People are misreading the WRONG government document.
The regulation link in the main article is a regulation that already took effect in January. The new regulation under discussion is the one referenced by parent. And that regulation ONLY discusses Li-ion batteries. Nothing about NiMH or Alkaline except to contrast their relative safety with the fire risks of lithium.
Don't fall for scare-mongering industry whores that masquerade as journalists.
"Sec. 171.12 North American shipments.
(a) * * *
(6) Lithium cells and batteries. Lithium cells and batteries must
be offered for transport and transported in accordance with the
provisions of this subchapter. Lithium metal cells and batteries
(UN3090) are forbidden for transport aboard passenger-carrying
aircraft.
(i) The provisions of this paragraph (a)(6) do not apply to
packages that contain 5 kg (11 pounds) net weight or less lithium metal
cells or batteries that are contained in or packed with equipment
(UN3091).
"
There are similar provisions for international travel, but citing a different regulation.
According to this post and followups, the rulemaking that people are quoting is already in force.
In particular this comment by bwcbwc:
The regulation link in the main article is a regulation that already took effect in January. The new regulation under discussion is the one referenced by parent. And that regulation ONLY discusses Li-ion batteries. Nothing about NiMH or Alkaline except to contrast their relative safety with the fire risks of lithium.
Don't fall for scare-mongering industry whores that masquerade as journalists.
"Sec. 171.12 North American shipments.
(a) * * *
(6) Lithium cells and batteries. Lithium cells and batteries must be offered for transport and transported in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter. Lithium metal cells and batteries (UN3090) are forbidden for transport aboard passenger-carrying aircraft.
(i) The provisions of this paragraph (a)(6) do not apply to packages that contain 5 kg (11 pounds) net weight or less lithium metal cells or batteries that are contained in or packed with equipment (UN3091). "
There are similar provisions for international travel, but citing a different regulation.
I take it MS is supposed to do nothing and hope that you'll be nice and pay them?
Microsoft isn't "doing nothing". Even without this additional step Windows 7 is already more aggressive than any other software I own, and their profitability isn't even vaguely at risk. There is nowhere near adequate justification for them to take this additional step.
But that's not what he said! He distinctly said "to blathe", and as we all know "to blathe" means to bluff! You were probably playing cards and he cheated!
You'd spend more time on google than using anything you've bought (aside from the computer) just to find out if the lights, buttons, battery life, gas gauge, oil pressure, and all that work like one would expect.
Only when they *don't* work as you expect, because:
1. Your expectations are in error, or 2. There's a systematic problem that needs to be dealt with.
For example, if Microsoft is using the *rated* maximum capacity instead of the *measured* maximum capacity of the battery, as some people have alleged, providing a gauge would make that obvious. Alternatively, if battery manufacturers are overstating the rated capacity of the battery, or (like ink manufacturers) recommending a more profitable "replacement" level than is appropriate, THAT would come out.
On the other hand, if people's expectations are wrong, that would come out, people's expectations would adjust, as they have adjusted to the inflated battery life claims that laptop manufacturers are wont to make (yes, our laptop goes seven hours on a charge [with screen turned to minimum, running the screen saver, at an ambient temperature of precisely 28C]).
Yeh, it's an idiot light *I* chose to add, at a level *I* selected when I bought it, that *supplements* a gauge. And it's only an idiot light because it would cost about fifty bucks per wheel to have a ruggedized analogue gauge on each tire all the time, while Microsoft starts out with one and deliberately throws most of the information away.
Throwing useful diagnostic information away is a huge problem in modern software, and Microsoft is particularly bad about it. They even throw away information that their software needs to correctly report errors. I've had Office tell me that a disk was full when a network connection went down, that I was having permission problems when a disk was full, and that a file might damaged when I simply didn't have permission to read it, all because each level of the stack threw away the actual error information and the next level up had to guess.
The manufacturer says you should consider replacing your battery when it loses x% of it's rated watt-hours. The error message says your battery has reached x% of it's rated watt-hours and may need to be replaced. Sounds right to me.
Yeh, my inkjet printer has a recommended ink level, too, and the ink warning light comes on about half way through the useful life of the cartridge.
But the warning message here functions exactly like a tire pressure warning light.
