I'm in favor of them taking all basic and non-intrusive steps to detect explosives.
It's fallacious to say "they haven't found any in the screening process so there aren't any". It excludes the middle in that if they weren't checking for explosives, it'd be easy to get them through, and then terrorists would be doing it. But as it stands now, they know baggage is screened so they have to find another way.
The trouble with these pat downs is that they can't reasonably detect any more by groping your balls than they can with scanners and wands. I don't have a problem with the old-style scanners or the wands if you set the metal detector off.
I think the Homeland Security department which was a little crazy before has gone absolutely over the falls with Obama/Napolitano, but voters are going to let them off the hook for this because they like the other guys less. That does not fix anything.
The forest-for-the-trees here is - what's the point of having extra login security for a website that has a business model that hinges on compiling and storing your personal information to sell to advertisers?
I went to work for one of our clients, administering the system I used to do development for. The starting salary was a bit less, but negligible. The regular hours and good work environment more than made up for the small loss of income.
There's a lot of truth to what you say. I am one of those. I think I was a "B" grade coder. Not a star, but adequate. I developed the skill, met deadlines and specs. It just wasn't my calling like it is for some.
Frankly, I don't think it's bad to have somewhat mediocre programmers in your management structure. We understand at least a good chunk of what developers are doing, and when we don't you can explain it to us and get understanding. If I'm a McManager who used to be in HR and has never written code, I'm not going to understand your basic needs as an engineering team. You won't be able to explain to me why a certain architecture isn't workable. I understand you and what you need 80% of the time and I can go fight those battles and leave you to code.
I think it's good to have mediocre programmers become managers if they have the management skills necessary (and aren't simply promoted because everyone else is irreplacable). Most of the time those skills are not common to the skillset of the best developers. It's better to have average developers become good managers than having good developers moved out of programming and into management, leaving only mediocre programmers writing mediocre code.
Where I used to work, (I posted elsewhere here why I left development), part of the problem is that the attitude was always "another small task won't hurt engineering". "Another step in this process is not a big deal"... until there are so many of these tips and checks that you aren't doing anything else but these microtasks.
I think that most places have big problems going cheap on staff. They cheap out on testing staff. They cheap out on training for the support people. They cheap out on resources for environments. All of these things cause more weight to be placed on the developers.
And it's all by design... develppers are replaceable, in many companies' view - more are churned out of college annually and they only have a 2-5 year lifespan on average. Rather than expand budgets to reflect what development really should cost, they simply treat developers as disposable resources on a burnout/replace cycle.
This is why I left development. After 5 years working at a software company I found that only 10% of my time or so was spent writing new code, which is the only thing I really liked about the job. The rest of the time was spent in meetings, wading through red tape, reviewing others' code, doing maintenance on the (junkpile) legacy system, doing remedial training for the front-line tech support staff, and the 5 million small tasks that have nothing to do with why I went into the career field.
I don't think it's a crime for someone to buy Apple products. Let the free markets be free. However, you understand going in that you're going to be locked in, in some ways - and if you don't, you still bear the weight of that choice because you didn't do your homework.
That being said, it's simply a question of whether it's reasonable to expect that Apple users will move to any other service. No, they will likely not. As we see in practically every marketplace in IT, vendor-lock in is a powerful force.
I think Facebook and Google need to be drug out before these commissions as well.
We need serious laws with serious teeth on privacy in every space - home internet, mobile data, and everywhere else. CLEAR opt ins and opt outs, not garbage buried in a TOS document no one reads.
The BIGGEST problem is that most people and corporations think it's OK to collect personal information and location data as long as "this can't be tied back to an individual person". That is NOT OK.
Still, I think for most people this fragments their music collection. If a quarter of your music won't port over, then people will see that as a big negative.
Secondly, for CDs you import yourself the default is still to this day not to encode them in MP3 format. The user specifically has to select that... which means 90% don't.
Not wanting to use video-like bandwidth would be one reason, particularly with Comcasts and the other villains of the world trying to move to bandwidth caps.
There was one, unified alternative to Apple - The PC. It wasn't 7 different companies all trying to convince users that they are the best, and that the user should take massive pains to migrate from iTunes.
That's another key difference. 90%+ of potential customers today are already using iTunes, so Amazon/Google/etc. has to convince people to leave all the music that they may have purchased in a protected format behind, and start over with them.
Duh, this is why the nomenclature was shifted from "global warming" to climate change... so you can be right no matter what happens, not just 50% of the time
Global warming will come and go, just like every other supposed crisis which is solved as soon as technology brings us to the tipping point of financial advantage.
I have noticed, since this "Xfinity" garbage came along, that now if I put my PC to sleep it's like my IP gets revoked. Upon waking it up, it takes 3, 4, maybe 5 minutes to be online again.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in favor of them taking all basic and non-intrusive steps to detect explosives.
It's fallacious to say "they haven't found any in the screening process so there aren't any". It excludes the middle in that if they weren't checking for explosives, it'd be easy to get them through, and then terrorists would be doing it. But as it stands now, they know baggage is screened so they have to find another way.
The trouble with these pat downs is that they can't reasonably detect any more by groping your balls than they can with scanners and wands. I don't have a problem with the old-style scanners or the wands if you set the metal detector off.
