrastructure vastly more expensive to provide and maintain, and vastly more vulnerable to attack ... And an Aircraft Carrier is NOT a target? Hello?
It's a very large, very expensive target that doesnt dare move without a full task force to screen and defend it.
Actually the point is that mobility makes one a less vulnerable target. When Imperial Japanese naval forces countered the US invasion of Guadalcanal the US Navy and Marine aircraft on Henderson Field were under frequent attack while those aboard aircraft carriers were safer as the carriers withdrew from the immediate vicinity of the battle.
A strike on an airbase that temporarily disables one runway is a strike that likely would sink a Carrier entirely. And even if the Carrier survives, it's temporarily out of action entirely (it only HAS one runway) and repairing it will take much longer and cost much more than patching up an airbase would.
When an airbase loses its runway it also tends to lose its aircraft minutes later. Furthermore these runways also have a habit of changing hands. Henderson Field on Guadalcanal was taken by the US, Wake Island's airfield was lost by the US, etc. Incidentally, Wake Island's air power was useless since it was not supported by long range naval forces and was simply blockaded and starved.
Also, once again, Britain was nea
Britains defense in WWII was overwhelmingly from land-based airfields, which produced much better results at much lower cost. I certainly never claimed that a Navy cannot be used defensively, simply that it makes no sense to build one for that purpose, given the options and the costs involved.
Winston Churchill seemed to think that long range naval power was the foundation for *everything* else that occurred during the war:
"The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939–1945)
History shows otherwise, both early American (1812) and more recent (WW2). Your idea of being safe behind fixed immobile defenses has been shown to be a failed strategy for millennia.
I said nothing about being safe behind immobile defenses first off, that's sheer fabrication.
"... but the same effect can be had for a fraction of the cost with ground bases ..."
Ground bases are immobile.
Land-based aircraft are hardly immobile.
However they have historically failed at naval defense. Regarding "immobile", aircraft need infrastructure, lots of it. And in a land base that infrastructure is immobile, ie a target. Witness the plethora of decades old weapons systems that crater runways or bust bunkers protecting aircraft, munitions, fuel, etc. For thirty plus years we've have been watching gun/missile camera footage of land based aircraft being ripped apart, in part, by naval aircraft and missiles.
Littoral vessels are hardly immobile. Hunter-killer submarines are not immobile, and confining them to the vicinity of your coast rather than stationing them all around the world does not make them so.
However that surrenders the initiative to the enemy. Something that from Mahan to Clausewitz to Sun Tzu has been taught to be a losing strategy.
Additionally, it allows you to be strangled economically. England controlled its coastal waters during WW2 for instance, yet there was a danger of starvation and long range naval forces (surface and air) were necessary to break the blockade through convoy escort. Winston Churchill said:
"The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939–1945)
Land based missile launchers are not normally immobile either, and there are plenty of other options. Drawing lessons from the War of 1812 as if the technologies involved havent radically changed the situation is laughable on its own, but you are drawing the wrong lessons from it to boot!
Actually what is laughable is to think that tactical technology somehow invalidates thousands of years of proven strategic thinking and history.
The British had absolute superiority on the sea, the worlds premiere Navy with over 600 military vessels, something the US was not able to even begin to compete with. And yet they did not win. Their Navy alone cost them far more than we even had to spend, we could not even dream of challenging it on the high seas, and yet we defended ourselves and won. Think about it.
Yet a seaborne force was able to land and take the capital Washington DC and burn various buildings including the White House. You consider that a successful defense? I consider that evidence of the failure of the Jeffersonian ideal of a shallow water navy.
Navies aren't really all that useful for defending the country. Sure, they can be parked off our coast and used for that, but the same effect can be had for a fraction of the cost with ground bases.
History shows otherwise, both early American (1812) and more recent (WW2). Your idea of being safe behind fixed immobile defenses has been shown to be a failed strategy for millennia.
