Don't we (the US) already have that in the form of SS (old age, disability, survivor benefits), food stamps, etc, etc?
No we don't. Those are programs for people that meet specific criteria. Big portions of the population don't qualify for those programs for one reason or another. Even when you do qualify, sometimes they take a while to kick in. I know first hand that the process of SS disability can take quite a while.
I'd need a lot of evidence to make me think that something like this is not a stupid idea. I think the notion that this would lift people out of poverty would be quickly swamped by inflation. Prices aren't going to stay static. It also means that those who elect not to work for whatever reason would have to be supported by others though a pretty hefty progressive tax system. We have that to some degree now but it's unclear that this idea would improve things. Guaranteed there would be complaining (more than now) about those who are able bodied but choose not to work. It's also unclear how this would affect wages at companies and whether it would ultimately be a competitive issue. Whether the company pays workers directly or pays taxes that are passed through, there still is a cost involved and US workers are already pretty expensive.
So you're claiming that Gross Profits are not Taxable.
Never claimed anything of the sort though it is true that gross profits are not taxable. Net Profits are taxable. Gross profits are merely a useful tool to understand the cost of actually making the products.
Well I'm the Taxing authority and I'll take 25 percent of anything you call profit.
Good thing you aren't a taxing authority then because that's pretty ignorant.
What you're talking about is the Break Even Point
No it is not what I'm talking about. Breakeven analysis is not remotely relevant here.
Profit is what's left after all expenses are covered, which is the only acceptable use for the term Profit.
Well you are wrong but if you choose not to believe me then that is your problem not mine.
My definition is THE definition of monopoly. A monopoly is a company which is the sole (or effectively so) seller of a product or service in a market. Monopolies are characterized by a lack of economic competition, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the existence of monopoly prices. At no time has Apple ever faced a lack of economic competition, there have always been viable substitute products, and while their prices are often high they do not and never have enjoyed monopoly pricing power. QED Apple is not and never has been a monopoly. I think they got close with the iPod but then the market died from cannibalization by smartphones and it became a non-issue.
Apple used vendor lock in to secure a monopoly in the sale of digital music and standalone players by preventing synchronization between iTunes and competing players, or between iPods and competing synchronization software.
So did other vendors. This was not remotely unique to Apple. Apple is under no obligation to cooperate with competitors. Expectations otherwise are naive.
They then coerced accessory manufacturers to only support iPods, rather than competing players.
"Coerced"? Apple was selling the #1 product. They didn't have to coerce anybody any more than Microsoft has to coerce companies to write software for Windows. Coercion is the use of threats or intimidation to get people to behave in some involuntary manner. Companies that made accessories for the iPods weren't coerced because they were doing exactly what a sane company would do. Namely building products for the #1 platform in the market. They'd be insane to do otherwise.
They were an abusive monopoly in exactly the same way Microsoft is accused of being.
Disagree. Apple at no time had anywhere close to the sort of market share and monopoly power than Microsoft enjoyed. Furthermore there even if they did have a monopoly (they didn't) there is nothing illegal about that. It's only illegal if you attempt to use that monopoly in ways that hurt consumers. Nothing Apple has done has come close to the sorts of anti-competitive practices Microsoft engaged in during the 1990s and 2000s. Believe me I'd be the first to call out Apple if they were really behaving like Microsoft but the evidence just isn't there. I won't pretend Apple is some warm cuddly company but calling them an abusive monopoly just doesn't fit the facts.
What is important is not what we think. What is important is what arrives in the minds of the average person, or even 5% of the average. Here is 32GB of storage, twice as much, for $14 delivered. [newegg.com] That's retail, not the wholesale price Apple would pay, and includes shipping.
So either customers pay $14 extra for something they don't need or Apple pays $14 extra for something customers don't need. Exactly who benefits here? I'm pretty sure Apple has done the math on this. If you are one of the very few people who needs more than 16GB but less than 32 AND actually gives a crap about the cost jump to 64GB, then buy something else. Virtually no one else really cares. Folks here on slashdot get worked up over it but it just isn't an issue.
That is not the point. People "like your Dad" wouldn't know if the 16GB model is correct for them.
Sure he would because he's a smart guy and he asks questions. He knows perfectly well that the 16GB model is fine for his needs and will remain so for some time to come. Same with the rest of my relatives. If they start having space problems they know perfectly well how to solve that problem. In the mean time it is a non-issue.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is not competent to represent Apple. That's my opinion. Yes, I think I could do better.
Think whatever you like. So far the evidence doesn't support you. The company is presently the most valuable company in the world, continues to grow, and you think you could do better? Riiight... How many large multinational corporations have you run?
As I said, it amazes me how many people who read Slashdot justify abuse and general bad management.
"Abuse and general bad management"? First off nobody is being abused here. Don't like the deal Apple is offering? Buy something else. There are lots and lots of very fine Android phones out there at almost every imaginable price point. Second, the purpose of a for-profit company like Apple is to make money. That is the measuring stick for good versus bad management and by that measuring stick it is hard to see how Apple could do better. Bad management would be to add expense for an extra product that virtually no one actually cares about aside from a few geeks with axes to grind.
It would seem being an air traffic controller would be an easily automated task.
Lots of things seem simply to people unfamiliar with the task. In reality air traffic control is a very complex and high stress job. Remember that any automated system has to account for ALL the corner cases and weird situations that might occur because it is very literally a matter of life and death. If it was easy to automate air traffic control it would have already been automated. Humans are in the loop precisely because it is not a trivial task to automate and because humans (flawed though we are) are very flexible and adaptable to unusual situations.
