That point is in some ways valid. College should be primarily an educational institution, and much of the degradation has been the result of fake degrees, basically anything that is not maths, language, or real science and engineering.
The problem I see is that it is the colleges responsibility to graduate students, and they will be held responsible for not doing so, like a high school. For college to be a successful institution, it has to take risks. It has to take very good students on scholarship. It has to allow minimally qualified students who can pay. Colleges cannot be overly agressive in admissions.
But if we are to keep academics colleges must be allowed to cut losses, which mean ejecting students that are not making any meaningful progress. Colleges cannot be responsible for failing students.
The economics is more complex. It is not useful to give huge students loans to students that are not in a real program or are not going to make it. Giving unlimited money to students at ITT is not rational. Allowing students to spend their own money, and subsidizing the education, may or may not make sense. There may still a value in keeping students out of the job market, and some training is provided.
This last bit is something that is often ignored. With a high school graduate one has a person that can get to work on time and can get work with close supervision. Such supervision can be inefficient. With a college graduate, one more than likely has a person that can do significant work without supervision and without much instruction. I am thinking of The Devil Wears Prada. The main character did not need a college degree for her gopher job, but it certainly helped her get it, as the boss would not tolerate a high school person who just sat around until someone made her work.
First, this is a trend. There was a time when I hacked by computer by soldering, when components are big enough for me to fix things in my own home. You don't here people complain about not being able to solder a computer. That is no longer the expectation. Now people get upset because they can't upgrade a computer, as if removing four screws and pulling a cable gives them any great ability. But that is what the kids calls freedom. Freedom to go to the store and buy a part. Now most computers are laptops, and hacking is downloading programs and installing them, maybe opening them up and putting in new hard disk or memory. Apple is a villain because you can't add a battery. And then we get to the silliness of a phone, a device that my any manufacturer is closed wall garden. I don't see anyone building rougue cell towers at their home to get better reception, or to redirect calls to the landline. Maybe they are.
And hackers think they are cool because they change the background image or download a naughty application. I am with them. There was a time when I thouhgt putting the Bill&Opus motif on my mac was the end all, I thought I was hot. But that is really an adolescent rebellion against anything that is forbidden, not any kind of technical issue. For most of us we have things we hack and things that we need to work. The PC is every office because it can be administered and locked down in a way that few other OS can. No one cares about hacking it because that is not it's purpose. The same goes for the iPhone and iPad. How many people complained that they could not hack their Razr. It was a good phone and that is all we cared about.
If one wants to fiddle go and buy a copy of Make. What we don't need to do is think that Apple or whoever all of sudden violated some basic human right. Most of us don't care that we can't pull out the water pump from our car, and do car that we only have to see the mechanic once a year instead of every week. Most of us don't care that our televisions can't be repaired, but are happy that they give us a few years of good service then die so we can upgrade. Most people don't want a phone or a computer that they continuously have to fiddle with and upgrade. Those who do have cheap ones they can buy. Just not the iPad. Which is ok, because if one is a really a cool hacker, one does not need to show off with an iPad.
Anything we do in space teaches us something. The reason is that we live on earth, and space is not the earth. We might think we can extrapolate, but we can't. We tend to make big mistakes when we think we can.
Large masses are few and far between in space. Therefore to get anywhere we are probably going to looking at a series of space stations. The nice thing about this moon mining idea is that it may give the raw materials we need to build space stations, without falling to the 60's idea that the goal is to live on the moon. That is like flying cars. A neat idea, but what we really want are hover craft.
I think there are two types of people wrt language. One thinks that any change to the language is bad. These are the people that cringe when truck is used to describe an automobile instead of what the automobile carries. They are boring and don't get a lot of action at parties.
Then they are the people who think language is a fun and fungible thing, where using different words that are basically the same, or creating new words, is what the world is about.
The thing with wikipedia is that is just a bunch or words. Words cannot transmit truth, only one persons perception of reality. Wikipedia has an advantage is that it is not by nature transmitting a single view of reality. In this case, there was a word coined and published, and many people thought it was a good word, and many people now understood it and wished to use it, and we are in a time where it could be defined in a well known location.
Unfortunately the elite, who still is accustomed to controlling reality, feel that the world was not a reasonable part of the reality in which they want to live. So, since these people are so used to everyone else living their reality, even when the reality is verifiably false, they has to kill the word. And because the peasants have no expectation of doing anything but as they are told, they do not complain.
Then there are the peasants who enjoy being peasant, who enjoy having their lives and thoughts meticulously controlled by those who they consider their betters. They are the one that say we say that we have always used typewriters, and, by golly, we will always use typewriters. We don't need any of this fancy computer shit.
Which is not to say that editing is not useful. But on wikipedia where exclusion is much less necessary, as we are talking about hard disk space not paper, there is much less excuse to allow certain person to enforce the reality in which they are comfortable.
I would hardly say parking meters are the most hated inventions in history. I might think that handicapped spots are more hated. They let arguably healthy people get the best spots, while those that do not have paid doctors to give then a free pass have to pay to park further away.
