Of course when I was a kid, my siblings and I were the GPS system, and the sound system, and we learned to draw, write, and converse. I hardly see the point of traveling when all the kids do is watch movies and play video games, i.e. the same thing they do at home.
At the end of the day I guess there is choice. Raise kids that users, or kids that are root.
Recommendations for Border measures
6. Establish clear procedures for those accused of infringement by the right holder to dispute claims and enforce due process including (a)disputing the standing of the alleged right holder to make a claim, (b) disputing the right of the border authority to impede fair trade, (c) require documentation supporting the claim of infringement within 24 hours of the claim (c) allow immediate access to the good accused of infringement by the owner or an authorized agent, and (d) require a hearing within five(5) business days of the claim of infringment to assess the validity of such claims.
Recommended ACTA Provisions for Civil Enforcement
(5) In the case where a right holder claiming infringement does not provide documentation within 24 hours of the claim, does not attend the hearing or does not have suitable evidence to support the claim of infringement, or in the case where it is shown that right holder has made a frivilous claim, the victim of the right holder is entitled to recover costs associated with the defense and direct and indirect loss of business resulting from the claim. These include but are not limited to attorney fees, storage fees, the value of the detained product, the values of any lost business of the victim, that value of any lost business of clients related to the detained products, and any costs necessary for the victim to recover from any defamation related to unsupported detention of the products.
I know it sounds unreasonable, but if my shipment of bag can be halted just on the word of LVMH, and they can force me into the poor house because I have no recourse to get and sell my merchandise for 30 days, then there better be a balance so I can tap their massive corporate assets when they do wrong, including making them pay for the months worth of lost sales.
Although some might say he has become much less rigorous on the UI side, Jakob Nielsen has some good ideas on this subject. This book might provide some clues.
The basis of this book, and of most writing on UI, is that the designer can only do so much. Once a best effort is made, the interface must go into usability testing. The interface decisions then need to be made on the basis of these tests, not on the whis of the designers.
p.
It also sounds like The Mythical Man Month might be in order, and a design book, like the classic composite structured design, as it appears that there are many unresolved and extravagant dependencies.
I agree with you. Here is a bit of history and personal knowledge to prove your point.
First, consistent customers with a high spec get the best parts. When I was working shipping blanks, one or two big name companies got the reliable items. Everyone else go their rejects. This is a fact. If Apple is willing to commit to purchasing a year in advance, they get the good stuff. Everyone else, like Dell, who is looking for the cheapest price, gets Apple rejects.
Second, Apple has always been conscious about the environment, especially in relation to user safety. For instance, Apple was one of the first retailers to move CRT monitors to the swedish standards for radiation. They also moved to LCD for similar reasons. In the switch, Apple also cut the power needed to run a computer considerably. In fact Apple tends to have very energy efficient computers, with current models running on half the power of similar models from other vendors.
All this of course costs money. For years CRTs are cheaper than LCDs. Building power efficient kit costs money. It is easier to throw together a power consuming piece of junk than a well designed performer. A lighter, smaller machine has obvious savings in transportation. What is missing from most discussions is the fact that energy consumption during the lifetime of the product is going to far outweigh, in most cases, the energy needed to build the product. Furthermore, refurbishment of the entire product, where the company has control of disposal, it likely the best way to go, although it is also expensive as it does not externalize costs.
Ultimately it will be the same this as the transition from IBM products to MS or MS products to OSS *nix. If ones time is cheap or free, or if one can hire cheap help, as was the case when MS came on he scene, then an Apple clone makes sense. What I see more often than not, however, is people buying the product because of the low initial cost, and then getting screwed when they do not have the time or expertise, or cannot hire the expertise, to make it work.
What Apple is doing, IMHO, is protecting itself from deficient hardware that plagues the cheap commodity PC world. For the corporate or hobbies market this deficient hardware makes little difference as both these have resources to work around the deficient hardware. If Dell changes specs on a machine because it save a penny, and the machines does not work, corporate or the hobbiest have the time to spend on the phone, or return the machines, or engage in convoluted workarounds to get the machine to work.
OTOH the Apple market does not, and Apple does not want to staff for such technical support. Your $10 Adaptor does not work? It is your problem. Buy the $40 one that works with Apple. That is the way it is. And this is the key to EULA.
I do not see that MS should be fighting people installing software on 3rd party machines. I think they should just make it clear that they will not support the machines, and updates may break the machines. If a third party sells machines that may run Mac OS, then it should be made clear that Apple will not support these machines, and the company cannot guarantee that machines will run Mac OS, and that in the normal process, Mac OS may not longer run after an update, and the performance on these machines may not be equivalent to an Apple.. If people then choose to install Mac OS, then that is no different than the situation now.
However, in all honesty, I would fully expect Apple to break whatever it is the third party is doing. I would then expect a number of calls to apple support to ask why the Os no longer runs on these third party machines. I would then expect Apple to sue the third party to recoup these support costs. In the end I would hope that Apple loses this current case, and these naked clones are allowed to be sold. I would also hope that if the third party seller is not careful about clearly stating to the custome what is being sold, that Apple is able to sue later from any tarnishment of brand that might result.
In every pressure group there are going to be jerks that are just in the group to garner attention by pissing people off. Because they want attention, the get attention, and make it looks like that is the primary goal of the pressure group. The people actually doing work, and fighting for arguably reasonable changes by arguably legitimate means get locked out.
Another issue in such groups is the distinction between the workers and the bitchers. A few in such groups actually keep the thing going, either through in kind goods and services or direct monetary payments. Most are just idle supporters. A few just like to complain about those who do the work. If a person is creating a useful product that is consistent with his or her cause, what gives anyone the right to complain about it. That is how that person wishes to express his or her beliefs. If you think another line of action is appropriate, do it, but do something constructive, and don't just complain or throw a party. That does not solve anything any more than Woodstock prevented babyboomers from sending a new generation to an ineffective conflict. It might be fun to disrupt Apple stores, but that will not get rid of Apple. Just like MS, a useful product must be developed to dislodge MS. For instance, Amazon has DRM free music, so Apple will presumable have a harder time selling DRM music, and the iPod lockin that is the purpose of such DRM will be diminished
p
The google lockin will be broken by a better search engine. MS cannot do this. Apple has no reason to do so. Those who want to dislodge much do so. Some will say it impossible, but look at the crap that investors are supporters. The difference between this crap and new search engine is that a search engine that can dislodge google will be hard to create, and so people just choose to complain instead. It was the same with MS. MS was the simple solution, so most would pay the tribute, then complain about it. As far as I can tell, firms like Apple and the FSF were the only ones will to endure the discomfort necessary to get us to the place where MS might be vulnerable.
