If I don't like what YouTube is doing, there are many other competing services I can use, including hosting my own content myself. If I don't like what my government is doing, I have no alternatives. What they say is "law", it must be obeyed.
As governments have a monopoly on the law, only they are obligated to protect the rights of citizens. All other actors on the scene are engaging voluntarily, and are obliged only to act in their own best interest.
This is as it should be. "Don't be evil" is as much a business principle as it is a statement of personal ethics. Don't be evil... so you will attract the largest number of customers.
And I could argue that as atheists aren't smart enough to know they should believe in God, it's obvious they couldn't have produced this film. There's a logical fallacy in here somewhere, if only we could find it.
The OS in Firefox OS is Linux. The model of "the web as an OS" is really a misnomer. What the web stack takes on is the UI, and that is a job it can very reasonably do.
The scenario is I publish your secret URL on my blog. You then move your files. I then update my blog with the new address. According to the judge, that's an infringement on your copyright.
I really don't see how that can be right. The address of your publication is not the publication, as can be seen by the fact that the address changed, but the content did not. The fact that you consider the address a secret is immaterial from a publishing standpoint, which is what copyright is supposed to be about.
The licensing deal for ebooks licensed through Amazon is really very bad for consumers. You can pay more for an ebook than for a physical book, even one sold on Amazon. To lend a book to someone, you have to give up that person's email address to Amazon. (What other retailer has such a privacy-cringing requirement? Hey, you bought that sweater and want to lend it to your brother? Let's have that email address, first, buddy.) And, they can read it only for two weeks. And, you can lend it only once!
This is a spectacularly bad deal, far worse than the DRM on music ever was.
I refuse to buy any more ebooks from Amazon until the deal improves. Even if Amazon itself may not be responsible for this crazy restrictive license, it enables it, and consumers shouldn't just stand there and take it.
We do NOT need to produce a paper trail in order to reconcile a close election. Think about it. A paper hand count will never be any better than a machine count because humans are not very good at repetitive tasks, and machines are. Give 10,000 people a column of 20 numbers to add. Give 10,000 PCs the same column of 20 numbers. Which approach is going to have the higher rate of error?
In fact, the only reason we allow hand recounts in the first place is BECAUSE people make mistakes, and it is simply assumed that we ought to recount when the results fall below a threshold.
But we can mathematically prove that a machine is working properly using a black-box test. We don't need to recount a machine, we need to re-run the black-box tests. If the machines are proven to be working, then the totals are the totals. We can more certain of a machine result.
There is no physical, tangible thing that is "seen" when I submitted my comment, yet I know it works because you responded to it. The same applies to voting machines. The principle is called Black-Box Testing
I hope everyone realizes that running a paper ballot through an optical scanner is exactly the same as using a voting machine. In fact, it's worse, because transferring data via hand-markings is many times less reliable than using a machine user interface. Optical scanning is a step backwards, IMHO.
But I am no fan of paper ballots. I think it's crazy not to use machines. Go to your bank sometime, and ask them to show you their hand-written ledger books with your bank transactions written on it so a human can personally recount them each month to make sure your account balance is correct.
As we all know, if your QA people don't test the right parts of the system, it's as if they never tested it at all. Paper vs. machine balloting presents a classic example of this "wrong test is no test" anti-pattern.
Voting machines excel at helping people cast accurate ballots. They have interactive user interfaces. They validate data entry. They have alternate interfaces for people with different needs such as the disabled and elderly. They can be tested for proper functioning, and if kept under good chain-of-custody conditions with multiple, independent observers, they can be very secure.
Paper ballots excel at recounts. They are permanent records that humans can read. They can be moderately difficult to manage and protect, because they are physical objects that can get lost, defaced, misplaced, etc. Their accuracy is only as good as the counting, on each use. If kept under good chain-of-custody, they can be very secure.
Many feel paper is better because it can be recounted. But recounts, by legal definition, are edge cases. A recount only happens when the vote is within a small margin, which is a very rare event. Since the vast majority of elections are not won by small margins, optimizing the voting experience for recounting is optimizing for the edge case. Classic "wrong test is no test" anti-pattern.