I mean the only way to get a ticket at the parking meter is to not pay for the meter. Those of who live in the city know how valuable meters are. They encourage the flow of traffic so that everyone gets an opportunity to park. The new meters may seem a bit less fair, as we can no longer borrow time from the previous person, but they do get rid of the issue of accidentally paying the wrong meter, and allow for the odd day when on wants to drive around town instead of walk. Once you have permit, it is good for the day.
Of course we all want to freeload, but that is not really something we all can do. I frankly would be ok with banning all on street parking in town as that would make driving much safer, but people seem to want on street parking, and the city won't get rid of it because it does generate revenue.
There really is no reason for either to lose. If Flash is a creative tool, or a method that people choses to experience the internet, then there is no problem. Anyone with $700 is free to create flash content and post it on a web site for others to enjoy. Just like any other creative person. No one can take away my right to create.
Likewise anyone who wants to consume flash can buy a machine that will run flash. As has been said before, the machine will most likely not be made by Apple, and that has really always been the case. Really, anything not MS based. So consumers have the freedom to buy a flash compatible machine or not.
For those that do not consider Flash an essential part of web browsing, or who actively avoid it, then Apple mobile devices provide a good alternative.
As far as using open as cover, I have to agree. Adobe certainly does double talk. Portions of the Flash standard might be open, but they are hardly fully documented, and the only flash plugin I see is by Adobe. If Flash were open, then we would see a number of different plugins. Apple is a bit more complex. Parts of it are open. Webkit is the most obvious example. However, Apple is using open standards, something Flash is not.
Think outside of the box people. Mount missiles on the space shuttle.
Although it seems a lot of effort just to keep the television from interrupted for a few hours. I suppose that some people think that without the continous indoctrination of Hannity/Beck/Limbaugh some might revert to the natural rational thinking.
In any case, it is unlikely that a solution could be developed in the couple day to week timeframe available.
IBM has never been able to stop anyone from innovating based on patents. In fact, I believe that since IBM has so many patents, they are free to innovate without the threat of being sued for patent infringement. In your example, the lack of patents allowed a parasite to sue RIM. This does not often happen to IBM.
IBM has innovated to remain a relevant company. Unlike most companies, they do not focus on a product, say typewriters, and then cry to government for support when typewriters are no longer necessary. Well, then do, but they also try to figure out what else they can do. And when something completely falls through, like microcomputers, they move on. Sure they are an agressive company, but their patents relate to real products, and cannot be compared to the people who sued RIM.
In the current case, the issue is keeping people out of the industry. There is a cartel of phone producing manufacturers that are in cahoots with the mobile operators. This cartel has insured that phones produced provide revenue streams for the mobile operators, rather than innovative phones for the consumer. Like it or not, the iPhone broke this cartel and provided value for the consumer. Look at the $20 data plan I got from AT&T on the first iPhone. Look at the $30 data plan for iPad, while verizon wants $60 and cricket wants $40. Those other plans may allow tethering, but the also have data limits.
In the same way that it is credible to believe that MS was at least partially behind the SCO suits, it is plausible to believe that these current round of mobile platform suits are at the bequest of the mobile carriers. Because even if, when all this is over, Nokia is still majority player, with RIM, Apple, HP and Google sharing the rest, the market will be reconfigured in such a way that profits are going to be harder to come buy. Just look at Google Nexus one. A few years ago the $200 price tag with contract and draconian termination fees would not hav been an issue. Those were practically the terms under which I bought my Razr. And $500 for the unlocked version, for a phone that was supposed to revolutionize the market by providing an open phone, is clearly a price point meant to keep the mobile carriers relevant. HTC, like most phone makers, have no incentive to make a phone consumers want and can afford, rather than the phone the carriers want and can upsell.
If you have not seen the , watch it. Shoot a policeman
then steal his helmet
then go to the toilet in his helmet
then send it to the policeman's grieving widow
and then steal it again
The whole point of value added product is that it is easier for the consumer to buy the product rather
get it in another way. For instance I often pay 6X the amount for a soft drink because it is easier to buy a small cold bottle than carry it around. Am I stealing money from coke when I buy a big bottle and keep it a cooler? Likewise, many families buy various pastries instead of making them at home, at a fraction of the cost. Would these families be stealing when they use their own time to make the pastries rather than paying the excessive store prices?
Sales stats show that the industry understands this reality. Most firms are making products people will choose to buy. Some are trying to legislate closed market rules to protect their obsolete products, but fortunately, as we see in the video, they are rightfully and increasingly ridiculed.
It will come down to the cost of the netbook, and the ease of use. Unix on the netbook was not a great success because MS was easily able to come in and subsidize. In addition, the cost on always on internet access on those netbooks was not negligible. WiFi is still often something that can be a profit center, and 3G and 4G is $50 a month. Someone who is buying a netbook because it is cheap is not necessarily happy with the 'hidden' costs.
