Well, as someone who's been involved in an accident with an uninsured motorist, the whole point is moot. The vast majority of people are insured. The people who aren't can't afford it. Its not like they are choosing between iphones or insurance. Insurance makes sense even to the poor because if you are in an accident, you NEED insurance - be it medical or liability. Of course, your recourse is to sue, but they usually have nothing anyway. Blood from a turnip.
There will be a segment of population that needs to drive, but can't afford insurance. Hell, most people were lucky to afford gas 6 months ago. You can't fix the insurance problem anymore than you can fix the poverty problem.
What happens? Your insurance company covers it and if not your fault (as in my case) your rates don't change. As long as these people remain a small percentage of all drivers, it is nominal across the insurance base.
What bothers me more, is the government's crackdown-attitude that "no one can do anything without our permission". This, in the land of free.
ISO - The speed at which the picture "develops". We are now seeing 3200 ISOs which make for better night-time shots. This means more sensitive CCDs.
Integrated HD Video - you see, video is constrained by shutter speed. Aside from ISO, exposure time is the way to compensate for low-light conditions. So again, more sensitive CCDs.
Integrated GPS for automatic geo-tagging
Smaller size/wright ratios.
Products like EyeFi decouple you from fixed storage. I expect to see cameras with 3G, or can bond with your 3G phone.
Couple the GPS and the 3G and you have real-time recording and geo-tagging. Great for forensics
3D photography - Be able to adjust the aperture effect AFTER shooting, or just make 3D Photos.
Invariably for the bundled iPhone apps, "back" is top left, and "forward" is top right.
I'd like to see all the apps amended to have a "back" button on their root screen to go back to the application menu. So many time I think back-back-back, then I can't go back anymore and have to hit the damn button.
At that point though, you're not using your rights. You can be made to take the stand and you can say nothing. They can't compel you to speak. Which is what we're talking about in this article. They are attempting to make you give evidence against yourself. They can take the state of the laptop as-is. But they should not be able to compel further incrimination from yourself.
I thought all rights are in effect at all times. That's what makes them a right, right?
This is not a "copright", this is a legal, personal right between you and the government. Allowing any right to be waived, or implied o be waived is a slippery slope.
Let me tell you how it will be; There's one for you, nineteen for me. 'Cause I'm the taxman, Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small, Be thankful I don't take it all. 'Cause I'm the taxman, Yeah, I'm the taxman.
(if you drive a car, car;) - I'll tax the street; (if you try to sit, sit;) - I'll tax your seat; (if you get too cold, cold;) - I'll tax the heat; (if you take a walk, walk;) - I'll tax your feet.
Taxman!
'Cause I'm the taxman, Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Don't ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, mister Wilson) If you don't want to pay some more. (ah-ah, mister heath) 'Cause I'm the taxman, Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman) Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman) 'Cause I'm the taxman, Yeah, I'm the taxman.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Certainly does carry the same meaning as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". It establishes who is initiating the act, who is performing he act and who is the recipient of the act.
I fear any attempt to amend the constitution today considering the people we have in congress.
WHY is the fact that the government wants to take full or partial control of your medical records NOT a cause for concern for you?
Well, they can't really control it. They can just act as a universal depository. You and your doctors determine what goes in your medical records.
As someone who works on this right now, where private companies are coming together, we are doing just fine, if not better, without government intervention. In fact, we're quite well on our way to an unworkable standard, thankyouverymuch.
The problem is the IT security requirements to run a non-consolidated records repository are huge. The current plan is to allow a NxM connection matrix. This is prohibitively expensive. If we could have a central government archive, we could have it perfectly implemented in a few years, fast and cheaper.
This started in 1913 with the passage of the Income Tax Amendment AND the Federal Reserve Act.
At this point, the government had a higher power - a bank - and the means to confiscate wealth at an alarming rate.
Things were quiet - even including the Great Depression, the only notable happening was the Fed grabbed some more power to prevent it from happening again (lets see how that worked out).
Then in 1945 Congress passed the Victory Tax act. This was an unconstitutional law that actually taxed people's individual wages. But in patriotic America, no one date question it, like the invasion of Iraq. The law was repealed two years later before anyone dare challenge it and replaced with one that was constitutional.
The precedent was set though - Through a Patriotic Campaign people were convinced to pay taxes on their "wages". Forms were set up and (W-2, W-4, etc) and used to collect the unconstitutional tax. After the Victory Tax Act was replaced, the precedent had been set, and a large wage tax the database established. The forms were kept the same, so no one was the wiser.