It is not only the bandwidth throttling. I may be in a position to move to comcast in a few months. I might choose then as the ATT service is not all that good. However, it is unlikely I will choose them due to the limitations on router use on their service. It will cost me a great deal of money to do what I already do with ATT. Sure, some will say break the TOS and do what you like. I ask, why break the terms of service when you do not have to? Why run an unlicensed version of MS Office when one could run open office?
So, in the end, I agree this is just putting out fires, getting rid of bad publicity. A simple, competitively priced plan, that let people do what they normally do, without having to worry if they are breaking the TOS. Oh, and reliable. Because Comcast is holding onto these complex TOS that most others have abondoned, Comcast is likely not a serious option.
Honestly, for most of what the average company does, MS products are ok. I don't use them because for what I do the products are expensive and inefficient, but site licensing and kickbacks makes them a good choice for a large firm.
What would scare me is some employee, thinking that he or she ws being "progressive", sending company emails through a free public service, or storing company business on free public servers. Even if such a service was indeed secure, there is no way of knowing if said service would no someday use these email or documents to increase their ad revenue in a way that was detrimental to my company. I could not really complain, as the piper must eventually be paid.
So, yes, blocking certain aspects of google is perfectly justifiable.
I am always surprised at how computer illeterate the general population is. There are a large number of people over 35 that cannot use email. There are a huge number of people under 25 that believe the internet is IE, and the only place they can get to is facebook and yahoo. I have seen kids sit down a computer, type in facebook, get an error, type in yahoo, get an error, and just quit. I have had any number of kids tell me they need to check thier email and go to facebook.
It is not a failure of open email any more that it is a failure of the telephone system. it is the culture that a group of people grow up in. Some people are in the IM culture. Some are in the texting culture. Others are in the face book culture.
Facebook has somehow made it ok to use a computer. Functionally illiterate computer people have facebook accounts. It is simple. No configuring th STMP server. No messing with google or yahoo(yahoo is for free music only). Just set up a facebook and everything is there.
I think we have to realize that the majority of the world really doesn't want to know half the computer application trivia that we do. It seems to me that Facebook has value because, at some point, these kids are going to become serious consumers, and they are not going to know anything else but facebook.
Re:Sounds like a great idea for an iPhone app.
on
1200-Baud Archeology
·
· Score: 1
I am amazed at what people are paying $7.99+ on iTunes. However, if Trade Wars became an iPhone App, then perhaps that would be one game that is worth the money.
As a matter of fact there is push to get more balance in all professions. This is how we make sure to get the best person for each job, and make sure that we can continue to compete. Saying that half the population is not qualified for a particular job is the same as saying we will no longer compete in the global economy. True, many people want that, want to become isolationist, and want Walmart to no longer exist and want us to have to pay 50% more for common goods and services. While I don't disagree with this, I understand that it may not be the best way to go, and a rational capitalism may be better.
So, if we are going to open the professions to everyone, then we have to deal with the genuine childhood and adolescent issues that exist in many schools. One of these is a balance of male and female in primary education. But a bigger issue is the kind of anecdotal assumptions that litter every discussion, even here on/. where we are supposable educated and logical. In reality much of it has not to do with ability, but social expectations. For example, a girl can go through a pre-engineering program in high school and go to college or get a well paying job right of out school, and, if she likes, open a consultancy a few years later. This does not happen because social exceptions, her peer group, requires her to take cosmetology, or the like, which is seldom rigorous enough to prepare for college classes. Nothing wrong with that. It is her choice, but it seems like the choice is often made on false assumptions. Likewise a guy may blow off all the science classes and graduate with a bad GPA because he just figures he will work construction. Again, nothing wrong with that, except, again that is might be made under false assumptions.
In both these cases what is happening is that kids are closing the doors to future opportunities at a very young age, perhaps 12. In my experience it is much easier to go to college, give up, and become a cosmetologist, that it is to not take college prep classes, work in as a cosmetologist, and then go back to college and become, for instance, a cosmologist. Likewise, during these boom times we think the construction jobs are never going to end. But they will, and how hard is going to be to learn at 30 what should have been learned at 15. Might it have been easier for the guy to, for instance, become a nurse at 22, and start earning nurses salary immediately? We see the same thing with athletes of both genders. The expected average salary of athlete, integrated over all candidates over the average earning lifetime, is likely no more than 15K a year, not much better than minimum wage. Yet the social pressures push kids to these dead end professions.
So, outside of rampant capitalism, why do we care. Because by saying that equality is important, we, in some small way negate the social pressures so that boy might get his science scores high enough so that he may become a nurse, if he can compete with the women. This of course is why so many people are adamantly opposed to such quotas. Because if that girl does get her act together in high school, and completes all her coursework through college, then she will get that engineering job, and the less qualified man will not. And many see that as unfair. It is much easier to funnel most of the talented motivated girls to teaching and nursing, so that we have these protected highly paid occupations like engineering where incompetent men, many who, from my experience, cannot even put a fuse in correctly, can make enough money to fulfill the societal necessary role as head of the household, i.e. wear the pants.
And if you didn't catch my little side remark there, teaching and nursing requires some kick butt above average education, especially nursing, which is why they get paid the bucks.
Certainly I think most people understand that Blizzard is simply trying to control the use of the program so that as to make is as enjoyable as possible to the customers while maximizing profits. They use copyrights laws to do this because copyright laws and the EULA because these are currently the most arbitrary and vague aspects of the civil law. This does not mean, however, that the decision is correct, that WOW won't apply decisions to other aspects of the game, or that some other party might use the decision in an effort to maximize profits under less forthright circumstances.
In the end it has to do with the customer costing less to serve than revenue generated. With bots obviously computer time is being spent in excess of the average that Blizzard figured in setting rates. So they don't want bots. A simple and rational economization. What is unclear is if they might use this ruling to economize some more. Perhaps by setting up a TOS such that anyone who uses more than 3 hours a day may be cut off? Certainly that is now within their reach. I certainly do not see how, if I pay my money, I should not be able to load a bot to do the "boring" stuff, if I wish. Sure it is outside the TOS, but who reads those anyway.