For example think about little things. How do you have an automated system that knows when there is too much ground fog to release planes for takeoff? Not an easy thing to automate. It's not just knowing where the planes are but also what conditions they are dealing with. You also have to communicate all that data to the ATC system in both directions and we simply don't have the technology to do that efficiently right now.
That's not to say we shouldn't have a goal of automating air traffic control. We absolutely should automate it where possible. But it is not even close to being trivial to automate.
There is no other industry where a single player can keep a global monopoly.
What are you babbling about? Apple is not and never has been a monopoly. Probably the closest they ever got was with the iPod in the MP3 player market and even there they never achieved monopoly power and that market has largely gone away due to smarphones. They sure as hell aren't a monopoly in smartphones where they aren't even close to a majority market share much less monopoly power.
Of course, 16GB is too small - unless you want a smartphone for email, web, messages, maps, etc etc, and don't plan on shooting any HD video.
Which describes a HUGE number of users out there including my parents, my in-laws, the owners of my company, and probably 2/3 of my aunts and uncles. Don't make the mistake of thinking everyone users their smartphone the same way you or I do. I use close to 100GB on mine. My father uses less than 8 and there are many more like him.
I have a 160GB iPod classic for music, and a camera for photos. Separate devices are better. All I need is that bag of holding to keep them all in...
Separate devices are not necessarily better. I have a 128GB iPhone and it stores my entire music collection and all my point an shoot photos and video with room to spare. What benefit would I get from carrying around separate devices if I don't need specialty performance? If I need the performance of an SLR camera then sure, I'll carry one but that is pretty rare. And most people feel the same way. That's why iPod sales have dropped, point and click cameras have plummeted, etc. People don't want to carry around 3 devices when 1 will do the job fine. Thanks but I'll carry around just my smartphone which will serve me very well 99.9% of the time.
One problem is not Apple offering a 16GB iPhone, it is that those who want more must pay 20 times Apple's cost.
Your cost analysis isn't a useful one though I think I understand the point you are trying to make. Apple has gross profit margins around 40% and around 56% of their revenue comes from the iPhone. Gross profit is revenue minus cost of goods sold and is a crude measure of the raw profitability of a product before you pile on the costs of running the company and selling the product. While Apple doesn't break out their numbers for cost of goods sold for the iPhone line, it's not hard to prove that even if everyone were to buy the more expensive product, Apple doesn't receive anywhere close to a 20X bump in gross margins. The marginal profits received from the more expensive models is meaningful but it's not an improvement to the degree you are implying.
(Disclosure, I'm a certified accountant in my day job - among other things)
Steve Jobs did everything necessary to positioning Apple products at the top.
They position their brand near the top but not always the products themselves. Apple often starts their products at or near the top of the market but they routinely sell products that are no where near the top of the market. In phones and tablets and ipods this is simply their older models which they continue to sell. In PCs they sell computers that are designed for market tiers below the top. I have a Mac Mini myself that even when it was first introduced was no where near state of the art and wasn't designed to be. Apple HAS to provide products that aren't at the top of the market because if they didn't their competitors could easily undercut them from the bottom end of the market. Apple doesn't want to compete on price alone but they cannot ignore lower tier market segments.
Offering a new model of iPhone with only 16GB is a sure way to get negative comments, and it did.
Only by people who wouldn't buy one anyway. The 16GB model is probably not intended for you. It is intended for people like my Dad who uses about 3 apps and doesn't take a meaningful amount of photos or video and isn't trying to store a Library of Congress worth of music on his phone. He uses less that 8GB of storage on his phone and that isn't likely to change. Providing a 32GB model would cost Apple money and really only benefits a relatively tiny group of users who happen to need more than 16GB but less than 32GB. I'm pretty sure Apple has done the research and if a 32GB unit would result in them selling more units then they would make one. I am certain that there is a very large group of users like my father who want the basic features of an iPhone but simply don't use much storage.
The best place to start in making cars more secure is to stop connecting them to the Internet or cellular networks.
Never going to happen. Seriously. Waste of time to even discuss it. If you want to discuss best practices for it then you might have a worthwhile discussion. But the internet is going to be a part of our driving experience whether we like it or not.
Get rid of the cellular connections, get rid of all this "infotainment" crap (whoever thought "apps" in a car is a good idea is an idiot).
Wasting your breath and frankly a lot of smart people disagree with you. If customers want it then it will happen. If they don't then it will go away. The fact that you don't find such things valuable is irrelevant.
And spend some money on really strong encryption in things like the remote unlock keyfobs and engine immobilisers so hackers cant get in.
Encryption isn't some magic pixie dust that you sprinkle on things to make them secure. Security is a process, not a product. And no security is impenetrable especially since the car cannot be physically secured. Physical access = vulnerability. Engine immobilizers have been around for ages and they don't prevent car thefts and certainly wouldn't prevent hacking.
This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence.
Really? You think "I didn't know it was against the law to murder someone" should be a valid defense? If ignorance was a valid defense then anyone could claim ignorance of any crime to get away with it. You CANNOT have ignorance of the law be a valid defense and have a working legal system.
The point of law isn't to throw as many people in prisons as possible.
Who said it was? The point of licensing is to prevent problems before they occur. We require people get formal training to operate other types of vehicles primarily for safety reasons. The fact that the operator isn't sitting in the vehicle with a drone really is just a corner case of the same problem.
If a law will destroy people's lives for not realizing that playing with a perfectly ordinary, store-bought toy would be illegal, then that law should be null and void on that basis.