So here is the thing. A netbook can work today because of WiFi access and the possibility of $30 a month data plans A Google netbook can work because if the internet is always connected, then the Google model will work well. In fact, I would say it is critical for the future of google to have a cadre of netbooks that depend on the services, and can't easily run MS services. If google does this as it did the Nexus 1, there will not be a great deal of success. If it can convince the mobile carriers to really push the netbooks, I mean give them away free, in exchange for a two year contract, then we will see great market penetration. The question is will google pay for the design work so all the mobile people has to pay for is manufacturing costs.
I am amazed that the iPhone does so well as the survey appears to be biased to a provider that does not even sell the iphone.
Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first quarter numbers.
NPD's data comes from self-reported online consumer surveys -- not actual sales numbers -- which means there's the potential for some difference.
Given that everyone wants an iPhone, some may say they have one even if they never get closer than their daily visit to the ATT store. OTOH, since Verizon is giving smart phones away in an effort to inflate the non-Apple smart phone numbers, it it not surprising that the phones giving away for free are surpassing the fantasy phones that one has to pay for.
This is not particularly a state issue. It is a discipline issue at school. I think that many would say that discipline has decined, and some say that is not a bad thing. I mean, there was a time that having gum in school could get you expelled, so this candy thing is nothing new. What is new is that kids are being marketed food with little or new nutritional value, and this is contributing to obesity at very young ages. Some say this is not happening, but an extra 100 grams of sugar a day, which is really nothing, can lead to kilograms of extra fat a year.
The other side of an issue is not an issue with a particular state. It is of benefit to any school to get rid of any troublesome kid under any pretext. Troublesome kids tend to cost more to educate. Many of these kids are going to do worse on tests, as they want to cause trouble, and drop out. Removing them form the district will tend to make the district look better.
We see this with charter schools. They don't select the students the educate, but do require an interview and can encourage a student not to enroll "due to the fit". Or they can selectively enforce rules to get rid of students that do not provide good ROI. It is basically left up to the large comprehensive schools to educate everyone but the lowest hanging fruit.
I can tell you many parents move out to that area because they want their children to get a "better" education. One reason why these schools ca n provide a better education is because they don't deal with the little whiny children that won't immidiately follow rules. What the parents learned is that if the kid is going to stay at 'good' schools she better learn to follow the rules. I can tell you that if the parents think this is an overreaction, they may need to find another school that cares less about discipline, and will educate the children they are given rather than the children that are inexpensive to educate.
The upshot of all this seems to be that MS, and really full proprietary software in general, has long the mobile market. After all these years of being told that OSS software is dangerous, inefficient, and defective, we are at a point where the mobile phones mostly run on software on which at least some layers are at least derived from OSS. Even Nokia, which is suing the hell out of anyone that looks at it funny, has Symbian and Qt.
Which leaves RIM, which has good solution for business and has a large market of consumers who want to look like important business people, and the dwindling share of Windows Mobile, some reports indicate a 50% drop in market share since fall of last year.
The fact that iPhone is more closed that some people want causes pain, but would you rather have a company like MS suing everyone that uses OSS software on the mobile platform? I think we can just celebrate that with Google and Apple producing good products using OSS, we can stop wasting time on the Open versus Proprietary debate, and just produce many different good products from which people can choose.
The article has one good idea, create a flash standard, which I believe would allow others to write browsers with native flash support. This would be the same thing Adobe did when they let others write applications to display PDF.
This has to be more than just allowing flash movies to play. Adobe would have to allow people to write applications that supports all that is flash. This would clearly get rid of the major worry about Flash, that it is controlled by a single firm that could wipe our it's competitors simply by no longer supporting Flash on their products. Of couse, as Adobe is finding out, it works both ways. Apple is doing it's best to destroy Flash by not supporting it on the mobile products.
Why will Adobe not allow flash players? Well, because then we might get functionality that would be a detriment to major players like google. Users might have in browser control of browser cookies. Users might get the control the do with images, like automatically blocking any flash object below a certain size. Or, heaven forbid, user might get an off switch.
As a flyer I have seen just how useless these are, having been selected for hand frisking for no apparent reason. The number of false positives are a big impediment to these devices.
I think the only reason we have these is that conservatives want to spend government money, but can't spend it on useful things like roads and schools and keeping people from starving. So they create things like Homeland security and buy lots of useless machines that make their friends rich. That is the only reason I think we have the TSA. Otherwise we would trained agents in the airport looking out for suspicious behavior, not poorly paid perverts peering at peckers.
This is not a valid analogy. Both these firms sell their products though many venues. It is possible to buy a Lamborghini on the secondary market for various prices, as well as CS4.
For the most part much content that is downloaded is provided at a fixed price in a captive market. For instance, Doctor who is provided in the US only over cable. This means that one must pay the cable fee plus watch the commercials. So it is not so much that we want a cheap price, it is just that in a world where TVs no longer rule, there needs to be more delivery options.