You say they won't do this because it will lose them customers? Well, companies do strange things. I remember when EA began to require the CD in order for to let a user play a game that was legaly owned and used. A rational person might say this would cause more loss of sales than sales gained by thwarting piracy. But they still did it.
Honestly this was the change that Apple made that seriously left MS as the lone occupant of the toy OS category. There is just so much that can't be easily done with thought the GUI. The capturing of mouse clicks to build an applescript never worked perfectly, and Applescript itself is a backwater that not everyone feels like learning, especially with all the tradition and tools for shell programming. Simplicity is the key.
I recall how wonderful Excel was when we just had scripts. Then things got complicated with VB, and everyone all of the sudden had to create these BS applications. This was the change in the mindset of MS. Never were we going to have something simple. We would always from then on have to deal with over complexity, just so MS could say it had more features. Which is why *nix and the mac is in many a better solution for the serious user. For the average user there are built in tools ready to use. For the power user, there is the console.
I believe Vista is the end of Windows as we know it. The end of the Gee Whiz ivory tower culture that ignores users needs. The end of the arrogance that believes they know what users want more than users(which is often true, but it needs to be tempered). Hopefully the end of the myth than an OS is inherently obscenely valuable, and pricing that is primarily geared to force user to upgrade computers rather than upgrade the OS. When a *nix is free, or $20 with a few months of support, and a 5 computer home license of Mac OS is $120, how can MS justify more than $200 for a five user home version of MS Windows 7? Especially, since in all probability, it will be an upgrade?
The sad thing is that geek has become so related to electronic computing technology instead a general term for someone who is curious about how the world works, curious about how they can take common objects and make them do cool things, curious about read and writing about how to do interesting and cool things. There was a time when a geek would be a person who went into the kitchen, or out in the woods, or down to the beach, and instead of just "hanging out" would perform systematic exercises to figure out how things work. Would take apart a car or a bicycle simply to understand the process that had to be used to put it together. Now to be a geek all one must do is go to the computer store, buys a few components, puts them together, and then loads a version of *nix using a GUI. Not to disrespectful, but calling this person a geek is like calling someone who does paint by numbers an artist. How many of the so-called geeeks actually understand the basic logic use to build even the most simple gates, or have ever programmed a PLD or EPROM. That is unfair. I don't want to define a geek, but since the subject was broached, there is it.
Debakey, according to the article, went to the department store,bought some fabric and made an artificial blood vessel. Think about that. He fucking hacked a blood vessel out of cloth. This is Star Trek and McGyver shit. This is not Bill Gates buying software and then conning other to buy it at a 100X markup. This is a person who has his entire life looked at life and seen not what exists, but what might exist. This, my friend, is what every geek should be looking to do. Not annoying others by hacking into obviously venerable machines. Not by tricking out your computers with spray paint. But bringing products into the world that might make it better, or at learning some useful skills so that we can help other people get their work done.
I understand what the parent is saying, but to me the problem may be that geek culture has become too popular, and many people try to play the affectation part of it without truly being into it. So, as the title says, Debakey may be the consummate geek, while the rest of us are just wanna be geeks.
As a disclaimer, I grew up hearing about this man my entire life. I think that there a very few people who have done as much for Houston, for Texas, the United State, or the world, as he did.
To put in a large perspective, for example, Texas crashed when oil crashed in the late 70's. In response, Texas diversified. DeBakey was one of a small number of people that truly drove that diversification, making Texas not only rich in oil, but rich in more long term wealth like research and cutting edge technology. He worked with innovations around him to help create what is now one of the greatest medical complexes in the world. Surely he worked with many other people, and many other tech workers, but he certainly was one of the people that kept texas from becoming a backwater, like so many other states that has not invested so much in the future.
And speaking of the future, The High School for Health Professions is a public Houston Independent School District high school. It was not built in the suburbs or in the demographically acceptable area, like some special high schools. It used to be located on the ass end on the Texas Medical Center, but when the built it for real they made it accessible to a cross section of students. It is almost 1/3 asian, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic or white. Whites are low presumably because so few whites live in the area. The school is nearly 50% free or reduced lunch, nearly 10% at risk, which is good for a school where 1/3 of the students are GT and 2/3 are in honors classes. This is not a school where the elite train the elite. This is not a school where the faint of heart go for college prep knowing full well that they have legacy to get them into an ivy league school. This is a school where slightly above average kids can go to get educated, without having to deal with the losers who would waste the opportunity/
This man did a lot, and has been recognized more than enough. But here is what rubs the geek side of me the wrong way. A man who boozes his way though life, swindles funding for projects that never quite succeed, and on a fluke gets elected president has an airport named after him, while someone like Debakey has spent his entire life helping people, does note. Not to be critical, but something seems not quite right.
Though not an app, mundu has allowed us to do this for quite some time, and you are not stuck with AOL.
I must say that I am glad I am not a kid. The amount they charge for IM, which appears to be aimed at younger people, and often paid by parents, is almost criminal. Of course, there is the choice not to use it. I suppose there is also the choice to never have a friend. It kind of remind me of when you could no longer talk on the phone as long as you wanted for a quarter(for those of us that did not have whistle, that is).
Hopefully one advantage of smart phones will be the wider use of IM, which should force cell companies to just include texting with the data plan.
I have been thinking about this because there has been a lot of anti-immigration stuff going on lately, and because it is finally clear that the primary cause of immigration are the bussinesses that are not going to pay what Americans believe they should be making.
Here is what I have come up with. Americans are the new titled class. We are the ones that believe in that God chose us and no matter who incompetent we are we are entitled to our way of life. Our way of life requires money, so we are entitled to money. Certainly most of us will go out and earn the money, but even those that do will often not consider that fact that we are competing globally, and therefore perhaps have to do a better job than others. Of course we don't have to work hard, because we are entitled. It reminds me of a quote from Black Adder the Third
BlackAdder: Now, listen, Frou Frou...Would you like to earn some money?