You are dead wrong about "one exploit". In Virginia where I volunteer as a poll worker, the machines are only used to count the votes within one precinct. They are not connected to the internet (duh), and they are not aggregated (duh.) Voting totals are saved on hard disk, backed up to two thumbdrives, printed on paper, copied by hand, in ink, to a second paper record, then telephoned into the Registrar, where additional copies are made. A complete copy of all records, digital and hand-written, get sequestered by the court for 30 days after the election.
To fix an election, you'd have to go a whole heck of a lot further than attack a single exploit. We're not idiots.
Glad someone mentioned this study. The margin of error for machine-counted ballots was very nearly the same in this study, but voters overwhelmingly preferred the machine voting process to paper ballots. The machine ballots were more interactive, which was especially helpful to disabled and elderly voters, and were easier to read and to mark.
The earth is estimated to be 3.8 BILLION years old. Something observed since 1979 would be a "record" based on 0.000000009% of the life of the planet. No wonder climate science has such a bad reputation if such silliness makes its way into discussion. ANY discussion of numbers in units smaller than the shortest cycle of observed change is unscientific. Great Scott, we're developers and hardware makers. We, of all people, should know about a minimal statement of requirements.
The funny part is you apparently think the other news programs in thw US have "real" journalists. CNN? MSNBC? CBS? These guys trip over their own ideological slant every day
I can't count the number of times I've copied some code from a web site and disassembled it to learn how it works. I've never just flat-out cut and pasted code without permission to go on a production site, but that initial copy to learn things would no doubt be considered "plagiarism" (or at the very least copyright infringement) by today's hyper-legal norms.
The free flow of information benefits everyone, but that benefit rarely comes all at once from a single mind. More often, it takes lots of incremental, standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants improvements to make something really valuable. As the founders of the Internet and Linux have shown us, we all get more by giving a little. Better to have 1% of a watermelon than 100% of a raisin.
The tiles are dynamic dashboards, feeding real time data. Taskbar Icons are just static images that do nothing except provide a link target. I was really impressed by how effective tiles were, like having 10 chat windows open at the same time with live data feeds.
If they can track customers as they walk in the door, why even have a line at the cashier? You walk in the door, you get a push notification to confirm or change your standing order on your phone, and then you take a seat. Once your drink is ready, you get another notification, go to the pickup counter where they confirm your photo and give you your drink.
You buy two books from Amazon, one physical and the other for the Kindle. After you finish reading them, you want to pass it around your family and friends. To share the physical copy, you just... hand it to someone. To share the Kindle copy, you must give Amazon that person's email address. They are then allowed to read it for two weeks. And you can only share it once.
Given the fact that Kindle books often cost the same or more than physical books, these restrictions make the Kindle versions a very bad deal for the consumer. Worse, in my opinion, than DRM on music, because you have to give up the email address of the person you are sharing your purchase with. Name me one other merchant who requires that you personally identify the person you share a purchase with. I'm not sure that's even legal, but even if it is, it's a horrible precedent.
The typical person can hand-write 15 words per minute. A moderately-skilled typist can write 60 words per minute. You do the math on which is better.
Personally, I use Zim, an open-source note-taking application. I use a netbook with a long battery life and a decent keyboard. I back up the Zim notebook to Dropbox, and sync it to my phone as a backup device. You can embed images in Zim, and attach files, so that takes care of being able to handle powerpoint slides, etc.
Man, we really need to stop thinking that everyone wants what we want. For an end user, that Apple-like, appliance experience may be just the ticket, and Unity is perfect for them. Only a handful of users in the world even KNOW what a desktop manager is; they don't want to tinker and customize, they just to run apps.
Since when is a 7.8% cut "starving" the budget? With baseline budgeting adding automatic budget increases every year, I'd be surprised if a mere 7.8% cut would actually reduce spending year to year. The public sector has NO clue what the real economy is going through.
Slashdot Mirror
If I don't like what YouTube is doing, there are many other competing services I can use, including hosting my own content myself. If I don't like what my government is doing, I have no alternatives. What they say is "law", it must be obeyed.