The only time you really need a Navy is if you want, not to defend yourself, but to sail around the world attacking or threatening to attack other people in their own homes.
Wrong. If you have international trade and commerce you need a Navy to defend the trade routes. Either your Navy or someone else's friendly Navy.
It makes you wonder how things would have turned out if Jobs had accepted the offer.
Well, google phones probably would have been cooler and much more popular. ;-)
What makes you think it's illegal to "interfere with a contract between others"? ...
My Business Law textbook.
... That's how business runs! Let's say you have a contract to buy 10,000 widgets from me for $100 each, and some bozo comes along and offers them to you for $2 each. He's sure as hell encouraging you to hire a lawyer to find a way to weasel out of the contract with me. Are you saying that's it's illegal for that bozo to undercut me? Why would you even make something like this up? ...
"Competition is the essence of business. Successful corporation compete aggressively, and the law permits and expects them to. But there are times when healthy competition becomes illegal interference. This is called tortious interference with business relations. It can take one of two closely related forms - interference with a contract or interference with a prospective advantage."
Business Law, Samuelson and Beatty, Thompson Higher Education, 2007, p.143
"There is nothing wrong with two companies bidding against each other to buy a parcel of land, and nothing wrong with one corporation doing everything possible to convince the seller to ignore all competitors. But once a company has signed a contract to buy the land, it is improper to induce the seller to break the deal."
ibid, p. 144.
.. YANAL. Don't pretend to be one.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Incidentally the reason we non-lawyers take a class in business law is so that we are aware of things like "interference with a contract" and try to avoid getting our own ass sued. Also to know enough to sign purchasing agreements that can be terminated at any time so that we are not locked into one deal should a better deal come along.
Wasn't jail-breaking deemed legal?
Perhaps for the owner of the phone and with respect to copyright, patents, interoperability, etc.
However having a third party such as Toyota encourage someone to violate a contract with Apple is something entirely different. Interfering with a contract between others is something that is against the law in and of itself IIRC.
jobs and woz got their start doing blueboxes ... now jobs tries to fucking put kids in jail for doing the same thing.
Jobs is just trying to recreate the conditions that his generation's hackers evolved in. There has to be some risk involved. If there were no risk then jailbreaking is about as much of a hack as putting LEDs in a tower case and installing a transparent side panel.
:-)
Then again, given how wild of an exaggeration your "put kids in jail" comment is jailbreaking does seems closer to case mod 'ing than bluebox'ing. The actual risk to some "kid" jailbreaking his phone is more like having to explain to dad/mom that he bricked his phone.
I had no idea that he has a degree in education or did postgraduate studies in education or even home schooled his own children. Is this just as iffy as a Musical composer telling an engineer how to build a bridge?
You are correct, you have no idea. After leaving Apple Wozniak gave back to the community, literally, as a fifth grade teacher at a local public school. He instructs teachers on the use of technology. He also setup and helped maintain, personally, computer labs at local schools. So he does know a little about child education.
Samsung generally doesn't have obvious typos on the front face of its products, eg. "Compiant" instead of compliant , "fie fon" ???, and of course it is hard for an external drive to be USB, SATA, and PATA all at once...especially since it obviously doesn't have SATA or PATA connectors. The last one MIGHT have been excusable since they COULD be referencing the drive itself instead of the device as a whole, but I can't imagine them doing that.
At the local computer swap meet I also avoid the game cartridges labeled Ninfendo. :-)
Science is demonstrable, repeatable and self-correcting. Most importantly: Science Delivers. Not understanding the intricacies doesn't make it "faith". Faith is an idea with no evidence to back it up no matter how adept the 'experts'. Even more important, the 'experts' often don't agree on even the basics. Witness all the various religions and factions thereof.