Frou Frou: No, I wouldn't. I would like other people to earn it and then >give
Of course that is not the full story. For every titled class requires a monarch, and not to get cliche, but the monarch the corporate bosses. Just like in the good old days, they got to their position by being the smartest and strongest. No one is implying that they do not deserve position. But monarchs are only a single person, and are subject to the same whims and vagaries that rest of us are. Monarchs are also the types who primary goal is to keep control, no matter what the larger social cost. This is why in the US we were part of the world wide movement to limit powers of the aristocracy, even though we have just replaced one aristocracy with another. It reminds me of another Blackadder quote.
Ah, the same old: fat tory landowners who get made MPs when
they reach a certain weight; raving revolutionaries who think that just
because they do a day's work that somehow gives them the right to get
paid... Basically, it's a right old mess. Toffs at the top, plebs at the
bottom, and me in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them.
I am certainly not saying that things are not much better, just that there is a progression of the masses wanting to move from thier lower class to a more entitled state. And seeing how the US is by and large now part of the entitled class, we are either going to have adjust, as the british aristocracy did is the late 17th century, or be exterminated, as the french was in the late 18th century. Of course even with adjustments, a russian revolution could still occur. This might happen if, after a time of general prosperity and liberalism, the Czars decide to become more iron fisted, accumulate even more of the wealth, and not increasing pay to the workers as the productivity of the workers increase.
Other than the geeks points, and the self of accomplishing a moderately complicated feat, why?
For the first iPhone all it did was raise Apples sales number marginally which promoted the idea that such a locked platform was profitable. Apple made money even without the carrier kickbacks. I agree at that point it made a little bit of sense because iPhone was not available everywhere, so if one wanted to use it in a unsupported locale, then the crack was good.
But it has gotten a little ridiculous, aside from the challenge aspect which I respect. For one, Apple has felt the need to respond which has made those of us that just want a phone a little more difficult.
At the end of the day all I can say is what I have said before. If it is just a matter a having fun and hacking the phone, that is great, I salute you. But if the phone is such a piece of crap that it no good without a crack, then why buy it? Apple products are good, and a good value, but they are seldom the absolute best on the market. If the phone, as is, is crap, then buy something else. If the phone service at the carrier Apple chose is crap, then buy something else. Apple will only make products better if it will make more people buy their stuff.
And, of course, with the introduction of OpenMoko, no one can complain that an alternative does not exist. Want an open phone that can be played with, reprogrammed, and anything can be run on it. Whoop, there it is. Of course, if no one buys it then it might indicate that people really do not care about openness, or freedom of application development.
The problem is that, in order to fight cell phone unlockers, Apple bricks the phone prior to installing any update. The problem is we don't expect this from Apple because the one reason many of us buy apple is because the device is not all of the sudden going to become useless because Apple wants more money. For instance, Apple computers never ask to be revalidated after the memory has been upgraded.
Not only is there little excuse for Apple to brick customers phone during every update, there is no excuse to let the servers go down so that legitimate customers cannot use their phones. This action becomes more malicious because the software backs up the phone prior to updating, so at the very least Apple should allow the customer to roll back. Of course, Apple is getting into the MS mindset where fighting piracy is becoming more important than serving customers.
Here is my understanding without seeing any of the peer reviewed published work. It does not have so much to do with the water, as the formation the water is in and the how it hints at the origins of the moon. The rocks that water is in is volcanic, likely formed on the moon. This indicates that some time the past, the moon was volcanically active, and these volcanos ejected rock and water. The concentration of water in these rocks appears to suggest that concentration of water match the concentration in the Earth's mantle. So what this points to a cool event that pulled the moon off the earth, but left the water intact. that water was then flung off later on by volcanos.
So while the moon may still be a part of the earth flung off is not collision, that event would have to cool enough not to boil off all the water. This tends not to support the idea of an mars size rock hitting the earth, ejecting rocks into orbit, and heating everything so much that all the water boils off, which is why it was expected that the moon would be dry, except for anything brought after the formation.
As bad as this is, it is likely necessary. It is called moving to the center.
McCain likely has 10-15 states because he is conservative, older, and his opponent is not white. Obama might have 5-10. Therefore Oboma has to reassure the people by making them aware that he was born inside the contiguous united states, in fact the heartland, unlike his opponent, and he will not shake things up too much.
Which means allowing this miserable fiasco to continue, at least for a while, and not waste too much time looking back. The republicans can waste billions of dollars on impeachments, et al, beacause they have the support of the people who live on beliefs, not facts. And this is where the issue is.
George Bush was elected on a platform of Christianity, that he had been saved by the power of Jesus. People trust him. He is not too smart, and, like the populous, often works from beliefs rather than facts. So he was elected instead of Gore, who is more of a let's explore the possibilities type of guy, even if the possibilities do not come to fruition, it was fun talking about them. But that is too complex and too easy to attack. In any case, many people trust Bush and think that anything he does is ok.
More importantly, many people believe that foreign terrorists are the danger, or at least non-christrian terrorist, and specifically every Mosque in the world is base for attack on the US, which makes Mosques on US soil an issue. Many people trust Bush to do anything to fight against these threats, and protect the American Way of Life. In fact, the only reason Bush is having trouble now is that he has failed to protect our way of life, we are now forced to buy small cars, and the weak dollar means that we can no longer be so arrogant. But that does not mean Bush is not the most moral man in the country, and what he does comes from a good place.
So Obama voted for an act that in the scheme of things is probably no worse that anything else Bush has done in his best effort to end the traditional transparency and public responsibility that should characterize a democratically elected government. He did this as insurance against a Bush style ad in which is is implied that black men should be kept in prison indefinitely, because giving them a second chance at rehabilitation is too dangerous. He did this as insurance against the late Jesse Helms type ad, in which it is implied that if a black man has power, no white will be able to get a job.
At the end of the day Obama is unlikely to be any more or less moral than any other president. I like him because, unlike many in the US, I like to have leaders who are intelligent and can think and articulate their own thoughts so the rest of the world does not think we are all uneducated bigoted red necks who run to our churches at the first sign of trouble, or at least to our guns.
The fairness doctrine is passe. What is used now is the tax exempt status of the church. I regularly drive see evangelical churches engaging in prohibited activity, telling the congregants to vote in certain ways, promoting a certain candidate, doing all sorts of blatant things that should get their tax exempt status revoked. Is it revoked? No. But one liberal church has one pamphlet from Obama, and you can be sure that threat from the IRS will be in the mail the next day.