They can buy the toy. They just have to be trained and licensed on its use and legal operating parameters first. No different than operating a motor vehicle. When physical safety is a concern then you mandate training. No amount of automation will prevent people from doing stupid things that they shouldn't.
And as a - undoubtedly completely unintended - side effect, it'll effectively kill the technology before it can change status quo by killing the mass market.
Why should it kill the mass market? We sell plenty of motor vehicles and aircraft and they require licensing. Why should drones be any different?
I seriously question whether police departments and local municipalities will even allow self-driving cars on roads. They threaten to completely ruin their source of funding: tickets.
Good! I've always found it reprehensible that governments actually base budgets on the number of people they can catch breaking the law. I don't have a problem with using fines as punishment but the government entity issuing the fine should not be the beneficiary. Huge conflict of interest there.
I am among other things an accountant. In accounting there is a principle that if the cost of tracking something is larger than the benefit received by doing so then we don't bother tracking it. It provides a bright line for when we are clearly wasting resources on something that does not add value. I have a hard time believing that the value of tracking education to such a fine grained level would outweigh the administrative cost of doing so.
I think this could be reasonably handled with geofences.
I'm very dubious that would work. It's a technical solution to a social problem and an impractical one at that. Technical solutions to social problems rarely work. In this case the appropriate answer would probably be some sort of drone pilot license to purchase and/or operate. Operation outside of private property without a license results in jail time and/or fines just like with an automobile or ham radio.
Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better.
Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.
If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators.
I think it would not be very hard to make it abundantly clear that manslaughter charges could be applied.
In other cases of public assets like the airwaves we have required licensing to utilize them. Ham radio operators are a good example. I see no reason why we shouldn't require a license to operate a drone in any public airspace in a similar manner. Require sellers of drones to demand proof of an operator's license before they can sell their product. Then nobody can argue that they did not know AND we have a means to ensure appropriate training and use.
Teaching evolution shouldn't be an issue. I think the standard is getting permission, and if a student/parent isn't comfortable, they don't have to be in the class at the time. Unless they're making it involuntary with no opt-out.
Standard should be it gets taught and if the student/parent is uncomfortable with evidence backed science then they can home school their child. I really have no patience for making special accommodations for people's superstitions. I think Newton's flaming laser sword should apply here.
As for climate change, that's a bit more controversial. There's the issue of whether it's man-made or not, or perhaps in part.
It's only controversial in the minds of those who would prefer it not be true regardless of what the evidence actually shows. Every credible piece of evidence appears to support the thesis that activities of mankind are having substantial and measurable effects. Whether mankind is responsible for 100% or some amount less kind of misses the point. The point is that we appear to be responsible for FAR more than 0% of the recent rise in temperatures and other climatic effects.
I don't know what they mean by, "teachers will be required to address climate change". If it's a discussion, that's fine. If they teach that it's 100% caused by humans, that's a problem. They need to talk about all viewpoints along with the scientific data that indicates a changing climate.
If the evidence shows that it is human caused then that is what should be taught. So far it appears the evidence overwhelmingly supports the thesis that human activity is the source of much of the recent rise in global temperatures and other climatic changes. Personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant. Science doesn't work on opinion and there are not two sides to every argument. You don't study viewpoints that are unsupported by data.
Before anyone gets too worked up, a 50% GROSS profit margin is nothing too exciting for something that is basically a software business. If it were a 50% NET profit margin then that would be different and the net profit margin is the one that really matters - it's the so-called bottom line. Gross profit margins are just the revenue minus the direct cost involved in the service (direct labor and materials mostly). It does not include cost of sales, marketing, overhead, administration, indirect labor, utilities, etc)
For comparison software companies typically have gross margins considerably higher than 50%. For example Microsoft had a 66% gross profit margin last quarter. A manufacturing company typically has gross profit margins between 10-30%. GM and Lockheed Martin have gross profits of around 11% for example. Toyota has gross profits around 20%.
Economics is not a science, no matter how many times you and your finance buddies tell yourselves that it is.
A science is a formal method of examining and describing the world around us. This method requires hypothesis regarding empirical data which are testable and repeatable. This process is called the scientific method. Economics follows the scientific method and any field of study that follows the scientific method can accurately be called a science. Ergo economics is a science by definition. Some sciences are easier to study than others but that has no bearing on their validity as a science.
That's not a real Nobel prize either, it's a self-aggrandizing fraud that was purchased by the banking industry in an attempt to convince the public that their twisted methods were legitimate and not just common crime.
Since the Nobel organization recognizes the Economics prize it is as real as any other Nobel prize. Your opinion on the matter is meaningless.
The difference seems to be that while physicists are aware that their models are incomplete, economists (or, more likely, journalists, politicians, and the people who actually apply these models) etc. disregard these caveats and claim that this model describes the entire financial system in a few differential equations.
Economists don't disregard the limitations of their models at all. If you would spend some time speaking with actual economists (I have) you'd quickly find out that they are exquisitely aware of the limitations of their models.
Where things tend to go off the rails is when financial analysts with a profit motive try to stretch the economists models beyond what they can actually explain. A great example of this is Long Term Capital Management which was described in the book When Genius Failed. They took some models with a long list of assumptions and limitations and tried to apply the models to areas well beyond the limitations of the model. Early success begat hubris which led to greed and ultimately their downfall.
Putting that stuff near "science" or "maths" is an insult to those fields of endeeavour.
Not any more than meteorology or ecology or geology or any other field that gets its data from complex and chaotic empirical sources.
Which economists predicted 2007/2008?