Actually faith is simply trusting a person or thing. Science is faith based, it trusts in human interpretations of observations. Your reference to self-correction implies that such faith/trust is sometimes found to be unwarranted or mistaken. For example consider the history of the current theory for the origin of the universe: the big bang. It was originally rejected by some eminent scientists of its day because the theory was developed by a catholic priest(*) and as these scientists commented: it smelled of creationism. Hardly a testament to open mindedness, more an expression of faith in the narrow religious sense you offer - merely an expression of the opposite polarity, anti rather than pro. To return to the broader and more accurate definition of faith, trust, many lesser scientists then had faith/trust in the opinion of these eminent scientists.
That said, I agree that we are better off that our faith/trust is based in the scientific process. I just recognize that using or acting upon fallible human interpretations does require a certain level of faith.
(*) "Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a priest from the Catholic University of Louvain, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom". The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts — an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
" ... 'L33t is obviously a respelling and a contraction [of elite],' says Diamond, 'so it would be a separate entry, and yes it is familiar to me, so I think it's something we would consider for inclusion.'"
On the plus side, I no longer feel guilty about using dictionary.reference.com rather than the Oxford English Dictionary.
Murder is a person to person action.
War is a state to state action. So yes, war is murder, but on a state level, not a personal level.
Murder is an illegal killing. State approved killings - self defense, defense of another (often police), execution of a death warrant (prison), military combat against combatants - are legal and thus not murder.
The government entity that laid them no longer exists.
However the successor government does. Just as the successor government inherits debts and obligations, it also inherits assets.
Certainly, Linux dominates in the android vs windows mobile market, and it dominates in the server appliance market over windows. But that's about it.
I don't think it is accurate to describe an Android win as a Linux win. To say Android based phones indicate Linux's success seems about as logical as saying Mac OS X's success demonstrates FreeBSD's triumph over Linux. As nearly all Mac users don't know or care about the FreeBSD underpinnings, nearly all Android users don't know or care about the Linux underpinnings.
But MS is still really big in the server market. Yes, Linux is big in webserver market. However that isn't the only server market out there. Where MS is really big server (and desktop) wise is enterprise servers.
Linux really beat the traditional unix vendors (Sun, SGI, SCO, etc) not so much Microsoft. Both Linux and Microsoft went after the traditional unix vendor's market and as you point out both got their piece of the pie. Its natural that Linux did well given that the market was already unix based. What is more remarkable is that Microsoft has been as successful as it is, when fighting on unix home turf Linux had the advantage.
Sadly, professors still live in the past, and they are not going to allow you to use a cellphone during an exam due to fear of cheating/etc.
I've been to grad school in the recent past. Some professors allowed laptops with the caveat that the wifi was disabled and of course no wired connection. Some classes were mathematically oriented and we needed to run specialty computational apps or use a spreadsheet, other classes had essay type answers and the professor wanted electronic submissions of answers. For similarly minded professors they could require that the phone be in "airplane mode" where all wireless circuitry is powered down. There is hope and I expect this trend to continue. I'm sure there were professors in the 1970s who didn't allow calculators.
Also, "Nobody has ever been fired for buying IBM" applies in this field too, and no scientist is going to do any important calculation with some app he downloaded from the market. Same goes for doctors, engineers, etc.
The same could have been said for spreadsheets and accounting software from new firms in the 1980s as personal computers emerged (Apple II, various CP/M machines, etc - pre IBM PC so brand name was not an issue). With familiarity comes acceptances.
That said, I understand this sentiment. I share such concerns to a degree. We have a background in computational chemistry so we take such things a little more seriously than some other developers may.
The lucky grad students are the ones that don't get stuck with the night job in the Rat Room. No amount of washing will diminish the smell to the point of your being able to get a date. Your only hope is if the poor soul curating the dead shark collection is of the opposite sex.
I had English after Biology. Soon after entering the room our English instructor asked when we were going to be done dissecting those damn sharks. We told her we finished last week.
Fortunately this was high school so the male/female ratio in biology class was better than in college so there was some hope.