Which can come on when my tires are fine for another mile to the next gas station, or it can come on when I've got enough air to get home and then stop off at the gas station on my way to work, or it can come on because I'm riding on my rims and I need to stop and switch to the spare.
If my car had a tire pressure warning light that could ALSO tell me what the tire pressure was, but the manufacturer had decided not to provide that information, I'd be pissed off about that too. Chevy only gets a "pass" because it would likely increase the cost of the transducer and display by a factor of 10 or so to do that.
If the assistance means showing a warning symbol on the battery and a popup (on hover) sayin "this battery will need replacing soon" or "this battery REEEEALLLLYYY needs replacing now" then that is what is required.
That's fine. But TELL THE USER WHY as well. Because some of those doctors are pretty tech savvy after all.
The software isn't trying to be smart. It's telling you exactly what your manufacturer did.
Is it? The manufacturer only provides one bit of information?
You don't wait until your tires are at 2psi to fix them, you fix them THEN.
When I stick a tire gauge in my tire, it doesn't say "bad" (without telling me whether "bad" means "2PSI" or "20PSI"), it tells me "2PSI" or "20PSI" or "30PSI" or "32PSI" or "35PSI".
I also have a cap on my tire that goes red when it goes below 30PSI. When I see that, I pump them up. When I check and it says "32PSI" I pump them up. If I'm having to pump them up a couple of times a week, I go down to Sears.
I don't have to depend on an idiot light that came on at 20PSI (which is definitely low enough to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT), with no indication whether it was 20PSI or 2PSI. Because I *also* have a gauge.
I'm not asking Microsoft to get rid if the warning, I'm asking them to let me know what my tire pressure is.
It doesn't *matter* if it's not linear. My gas tank isn't linear. So long as I *know* it's not linear I can deal with it.
Windows Seven's problem is not that it's doing the wrong thing, it's because it's trying to be too smart about it. It's not smart. It's stupid. A laptop computer (running ANY OS) isn't as smart as a lizard.
But its user's smart. If your software is stupid (and all software is stupid), and the user is smart (and all users are smarter than their computer, even when they're stupid) then you're better off admitting it than trying to fake it.
Instead of popping up a "your battery might be about to fail", give us a gas gauge. "Your battery has only [====> 40% ---] of original capacity". Show that for *all* batteries. Let people pop that up even if there's no problem. Let people be smart about it. Or even... let people be dumb about it.
You might find that people are more willing to replace batteries when they get down to 20%. You might think that's stupid. And it may be stupid. But it's still smarter than stupid software trying to be smart.
Apple's definition of "supported" is "If we say it's supported, it's supported. If we don't, it's not."
While we may disagree on that definition, the point remains that just because you are able to do something with a previous version of an Apple product, there is no guarantee that you will be able to do that unless it is explicitly guaranteed by Apple.
There's no guarantee that Apple will even come out with a new version of the iPhone, but the odds are that something Apple has explicitly supported is going to remain explicitly supported for at least a couple of revisions. The idea that half a dozen or so features that Apple hasn't happened to mention in a rather brief introduction and advertising blurb are therefore not going to be in the next version of iPhone OS is best responded to by a facepalm.
It wouldn't be the first time that a later generation of an Apple product REMOVED features that they previously supported.
So you're postulating that Apple will drop VPN support and Exchange support from the iPhone? I suppose it's possible.
Or consider how with later OS drops of the iphone, features and third party hardware stopped working [because it wasn't 'official' so they disabled it]
This is an odd definition of 'previously supported'.
No, mind you, I wouldn't want an iPhone or an iPad. The whole "pseudo-smartphone" design of the iPhone is a deal-breaker for me. What I find amusing is that the people who are complaining about this stuff STILL BUY THE THINGS. You KNOW what they are. If you want a device you actually own, where you're not technically breaking the law* to use it the way you want, then just buy one.
* Jailbreaking the iPhone is "legitimate" if it's a necessary part of unlocking it, but for the iPod Touch and base model iPad I don't think that loophole* counts.
* I'm not saying the stupid law is anything but a stupid law, but when you buy locked hardware you're buying Communism.
Since you can dock all your tool windows together, do you really need MDI emulation? The problem with the Gimp multi-window mode is really the tool windows, not the image windows.