Quite a few of them. Some didn't get their timing right but I can introduce you to economists and financial analysts that I know personally that were warning about a likely crash in the housing market and knock on effects as far back as 2003. They obviously couldn't predict the exact outcome because that is basically impossible in a large chaotic system. (especially when you cannot perfectly model the initial state)
People have this naive idea that economists ought to be able to predict the future perfectly or it isn't a science. Predicting the recession of 2008 was something akin to a geologist trying to predict exactly when and where an earthquake will hit. There are too many unknowns to make anything better than a probabilistic analysis. They can tell you there is an X% chance of an event happening within time period Y. Asking for something more accurate than that is simply unrealistic expectations.
Economics is not scientific in the mathematical sense. It takes no account of the irrational human animal.
That's entirely and demonstrably untrue. In 2002 the Nobel prize was awarded to Daniel Kahneman "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty". Much recent economic study has been explicitly examining the irrationality of people and their economic decisions. Economics is a science but it is one where it is challenging to design experiments and so much of the data comes from empirical analysis.
That is why it is more like the weather than mathematics.
Mathematics is a language to describe things. Economics isn't a branch of mathematics any more or less than any other science. It is however a bit like studying the weather in that the forecasting models are trying to make predictions about a very complex and chaotic system. The models get their data from historical real world events but perfect accuracy in the models is nigh unacheivable.
Yes, but most of us do our "reputation management" by, you know, behaving properly rather than going around trying to erase any record of our misdeeds.
You can behave properly all you want and still get screwed by false information or malicious deeds. A service that helps people combat this sort of problem is fine. Some people are just assholes and will try to ruin your reputation out of spite or just because they can. Ask any restaurant if they get nothing but fair and honest reviews on Yelp. Even if people aren't actively trying to ruin you, nobody is perfect and minor mistakes can sometimes cause major problems - problems far out of scale with the deeds.
Was there ever a more vile and sociopathic concept than "reputation management"?
Yes. Quite a few of them actually. Reputation management is something we all do to some degree. I don't know how you would exist in a complex society without some amount of effort directed towards maintaining your reputation in the community.
Protecting your reputation is not in principle a bad thing. Sometimes false or misleading information becomes public and can cause problems - sometimes serious ones. Nothing wrong with taking reasonable steps to guard against such things. Of course like most things you can go too far and try to hide wrongdoing but just because something is bad in some circumstances does not make it bad in all circumstances.
Unsafe is usually interpreted to mean using an acceleration that may not be available to all vehicles.
No it isn't. Unsafe is operation of a vehicle in a manner that violates duty of care. You can safely accelerate faster in a Corvette in many circumstances than the maximum acceleration of a Nissan Versa. Whether it is unsafe will depend on factors including road conditions, visibility, nearby traffic, nearby pedestrians, driver skill, vehicle capability, etc. There is no requirement to only accelerate as slowly as the slowest vehicle.
Obviously a sports car on special tyres can stop a lot faster than an old banger or a truck, and and therefore you should never use maximum deceleration (emergency stop).
You use emergency stops in an emergency. It is the responsibility of drivers behind you to maintain assured clear distance part of which is evaluating the likely possible deceleration of the vehicle ahead of you.
Whether the driver behind you is paying attention is not your problem.
It becomes your problem when they crash into the back of your car. I've had that happen several times, including several when I was stopped. Every time the other driver was ticketed for failure to maintain assured clear distance. Drivers around you are always your problem if you are driving defensively.
Anybody not paying attention at a traffic light should not be on the road.
And can you honestly tell us that you have never once gotten distracted when the light changed? If you claim that you haven't you either drive very very little or you are lying. It happens to every driver now and then.
The article summary isn't very good. If the software is programmed in a way that causes a car to behave in a way that's dangerous, it IS the software's fault.
No, it is the programmer's fault. Software is an amoral set of machine instructions written by a human. Saying it is the software's fault is like blaming a press for cutting off someone's hand. The actual fault is either user error or faulty machine design. The machine is just doing what it was told so blaming software is misplaced. The fact that the problem of autonomous driving has a lot of difficult and dangerous corner cases is irrelevant.
Software is just a set of instructions given by a human so if the instructions are wrong it is the fault of the person who gave the instructions to the machine. If the car behaves in a way that is dangerous then it is the fault of the person/company/entity that wrote the software controlling that behavior. The programmer is just as much at fault as a driver who made a mistake. The difference is that the programmer probably isn't sitting in the car at the time but just like the driver he/she was the one in charge of the driving of the car. It's really easy to forget that a human is instructing the machine - the difference is that the instructions are time shifted.
I think in time autonomous cars could prove to be safer than many/most human driven ones. There are a LOT of really bad drivers on the road and the tests to qualify for a license are pretty much a joke and there are almost no requirements to re-qualify which is kind of nuts. But the liability for bad or inadequate software should fall squarely on the party that wrote said software.
In Holland, MI (birthplace of Slashdot) we're working toward fiber to the home. A handful of people have asked why not go wireless instead?
Because fiber will almost certainly be faster, probably more secure and likely more reliable and less prone to interference. That said, fiber to the home is not and will not be available to most of the country any time soon so it's a hypothetical question anyway. I'm not aware of any near term likely wireless technology that would outperform fiber. Furthermore once the fiber is laid it's relatively future proof for some time to come. Wireless not so much.
I know my reasons (speed, privacy, and we have an existing fiber loop) but are any wireless technologies good enough that cities should consider them?
The answer currently is no. That may change someday but not anytime soon. Wireless has its place but it's not the solution you are looking for here.