The media is much too diversified and there is much too much money at stake for the fairness doctrine to have any effect. IN any case, the so-called liberal media is already careful. For instance, today when NPR had a story about Obama, they made sure to reference the previous days story about McCain. Rush is free is denigrate women and minorities, abuse drugs while making fun of other with the same problem and promote hate and incite violence in general, but somehow the media is still considered liberal.
MS has been a failure at search. This was not a big deal until search became ad revenue, and ad revenue became the new profit center in the IT world. Like the World Wide Web, MS failed to innovate, but unlike the WWW, MS was not able to use it's monopoly of the desktop to compensate for that basic, persistent, and enduring lack of imagination. MSN remains the laughing stock of search.
Even with billions of dollars in the bank, 90% of the browsing population using IE, which forces people to MSN, MSN still has less than 1/2 the market of Yahoo, and not even twice the market share of AOL. This tends to indicate that MS has no clue how to direct users to content, but that they don't even know how to learn how to do such a thing. Basically, because MS cannot force MS Windows users to search with MSN, beyond what already exists in IE, and MS cannot undercut the prices of the product, as it did with XBox, MS is not succeeding in the search market. Those are it's two primary tools for success, and neither is suitable here.
The only option is go after Yahoo. There are two benefits to this, only one seems to be covered in the link. By far the most important is that the combined Yahoo/MS market share will be 35% This should help market ads. The downside risk is how many people will stop using Yahoo because of MS ownership, and the changes that the clearly incompetent MS staff(remember MSN only has 10%, that is for a reason) make to the service. This gives MS legitimacy in the marketplace.
The second, as implied by the link is that MS may be able to make trouble for google. This will result in what MS does best, funneling money from productive interests to fuel it's unproductive coffers, but will not likely affect Googles market share.
Here is why. Google is still innovating customer service. There are free apps on the web to do all sorts of stuff. They know their core business, bringing eyeballs to ads, and do what it takes to keep those eyeballs happy. Google is free to do whatever it takes. MS is not free to do whatever it takes. For instance, why is MS charging a subscription fee for MS Office. Why aren't they putting a Web version on MSN. Tell me how many people would create an MSN account and use it as their portal if they got to use even a limited version of MS word for free in the deal.
Why indeed. There are only two possible reasons. First, MS does not have the technology to do what Google is already doing. Second, the MS Office franchise, stale as it is, is still too valuable for MS to use to drive what is clear to become the future profit center for any large software concern. Again, MS looks back, everyone else looks forward. This is not bad, MS makes a lot of money on it, but it why MS can and does overpay for new tech(re: facebook), and why Yahoo is a deal that has to be done, even it eventually fails and means the end of Yahoo, and 80% market share for google.
Honestly, what does the average person need. Browsing, mail, photos? Sure, for multimedia Linux may not have the integration that something like Mac OS does, but neither does XP.
In many cases a more technical person has to have a Windows OS, either because they have to test against it, or they code in Visual Studio, or run some XP only app.
The prevailing mindset is that it is better to run the same OS at home as at work, if, for no other reason, the work software can be often be used at home as well. But with all the free and cheap software, and with the often extreme difficulty of keeping a MS Windows machine running, it is no longer a sure bet to run MS Windows at home. Many people are realizing that MS Windows is targeted to the corporate user, and requires corporate resources for the average person to use.
*nix, OTOH, if it is kept simple, and has some vendor support, can be run by the average person.
Slashdot Mirror
At the end of the day I guess there is choice. Raise kids that users, or kids that are root.
Recommended ACTA Provisions for Civil Enforcement (5) In the case where a right holder claiming infringement does not provide documentation within 24 hours of the claim, does not attend the hearing or does not have suitable evidence to support the claim of infringement, or in the case where it is shown that right holder has made a frivilous claim, the victim of the right holder is entitled to recover costs associated with the defense and direct and indirect loss of business resulting from the claim. These include but are not limited to attorney fees, storage fees, the value of the detained product, the values of any lost business of the victim, that value of any lost business of clients related to the detained products, and any costs necessary for the victim to recover from any defamation related to unsupported detention of the products.
I know it sounds unreasonable, but if my shipment of bag can be halted just on the word of LVMH, and they can force me into the poor house because I have no recourse to get and sell my merchandise for 30 days, then there better be a balance so I can tap their massive corporate assets when they do wrong, including making them pay for the months worth of lost sales.
The basis of this book, and of most writing on UI, is that the designer can only do so much. Once a best effort is made, the interface must go into usability testing. The interface decisions then need to be made on the basis of these tests, not on the whis of the designers. p. It also sounds like The Mythical Man Month might be in order, and a design book, like the classic composite structured design, as it appears that there are many unresolved and extravagant dependencies.
First, consistent customers with a high spec get the best parts. When I was working shipping blanks, one or two big name companies got the reliable items. Everyone else go their rejects. This is a fact. If Apple is willing to commit to purchasing a year in advance, they get the good stuff. Everyone else, like Dell, who is looking for the cheapest price, gets Apple rejects.
Second, Apple has always been conscious about the environment, especially in relation to user safety. For instance, Apple was one of the first retailers to move CRT monitors to the swedish standards for radiation. They also moved to LCD for similar reasons. In the switch, Apple also cut the power needed to run a computer considerably. In fact Apple tends to have very energy efficient computers, with current models running on half the power of similar models from other vendors.
All this of course costs money. For years CRTs are cheaper than LCDs. Building power efficient kit costs money. It is easier to throw together a power consuming piece of junk than a well designed performer. A lighter, smaller machine has obvious savings in transportation. What is missing from most discussions is the fact that energy consumption during the lifetime of the product is going to far outweigh, in most cases, the energy needed to build the product. Furthermore, refurbishment of the entire product, where the company has control of disposal, it likely the best way to go, although it is also expensive as it does not externalize costs.
What Apple is doing, IMHO, is protecting itself from deficient hardware that plagues the cheap commodity PC world. For the corporate or hobbies market this deficient hardware makes little difference as both these have resources to work around the deficient hardware. If Dell changes specs on a machine because it save a penny, and the machines does not work, corporate or the hobbiest have the time to spend on the phone, or return the machines, or engage in convoluted workarounds to get the machine to work.
OTOH the Apple market does not, and Apple does not want to staff for such technical support. Your $10 Adaptor does not work? It is your problem. Buy the $40 one that works with Apple. That is the way it is. And this is the key to EULA.