... so you will attract the largest number of customers.
As governments have a monopoly on the law, only they are obligated to protect the rights of citizens. All other actors on the scene are engaging voluntarily, and are obliged only to act in their own best interest.
This is as it should be. "Don't be evil" is as much a business principle as it is a statement of personal ethics. Don't be evil
And I could argue that as atheists aren't smart enough to know they should believe in God, it's obvious they couldn't have produced this film. There's a logical fallacy in here somewhere, if only we could find it.
The OS in Firefox OS is Linux. The model of "the web as an OS" is really a misnomer. What the web stack takes on is the UI, and that is a job it can very reasonably do.
Using credentials without permission is illegal.
. Under what law?
The scenario is I publish your secret URL on my blog. You then move your files. I then update my blog with the new address. According to the judge, that's an infringement on your copyright.
I really don't see how that can be right. The address of your publication is not the publication, as can be seen by the fact that the address changed, but the content did not. The fact that you consider the address a secret is immaterial from a publishing standpoint, which is what copyright is supposed to be about.
The licensing deal for ebooks licensed through Amazon is really very bad for consumers. You can pay more for an ebook than for a physical book, even one sold on Amazon. To lend a book to someone, you have to give up that person's email address to Amazon. (What other retailer has such a privacy-cringing requirement? Hey, you bought that sweater and want to lend it to your brother? Let's have that email address, first, buddy.) And, they can read it only for two weeks. And, you can lend it only once!
This is a spectacularly bad deal, far worse than the DRM on music ever was.
I refuse to buy any more ebooks from Amazon until the deal improves. Even if Amazon itself may not be responsible for this crazy restrictive license, it enables it, and consumers shouldn't just stand there and take it.
We do NOT need to produce a paper trail in order to reconcile a close election. Think about it. A paper hand count will never be any better than a machine count because humans are not very good at repetitive tasks, and machines are. Give 10,000 people a column of 20 numbers to add. Give 10,000 PCs the same column of 20 numbers. Which approach is going to have the higher rate of error?
In fact, the only reason we allow hand recounts in the first place is BECAUSE people make mistakes, and it is simply assumed that we ought to recount when the results fall below a threshold.
But we can mathematically prove that a machine is working properly using a black-box test. We don't need to recount a machine, we need to re-run the black-box tests. If the machines are proven to be working, then the totals are the totals. We can more certain of a machine result.
OK, I'm game. Give it a go. Let's hear how you would compromise a Virginia voting process.
Now, that's just silly. The company would have to predict what will be on a ballot in the future to do that.
There is no physical, tangible thing that is "seen" when I submitted my comment, yet I know it works because you responded to it. The same applies to voting machines. The principle is called Black-Box Testing
I hope everyone realizes that running a paper ballot through an optical scanner is exactly the same as using a voting machine. In fact, it's worse, because transferring data via hand-markings is many times less reliable than using a machine user interface. Optical scanning is a step backwards, IMHO.
But I am no fan of paper ballots. I think it's crazy not to use machines. Go to your bank sometime, and ask them to show you their hand-written ledger books with your bank transactions written on it so a human can personally recount them each month to make sure your account balance is correct.
As we all know, if your QA people don't test the right parts of the system, it's as if they never tested it at all. Paper vs. machine balloting presents a classic example of this "wrong test is no test" anti-pattern.
Voting machines excel at helping people cast accurate ballots. They have interactive user interfaces. They validate data entry. They have alternate interfaces for people with different needs such as the disabled and elderly. They can be tested for proper functioning, and if kept under good chain-of-custody conditions with multiple, independent observers, they can be very secure.
Paper ballots excel at recounts. They are permanent records that humans can read. They can be moderately difficult to manage and protect, because they are physical objects that can get lost, defaced, misplaced, etc. Their accuracy is only as good as the counting, on each use. If kept under good chain-of-custody, they can be very secure.
Many feel paper is better because it can be recounted. But recounts, by legal definition, are edge cases. A recount only happens when the vote is within a small margin, which is a very rare event. Since the vast majority of elections are not won by small margins, optimizing the voting experience for recounting is optimizing for the edge case. Classic "wrong test is no test" anti-pattern.