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Don't we (the US) already have that in the form of SS (old age, disability, survivor benefits), food stamps, etc, etc?
No we don't. Those are programs for people that meet specific criteria. Big portions of the population don't qualify for those programs for one reason or another. Even when you do qualify, sometimes they take a while to kick in. I know first hand that the process of SS disability can take quite a while.
I'd need a lot of evidence to make me think that something like this is not a stupid idea. I think the notion that this would lift people out of poverty would be quickly swamped by inflation. Prices aren't going to stay static. It also means that those who elect not to work for whatever reason would have to be supported by others though a pretty hefty progressive tax system. We have that to some degree now but it's unclear that this idea would improve things. Guaranteed there would be complaining (more than now) about those who are able bodied but choose not to work. It's also unclear how this would affect wages at companies and whether it would ultimately be a competitive issue. Whether the company pays workers directly or pays taxes that are passed through, there still is a cost involved and US workers are already pretty expensive.
So you're claiming that Gross Profits are not Taxable.
Never claimed anything of the sort though it is true that gross profits are not taxable. Net Profits are taxable. Gross profits are merely a useful tool to understand the cost of actually making the products.
Well I'm the Taxing authority and I'll take 25 percent of anything you call profit.
Good thing you aren't a taxing authority then because that's pretty ignorant.
What you're talking about is the Break Even Point
No it is not what I'm talking about. Breakeven analysis is not remotely relevant here.
Profit is what's left after all expenses are covered, which is the only acceptable use for the term Profit.
Well you are wrong but if you choose not to believe me then that is your problem not mine.
I'm not sure what your definition of monopoly is
My definition is THE definition of monopoly. A monopoly is a company which is the sole (or effectively so) seller of a product or service in a market. Monopolies are characterized by a lack of economic competition, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the existence of monopoly prices. At no time has Apple ever faced a lack of economic competition, there have always been viable substitute products, and while their prices are often high they do not and never have enjoyed monopoly pricing power. QED Apple is not and never has been a monopoly. I think they got close with the iPod but then the market died from cannibalization by smartphones and it became a non-issue.
Apple used vendor lock in to secure a monopoly in the sale of digital music and standalone players by preventing synchronization between iTunes and competing players, or between iPods and competing synchronization software.
So did other vendors. This was not remotely unique to Apple. Apple is under no obligation to cooperate with competitors. Expectations otherwise are naive.
They then coerced accessory manufacturers to only support iPods, rather than competing players.
"Coerced"? Apple was selling the #1 product. They didn't have to coerce anybody any more than Microsoft has to coerce companies to write software for Windows. Coercion is the use of threats or intimidation to get people to behave in some involuntary manner. Companies that made accessories for the iPods weren't coerced because they were doing exactly what a sane company would do. Namely building products for the #1 platform in the market. They'd be insane to do otherwise.
They were an abusive monopoly in exactly the same way Microsoft is accused of being.
Disagree. Apple at no time had anywhere close to the sort of market share and monopoly power than Microsoft enjoyed. Furthermore there even if they did have a monopoly (they didn't) there is nothing illegal about that. It's only illegal if you attempt to use that monopoly in ways that hurt consumers. Nothing Apple has done has come close to the sorts of anti-competitive practices Microsoft engaged in during the 1990s and 2000s. Believe me I'd be the first to call out Apple if they were really behaving like Microsoft but the evidence just isn't there. I won't pretend Apple is some warm cuddly company but calling them an abusive monopoly just doesn't fit the facts.
What is important is not what we think. What is important is what arrives in the minds of the average person, or even 5% of the average. Here is 32GB of storage, twice as much, for $14 delivered. [newegg.com] That's retail, not the wholesale price Apple would pay, and includes shipping.
So either customers pay $14 extra for something they don't need or Apple pays $14 extra for something customers don't need. Exactly who benefits here? I'm pretty sure Apple has done the math on this. If you are one of the very few people who needs more than 16GB but less than 32 AND actually gives a crap about the cost jump to 64GB, then buy something else. Virtually no one else really cares. Folks here on slashdot get worked up over it but it just isn't an issue.
That is not the point. People "like your Dad" wouldn't know if the 16GB model is correct for them.
Sure he would because he's a smart guy and he asks questions. He knows perfectly well that the 16GB model is fine for his needs and will remain so for some time to come. Same with the rest of my relatives. If they start having space problems they know perfectly well how to solve that problem. In the mean time it is a non-issue.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is not competent to represent Apple. That's my opinion. Yes, I think I could do better.
Think whatever you like. So far the evidence doesn't support you. The company is presently the most valuable company in the world, continues to grow, and you think you could do better? Riiight... How many large multinational corporations have you run?
As I said, it amazes me how many people who read Slashdot justify abuse and general bad management.
"Abuse and general bad management"? First off nobody is being abused here. Don't like the deal Apple is offering? Buy something else. There are lots and lots of very fine Android phones out there at almost every imaginable price point. Second, the purpose of a for-profit company like Apple is to make money. That is the measuring stick for good versus bad management and by that measuring stick it is hard to see how Apple could do better. Bad management would be to add expense for an extra product that virtually no one actually cares about aside from a few geeks with axes to grind.
It would seem being an air traffic controller would be an easily automated task.
Lots of things seem simply to people unfamiliar with the task. In reality air traffic control is a very complex and high stress job. Remember that any automated system has to account for ALL the corner cases and weird situations that might occur because it is very literally a matter of life and death. If it was easy to automate air traffic control it would have already been automated. Humans are in the loop precisely because it is not a trivial task to automate and because humans (flawed though we are) are very flexible and adaptable to unusual situations.