I do not see that MS should be fighting people installing software on 3rd party machines. I think they should just make it clear that they will not support the machines, and updates may break the machines. If a third party sells machines that may run Mac OS, then it should be made clear that Apple will not support these machines, and the company cannot guarantee that machines will run Mac OS, and that in the normal process, Mac OS may not longer run after an update, and the performance on these machines may not be equivalent to an Apple.. If people then choose to install Mac OS, then that is no different than the situation now.
However, in all honesty, I would fully expect Apple to break whatever it is the third party is doing. I would then expect a number of calls to apple support to ask why the Os no longer runs on these third party machines. I would then expect Apple to sue the third party to recoup these support costs. In the end I would hope that Apple loses this current case, and these naked clones are allowed to be sold. I would also hope that if the third party seller is not careful about clearly stating to the custome what is being sold, that Apple is able to sue later from any tarnishment of brand that might result.
Another issue in such groups is the distinction between the workers and the bitchers. A few in such groups actually keep the thing going, either through in kind goods and services or direct monetary payments. Most are just idle supporters. A few just like to complain about those who do the work. If a person is creating a useful product that is consistent with his or her cause, what gives anyone the right to complain about it. That is how that person wishes to express his or her beliefs. If you think another line of action is appropriate, do it, but do something constructive, and don't just complain or throw a party. That does not solve anything any more than Woodstock prevented babyboomers from sending a new generation to an ineffective conflict. It might be fun to disrupt Apple stores, but that will not get rid of Apple. Just like MS, a useful product must be developed to dislodge MS. For instance, Amazon has DRM free music, so Apple will presumable have a harder time selling DRM music, and the iPod lockin that is the purpose of such DRM will be diminished p The google lockin will be broken by a better search engine. MS cannot do this. Apple has no reason to do so. Those who want to dislodge much do so. Some will say it impossible, but look at the crap that investors are supporters. The difference between this crap and new search engine is that a search engine that can dislodge google will be hard to create, and so people just choose to complain instead. It was the same with MS. MS was the simple solution, so most would pay the tribute, then complain about it. As far as I can tell, firms like Apple and the FSF were the only ones will to endure the discomfort necessary to get us to the place where MS might be vulnerable.
So, in the end, I agree this is just putting out fires, getting rid of bad publicity. A simple, competitively priced plan, that let people do what they normally do, without having to worry if they are breaking the TOS. Oh, and reliable. Because Comcast is holding onto these complex TOS that most others have abondoned, Comcast is likely not a serious option.
What would scare me is some employee, thinking that he or she ws being "progressive", sending company emails through a free public service, or storing company business on free public servers. Even if such a service was indeed secure, there is no way of knowing if said service would no someday use these email or documents to increase their ad revenue in a way that was detrimental to my company. I could not really complain, as the piper must eventually be paid.
So, yes, blocking certain aspects of google is perfectly justifiable.
It is not a failure of open email any more that it is a failure of the telephone system. it is the culture that a group of people grow up in. Some people are in the IM culture. Some are in the texting culture. Others are in the face book culture.
Facebook has somehow made it ok to use a computer. Functionally illiterate computer people have facebook accounts. It is simple. No configuring th STMP server. No messing with google or yahoo(yahoo is for free music only). Just set up a facebook and everything is there.
I think we have to realize that the majority of the world really doesn't want to know half the computer application trivia that we do. It seems to me that Facebook has value because, at some point, these kids are going to become serious consumers, and they are not going to know anything else but facebook.
Timmy!
I am amazed at what people are paying $7.99+ on iTunes. However, if Trade Wars became an iPhone App, then perhaps that would be one game that is worth the money.
So, if we are going to open the professions to everyone, then we have to deal with the genuine childhood and adolescent issues that exist in many schools. One of these is a balance of male and female in primary education. But a bigger issue is the kind of anecdotal assumptions that litter every discussion, even here on /. where we are supposable educated and logical. In reality much of it has not to do with ability, but social expectations. For example, a girl can go through a pre-engineering program in high school and go to college or get a well paying job right of out school, and, if she likes, open a consultancy a few years later. This does not happen because social exceptions, her peer group, requires her to take cosmetology, or the like, which is seldom rigorous enough to prepare for college classes. Nothing wrong with that. It is her choice, but it seems like the choice is often made on false assumptions. Likewise a guy may blow off all the science classes and graduate with a bad GPA because he just figures he will work construction. Again, nothing wrong with that, except, again that is might be made under false assumptions.
In both these cases what is happening is that kids are closing the doors to future opportunities at a very young age, perhaps 12. In my experience it is much easier to go to college, give up, and become a cosmetologist, that it is to not take college prep classes, work in as a cosmetologist, and then go back to college and become, for instance, a cosmologist. Likewise, during these boom times we think the construction jobs are never going to end. But they will, and how hard is going to be to learn at 30 what should have been learned at 15. Might it have been easier for the guy to, for instance, become a nurse at 22, and start earning nurses salary immediately? We see the same thing with athletes of both genders. The expected average salary of athlete, integrated over all candidates over the average earning lifetime, is likely no more than 15K a year, not much better than minimum wage. Yet the social pressures push kids to these dead end professions.
So, outside of rampant capitalism, why do we care. Because by saying that equality is important, we, in some small way negate the social pressures so that boy might get his science scores high enough so that he may become a nurse, if he can compete with the women. This of course is why so many people are adamantly opposed to such quotas. Because if that girl does get her act together in high school, and completes all her coursework through college, then she will get that engineering job, and the less qualified man will not. And many see that as unfair. It is much easier to funnel most of the talented motivated girls to teaching and nursing, so that we have these protected highly paid occupations like engineering where incompetent men, many who, from my experience, cannot even put a fuse in correctly, can make enough money to fulfill the societal necessary role as head of the household, i.e. wear the pants.
And if you didn't catch my little side remark there, teaching and nursing requires some kick butt above average education, especially nursing, which is why they get paid the bucks.
In the end it has to do with the customer costing less to serve than revenue generated. With bots obviously computer time is being spent in excess of the average that Blizzard figured in setting rates. So they don't want bots. A simple and rational economization. What is unclear is if they might use this ruling to economize some more. Perhaps by setting up a TOS such that anyone who uses more than 3 hours a day may be cut off? Certainly that is now within their reach. I certainly do not see how, if I pay my money, I should not be able to load a bot to do the "boring" stuff, if I wish. Sure it is outside the TOS, but who reads those anyway.