You are dead wrong about "one exploit". In Virginia where I volunteer as a poll worker, the machines are only used to count the votes within one precinct. They are not connected to the internet (duh), and they are not aggregated (duh.) Voting totals are saved on hard disk, backed up to two thumbdrives, printed on paper, copied by hand, in ink, to a second paper record, then telephoned into the Registrar, where additional copies are made. A complete copy of all records, digital and hand-written, get sequestered by the court for 30 days after the election.
To fix an election, you'd have to go a whole heck of a lot further than attack a single exploit. We're not idiots.
Glad someone mentioned this study. The margin of error for machine-counted ballots was very nearly the same in this study, but voters overwhelmingly preferred the machine voting process to paper ballots. The machine ballots were more interactive, which was especially helpful to disabled and elderly voters, and were easier to read and to mark.
The earth is estimated to be 3.8 BILLION years old. Something observed since 1979 would be a "record" based on 0.000000009% of the life of the planet. No wonder climate science has such a bad reputation if such silliness makes its way into discussion. ANY discussion of numbers in units smaller than the shortest cycle of observed change is unscientific. Great Scott, we're developers and hardware makers. We, of all people, should know about a minimal statement of requirements.
The funny part is you apparently think the other news programs in thw US have "real" journalists. CNN? MSNBC? CBS? These guys trip over their own ideological slant every day
I can't count the number of times I've copied some code from a web site and disassembled it to learn how it works. I've never just flat-out cut and pasted code without permission to go on a production site, but that initial copy to learn things would no doubt be considered "plagiarism" (or at the very least copyright infringement) by today's hyper-legal norms.
The free flow of information benefits everyone, but that benefit rarely comes all at once from a single mind. More often, it takes lots of incremental, standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants improvements to make something really valuable. As the founders of the Internet and Linux have shown us, we all get more by giving a little. Better to have 1% of a watermelon than 100% of a raisin.
What a deeply ignorant opinion this is, in the best sense of the word. Hilter was an authoritarian. The right wing in the US is libertarian.
The tiles are dynamic dashboards, feeding real time data. Taskbar Icons are just static images that do nothing except provide a link target. I was really impressed by how effective tiles were, like having 10 chat windows open at the same time with live data feeds.
If they can track customers as they walk in the door, why even have a line at the cashier? You walk in the door, you get a push notification to confirm or change your standing order on your phone, and then you take a seat. Once your drink is ready, you get another notification, go to the pickup counter where they confirm your photo and give you your drink.
You buy two books from Amazon, one physical and the other for the Kindle. After you finish reading them, you want to pass it around your family and friends. To share the physical copy, you just ... hand it to someone. To share the Kindle copy, you must give Amazon that person's email address. They are then allowed to read it for two weeks. And you can only share it once.
Given the fact that Kindle books often cost the same or more than physical books, these restrictions make the Kindle versions a very bad deal for the consumer. Worse, in my opinion, than DRM on music, because you have to give up the email address of the person you are sharing your purchase with. Name me one other merchant who requires that you personally identify the person you share a purchase with. I'm not sure that's even legal, but even if it is, it's a horrible precedent.
Nothing.
The typical person can hand-write 15 words per minute. A moderately-skilled typist can write 60 words per minute. You do the math on which is better.
Personally, I use Zim, an open-source note-taking application. I use a netbook with a long battery life and a decent keyboard. I back up the Zim notebook to Dropbox, and sync it to my phone as a backup device. You can embed images in Zim, and attach files, so that takes care of being able to handle powerpoint slides, etc.
Man, we really need to stop thinking that everyone wants what we want. For an end user, that Apple-like, appliance experience may be just the ticket, and Unity is perfect for them. Only a handful of users in the world even KNOW what a desktop manager is; they don't want to tinker and customize, they just to run apps.
Since when is a 7.8% cut "starving" the budget? With baseline budgeting adding automatic budget increases every year, I'd be surprised if a mere 7.8% cut would actually reduce spending year to year. The public sector has NO clue what the real economy is going through.