Looks like it's got a ways to go to catch up even with my good old TI85. No graphs, no matrix math, no stored variables (?), and no scripts. Oh, and it needs a chemistry mode and a units conversion mode. Not saying it is useless but I am not buying it just yet.
Fair enough, however the handhelds that I am referring to are simpler than the TI85. Perpenso Calc is competing against the $30-$50 handhelds from TI and HP, not the $100'ish handhelds. Thats for future versions. :-)
I appreciate the feedback. Its sometimes more useful to hear from those who chose not to buy than those who did.
Just like the TI calculators. Yep, those never go down in value, always the same price since the 90s.
I'd say the price points go back to the 1970s.
A shameless plug but you can get the functionality of several dedicated handheld calculators in a single app for your smartphone these days: Perpenso Calc. Scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill/tip. You can even cherry pick the functionality you want and only pay for the "calculators" you need. Handheld calculators are going to largely become a victim of the convergence/consolidation of digital devices. Far fewer people are going to need/want the standalone handheld calculator.
Although what we REALLY need a class on is "common sense" how to deal with money. Interest, balancing a 'checkbook'/banking account. Hell I'd settle for 'this is how you count back money.'
That's what Home Economics used to be...
Perhaps revisiting the math education system of the 1940s/1950s would be helpful. Here's what I learned from my grandmother recently. What they got wrong back then was that there was some prejudgement as to whether or not a student was college material. If you were judged a "not" it was difficult to get into the college prep classes. What they got right was that in high school there was four years of math, period. You were either in the college prep math series or the practical/vocational math series. The later included balancing your checkbook, making sure your paycheck was correct (1.5x for overtime, 2x for sundays, etc), converting between units and using fractions in cooking recipe and lumber yard type applications, etc.
When I was in high school only one year of math was required - pitiful. Perhaps we need to bring back the practical/vocation type of math classes (modernized of course) and require three or four years of math?
at least the corporations will pay tax.
What if GE got into the drug trade?
GE pays taxes in the country where the profits are "made". GE engineers its business so that the profits are generated in countries other than the US, countries that have lower tax rates than the US. So if GE entered the drug trade the Columbian subsidiary of GE would sell the drugs to the US subsidiary of GE at about the US retail rate. So all the profits would be "made" by the Columbian subsidiary and only Columbia would collect taxes on the drug profits. The global business would be engineered so that the US subsidiary just breaks even.
Next you will be telling me we can clone dinosaurs from the blood in amber trapped mosquito.
FWIW. There is an important distinction between Sum of All Fears (Clancy) and Jurassic Park (Crichton). Cloning dino is pure speculative fiction but building an atomic bomb is historic fact. Atomic bombs represented 50 or so year old technology and processes at the time of Clancy's writing. Also where the key in JP was finding usable DNA from the bug in amber the key in SOAF was finding usable parts from a damaged nuclear weapon built by an existing nuclear power. What served Clancy for many years was keeping his fiction closer to the plausibility line. This is just a distinction, not a measurement of goodness. I've enjoyed Crichton's work too.
Fire. The inventor of fire never got a patent on it. Think of all the royalties he missed out on!
Untrue. Zeus held the patent, there was even enforcement. Prometheus paid quite a high price for his infringement.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Sum Of All Fears - not the movie (which almost completely missed the point) but the book, which goes into a fair amount of detail as to the exact amount of work it would take to manufacture not just a fission bomb (a la the bombings in Japan) but a two-stage thermonuclear fusion bomb. Even back then (and this was written in 1992) it would have been well within the reach of a moderately wealthy industrialist. ...
FWIW Tom Clancy (the author of Sum of All Fears) worked with actual nuclear weapons experts to make sure the details and procedures he depicted in the book were wrong. He wanted the book to sound correct but not actually be correct. You could say something similar for much of what appears in his techno thriller fiction books, sounds correct but is really quite heavy with artistic license.