For example think about little things. How do you have an automated system that knows when there is too much ground fog to release planes for takeoff? Not an easy thing to automate. It's not just knowing where the planes are but also what conditions they are dealing with. You also have to communicate all that data to the ATC system in both directions and we simply don't have the technology to do that efficiently right now.
That's not to say we shouldn't have a goal of automating air traffic control. We absolutely should automate it where possible. But it is not even close to being trivial to automate.
There is no other industry where a single player can keep a global monopoly.
What are you babbling about? Apple is not and never has been a monopoly. Probably the closest they ever got was with the iPod in the MP3 player market and even there they never achieved monopoly power and that market has largely gone away due to smarphones. They sure as hell aren't a monopoly in smartphones where they aren't even close to a majority market share much less monopoly power.
Of course, 16GB is too small - unless you want a smartphone for email, web, messages, maps, etc etc, and don't plan on shooting any HD video.
Which describes a HUGE number of users out there including my parents, my in-laws, the owners of my company, and probably 2/3 of my aunts and uncles. Don't make the mistake of thinking everyone users their smartphone the same way you or I do. I use close to 100GB on mine. My father uses less than 8 and there are many more like him.
I have a 160GB iPod classic for music, and a camera for photos. Separate devices are better. All I need is that bag of holding to keep them all in...
Separate devices are not necessarily better. I have a 128GB iPhone and it stores my entire music collection and all my point an shoot photos and video with room to spare. What benefit would I get from carrying around separate devices if I don't need specialty performance? If I need the performance of an SLR camera then sure, I'll carry one but that is pretty rare. And most people feel the same way. That's why iPod sales have dropped, point and click cameras have plummeted, etc. People don't want to carry around 3 devices when 1 will do the job fine. Thanks but I'll carry around just my smartphone which will serve me very well 99.9% of the time.
One problem is not Apple offering a 16GB iPhone, it is that those who want more must pay 20 times Apple's cost.
Your cost analysis isn't a useful one though I think I understand the point you are trying to make. Apple has gross profit margins around 40% and around 56% of their revenue comes from the iPhone. Gross profit is revenue minus cost of goods sold and is a crude measure of the raw profitability of a product before you pile on the costs of running the company and selling the product. While Apple doesn't break out their numbers for cost of goods sold for the iPhone line, it's not hard to prove that even if everyone were to buy the more expensive product, Apple doesn't receive anywhere close to a 20X bump in gross margins. The marginal profits received from the more expensive models is meaningful but it's not an improvement to the degree you are implying.
(Disclosure, I'm a certified accountant in my day job - among other things)
Steve Jobs did everything necessary to positioning Apple products at the top.
They position their brand near the top but not always the products themselves. Apple often starts their products at or near the top of the market but they routinely sell products that are no where near the top of the market. In phones and tablets and ipods this is simply their older models which they continue to sell. In PCs they sell computers that are designed for market tiers below the top. I have a Mac Mini myself that even when it was first introduced was no where near state of the art and wasn't designed to be. Apple HAS to provide products that aren't at the top of the market because if they didn't their competitors could easily undercut them from the bottom end of the market. Apple doesn't want to compete on price alone but they cannot ignore lower tier market segments.
Offering a new model of iPhone with only 16GB is a sure way to get negative comments, and it did.
Only by people who wouldn't buy one anyway. The 16GB model is probably not intended for you. It is intended for people like my Dad who uses about 3 apps and doesn't take a meaningful amount of photos or video and isn't trying to store a Library of Congress worth of music on his phone. He uses less that 8GB of storage on his phone and that isn't likely to change. Providing a 32GB model would cost Apple money and really only benefits a relatively tiny group of users who happen to need more than 16GB but less than 32GB. I'm pretty sure Apple has done the research and if a 32GB unit would result in them selling more units then they would make one. I am certain that there is a very large group of users like my father who want the basic features of an iPhone but simply don't use much storage.
The best place to start in making cars more secure is to stop connecting them to the Internet or cellular networks.
Never going to happen. Seriously. Waste of time to even discuss it. If you want to discuss best practices for it then you might have a worthwhile discussion. But the internet is going to be a part of our driving experience whether we like it or not.
Get rid of the cellular connections, get rid of all this "infotainment" crap (whoever thought "apps" in a car is a good idea is an idiot).
Wasting your breath and frankly a lot of smart people disagree with you. If customers want it then it will happen. If they don't then it will go away. The fact that you don't find such things valuable is irrelevant.
And spend some money on really strong encryption in things like the remote unlock keyfobs and engine immobilisers so hackers cant get in.
Encryption isn't some magic pixie dust that you sprinkle on things to make them secure. Security is a process, not a product. And no security is impenetrable especially since the car cannot be physically secured. Physical access = vulnerability. Engine immobilizers have been around for ages and they don't prevent car thefts and certainly wouldn't prevent hacking.
This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence.
Really? You think "I didn't know it was against the law to murder someone" should be a valid defense? If ignorance was a valid defense then anyone could claim ignorance of any crime to get away with it. You CANNOT have ignorance of the law be a valid defense and have a working legal system.
The point of law isn't to throw as many people in prisons as possible.
Who said it was? The point of licensing is to prevent problems before they occur. We require people get formal training to operate other types of vehicles primarily for safety reasons. The fact that the operator isn't sitting in the vehicle with a drone really is just a corner case of the same problem.
If a law will destroy people's lives for not realizing that playing with a perfectly ordinary, store-bought toy would be illegal, then that law should be null and void on that basis.