You say they won't do this because it will lose them customers? Well, companies do strange things. I remember when EA began to require the CD in order for to let a user play a game that was legaly owned and used. A rational person might say this would cause more loss of sales than sales gained by thwarting piracy. But they still did it.
I recall how wonderful Excel was when we just had scripts. Then things got complicated with VB, and everyone all of the sudden had to create these BS applications. This was the change in the mindset of MS. Never were we going to have something simple. We would always from then on have to deal with over complexity, just so MS could say it had more features. Which is why *nix and the mac is in many a better solution for the serious user. For the average user there are built in tools ready to use. For the power user, there is the console.
I believe Vista is the end of Windows as we know it. The end of the Gee Whiz ivory tower culture that ignores users needs. The end of the arrogance that believes they know what users want more than users(which is often true, but it needs to be tempered). Hopefully the end of the myth than an OS is inherently obscenely valuable, and pricing that is primarily geared to force user to upgrade computers rather than upgrade the OS. When a *nix is free, or $20 with a few months of support, and a 5 computer home license of Mac OS is $120, how can MS justify more than $200 for a five user home version of MS Windows 7? Especially, since in all probability, it will be an upgrade?
Debakey, according to the article, went to the department store,bought some fabric and made an artificial blood vessel. Think about that. He fucking hacked a blood vessel out of cloth. This is Star Trek and McGyver shit. This is not Bill Gates buying software and then conning other to buy it at a 100X markup. This is a person who has his entire life looked at life and seen not what exists, but what might exist. This, my friend, is what every geek should be looking to do. Not annoying others by hacking into obviously venerable machines. Not by tricking out your computers with spray paint. But bringing products into the world that might make it better, or at learning some useful skills so that we can help other people get their work done.
I understand what the parent is saying, but to me the problem may be that geek culture has become too popular, and many people try to play the affectation part of it without truly being into it. So, as the title says, Debakey may be the consummate geek, while the rest of us are just wanna be geeks.
To put in a large perspective, for example, Texas crashed when oil crashed in the late 70's. In response, Texas diversified. DeBakey was one of a small number of people that truly drove that diversification, making Texas not only rich in oil, but rich in more long term wealth like research and cutting edge technology. He worked with innovations around him to help create what is now one of the greatest medical complexes in the world. Surely he worked with many other people, and many other tech workers, but he certainly was one of the people that kept texas from becoming a backwater, like so many other states that has not invested so much in the future.
And speaking of the future, The High School for Health Professions is a public Houston Independent School District high school. It was not built in the suburbs or in the demographically acceptable area, like some special high schools. It used to be located on the ass end on the Texas Medical Center, but when the built it for real they made it accessible to a cross section of students. It is almost 1/3 asian, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic or white. Whites are low presumably because so few whites live in the area. The school is nearly 50% free or reduced lunch, nearly 10% at risk, which is good for a school where 1/3 of the students are GT and 2/3 are in honors classes. This is not a school where the elite train the elite. This is not a school where the faint of heart go for college prep knowing full well that they have legacy to get them into an ivy league school. This is a school where slightly above average kids can go to get educated, without having to deal with the losers who would waste the opportunity/
This man did a lot, and has been recognized more than enough. But here is what rubs the geek side of me the wrong way. A man who boozes his way though life, swindles funding for projects that never quite succeed, and on a fluke gets elected president has an airport named after him, while someone like Debakey has spent his entire life helping people, does note. Not to be critical, but something seems not quite right.
I must say that I am glad I am not a kid. The amount they charge for IM, which appears to be aimed at younger people, and often paid by parents, is almost criminal. Of course, there is the choice not to use it. I suppose there is also the choice to never have a friend. It kind of remind me of when you could no longer talk on the phone as long as you wanted for a quarter(for those of us that did not have whistle, that is).
Hopefully one advantage of smart phones will be the wider use of IM, which should force cell companies to just include texting with the data plan.
Here is what I have come up with. Americans are the new titled class. We are the ones that believe in that God chose us and no matter who incompetent we are we are entitled to our way of life. Our way of life requires money, so we are entitled to money. Certainly most of us will go out and earn the money, but even those that do will often not consider that fact that we are competing globally, and therefore perhaps have to do a better job than others. Of course we don't have to work hard, because we are entitled. It reminds me of a quote from Black Adder the Third ...Would you like to earn some money?
BlackAdder: Now, listen, Frou Frou
Frou Frou: No, I wouldn't. I would like other people to earn it and then >give
Of course that is not the full story. For every titled class requires a monarch, and not to get cliche, but the monarch the corporate bosses. Just like in the good old days, they got to their position by being the smartest and strongest. No one is implying that they do not deserve position. But monarchs are only a single person, and are subject to the same whims and vagaries that rest of us are. Monarchs are also the types who primary goal is to keep control, no matter what the larger social cost. This is why in the US we were part of the world wide movement to limit powers of the aristocracy, even though we have just replaced one aristocracy with another. It reminds me of another Blackadder quote.
Ah, the same old: fat tory landowners who get made MPs when they reach a certain weight; raving revolutionaries who think that just because they do a day's work that somehow gives them the right to get paid... Basically, it's a right old mess. Toffs at the top, plebs at the bottom, and me in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them.
I am certainly not saying that things are not much better, just that there is a progression of the masses wanting to move from thier lower class to a more entitled state. And seeing how the US is by and large now part of the entitled class, we are either going to have adjust, as the british aristocracy did is the late 17th century, or be exterminated, as the french was in the late 18th century. Of course even with adjustments, a russian revolution could still occur. This might happen if, after a time of general prosperity and liberalism, the Czars decide to become more iron fisted, accumulate even more of the wealth, and not increasing pay to the workers as the productivity of the workers increase.
For the first iPhone all it did was raise Apples sales number marginally which promoted the idea that such a locked platform was profitable. Apple made money even without the carrier kickbacks. I agree at that point it made a little bit of sense because iPhone was not available everywhere, so if one wanted to use it in a unsupported locale, then the crack was good.
But it has gotten a little ridiculous, aside from the challenge aspect which I respect. For one, Apple has felt the need to respond which has made those of us that just want a phone a little more difficult.