So, some shows are streamed through Hulu. I supposed Dr. Who is streamed in the UK. I buy episodes of other shows on iTunes for $2, but some shows are not offered in this fashion.
Content providers can complain that no one buys their product, but no where in the free world does a manufacturer have a right to force consumers to buy a product. Some will set up laws to force consumers to consume useless products through taxes, or set up laws to artificially inflate prices, but that is hardly what one would argue. If no one were buying luxury items at the fixed price, the price drops. It may means that the company goes out of business, but that is ok.
Agreed. And for the top of the line 3G version the brits seem to be getting a good deal. $829 iPad is around $550-$600 without VAT. With VAT it seems like it should sell for upwards of $650. So, depending on the exchange rate and cost of doing business in Britain, the £699 may actually bring in less money than the $829 in the US.
In any case, such straight forward calculation are hardly useful. In South America a liter of coke can be bought for a fraction of what it costs in the US, but no one complains about price gouging in the US, even though the soft drink companies really do...
I probably would have bought a netbook if the iPad was not available, but I probably would not have stated such on a survey. It would have been an impulse purchase on woot or something. I might have bought the sony reader for $200. So what does the 44% mean? 440,000 people who would have bought a netbook or a laptop are not going to. What this also means is that tens of thousands of people who were vaguely looking for something like this are not going to choose the netbook solution.
What this really means is that most entities in the market cannot design what people really want. The kindle is a good machine, but I can imagine why I need a keyboard taking valuable reading space. Furthermore, Amazon is so interested in selling books, that they spent no time figuring our how to monetize the method that most people consume content, which is online. I have subscriptions to all the journals I want, and can read them online. However, it was never clear if I could read them on a kindle. The kindle was designed to promote the Amazon philosophy, not to give users the experience they need. This is a common malady. Just look at how many websites are design based on corporate org structure, not making information available to customers.
Re:You signed away this "right" by picking Apple.
on
Flash Is Not a Right
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· Score: 1
It is funny to defend one closed platform against another. Flash, IMHO, is so closed it does not have a right to exist. If Flash were an open standard, like for example PDF, and other could write engines for it, then I would be all over Apple for not allowing Flash. However Flash is closed, Flash is controlled by Adobe, and, more importantly, the primary purpose of Flash is not to help the user, but the developer or third party who wishes to control the user. Why people want the iPhone to be even more closed is beyond me.
Some would say that Apple is the same situation, but remember one reason Apple stuff is so expensive is because it is generally not subsidized by third parties who get great input into it's design. Apple stuff is designed by Apple so that people will use the products and respect the Apple brand so it can be extravagantly marked up. Google does this as well. The difference is that for the most part Google only profits indirectly profits from consumers, so it's products are only partially directed at consumers.
Look at PDF. It is closed and it has rules, but everyone uses it because everyone has confidence in it. Flash, OTOH, was sold to Adobe because it was dying technology, and Macromedia just wanted to get money while money was good. Adobe took the risk that it could save flash, but to no avail. Again the lack of 'never play flash unless asked' setting makes it user hostile, and not worthy of any defense.
Flash is what is called a bridge technology, like CO2 sequestration or MS Outlook or pet rocks. It has it's time when it is popular, but has to be allowed to die so that real technology might thrive.
Furthermore, any browser that includes flash but does not include a built in flash blocker is useless for any everyday tasks. While I know that Google is unlikely to promote such blocking, as Google seems to have settled on flash a method or tracking users, probably because Flash cookies are outside the purview of the 'block cookie' options, they could at least be honest enough to include the option. If they did, I could take the browser seriously as user centric tool, as opposed to a method of tricking users to share private data.
Recall that when the iPhone came out, there were no Apps. Everything was standard based web apps, that would run on any machine. This made sense because the iPhone was only one of many devices a consumer could use, and no one was going to write just for Apple products, there was no profit in it. It made no sense for Apple to support technologies that were not, at least in principle, universally supported. While Flash runs on many computing devices, and may run on more in the future, at the point when the iPhone came out, and at this point, it is not a leading mobile technology.
But developers wanted Apps, so Apple gave it to them. Now we are talking about programs written for the Apple products. Apps were requested specifically so that developers would not have to go through interpreters. There are rules on Apps. We could run flash in a browser environment, but then we would be back to the situation that developers seemed to hate when the iPhone just came out.
So there is no lock in. Developer can write rich apps to run through the browser. Developers can write rich apps for Android and pull market share from Apple. Everyone complains that Apple is too constrictive in the App vetting proces. It is not Apple responsibility to make it easy for a developer to write Apps for both. Developers as business people must fund development, just like if one were to sell parts for Honda and Toyota. But no one seems to writing Android apps, they just want to write Apps for iPhone and be able to run them on Android. Go figure.
Of course not. We can live without beaches. We can lie without fish. The people who are whining that they are going to lose their generations of livelihoods should just find something else to do. After all, no one is entitled to their job and should be prepared to be retrained at a moments notice. It is after all the free market and I don't think I should have to pay more for gas just so some unskilled yahoos don't want to work at a real job.
