Yes, I know Apple already gave up on those of us that administer Macs when it torched the XServe line, but do they kindly provide a way to not install this as part of the core OS, or limit it?
It appears to require an administrator password the first time it's run, but all subsequent runs go without it. So the administrator can't use it, lest they unlock the store. But in the meantime, Apple drops their shiny, happy "new" app right into everyone's menu bar.
As far as I can tell, you have to open Safari just to change preferred browsers, and other settings. ( Mac Mail requires the exact same thing to change mail clients).
This has always bugged me - I found it because I went looking in the "preferences" session and couldn't find it, before reading that Safari was required to do this. My first reaction - "no shit? At least in Windows I just have to deal with the stupid 'do you want to change your browser' popups." Since watching this unfold, it's always nagged me that Apple, while not at the same scale, has a different standard apparently.
A lot of the arguments I see are about the monopoly influence of Microsoft, and that's not to be ignored. However, if the EU is saying "We're creating a rule so that no future vendor should ever become powerful to force a browser direction" - then Apple would be in violation of the rule as far as I've seen.
Maybe - but there is one point that always bothers me.
To change the preferred web browser on a Mac, you have to open safari and change the preference. To change the mail tool, you have to open mac mail (there may be some command line way to do it, but certainly it isn't obvious.) By definition, you have to use their tools just to change them.
While Apple may not be wielding influential power yet - if the EU was trying to be "fair" as it claims, I'm curious if they would see that as a violation. That would settle if the issue was market share, or if its being an OS maker and a Browser manufacturer [and a dessert topping, in the case of Linux].
Are any one of those allowed to mess with the business of the each other's competitors? AT&T + iPhone may be more obviously collusive by crossing company boundaries, but Microsoft's taught us that desperate product lines used in collusion can still get you in trouble ( I.E. is a minority web browser ).
Sure, OSX may be completely innocent in dropping PalmOS support for age reasons. The article also comes across as dramatic. But as a curious bystander it still looks a little funny. While Apple may have a minority OS, they certainly aren't minorities in the phone or music player business. In light of the Palm Pre-iTunes issue and now Google Voice/iPhone debacle (also apparently "a supportability/customer experience issue") Apple certainly isn't making itself look too friendly. Compared to their usual "i'm a mac, what me worry" public face, anyway.
Seriously - this is the only firm requirement my employer had - "We have an exchange mail system, and we'll buy you any mobile device you want - so long as it can use ActiveSync." We were poised to use Android OS phones because iPhones were thought of as toys - with the exception of Exchange we're still mostly a *nix shop - but that one caveat changed the purchase of all our mobile devices.
I had high hopes after seeing the HTC Magic demos, but it turns out that was all smoke and mirrors. Trying to explain to my senior management that "it's a google phone but not really but it still has android but I'm not sure it's supported we'll see they bought the license" vs. "yes, the iPhone has ActiveSync capability" - guess who won?
Microsoft, though we keep referring to them in the singular, has well over 80,000 employees, and I'm betting most of them are not versed in the nuances of the GPL licenses, neither their driver developers, nor the paralegals writing the EULA's (though I bet the lawyers are).
Now, this doesn't excuse them of a violation one bit. Though it's possible, I doubt they had a a strategy "all along" to open-source the drivers because they included GPL code - because they work with citrix maybe, but not purely due to the GPL bit.
It also doesn't mean they did this in an effort to subvert or screw with GPL code - Microsoft's grand-poo-bah executive committee might "hate the GPL", but it'd be good to remember that eight levels of management separate them from some device driver writer tasked with getting Linux to run in hyper-V (who may or may not be employed there any longer).
Considering they already exist and are format neutral, can somebody tell me why solid state media, particularly USB keys and such, aren't viewed as the next logical step in all this? Hell, they've already done it with ghostbusters supposedly, with DRM even. Why wouldn't blockbuster just load up your USB key with whatever movie you rented that night if your connectivity sucked enough to not download it? Why wouldn't you buy "The Rock" on a key if it was important enough for you to own it?
I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm sure the studios are drooling over streaming "pay-as-you-go" models, but Blu-Ray isn't exactly compatible with my laptop when I'm on a plane. And it's still a way to let me carry the bits home ("ownership") without Sony dictating the terms.
Of course, I may have answered my own question with that last part.