If they are not answering, doesn't this mean that most of those functions are not available?
Apple never answers questions like this. And when some of these questions are "will the iPad support features that the iPhone OS already supports", the obvious answer would be a facepalm anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
People are misreading the WRONG government document.
As KiahZero noted, the correct document is PHMSA-2009-0095.
According to this post and followups, the rulemaking that people are quoting is already in force.
In particular this comment by bwcbwc:
I take it MS is supposed to do nothing and hope that you'll be nice and pay them?
Microsoft isn't "doing nothing". Even without this additional step Windows 7 is already more aggressive than any other software I own, and their profitability isn't even vaguely at risk. There is nowhere near adequate justification for them to take this additional step.
But that's not what he said! He distinctly said "to blathe", and as we all know "to blathe" means to bluff! You were probably playing cards and he cheated!
So we're talking about Microsoft, then.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, Microsoft's horse was only mostly dead.
Hexapodia is the key insight.
But "you're buying FASCISM" isn't an internet meme.
You'd spend more time on google than using anything you've bought (aside from the computer) just to find out if the lights, buttons, battery life, gas gauge, oil pressure, and all that work like one would expect.
Only when they *don't* work as you expect, because:
1. Your expectations are in error, or
2. There's a systematic problem that needs to be dealt with.
For example, if Microsoft is using the *rated* maximum capacity instead of the *measured* maximum capacity of the battery, as some people have alleged, providing a gauge would make that obvious. Alternatively, if battery manufacturers are overstating the rated capacity of the battery, or (like ink manufacturers) recommending a more profitable "replacement" level than is appropriate, THAT would come out.
On the other hand, if people's expectations are wrong, that would come out, people's expectations would adjust, as they have adjusted to the inflated battery life claims that laptop manufacturers are wont to make (yes, our laptop goes seven hours on a charge [with screen turned to minimum, running the screen saver, at an ambient temperature of precisely 28C]).
Yeh, it's an idiot light *I* chose to add, at a level *I* selected when I bought it, that *supplements* a gauge. And it's only an idiot light because it would cost about fifty bucks per wheel to have a ruggedized analogue gauge on each tire all the time, while Microsoft starts out with one and deliberately throws most of the information away.
Throwing useful diagnostic information away is a huge problem in modern software, and Microsoft is particularly bad about it. They even throw away information that their software needs to correctly report errors. I've had Office tell me that a disk was full when a network connection went down, that I was having permission problems when a disk was full, and that a file might damaged when I simply didn't have permission to read it, all because each level of the stack threw away the actual error information and the next level up had to guess.
The manufacturer says you should consider replacing your battery when it loses x% of it's rated watt-hours. The error message says your battery has reached x% of it's rated watt-hours and may need to be replaced. Sounds right to me.
Yeh, my inkjet printer has a recommended ink level, too, and the ink warning light comes on about half way through the useful life of the cartridge.
But the warning message here functions exactly like a tire pressure warning light.
Which can come on when my tires are fine for another mile to the next gas station, or it can come on when I've got enough air to get home and then stop off at the gas station on my way to work, or it can come on because I'm riding on my rims and I need to stop and switch to the spare.
If my car had a tire pressure warning light that could ALSO tell me what the tire pressure was, but the manufacturer had decided not to provide that information, I'd be pissed off about that too. Chevy only gets a "pass" because it would likely increase the cost of the transducer and display by a factor of 10 or so to do that.
You have learned for your car, but it's likely a home user will ever learn for a battery. They just aren't consumed fast enough.
That's what google's for. So no individual user needs to go through batteries that fast.
Honestly dumb software would have solved that too.
When people bought new batteries and popped them in and they showed "this battery has [====65%=>----] of original capacity".
If the assistance means showing a warning symbol on the battery and a popup (on hover) sayin "this battery will need replacing soon" or "this battery REEEEALLLLYYY needs replacing now" then that is what is required.
That's fine. But TELL THE USER WHY as well. Because some of those doctors are pretty tech savvy after all.
The software isn't trying to be smart. It's telling you exactly what your manufacturer did.
Is it? The manufacturer only provides one bit of information?