The only problem is that, due to a civil justice system that favors corporations of victims, we can't sue BP into oblivion. This would be the free market method of solving this problem. If companies knew that victims could sue up to the value of the company, they would not clearly misleading statements just to get a contract. Ultimately many ventures such as this are only profitable because risk is outsourced to the taxpayer.
And for those who do not know about oilfield economics, the fact that this is leased is meaningless. Evertyhing, down to the consumable diamond drill bits, are leased. I mean none of here would say that we lease our car so the manufacturer of the car is liable when the car spins our of control and we kill a family of five.
Automated data input is always tricky. Basically the technology is type it on a keyboard or use voice recognition software or dictate and pay someone to type it in a computer. When people talk about voice recognition they are think the it is competing against typing it in yourself, but it most is competing against paying someone else to type it in.
My understanding, from the people that use Dragon, it competes well against paying someone else to type. First it is a couple of orders cheaper. Second, if you pay someone to type, you still have to read and edit, and dragon is accurate enough. Of course you have to train yourself to use the technology, but that is the same with any technology. It is naive to think that we don't make subtle and not so subtle changes in ourselves so that we can benefit from the technology.
I think speech recognition is going to expand in the future. Beyond the dictation process, there is also simple commands. I don't use the voice controls on the iPhone, but it seems something that people like. I have used the voice controls on my Mac. Furthermore, i can certainly imagine a time when my fingers are not so limber that I might depend on something like Dragon.
I don't see the technology so commoditized that MS includes it in the 2015 version of MS Office, but I do have beilieve there is always room for improvement.
Re:Ninjas were assassins, not peasants
on
The Laidoff Ninja
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Also, I would hardly compare a laid off worker to an oppressed peasant. The only peasents, at least in the US, are those that choose to think of themselves in that way. If one works day in and day out, and thinks that the job is an entitlement bestowed by a lord, then that is more a problem with the worker, maybe beginning with their education. Too many people ignore the free and cheap education, knowing that they will be given an unskilled job. Even twenty years ago in the large urban district that I went to school in, we had computers and labs that many students chose to ignore. We had and have relatively cheap universities where one can get degrees and training.
I doubt that anyone who thinks of themselves as a peasant, and the employer as the enemy, is going to have a great deal of luck finding a job quickly. Maybe that is why we so much unemployment. All these peasants waiting for the lord of the manner to give them a job.
I know that young people are having a hard time finding a job right now. I also know that the same advice I was given is applicable today. No experience means no job, so one has to find a job prior to graduation, even it is sweeping floors. The worst thing for a young person to do is act like their elders in thinking they are too good for a hard days work. A nobleperson is willing to do whatever needs to be done to get the job done. A peasant has to protect their limited dignity.
Here is what happened to IE. MS stopped developing it, as they have in the past. They also tried to kill other OS by removing IE. This did not work because most websites no longer required IE. This is the 5% rule. If you can get something to 5%, marketers will no longer ignore it. The only sits that require IE are likely to be internal corporate sites.
So, as you note, everything that is not MS is not going to use IE. Even those things that run MS, such as MS Windows Mobile might be running a modern browser like Opera. Gecko and Webkit has major marketing now, so IE has to compete, which it can't.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem I see is that it is the colleges responsibility to graduate students, and they will be held responsible for not doing so, like a high school. For college to be a successful institution, it has to take risks. It has to take very good students on scholarship. It has to allow minimally qualified students who can pay. Colleges cannot be overly agressive in admissions.
But if we are to keep academics colleges must be allowed to cut losses, which mean ejecting students that are not making any meaningful progress. Colleges cannot be responsible for failing students.
The economics is more complex. It is not useful to give huge students loans to students that are not in a real program or are not going to make it. Giving unlimited money to students at ITT is not rational. Allowing students to spend their own money, and subsidizing the education, may or may not make sense. There may still a value in keeping students out of the job market, and some training is provided.
This last bit is something that is often ignored. With a high school graduate one has a person that can get to work on time and can get work with close supervision. Such supervision can be inefficient. With a college graduate, one more than likely has a person that can do significant work without supervision and without much instruction. I am thinking of The Devil Wears Prada. The main character did not need a college degree for her gopher job, but it certainly helped her get it, as the boss would not tolerate a high school person who just sat around until someone made her work.
And hackers think they are cool because they change the background image or download a naughty application. I am with them. There was a time when I thouhgt putting the Bill&Opus motif on my mac was the end all, I thought I was hot. But that is really an adolescent rebellion against anything that is forbidden, not any kind of technical issue. For most of us we have things we hack and things that we need to work. The PC is every office because it can be administered and locked down in a way that few other OS can. No one cares about hacking it because that is not it's purpose. The same goes for the iPhone and iPad. How many people complained that they could not hack their Razr. It was a good phone and that is all we cared about.