While your post is probably going to end up in Troll land - this is something that bothers me all the time. Everyone says "Vista's a failure", and from an install base, you'd be right - of about 300 PCs in my office Vista has about 5 adopters, mostly for non-XP compatible software (should this seem biased, we also have over 100 linux machines, so people are aware of the options).
However, from a financial perspective, is Vista still considered a failure? 250 of those 300 machines all have a Vista license. I suppose it would be more realistic to call it a "Microsoft OS license" at this point, but that doesn't change the fact that we still give Microsoft money in wee fistfuls regardless of Vista's success. Microsoft lost some margin because we didn't buy an upgrade for the remaining 50 machines before replacing them, but we're still giving them money hand-over-fist for Vista whether we use it or not.
Now, release enough non-viable OS's in a row, and you'll see that base erode. But already the mantra seems to be changing to "skip Vista, install Windows 7" - at which point we'll be giving Microsoft all those upgrade license fees anyway.
Thanks - that makes a tad more sense. I see everyone running around blaming Microsoft for the code since their name is on the product, even if it was a 3rd party vendor. They certainly are still liable for all the busted Zunes, but I couldn't imagine Microsoft didn't have *some* C leap-year code sitting around that actually worked, and could be compiled for any chip they wanted.
Microsoft still has to take the hit up front, but then they'll sue or "renegotiate contracts" with the vendor that supplied the bad driver code, based on what it costs them.
I'm still shocked that the manufacturer couldn't dig up *some* free/open calendaring code that's was around pre-2004. But hey, at least we know they were honest about not ripping off some other source code and calling it their own.
"From a coding/QA standpoint, one has to wonder how this bug was missed if the quality assurance team wasn't slacking off."
I can't remember the last time a QA department was asked to test date functions... but then again, I can't remember the last time anyone wrote their own Leap Year calendaring calculator from scratch.
I'm sure there are a hundred reasons to do it (licensing being one of them) but really, when was the last time you didn't just import calendaring from another library and call it a day?
Please clarify to me if this is something at the hardware driver level: I honestly don't know. If this were me, my own bosses wouldn't ask "Why didn't QA catch this", as much as "why are you wasting time writing your own calendar code? And then why didn't you flag it as functionality that needed to be tested?"
From the preso I saw - it sounds like the goal is to have varying speed storage backing and some rather sophisticated "caching strategies" in front of it - i.e.
- Some amount of RAM for frequently active/accessed files - Some amount of SSD drives for Level 2 data access, faster, but not an entire array (too prohibitively expensive) - A bunch of spindle drives behind the whole thing for "slow" data.
It still follows the principal of more spindles for faster seek times, but a layered approach makes sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen more companies go towards it.
The techs added in (dtrace, zfs, etc) are there for better tracking of hot files, snapshots online, etc. All wrapped in a GUI front-end for the single-Admin company.
As far as the market - I guess it's who or how you define a "small" business. I'd say probably one large enough to run Oracle for some record keeping would fit small in their playbook, as this seems clearly aimed at a market that needs faster access storage. "Small" at that level seems to become semantics - someone with 50 employees but tons of warehousing comes to mind (think Dunder Mifflin if that helps)
and to who? I do think the IOC is being ridiculous in at least not investigating cheating just a wee bit further.
But normally, instead of just posting online, I do try to write a note to a senator, or a company, or a school. Even the IOC IOC's Sitemap page doesn't have a "feedback" link.
The irony is (and I might be accused of trolling) is that I wouldn't want it to save the game for my kids.
My parents had pretty strict rules about computer time when I was growing up, and part of that was "time is up NOW" Believe it or not, it helped me learn to manage my time instead of just relying on them, and that "wrapping up" is what you do 5 minutes before time is up. Otherwise the power comes down and your hour of Wizardry is poof-gone. It was a little painful, but I am now never late to bed from games, or an appointment.
Now according to my office mate, "God of War" can have more than an hour between save points. Not sure how the hell you'd manage that.
It's quite simple actually - if you can get it to play, during the movie switch to the title/track info of the DVD.
If it says "Title 1 of 99" - congratulations! (ignore the "Track" info)
Note the most humorous thing about this copyright structure is it's glaring simplicity to avoid, much like the "marker over the encrypted" sector trick - they came out with this idea, and immediately ripper programmers thought "oh well, we'll just skip any unreferenced track." doom9 is littered with with forum info and workarounds that were found immediately.
I don't blame Sony for trying (it is their job to try to protect their material - despite the flames I may get for saying that), but any exec that creates a copyright strategy that can be so easily circumnavigated while alienating customers should be immediately fired.