At the end of the day all I can say is what I have said before. If it is just a matter a having fun and hacking the phone, that is great, I salute you. But if the phone is such a piece of crap that it no good without a crack, then why buy it? Apple products are good, and a good value, but they are seldom the absolute best on the market. If the phone, as is, is crap, then buy something else. If the phone service at the carrier Apple chose is crap, then buy something else. Apple will only make products better if it will make more people buy their stuff.
And, of course, with the introduction of OpenMoko, no one can complain that an alternative does not exist. Want an open phone that can be played with, reprogrammed, and anything can be run on it. Whoop, there it is. Of course, if no one buys it then it might indicate that people really do not care about openness, or freedom of application development.
Not only is there little excuse for Apple to brick customers phone during every update, there is no excuse to let the servers go down so that legitimate customers cannot use their phones. This action becomes more malicious because the software backs up the phone prior to updating, so at the very least Apple should allow the customer to roll back. Of course, Apple is getting into the MS mindset where fighting piracy is becoming more important than serving customers.
So while the moon may still be a part of the earth flung off is not collision, that event would have to cool enough not to boil off all the water. This tends not to support the idea of an mars size rock hitting the earth, ejecting rocks into orbit, and heating everything so much that all the water boils off, which is why it was expected that the moon would be dry, except for anything brought after the formation.
McCain likely has 10-15 states because he is conservative, older, and his opponent is not white. Obama might have 5-10. Therefore Oboma has to reassure the people by making them aware that he was born inside the contiguous united states, in fact the heartland, unlike his opponent, and he will not shake things up too much.
Which means allowing this miserable fiasco to continue, at least for a while, and not waste too much time looking back. The republicans can waste billions of dollars on impeachments, et al, beacause they have the support of the people who live on beliefs, not facts. And this is where the issue is.
George Bush was elected on a platform of Christianity, that he had been saved by the power of Jesus. People trust him. He is not too smart, and, like the populous, often works from beliefs rather than facts. So he was elected instead of Gore, who is more of a let's explore the possibilities type of guy, even if the possibilities do not come to fruition, it was fun talking about them. But that is too complex and too easy to attack. In any case, many people trust Bush and think that anything he does is ok.
More importantly, many people believe that foreign terrorists are the danger, or at least non-christrian terrorist, and specifically every Mosque in the world is base for attack on the US, which makes Mosques on US soil an issue. Many people trust Bush to do anything to fight against these threats, and protect the American Way of Life. In fact, the only reason Bush is having trouble now is that he has failed to protect our way of life, we are now forced to buy small cars, and the weak dollar means that we can no longer be so arrogant. But that does not mean Bush is not the most moral man in the country, and what he does comes from a good place.
So Obama voted for an act that in the scheme of things is probably no worse that anything else Bush has done in his best effort to end the traditional transparency and public responsibility that should characterize a democratically elected government. He did this as insurance against a Bush style ad in which is is implied that black men should be kept in prison indefinitely, because giving them a second chance at rehabilitation is too dangerous. He did this as insurance against the late Jesse Helms type ad, in which it is implied that if a black man has power, no white will be able to get a job.
At the end of the day Obama is unlikely to be any more or less moral than any other president. I like him because, unlike many in the US, I like to have leaders who are intelligent and can think and articulate their own thoughts so the rest of the world does not think we are all uneducated bigoted red necks who run to our churches at the first sign of trouble, or at least to our guns.
The media is much too diversified and there is much too much money at stake for the fairness doctrine to have any effect. IN any case, the so-called liberal media is already careful. For instance, today when NPR had a story about Obama, they made sure to reference the previous days story about McCain. Rush is free is denigrate women and minorities, abuse drugs while making fun of other with the same problem and promote hate and incite violence in general, but somehow the media is still considered liberal.
Even with billions of dollars in the bank, 90% of the browsing population using IE, which forces people to MSN, MSN still has less than 1/2 the market of Yahoo, and not even twice the market share of AOL. This tends to indicate that MS has no clue how to direct users to content, but that they don't even know how to learn how to do such a thing. Basically, because MS cannot force MS Windows users to search with MSN, beyond what already exists in IE, and MS cannot undercut the prices of the product, as it did with XBox, MS is not succeeding in the search market. Those are it's two primary tools for success, and neither is suitable here.
The only option is go after Yahoo. There are two benefits to this, only one seems to be covered in the link. By far the most important is that the combined Yahoo/MS market share will be 35% This should help market ads. The downside risk is how many people will stop using Yahoo because of MS ownership, and the changes that the clearly incompetent MS staff(remember MSN only has 10%, that is for a reason) make to the service. This gives MS legitimacy in the marketplace.
The second, as implied by the link is that MS may be able to make trouble for google. This will result in what MS does best, funneling money from productive interests to fuel it's unproductive coffers, but will not likely affect Googles market share.
Here is why. Google is still innovating customer service. There are free apps on the web to do all sorts of stuff. They know their core business, bringing eyeballs to ads, and do what it takes to keep those eyeballs happy. Google is free to do whatever it takes. MS is not free to do whatever it takes. For instance, why is MS charging a subscription fee for MS Office. Why aren't they putting a Web version on MSN. Tell me how many people would create an MSN account and use it as their portal if they got to use even a limited version of MS word for free in the deal.
Why indeed. There are only two possible reasons. First, MS does not have the technology to do what Google is already doing. Second, the MS Office franchise, stale as it is, is still too valuable for MS to use to drive what is clear to become the future profit center for any large software concern. Again, MS looks back, everyone else looks forward. This is not bad, MS makes a lot of money on it, but it why MS can and does overpay for new tech(re: facebook), and why Yahoo is a deal that has to be done, even it eventually fails and means the end of Yahoo, and 80% market share for google.
In many cases a more technical person has to have a Windows OS, either because they have to test against it, or they code in Visual Studio, or run some XP only app.
The prevailing mindset is that it is better to run the same OS at home as at work, if, for no other reason, the work software can be often be used at home as well. But with all the free and cheap software, and with the often extreme difficulty of keeping a MS Windows machine running, it is no longer a sure bet to run MS Windows at home. Many people are realizing that MS Windows is targeted to the corporate user, and requires corporate resources for the average person to use.
*nix, OTOH, if it is kept simple, and has some vendor support, can be run by the average person.