If one wants to fiddle go and buy a copy of Make. What we don't need to do is think that Apple or whoever all of sudden violated some basic human right. Most of us don't care that we can't pull out the water pump from our car, and do car that we only have to see the mechanic once a year instead of every week. Most of us don't care that our televisions can't be repaired, but are happy that they give us a few years of good service then die so we can upgrade. Most people don't want a phone or a computer that they continuously have to fiddle with and upgrade. Those who do have cheap ones they can buy. Just not the iPad. Which is ok, because if one is a really a cool hacker, one does not need to show off with an iPad.
Large masses are few and far between in space. Therefore to get anywhere we are probably going to looking at a series of space stations. The nice thing about this moon mining idea is that it may give the raw materials we need to build space stations, without falling to the 60's idea that the goal is to live on the moon. That is like flying cars. A neat idea, but what we really want are hover craft.
Then they are the people who think language is a fun and fungible thing, where using different words that are basically the same, or creating new words, is what the world is about.
The thing with wikipedia is that is just a bunch or words. Words cannot transmit truth, only one persons perception of reality. Wikipedia has an advantage is that it is not by nature transmitting a single view of reality. In this case, there was a word coined and published, and many people thought it was a good word, and many people now understood it and wished to use it, and we are in a time where it could be defined in a well known location.
Unfortunately the elite, who still is accustomed to controlling reality, feel that the world was not a reasonable part of the reality in which they want to live. So, since these people are so used to everyone else living their reality, even when the reality is verifiably false, they has to kill the word. And because the peasants have no expectation of doing anything but as they are told, they do not complain.
Then there are the peasants who enjoy being peasant, who enjoy having their lives and thoughts meticulously controlled by those who they consider their betters. They are the one that say we say that we have always used typewriters, and, by golly, we will always use typewriters. We don't need any of this fancy computer shit.
Which is not to say that editing is not useful. But on wikipedia where exclusion is much less necessary, as we are talking about hard disk space not paper, there is much less excuse to allow certain person to enforce the reality in which they are comfortable.
I mean the only way to get a ticket at the parking meter is to not pay for the meter. Those of who live in the city know how valuable meters are. They encourage the flow of traffic so that everyone gets an opportunity to park. The new meters may seem a bit less fair, as we can no longer borrow time from the previous person, but they do get rid of the issue of accidentally paying the wrong meter, and allow for the odd day when on wants to drive around town instead of walk. Once you have permit, it is good for the day.
Of course we all want to freeload, but that is not really something we all can do. I frankly would be ok with banning all on street parking in town as that would make driving much safer, but people seem to want on street parking, and the city won't get rid of it because it does generate revenue.
Likewise anyone who wants to consume flash can buy a machine that will run flash. As has been said before, the machine will most likely not be made by Apple, and that has really always been the case. Really, anything not MS based. So consumers have the freedom to buy a flash compatible machine or not.
For those that do not consider Flash an essential part of web browsing, or who actively avoid it, then Apple mobile devices provide a good alternative.
As far as using open as cover, I have to agree. Adobe certainly does double talk. Portions of the Flash standard might be open, but they are hardly fully documented, and the only flash plugin I see is by Adobe. If Flash were open, then we would see a number of different plugins. Apple is a bit more complex. Parts of it are open. Webkit is the most obvious example. However, Apple is using open standards, something Flash is not.
Nevertheless, this is healthy competition.
Although it seems a lot of effort just to keep the television from interrupted for a few hours. I suppose that some people think that without the continous indoctrination of Hannity/Beck/Limbaugh some might revert to the natural rational thinking.
In any case, it is unlikely that a solution could be developed in the couple day to week timeframe available.
IBM has innovated to remain a relevant company. Unlike most companies, they do not focus on a product, say typewriters, and then cry to government for support when typewriters are no longer necessary. Well, then do, but they also try to figure out what else they can do. And when something completely falls through, like microcomputers, they move on. Sure they are an agressive company, but their patents relate to real products, and cannot be compared to the people who sued RIM.
In the current case, the issue is keeping people out of the industry. There is a cartel of phone producing manufacturers that are in cahoots with the mobile operators. This cartel has insured that phones produced provide revenue streams for the mobile operators, rather than innovative phones for the consumer. Like it or not, the iPhone broke this cartel and provided value for the consumer. Look at the $20 data plan I got from AT&T on the first iPhone. Look at the $30 data plan for iPad, while verizon wants $60 and cricket wants $40. Those other plans may allow tethering, but the also have data limits.
In the same way that it is credible to believe that MS was at least partially behind the SCO suits, it is plausible to believe that these current round of mobile platform suits are at the bequest of the mobile carriers. Because even if, when all this is over, Nokia is still majority player, with RIM, Apple, HP and Google sharing the rest, the market will be reconfigured in such a way that profits are going to be harder to come buy. Just look at Google Nexus one. A few years ago the $200 price tag with contract and draconian termination fees would not hav been an issue. Those were practically the terms under which I bought my Razr. And $500 for the unlocked version, for a phone that was supposed to revolutionize the market by providing an open phone, is clearly a price point meant to keep the mobile carriers relevant. HTC, like most phone makers, have no incentive to make a phone consumers want and can afford, rather than the phone the carriers want and can upsell.