Lots of companies do it with service contracts in which case the model makes sense. But this one? Given a choice between "$20 to install or $40 to upgrade", I better have some compelling reason to avoid a new install. And more likely I'll think your software is crap since I can't import my old settings or somesuch thereby forcing me into a more expensive upgrade.
It seems more like preying on ignorance - which is a perfectly legitimate (though somewhat cynical) business model. We'll see about now though - it's for info like this that I come to slashdot and presumably we all warn our parents and relatives "Don't upgrade XXX - buy a new copy, it's cheaper."
For all the "Economics 101" rallying cries - Econ101 could paint you an accurate picture only if the concert industry existed in a vacuum as opposed to being part of the entire music industry. Last I checked, bands (smaller ones, particularly) didn't tour for a full year because they enjoy playing live 6 nights a week.
Why would they charge less then the market can bear? Concerts were a Loss Leader for CD sales. Simply put, I could sell a cheaper ticket to a college student that may have less money but more time to stand in a ticket line even if the concert will sell out. They don't have the CD yet (nor their friends who get good word of mouth), while the fan who's willing to pay $250 for a ticket probably does. But now I have no incentive (back to econ) to take that ticket loss since they or their friends won't buy the album, they'll just download it.
Look, I love Econ and I'll carry the banner that the music industry is greedy. The connection of p2p and concert industry prices may be a bigger whipping boy then actual fact. But shouts of "Econ 101" aren't a full answer to if there is a link or not.
Agreed - while I think the intent will be good (to slow drivers down) this seems like a pretty good case of the "Law of Unintended Consequences" needing to be explored more. Otherwise, we'll see a host of accidents or wrongful death suits when someone's trying to rush a person to a hospital.
I'll say more once the Canadian Government decides what "excessive speed" is (didn't RTFA, don't know if they say). That seems to be the the kicker to this whole arrangement. 70 in a 65 - no. 110 in a 25 - yes. The middle ground: ?
I think the conflict (and frustration) comes from (a) Economics, while producing societally efficient outcomes, requires some difficulty or economic destruction on a small minority, combined with (b) political power is almost always consolidated to vocal minorities (at least in the US).
Slashdot shows an extension of that. Even if everyone here had econ courses, and knew free trade was a good thing, just mention H1B visas and Indian Competition and you'll get a reaction. Self preservation kicks in before "well if it's good for the country..." does. And politics responds to this; in worst cases it feeds to this with populism over science.
Take the US steel tariff. I doubt you'd find many economists who thought it was a good idea. Yet not implementing a tariff would put a national politician out of favor in a state like Ohio (critical to the last US election) to a vocal and significant voting block - one may or may not vote for you if you implement tariffs, but one that definitely won't if you remove them.
That's why anyone in (American) politics or economics has a devil's deal. For a good politician, to be good (get the initiatives done that you think are right) you have to do a little bad (compromise) or be patient enough to explain to the public why their sacrifice is worth it, and that's just to get elected. To be a bad politician is really easy, just go with your biggest lobbyist.
Economists should rally behind JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." but it's tougher the more distracted and self-interested we become.
Reminds me of an economics comment and joke (as lame as that sounds) - my Econ professor (who also held an MBA) said any firm worth it's salt has a definite interest in going from a perfectly competitive market to a monopolistic competitive market for the extra revenue, hence the drive in the consumer world for "product differentiation" of *everything*. Econ 101 for those who don't know, in a truly competitive market, Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost, so you are (theoretically) indifferent to selling just one more unit (see milk, wheat) because it sells for what it cost you to produce it. Monopolistic competition, however, Marginal Revenue > Marginal cost on one more unit, and still lowers your Avg Total Costs.
All this was summarized I believe by "If you want to tell a Perfectly Competitive Market from a Monopolistic Competitive, the latter are the ones who send you birthday and Xmas cards."
Both supreme court rulings made me think of an old suck.com article - I found it and it's still surprisingly relevant (though pretty hard on us "tech" people).
My favorite quote (even as it makes me cringe): "But the blind narcissism that leads geeks to confuse 'can be done' with 'will be allowed' is disastrously naive."
Taxes on physical goods pay for state cost of services to provide those goods (roads, cleaning pollution from manufacture, law enforcement so those goods are not stolen, etc, etc).