They can buy the toy. They just have to be trained and licensed on its use and legal operating parameters first. No different than operating a motor vehicle. When physical safety is a concern then you mandate training. No amount of automation will prevent people from doing stupid things that they shouldn't.
And as a - undoubtedly completely unintended - side effect, it'll effectively kill the technology before it can change status quo by killing the mass market.
Why should it kill the mass market? We sell plenty of motor vehicles and aircraft and they require licensing. Why should drones be any different?
I seriously question whether police departments and local municipalities will even allow self-driving cars on roads. They threaten to completely ruin their source of funding: tickets.
Good! I've always found it reprehensible that governments actually base budgets on the number of people they can catch breaking the law. I don't have a problem with using fines as punishment but the government entity issuing the fine should not be the beneficiary. Huge conflict of interest there.
I am among other things an accountant. In accounting there is a principle that if the cost of tracking something is larger than the benefit received by doing so then we don't bother tracking it. It provides a bright line for when we are clearly wasting resources on something that does not add value. I have a hard time believing that the value of tracking education to such a fine grained level would outweigh the administrative cost of doing so.
I think this could be reasonably handled with geofences.
I'm very dubious that would work. It's a technical solution to a social problem and an impractical one at that. Technical solutions to social problems rarely work. In this case the appropriate answer would probably be some sort of drone pilot license to purchase and/or operate. Operation outside of private property without a license results in jail time and/or fines just like with an automobile or ham radio.
Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better.
Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.
If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators.
I think it would not be very hard to make it abundantly clear that manslaughter charges could be applied.
In other cases of public assets like the airwaves we have required licensing to utilize them. Ham radio operators are a good example. I see no reason why we shouldn't require a license to operate a drone in any public airspace in a similar manner. Require sellers of drones to demand proof of an operator's license before they can sell their product. Then nobody can argue that they did not know AND we have a means to ensure appropriate training and use.
Teaching evolution shouldn't be an issue. I think the standard is getting permission, and if a student/parent isn't comfortable, they don't have to be in the class at the time. Unless they're making it involuntary with no opt-out.
Standard should be it gets taught and if the student/parent is uncomfortable with evidence backed science then they can home school their child. I really have no patience for making special accommodations for people's superstitions. I think Newton's flaming laser sword should apply here.
As for climate change, that's a bit more controversial. There's the issue of whether it's man-made or not, or perhaps in part.
It's only controversial in the minds of those who would prefer it not be true regardless of what the evidence actually shows. Every credible piece of evidence appears to support the thesis that activities of mankind are having substantial and measurable effects. Whether mankind is responsible for 100% or some amount less kind of misses the point. The point is that we appear to be responsible for FAR more than 0% of the recent rise in temperatures and other climatic effects.
I don't know what they mean by, "teachers will be required to address climate change". If it's a discussion, that's fine. If they teach that it's 100% caused by humans, that's a problem. They need to talk about all viewpoints along with the scientific data that indicates a changing climate.
If the evidence shows that it is human caused then that is what should be taught. So far it appears the evidence overwhelmingly supports the thesis that human activity is the source of much of the recent rise in global temperatures and other climatic changes. Personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant. Science doesn't work on opinion and there are not two sides to every argument. You don't study viewpoints that are unsupported by data.
Before anyone gets too worked up, a 50% GROSS profit margin is nothing too exciting for something that is basically a software business. If it were a 50% NET profit margin then that would be different and the net profit margin is the one that really matters - it's the so-called bottom line. Gross profit margins are just the revenue minus the direct cost involved in the service (direct labor and materials mostly). It does not include cost of sales, marketing, overhead, administration, indirect labor, utilities, etc)
For comparison software companies typically have gross margins considerably higher than 50%. For example Microsoft had a 66% gross profit margin last quarter. A manufacturing company typically has gross profit margins between 10-30%. GM and Lockheed Martin have gross profits of around 11% for example. Toyota has gross profits around 20%.
Economics is not a science, no matter how many times you and your finance buddies tell yourselves that it is.
A science is a formal method of examining and describing the world around us. This method requires hypothesis regarding empirical data which are testable and repeatable. This process is called the scientific method. Economics follows the scientific method and any field of study that follows the scientific method can accurately be called a science. Ergo economics is a science by definition. Some sciences are easier to study than others but that has no bearing on their validity as a science.
That's not a real Nobel prize either, it's a self-aggrandizing fraud that was purchased by the banking industry in an attempt to convince the public that their twisted methods were legitimate and not just common crime.
Since the Nobel organization recognizes the Economics prize it is as real as any other Nobel prize. Your opinion on the matter is meaningless.
The difference seems to be that while physicists are aware that their models are incomplete, economists (or, more likely, journalists, politicians, and the people who actually apply these models) etc. disregard these caveats and claim that this model describes the entire financial system in a few differential equations.
Economists don't disregard the limitations of their models at all. If you would spend some time speaking with actual economists (I have) you'd quickly find out that they are exquisitely aware of the limitations of their models.
Where things tend to go off the rails is when financial analysts with a profit motive try to stretch the economists models beyond what they can actually explain. A great example of this is Long Term Capital Management which was described in the book When Genius Failed. They took some models with a long list of assumptions and limitations and tried to apply the models to areas well beyond the limitations of the model. Early success begat hubris which led to greed and ultimately their downfall.
Putting that stuff near "science" or "maths" is an insult to those fields of endeeavour.
Not any more than meteorology or ecology or geology or any other field that gets its data from complex and chaotic empirical sources.
Which economists predicted 2007/2008?