Shoot a policeman
then steal his helmet
then go to the toilet in his helmet
then send it to the policeman's grieving widow
and then steal it again
The whole point of value added product is that it is easier for the consumer to buy the product rather get it in another way. For instance I often pay 6X the amount for a soft drink because it is easier to buy a small cold bottle than carry it around. Am I stealing money from coke when I buy a big bottle and keep it a cooler? Likewise, many families buy various pastries instead of making them at home, at a fraction of the cost. Would these families be stealing when they use their own time to make the pastries rather than paying the excessive store prices?
Sales stats show that the industry understands this reality. Most firms are making products people will choose to buy. Some are trying to legislate closed market rules to protect their obsolete products, but fortunately, as we see in the video, they are rightfully and increasingly ridiculed.
So here is the thing. A netbook can work today because of WiFi access and the possibility of $30 a month data plans A Google netbook can work because if the internet is always connected, then the Google model will work well. In fact, I would say it is critical for the future of google to have a cadre of netbooks that depend on the services, and can't easily run MS services. If google does this as it did the Nexus 1, there will not be a great deal of success. If it can convince the mobile carriers to really push the netbooks, I mean give them away free, in exchange for a two year contract, then we will see great market penetration. The question is will google pay for the design work so all the mobile people has to pay for is manufacturing costs.
Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first quarter numbers.
NPD's data comes from self-reported online consumer surveys -- not actual sales numbers -- which means there's the potential for some difference.
Given that everyone wants an iPhone, some may say they have one even if they never get closer than their daily visit to the ATT store. OTOH, since Verizon is giving smart phones away in an effort to inflate the non-Apple smart phone numbers, it it not surprising that the phones giving away for free are surpassing the fantasy phones that one has to pay for.
The other side of an issue is not an issue with a particular state. It is of benefit to any school to get rid of any troublesome kid under any pretext. Troublesome kids tend to cost more to educate. Many of these kids are going to do worse on tests, as they want to cause trouble, and drop out. Removing them form the district will tend to make the district look better.
We see this with charter schools. They don't select the students the educate, but do require an interview and can encourage a student not to enroll "due to the fit". Or they can selectively enforce rules to get rid of students that do not provide good ROI. It is basically left up to the large comprehensive schools to educate everyone but the lowest hanging fruit.
I can tell you many parents move out to that area because they want their children to get a "better" education. One reason why these schools ca n provide a better education is because they don't deal with the little whiny children that won't immidiately follow rules. What the parents learned is that if the kid is going to stay at 'good' schools she better learn to follow the rules. I can tell you that if the parents think this is an overreaction, they may need to find another school that cares less about discipline, and will educate the children they are given rather than the children that are inexpensive to educate.
Which leaves RIM, which has good solution for business and has a large market of consumers who want to look like important business people, and the dwindling share of Windows Mobile, some reports indicate a 50% drop in market share since fall of last year.
The fact that iPhone is more closed that some people want causes pain, but would you rather have a company like MS suing everyone that uses OSS software on the mobile platform? I think we can just celebrate that with Google and Apple producing good products using OSS, we can stop wasting time on the Open versus Proprietary debate, and just produce many different good products from which people can choose.
This has to be more than just allowing flash movies to play. Adobe would have to allow people to write applications that supports all that is flash. This would clearly get rid of the major worry about Flash, that it is controlled by a single firm that could wipe our it's competitors simply by no longer supporting Flash on their products. Of couse, as Adobe is finding out, it works both ways. Apple is doing it's best to destroy Flash by not supporting it on the mobile products.
Why will Adobe not allow flash players? Well, because then we might get functionality that would be a detriment to major players like google. Users might have in browser control of browser cookies. Users might get the control the do with images, like automatically blocking any flash object below a certain size. Or, heaven forbid, user might get an off switch.
I think the only reason we have these is that conservatives want to spend government money, but can't spend it on useful things like roads and schools and keeping people from starving. So they create things like Homeland security and buy lots of useless machines that make their friends rich. That is the only reason I think we have the TSA. Otherwise we would trained agents in the airport looking out for suspicious behavior, not poorly paid perverts peering at peckers.
For the most part much content that is downloaded is provided at a fixed price in a captive market. For instance, Doctor who is provided in the US only over cable. This means that one must pay the cable fee plus watch the commercials. So it is not so much that we want a cheap price, it is just that in a world where TVs no longer rule, there needs to be more delivery options.
So, some shows are streamed through Hulu. I supposed Dr. Who is streamed in the UK. I buy episodes of other shows on iTunes for $2, but some shows are not offered in this fashion.