So, what state infrastructure does a internet download tax cover? It's an honest question I'm trying to think through. Maybe phone lines, but then what if you have a satellite download?
Help anyone? As I understand it, the government is not in it to make a profit, but to pay for the costs of services that can not be tied to any one individual...
"Every molecule on Earth is what the MIT boys said," Abell said.
Wow, them MIT boys shure know their tech-nology!
on a side note, with radio frequency barcodes can I phone my cereal to pour itself? I'm still waiting for that oven I can call from my cell to turn itself on... or a successful internet business model.
Neuromancer was definitely his crowning achievement, and tech lingo will forever be indebted to him.
However, one of his short stories you might find really fascinating, in that he illustrates the opposite of what you are asking. In his collection of short stories Burning Chrome he has a story named "The Gernsback Continuum" where he describes visions of the future that never quite came to pass... but what if they did? Things like flying cars from the 50's and huge single airwings with 100's of propellers. Think about 20's gothic architecture and those early visions of going to the moon. It would be a nice counterpoint in your work to what were "probable" visions of the future versus what was in the imagined future.
Burning Chrome is also a good basis, because little works like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" show him developing the ideas that later became the astounding Neuromancer.
It would seem to me that by changing a movie in any format (R -> PG13, etc) that the director's vision would be compromised to the point that the movie would not be, well, the director's movie anymore.
When The Sci-Fi Channel apparently re-cut Dune to a four-hour version, David Lynch had his name pulled from it as director. His reasoning was (correctly) that the new movie was not what he created. Did I still watch it? Hell yeah! But I didn't consider it "his" movie anymore.
The biggest problem is that while paintings or photographs are by their nature unchangeable (single image), cinema does. And with that versatility we get "director's cuts", which brought about "fan cuts" and now this.
I believe a decision like this should be left up to the director, not just applicable to anyone. Maybe have something on the DVD that says if the movie can be "recut" or not? I don't think James Cameron would mind a recut of "Titanic" to cover Kate Winslet's boobies for parents (and possibly sell a million more DVD copies). A movie like "Requiem for a Dream" however, would lose its effectiveness if re-edited (and don't get me started on "Eyes Wide Shut" and the MPAA!)
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Yes, I know Apple already gave up on those of us that administer Macs when it torched the XServe line, but do they kindly provide a way to not install this as part of the core OS, or limit it?
It appears to require an administrator password the first time it's run, but all subsequent runs go without it. So the administrator can't use it, lest they unlock the store. But in the meantime, Apple drops their shiny, happy "new" app right into everyone's menu bar.
As far as I can tell, you have to open Safari just to change preferred browsers, and other settings. ( Mac Mail requires the exact same thing to change mail clients).
This has always bugged me - I found it because I went looking in the "preferences" session and couldn't find it, before reading that Safari was required to do this. My first reaction - "no shit? At least in Windows I just have to deal with the stupid 'do you want to change your browser' popups." Since watching this unfold, it's always nagged me that Apple, while not at the same scale, has a different standard apparently.
A lot of the arguments I see are about the monopoly influence of Microsoft, and that's not to be ignored. However, if the EU is saying "We're creating a rule so that no future vendor should ever become powerful to force a browser direction" - then Apple would be in violation of the rule as far as I've seen.
Maybe - but there is one point that always bothers me.
To change the preferred web browser on a Mac, you have to open safari and change the preference. To change the mail tool, you have to open mac mail (there may be some command line way to do it, but certainly it isn't obvious.) By definition, you have to use their tools just to change them.
While Apple may not be wielding influential power yet - if the EU was trying to be "fair" as it claims, I'm curious if they would see that as a violation. That would settle if the issue was market share, or if its being an OS maker and a Browser manufacturer [and a dessert topping, in the case of Linux].
AT&T + ( iPhone + iPod ) + Mac OSX
Are any one of those allowed to mess with the business of the each other's competitors? AT&T + iPhone may be more obviously collusive by crossing company boundaries, but Microsoft's taught us that desperate product lines used in collusion can still get you in trouble ( I.E. is a minority web browser ).
Sure, OSX may be completely innocent in dropping PalmOS support for age reasons. The article also comes across as dramatic. But as a curious bystander it still looks a little funny. While Apple may have a minority OS, they certainly aren't minorities in the phone or music player business. In light of the Palm Pre-iTunes issue and now Google Voice/iPhone debacle (also apparently "a supportability/customer experience issue") Apple certainly isn't making itself look too friendly. Compared to their usual "i'm a mac, what me worry" public face, anyway.