Quite a few of them. Some didn't get their timing right but I can introduce you to economists and financial analysts that I know personally that were warning about a likely crash in the housing market and knock on effects as far back as 2003. They obviously couldn't predict the exact outcome because that is basically impossible in a large chaotic system. (especially when you cannot perfectly model the initial state)
People have this naive idea that economists ought to be able to predict the future perfectly or it isn't a science. Predicting the recession of 2008 was something akin to a geologist trying to predict exactly when and where an earthquake will hit. There are too many unknowns to make anything better than a probabilistic analysis. They can tell you there is an X% chance of an event happening within time period Y. Asking for something more accurate than that is simply unrealistic expectations.
Economics is not scientific in the mathematical sense. It takes no account of the irrational human animal.
That's entirely and demonstrably untrue. In 2002 the Nobel prize was awarded to Daniel Kahneman "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty". Much recent economic study has been explicitly examining the irrationality of people and their economic decisions. Economics is a science but it is one where it is challenging to design experiments and so much of the data comes from empirical analysis.
That is why it is more like the weather than mathematics.
Mathematics is a language to describe things. Economics isn't a branch of mathematics any more or less than any other science. It is however a bit like studying the weather in that the forecasting models are trying to make predictions about a very complex and chaotic system. The models get their data from historical real world events but perfect accuracy in the models is nigh unacheivable.
Yes, but most of us do our "reputation management" by, you know, behaving properly rather than going around trying to erase any record of our misdeeds.
You can behave properly all you want and still get screwed by false information or malicious deeds. A service that helps people combat this sort of problem is fine. Some people are just assholes and will try to ruin your reputation out of spite or just because they can. Ask any restaurant if they get nothing but fair and honest reviews on Yelp. Even if people aren't actively trying to ruin you, nobody is perfect and minor mistakes can sometimes cause major problems - problems far out of scale with the deeds.
Was there ever a more vile and sociopathic concept than "reputation management"?
Yes. Quite a few of them actually. Reputation management is something we all do to some degree. I don't know how you would exist in a complex society without some amount of effort directed towards maintaining your reputation in the community.
Protecting your reputation is not in principle a bad thing. Sometimes false or misleading information becomes public and can cause problems - sometimes serious ones. Nothing wrong with taking reasonable steps to guard against such things. Of course like most things you can go too far and try to hide wrongdoing but just because something is bad in some circumstances does not make it bad in all circumstances.
Unsafe is usually interpreted to mean using an acceleration that may not be available to all vehicles.
No it isn't. Unsafe is operation of a vehicle in a manner that violates duty of care. You can safely accelerate faster in a Corvette in many circumstances than the maximum acceleration of a Nissan Versa. Whether it is unsafe will depend on factors including road conditions, visibility, nearby traffic, nearby pedestrians, driver skill, vehicle capability, etc. There is no requirement to only accelerate as slowly as the slowest vehicle.
Obviously a sports car on special tyres can stop a lot faster than an old banger or a truck, and and therefore you should never use maximum deceleration (emergency stop).
You use emergency stops in an emergency. It is the responsibility of drivers behind you to maintain assured clear distance part of which is evaluating the likely possible deceleration of the vehicle ahead of you.
Whether the driver behind you is paying attention is not your problem.
It becomes your problem when they crash into the back of your car. I've had that happen several times, including several when I was stopped. Every time the other driver was ticketed for failure to maintain assured clear distance. Drivers around you are always your problem if you are driving defensively.
Anybody not paying attention at a traffic light should not be on the road.
And can you honestly tell us that you have never once gotten distracted when the light changed? If you claim that you haven't you either drive very very little or you are lying. It happens to every driver now and then.
The article summary isn't very good. If the software is programmed in a way that causes a car to behave in a way that's dangerous, it IS the software's fault.
No, it is the programmer's fault. Software is an amoral set of machine instructions written by a human. Saying it is the software's fault is like blaming a press for cutting off someone's hand. The actual fault is either user error or faulty machine design. The machine is just doing what it was told so blaming software is misplaced. The fact that the problem of autonomous driving has a lot of difficult and dangerous corner cases is irrelevant.
Software is just a set of instructions given by a human so if the instructions are wrong it is the fault of the person who gave the instructions to the machine. If the car behaves in a way that is dangerous then it is the fault of the person/company/entity that wrote the software controlling that behavior. The programmer is just as much at fault as a driver who made a mistake. The difference is that the programmer probably isn't sitting in the car at the time but just like the driver he/she was the one in charge of the driving of the car. It's really easy to forget that a human is instructing the machine - the difference is that the instructions are time shifted.
I think in time autonomous cars could prove to be safer than many/most human driven ones. There are a LOT of really bad drivers on the road and the tests to qualify for a license are pretty much a joke and there are almost no requirements to re-qualify which is kind of nuts. But the liability for bad or inadequate software should fall squarely on the party that wrote said software.
In Holland, MI (birthplace of Slashdot) we're working toward fiber to the home. A handful of people have asked why not go wireless instead?
Because fiber will almost certainly be faster, probably more secure and likely more reliable and less prone to interference. That said, fiber to the home is not and will not be available to most of the country any time soon so it's a hypothetical question anyway. I'm not aware of any near term likely wireless technology that would outperform fiber. Furthermore once the fiber is laid it's relatively future proof for some time to come. Wireless not so much.
I know my reasons (speed, privacy, and we have an existing fiber loop) but are any wireless technologies good enough that cities should consider them?
The answer currently is no. That may change someday but not anytime soon. Wireless has its place but it's not the solution you are looking for here.