Content providers can complain that no one buys their product, but no where in the free world does a manufacturer have a right to force consumers to buy a product. Some will set up laws to force consumers to consume useless products through taxes, or set up laws to artificially inflate prices, but that is hardly what one would argue. If no one were buying luxury items at the fixed price, the price drops. It may means that the company goes out of business, but that is ok.
In any case, such straight forward calculation are hardly useful. In South America a liter of coke can be bought for a fraction of what it costs in the US, but no one complains about price gouging in the US, even though the soft drink companies really do...
What this really means is that most entities in the market cannot design what people really want. The kindle is a good machine, but I can imagine why I need a keyboard taking valuable reading space. Furthermore, Amazon is so interested in selling books, that they spent no time figuring our how to monetize the method that most people consume content, which is online. I have subscriptions to all the journals I want, and can read them online. However, it was never clear if I could read them on a kindle. The kindle was designed to promote the Amazon philosophy, not to give users the experience they need. This is a common malady. Just look at how many websites are design based on corporate org structure, not making information available to customers.
Some would say that Apple is the same situation, but remember one reason Apple stuff is so expensive is because it is generally not subsidized by third parties who get great input into it's design. Apple stuff is designed by Apple so that people will use the products and respect the Apple brand so it can be extravagantly marked up. Google does this as well. The difference is that for the most part Google only profits indirectly profits from consumers, so it's products are only partially directed at consumers.
Look at PDF. It is closed and it has rules, but everyone uses it because everyone has confidence in it. Flash, OTOH, was sold to Adobe because it was dying technology, and Macromedia just wanted to get money while money was good. Adobe took the risk that it could save flash, but to no avail. Again the lack of 'never play flash unless asked' setting makes it user hostile, and not worthy of any defense.
Flash is what is called a bridge technology, like CO2 sequestration or MS Outlook or pet rocks. It has it's time when it is popular, but has to be allowed to die so that real technology might thrive.
Furthermore, any browser that includes flash but does not include a built in flash blocker is useless for any everyday tasks. While I know that Google is unlikely to promote such blocking, as Google seems to have settled on flash a method or tracking users, probably because Flash cookies are outside the purview of the 'block cookie' options, they could at least be honest enough to include the option. If they did, I could take the browser seriously as user centric tool, as opposed to a method of tricking users to share private data.
But developers wanted Apps, so Apple gave it to them. Now we are talking about programs written for the Apple products. Apps were requested specifically so that developers would not have to go through interpreters. There are rules on Apps. We could run flash in a browser environment, but then we would be back to the situation that developers seemed to hate when the iPhone just came out.
So there is no lock in. Developer can write rich apps to run through the browser. Developers can write rich apps for Android and pull market share from Apple. Everyone complains that Apple is too constrictive in the App vetting proces. It is not Apple responsibility to make it easy for a developer to write Apps for both. Developers as business people must fund development, just like if one were to sell parts for Honda and Toyota. But no one seems to writing Android apps, they just want to write Apps for iPhone and be able to run them on Android. Go figure.
The only problem is that, due to a civil justice system that favors corporations of victims, we can't sue BP into oblivion. This would be the free market method of solving this problem. If companies knew that victims could sue up to the value of the company, they would not clearly misleading statements just to get a contract. Ultimately many ventures such as this are only profitable because risk is outsourced to the taxpayer.
And for those who do not know about oilfield economics, the fact that this is leased is meaningless. Evertyhing, down to the consumable diamond drill bits, are leased. I mean none of here would say that we lease our car so the manufacturer of the car is liable when the car spins our of control and we kill a family of five.
My understanding, from the people that use Dragon, it competes well against paying someone else to type. First it is a couple of orders cheaper. Second, if you pay someone to type, you still have to read and edit, and dragon is accurate enough. Of course you have to train yourself to use the technology, but that is the same with any technology. It is naive to think that we don't make subtle and not so subtle changes in ourselves so that we can benefit from the technology.
I think speech recognition is going to expand in the future. Beyond the dictation process, there is also simple commands. I don't use the voice controls on the iPhone, but it seems something that people like. I have used the voice controls on my Mac. Furthermore, i can certainly imagine a time when my fingers are not so limber that I might depend on something like Dragon.
I don't see the technology so commoditized that MS includes it in the 2015 version of MS Office, but I do have beilieve there is always room for improvement.
I doubt that anyone who thinks of themselves as a peasant, and the employer as the enemy, is going to have a great deal of luck finding a job quickly. Maybe that is why we so much unemployment. All these peasants waiting for the lord of the manner to give them a job.
I know that young people are having a hard time finding a job right now. I also know that the same advice I was given is applicable today. No experience means no job, so one has to find a job prior to graduation, even it is sweeping floors. The worst thing for a young person to do is act like their elders in thinking they are too good for a hard days work. A nobleperson is willing to do whatever needs to be done to get the job done. A peasant has to protect their limited dignity.
So, as you note, everything that is not MS is not going to use IE. Even those things that run MS, such as MS Windows Mobile might be running a modern browser like Opera. Gecko and Webkit has major marketing now, so IE has to compete, which it can't.