Seriously - this is the only firm requirement my employer had - "We have an exchange mail system, and we'll buy you any mobile device you want - so long as it can use ActiveSync." We were poised to use Android OS phones because iPhones were thought of as toys - with the exception of Exchange we're still mostly a *nix shop - but that one caveat changed the purchase of all our mobile devices.
I had high hopes after seeing the HTC Magic demos, but it turns out that was all smoke and mirrors. Trying to explain to my senior management that "it's a google phone but not really but it still has android but I'm not sure it's supported we'll see they bought the license" vs. "yes, the iPhone has ActiveSync capability" - guess who won?
what can be explained by sheer ignorance.
Microsoft, though we keep referring to them in the singular, has well over 80,000 employees, and I'm betting most of them are not versed in the nuances of the GPL licenses, neither their driver developers, nor the paralegals writing the EULA's (though I bet the lawyers are).
Now, this doesn't excuse them of a violation one bit. Though it's possible, I doubt they had a a strategy "all along" to open-source the drivers because they included GPL code - because they work with citrix maybe, but not purely due to the GPL bit.
It also doesn't mean they did this in an effort to subvert or screw with GPL code - Microsoft's grand-poo-bah executive committee might "hate the GPL", but it'd be good to remember that eight levels of management separate them from some device driver writer tasked with getting Linux to run in hyper-V (who may or may not be employed there any longer).
Considering they already exist and are format neutral, can somebody tell me why solid state media, particularly USB keys and such, aren't viewed as the next logical step in all this? Hell, they've already done it with ghostbusters supposedly, with DRM even. Why wouldn't blockbuster just load up your USB key with whatever movie you rented that night if your connectivity sucked enough to not download it? Why wouldn't you buy "The Rock" on a key if it was important enough for you to own it?
I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm sure the studios are drooling over streaming "pay-as-you-go" models, but Blu-Ray isn't exactly compatible with my laptop when I'm on a plane. And it's still a way to let me carry the bits home ("ownership") without Sony dictating the terms.
Of course, I may have answered my own question with that last part.
While your post is probably going to end up in Troll land - this is something that bothers me all the time. Everyone says "Vista's a failure", and from an install base, you'd be right - of about 300 PCs in my office Vista has about 5 adopters, mostly for non-XP compatible software (should this seem biased, we also have over 100 linux machines, so people are aware of the options).
However, from a financial perspective, is Vista still considered a failure? 250 of those 300 machines all have a Vista license. I suppose it would be more realistic to call it a "Microsoft OS license" at this point, but that doesn't change the fact that we still give Microsoft money in wee fistfuls regardless of Vista's success. Microsoft lost some margin because we didn't buy an upgrade for the remaining 50 machines before replacing them, but we're still giving them money hand-over-fist for Vista whether we use it or not.
Now, release enough non-viable OS's in a row, and you'll see that base erode. But already the mantra seems to be changing to "skip Vista, install Windows 7" - at which point we'll be giving Microsoft all those upgrade license fees anyway.
Thanks - that makes a tad more sense. I see everyone running around blaming Microsoft for the code since their name is on the product, even if it was a 3rd party vendor. They certainly are still liable for all the busted Zunes, but I couldn't imagine Microsoft didn't have *some* C leap-year code sitting around that actually worked, and could be compiled for any chip they wanted.
Microsoft still has to take the hit up front, but then they'll sue or "renegotiate contracts" with the vendor that supplied the bad driver code, based on what it costs them.
I'm still shocked that the manufacturer couldn't dig up *some* free/open calendaring code that's was around pre-2004. But hey, at least we know they were honest about not ripping off some other source code and calling it their own.
"From a coding/QA standpoint, one has to wonder how this bug was missed if the quality assurance team wasn't slacking off."
I can't remember the last time a QA department was asked to test date functions... but then again, I can't remember the last time anyone wrote their own Leap Year calendaring calculator from scratch.
I'm sure there are a hundred reasons to do it (licensing being one of them) but really, when was the last time you didn't just import calendaring from another library and call it a day?
Please clarify to me if this is something at the hardware driver level: I honestly don't know. If this were me, my own bosses wouldn't ask "Why didn't QA catch this", as much as "why are you wasting time writing your own calendar code? And then why didn't you flag it as functionality that needed to be tested?"