You don't wait until your tires are at 2psi to fix them, you fix them THEN.
When I stick a tire gauge in my tire, it doesn't say "bad" (without telling me whether "bad" means "2PSI" or "20PSI"), it tells me "2PSI" or "20PSI" or "30PSI" or "32PSI" or "35PSI".
I also have a cap on my tire that goes red when it goes below 30PSI. When I see that, I pump them up. When I check and it says "32PSI" I pump them up. If I'm having to pump them up a couple of times a week, I go down to Sears.
I don't have to depend on an idiot light that came on at 20PSI (which is definitely low enough to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT), with no indication whether it was 20PSI or 2PSI. Because I *also* have a gauge.
I'm not asking Microsoft to get rid if the warning, I'm asking them to let me know what my tire pressure is.
It doesn't *matter* if it's not linear. My gas tank isn't linear. So long as I *know* it's not linear I can deal with it.
Windows Seven's problem is not that it's doing the wrong thing, it's because it's trying to be too smart about it. It's not smart. It's stupid. A laptop computer (running ANY OS) isn't as smart as a lizard.
But its user's smart. If your software is stupid (and all software is stupid), and the user is smart (and all users are smarter than their computer, even when they're stupid) then you're better off admitting it than trying to fake it.
Instead of popping up a "your battery might be about to fail", give us a gas gauge. "Your battery has only [====> 40% ---] of original capacity". Show that for *all* batteries. Let people pop that up even if there's no problem. Let people be smart about it. Or even... let people be dumb about it.
You might find that people are more willing to replace batteries when they get down to 20%. You might think that's stupid. And it may be stupid. But it's still smarter than stupid software trying to be smart.
Hah. From my foggy memory, I am thinking VMS seemed more similar to typical UNIX than AIX. :-)
"SMIT happens."
A capitalist corporation locking down the hardware they sell in order to maximize profit for investors is communism?
The state saying that you can't do whatever you want to with your property, no matter who you purchased it from, is something other than "capitalism".
I'd like to see actual examples of the code failures mentioned in the T experiments paper.
Or at least Figure 9.
Apple's definition of "supported" is "If we say it's supported, it's supported. If we don't, it's not."
While we may disagree on that definition, the point remains that just because you are able to do something with a previous version of an Apple product, there is no guarantee that you will be able to do that unless it is explicitly guaranteed by Apple.
There's no guarantee that Apple will even come out with a new version of the iPhone, but the odds are that something Apple has explicitly supported is going to remain explicitly supported for at least a couple of revisions. The idea that half a dozen or so features that Apple hasn't happened to mention in a rather brief introduction and advertising blurb are therefore not going to be in the next version of iPhone OS is best responded to by a facepalm.
They should probably implement something like the Mac "floater" model, I guess.
It wouldn't be the first time that a later generation of an Apple product REMOVED features that they previously supported.
So you're postulating that Apple will drop VPN support and Exchange support from the iPhone? I suppose it's possible.
Or consider how with later OS drops of the iphone, features and third party hardware stopped working [because it wasn't 'official' so they disabled it]
This is an odd definition of 'previously supported'.
No, mind you, I wouldn't want an iPhone or an iPad. The whole "pseudo-smartphone" design of the iPhone is a deal-breaker for me. What I find amusing is that the people who are complaining about this stuff STILL BUY THE THINGS. You KNOW what they are. If you want a device you actually own, where you're not technically breaking the law* to use it the way you want, then just buy one.
* Jailbreaking the iPhone is "legitimate" if it's a necessary part of unlocking it, but for the iPod Touch and base model iPad I don't think that loophole* counts.
* I'm not saying the stupid law is anything but a stupid law, but when you buy locked hardware you're buying Communism.
Since you can dock all your tool windows together, do you really need MDI emulation? The problem with the Gimp multi-window mode is really the tool windows, not the image windows.
If they are not answering, doesn't this mean that most of those functions are not available?
Apple never answers questions like this. And when some of these questions are "will the iPad support features that the iPhone OS already supports", the obvious answer would be a facepalm anyway.
And Mac OS X.
http://opensource.apple.com/
AIX....the last Unix you can't just "get" a copy of, but need to actually buy the hardware (a la the Mac).
Don't forget HPUX.