I think the Homeland Security department which was a little crazy before has gone absolutely over the falls with Obama/Napolitano, but voters are going to let them off the hook for this because they like the other guys less. That does not fix anything.
The forest-for-the-trees here is - what's the point of having extra login security for a website that has a business model that hinges on compiling and storing your personal information to sell to advertisers?
With that company, which is all they really care about.
I went to work for one of our clients, administering the system I used to do development for. The starting salary was a bit less, but negligible. The regular hours and good work environment more than made up for the small loss of income.
There's a lot of truth to what you say. I am one of those. I think I was a "B" grade coder. Not a star, but adequate. I developed the skill, met deadlines and specs. It just wasn't my calling like it is for some.
Frankly, I don't think it's bad to have somewhat mediocre programmers in your management structure. We understand at least a good chunk of what developers are doing, and when we don't you can explain it to us and get understanding. If I'm a McManager who used to be in HR and has never written code, I'm not going to understand your basic needs as an engineering team. You won't be able to explain to me why a certain architecture isn't workable. I understand you and what you need 80% of the time and I can go fight those battles and leave you to code.
I think it's good to have mediocre programmers become managers if they have the management skills necessary (and aren't simply promoted because everyone else is irreplacable). Most of the time those skills are not common to the skillset of the best developers. It's better to have average developers become good managers than having good developers moved out of programming and into management, leaving only mediocre programmers writing mediocre code.
Where I used to work, (I posted elsewhere here why I left development), part of the problem is that the attitude was always "another small task won't hurt engineering". "Another step in this process is not a big deal"... until there are so many of these tips and checks that you aren't doing anything else but these microtasks.
I think that most places have big problems going cheap on staff. They cheap out on testing staff. They cheap out on training for the support people. They cheap out on resources for environments. All of these things cause more weight to be placed on the developers.
And it's all by design... develppers are replaceable, in many companies' view - more are churned out of college annually and they only have a 2-5 year lifespan on average. Rather than expand budgets to reflect what development really should cost, they simply treat developers as disposable resources on a burnout/replace cycle.
This is why I left development. After 5 years working at a software company I found that only 10% of my time or so was spent writing new code, which is the only thing I really liked about the job. The rest of the time was spent in meetings, wading through red tape, reviewing others' code, doing maintenance on the (junkpile) legacy system, doing remedial training for the front-line tech support staff, and the 5 million small tasks that have nothing to do with why I went into the career field.
If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick.
Replying to yourself as AC? Bizarre.
There needs to be a tag that indicates postwhoering by author.
I don't think it's a crime for someone to buy Apple products. Let the free markets be free. However, you understand going in that you're going to be locked in, in some ways - and if you don't, you still bear the weight of that choice because you didn't do your homework.
That being said, it's simply a question of whether it's reasonable to expect that Apple users will move to any other service. No, they will likely not. As we see in practically every marketplace in IT, vendor-lock in is a powerful force.
That word also does not apply when the politicians who voted for those bills did it cheerfully and willingly.
I think Facebook and Google need to be drug out before these commissions as well.
We need serious laws with serious teeth on privacy in every space - home internet, mobile data, and everywhere else. CLEAR opt ins and opt outs, not garbage buried in a TOS document no one reads.
The BIGGEST problem is that most people and corporations think it's OK to collect personal information and location data as long as "this can't be tied back to an individual person". That is NOT OK.
Still, I think for most people this fragments their music collection. If a quarter of your music won't port over, then people will see that as a big negative.
Secondly, for CDs you import yourself the default is still to this day not to encode them in MP3 format. The user specifically has to select that... which means 90% don't.
Not wanting to use video-like bandwidth would be one reason, particularly with Comcasts and the other villains of the world trying to move to bandwidth caps.
There was one, unified alternative to Apple - The PC. It wasn't 7 different companies all trying to convince users that they are the best, and that the user should take massive pains to migrate from iTunes.
That's another key difference. 90%+ of potential customers today are already using iTunes, so Amazon/Google/etc. has to convince people to leave all the music that they may have purchased in a protected format behind, and start over with them.
I don't see it.
I don't get the creme pie joke...?
yar, there be drama afoot
Can other people see my music?
Then how will the RIAA know what I have there, what is the basis for the subpoena?
If every big player launches its own service, Apple's victory is assured through market fragmentation.
1. People spend more when using credit/buying credit in blocks/using anything other than one-time transactions
2. Once you buy a certain amount, you can't get it back, so it makes you spend more than the advertised price for whatever you buy.
3. Most people would rather buy another block of points than let the small amount of leftover points go to waste, which starts the revenue loop again.
Sorry, I can't hear you for all the UN-predicted climate refugees over here :)
Duh, this is why the nomenclature was shifted from "global warming" to climate change... so you can be right no matter what happens, not just 50% of the time
Global warming will come and go, just like every other supposed crisis which is solved as soon as technology brings us to the tipping point of financial advantage.
I have noticed, since this "Xfinity" garbage came along, that now if I put my PC to sleep it's like my IP gets revoked. Upon waking it up, it takes 3, 4, maybe 5 minutes to be online again.