From the preso I saw - it sounds like the goal is to have varying speed storage backing and some rather sophisticated "caching strategies" in front of it - i.e.
- Some amount of RAM for frequently active/accessed files
- Some amount of SSD drives for Level 2 data access, faster, but not an entire array (too prohibitively expensive)
- A bunch of spindle drives behind the whole thing for "slow" data.
It still follows the principal of more spindles for faster seek times, but a layered approach makes sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen more companies go towards it.
The techs added in (dtrace, zfs, etc) are there for better tracking of hot files, snapshots online, etc. All wrapped in a GUI front-end for the single-Admin company.
As far as the market - I guess it's who or how you define a "small" business. I'd say probably one large enough to run Oracle for some record keeping would fit small in their playbook, as this seems clearly aimed at a market that needs faster access storage. "Small" at that level seems to become semantics - someone with 50 employees but tons of warehousing comes to mind (think Dunder Mifflin if that helps)
and to who? I do think the IOC is being ridiculous in at least not investigating cheating just a wee bit further.
But normally, instead of just posting online, I do try to write a note to a senator, or a company, or a school. Even the IOC IOC's Sitemap page doesn't have a "feedback" link.
Suggestions?
The irony is (and I might be accused of trolling) is that I wouldn't want it to save the game for my kids.
My parents had pretty strict rules about computer time when I was growing up, and part of that was "time is up NOW" Believe it or not, it helped me learn to manage my time instead of just relying on them, and that "wrapping up" is what you do 5 minutes before time is up. Otherwise the power comes down and your hour of Wizardry is poof-gone. It was a little painful, but I am now never late to bed from games, or an appointment.
Now according to my office mate, "God of War" can have more than an hour between save points. Not sure how the hell you'd manage that.
If it says "Title 1 of 99" - congratulations! (ignore the "Track" info)
Note the most humorous thing about this copyright structure is it's glaring simplicity to avoid, much like the "marker over the encrypted" sector trick - they came out with this idea, and immediately ripper programmers thought "oh well, we'll just skip any unreferenced track." doom9 is littered with with forum info and workarounds that were found immediately.
I don't blame Sony for trying (it is their job to try to protect their material - despite the flames I may get for saying that), but any exec that creates a copyright strategy that can be so easily circumnavigated while alienating customers should be immediately fired.
It seems more like preying on ignorance - which is a perfectly legitimate (though somewhat cynical) business model. We'll see about now though - it's for info like this that I come to slashdot and presumably we all warn our parents and relatives "Don't upgrade XXX - buy a new copy, it's cheaper."
For all the "Economics 101" rallying cries - Econ101 could paint you an accurate picture only if the concert industry existed in a vacuum as opposed to being part of the entire music industry. Last I checked, bands (smaller ones, particularly) didn't tour for a full year because they enjoy playing live 6 nights a week.
Why would they charge less then the market can bear? Concerts were a Loss Leader for CD sales. Simply put, I could sell a cheaper ticket to a college student that may have less money but more time to stand in a ticket line even if the concert will sell out. They don't have the CD yet (nor their friends who get good word of mouth), while the fan who's willing to pay $250 for a ticket probably does. But now I have no incentive (back to econ) to take that ticket loss since they or their friends won't buy the album, they'll just download it.
Look, I love Econ and I'll carry the banner that the music industry is greedy. The connection of p2p and concert industry prices may be a bigger whipping boy then actual fact. But shouts of "Econ 101" aren't a full answer to if there is a link or not.
> 70 in a 65 - no. 110 in a 25 - yes. The middle ground: ?
Oops - forgot my Canadian bretheren, make that:
110 in a 105 - no. 175 in a 40 - yes.
And I probably shouldn't admit that I'm a contractor for NASA.
Agreed - while I think the intent will be good (to slow drivers down) this seems like a pretty good case of the "Law of Unintended Consequences" needing to be explored more. Otherwise, we'll see a host of accidents or wrongful death suits when someone's trying to rush a person to a hospital.
I'll say more once the Canadian Government decides what "excessive speed" is (didn't RTFA, don't know if they say). That seems to be the the kicker to this whole arrangement. 70 in a 65 - no. 110 in a 25 - yes. The middle ground: ?
I think the conflict (and frustration) comes from (a) Economics, while producing societally efficient outcomes, requires some difficulty or economic destruction on a small minority, combined with (b) political power is almost always consolidated to vocal minorities (at least in the US).
Slashdot shows an extension of that. Even if everyone here had econ courses, and knew free trade was a good thing, just mention H1B visas and Indian Competition and you'll get a reaction. Self preservation kicks in before "well if it's good for the country..." does. And politics responds to this; in worst cases it feeds to this with populism over science.
Take the US steel tariff. I doubt you'd find many economists who thought it was a good idea. Yet not implementing a tariff would put a national politician out of favor in a state like Ohio (critical to the last US election) to a vocal and significant voting block - one may or may not vote for you if you implement tariffs, but one that definitely won't if you remove them.
That's why anyone in (American) politics or economics has a devil's deal. For a good politician, to be good (get the initiatives done that you think are right) you have to do a little bad (compromise) or be patient enough to explain to the public why their sacrifice is worth it, and that's just to get elected. To be a bad politician is really easy, just go with your biggest lobbyist.
Economists should rally behind JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." but it's tougher the more distracted and self-interested we become.
Reminds me of an economics comment and joke (as lame as that sounds) - my Econ professor (who also held an MBA) said any firm worth it's salt has a definite interest in going from a perfectly competitive market to a monopolistic competitive market for the extra revenue, hence the drive in the consumer world for "product differentiation" of *everything*. Econ 101 for those who don't know, in a truly competitive market, Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost, so you are (theoretically) indifferent to selling just one more unit (see milk, wheat) because it sells for what it cost you to produce it. Monopolistic competition, however, Marginal Revenue > Marginal cost on one more unit, and still lowers your Avg Total Costs.
All this was summarized I believe by "If you want to tell a Perfectly Competitive Market from a Monopolistic Competitive, the latter are the ones who send you birthday and Xmas cards."
Both supreme court rulings made me think of an old suck.com article - I found it and it's still surprisingly relevant (though pretty hard on us "tech" people).
"Downtime by Law"
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/09/08/
My favorite quote (even as it makes me cringe): "But the blind narcissism that leads geeks to confuse 'can be done' with 'will be allowed' is disastrously naive."
Taxes on physical goods pay for state cost of services to provide those goods (roads, cleaning pollution from manufacture, law enforcement so those goods are not stolen, etc, etc) .
So, what state infrastructure does a internet download tax cover? It's an honest question I'm trying to think through. Maybe phone lines, but then what if you have a satellite download?
Help anyone? As I understand it, the government is not in it to make a profit, but to pay for the costs of services that can not be tied to any one individual...
"Every molecule on Earth is what the MIT boys said," Abell said.
Wow, them MIT boys shure know their tech-nology!
on a side note, with radio frequency barcodes can I phone my cereal to pour itself? I'm still waiting for that oven I can call from my cell to turn itself on... or a successful internet business model.
Neuromancer was definitely his crowning achievement, and tech lingo will forever be indebted to him.
However, one of his short stories you might find really fascinating, in that he illustrates the opposite of what you are asking. In his collection of short stories Burning Chrome he has a story named "The Gernsback Continuum" where he describes visions of the future that never quite came to pass... but what if they did? Things like flying cars from the 50's and huge single airwings with 100's of propellers. Think about 20's gothic architecture and those early visions of going to the moon. It would be a nice counterpoint in your work to what were "probable" visions of the future versus what was in the imagined future.
Burning Chrome is also a good basis, because little works like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" show him developing the ideas that later became the astounding Neuromancer.
TurtleBlue
ps - 62-36, nice - I was there.
It would seem to me that by changing a movie in any format (R -> PG13, etc) that the director's vision would be compromised to the point that the movie would not be, well, the director's movie anymore.
When The Sci-Fi Channel apparently re-cut Dune to a four-hour version, David Lynch had his name pulled from it as director. His reasoning was (correctly) that the new movie was not what he created. Did I still watch it? Hell yeah! But I didn't consider it "his" movie anymore.
The biggest problem is that while paintings or photographs are by their nature unchangeable (single image), cinema does. And with that versatility we get "director's cuts", which brought about "fan cuts" and now this.
I believe a decision like this should be left up to the director, not just applicable to anyone. Maybe have something on the DVD that says if the movie can be "recut" or not? I don't think James Cameron would mind a recut of "Titanic" to cover Kate Winslet's boobies for parents (and possibly sell a million more DVD copies). A movie like "Requiem for a Dream" however, would lose its effectiveness if re-edited (and don't get me started on "Eyes Wide Shut" and the MPAA!)