Today you can read for yourself the constitutional definitions in 3401 and 3121 of title 26. Note the definition of wages" "employment", "United States", and "State". If you doubt the meaning of "United States" contrast it with 4612.
Further more, Senator Bailey, the biggest income tax proponent had this to say: "I have no hesitation in declaring that a tax on any useful occupation cannot be defended in any forum of conscience or of common sense. To tax a man for trying to make a living for his family is such a patent and gross injustice that it should deter any legislature from perpetrating it." 44 Congressional Record 1702 (1909)
Well, Senator Bailey had no idea just how bad things would get. After WWII, we had a great sense of accomplishment. But we found ourselves in a cold war, and quickly moved into the Korean and Vietnam wars. All the while the expectations and budgets increased.
We are incredibly guilty of this today. We have run up a $10T deficit, and we owe it to the Federal Reserve. Our money is has dropped to 1/25 its value, by moving from US Notes to Federal Reserve Notes.
It is our demands on the government that are to blame. Before we were all paying federal income taxes (and specifically the wage tax) there could be no consolidation of power in Washington DC. But now they have a vacuum into every household of America, called the wage tax which allows them to control both sides of the equation. This is very attractive target for lobbyists. Once you only have one city to work in, you have less to concentrate on and can do so much more effectively rather than persuade hundreds in state legislatures everywhere.
But still I continue to blame us. We must reject the idea of government being the solution. It has proven that unless it is war, it is not. All the solutions have come at a cost to future generations. They don't fix the problem they just sweep it under the rug for future generations. If we relied on government less, we'd not have to worry about these gross abuses of power because 1) they couldn't afford it. and 2) no one would pay attention.
Recently several states sent letters to Washington reminding D.C. that state sovereignty still exists: Washington State Arizona Oklahoma
The whole idea of closed-source being more secure is like arguing Darwinism vs evolution by a creationist. The creationist will always misrepresent evolution as Darwinism. However, unlike creationism evolution itself evolves based on scientific evidence. Yes, it once started as Darwinism, but evolved into a rather complex theory on the behavior of DNA (not known by Darwin), to also include punctuated equilibrium and random mutation.
The closed source approach relies on security through obscurity. Except that, not even closed-source is that obscure. They generally use closed toolkits and closed operating systems. So once a problem in a toolkit or OS is found, all derived products are vulnerable. What's more if you're not even limited. The vast number of attacks come from buffer-overflow exploits. Anywhere you can input is an opportunity for hacking. The problem is once a problem is found you have to wait for the vendor to release the patch. You have no other course of action. You become subject to their development prioritization and processes.
Now, the problem they do refer to in open source does exist. You can scan through code looking for an exploit. You'll probably find one. But is it exploitable? For that, it has to be connected to user input in some way. But once the problem is discovered ANYONE can issue the patch. You can even patch it yourself! But the reality is these kinds of bugs only get made by inexperienced programmers, and they only persist in low-volume projects. The good news is the intelligent hacker isn't going to be looking at low-volume projects, since he needs to find users of the project to exploit. Just about any software of any importance will have several people looking over it. Hopefully one of them will be able to fix it. I call it my "First Release Vulnerability Theory". Often created by individuals to scratch an itch, the proper QA is not put into it. But by the time it is widely adopted, it should have been scanned by enough eyes that at least the exploitable bugs are fixed.
Finally remember proper security works regardless of development model. This means protected networks, using proper passwords and cryptographic techniques. The hacker should never even get to a login prompt, much less get in past the login prompt (be it network or local console)
Most hacking today is either buffer overflow exploits or password guessing. Interestingly, neither closed nor opensource is able to deal with those in a distinctive way. Your best best is to never use an array in C or C++, always use a bounds-checked container (available in both open and close source models), and always have a strong password.
Unfortunately, the PDF is not searchable, but feel free to read "Its Just in Time" but Martin Armstrong. (google for pdf link)
His Wikipedia page is not very flattering, but the idea is that there is a government conspiracy theory to keep him silenced. He was a well-respected financial analyst until he run a muck. It seems when your theories are too good, where they can detect manipulation, and can be used for manipulation, some people take issue with that. Anyway, its a free read. Have at it.
If there was ARM Windows, this would not exist. The Intel CPU is now an added cost so that users can have their familiar windows interface, and a powerful processor when plugged in.
Now, consider the case of a dual ARM CPU box. Longer battery life, no x86 premium (cheaper). You can turn the additional CPU on or off if you're on battery or not.
Since you're asking vendors to support arm, it makes no difference now that they have to support two CPUs and three OSs.
After we subtract everything we have the added cost of supporting windows vs user's familiarity with it. Whatever the cost is - $100, $50 (includes license, plus value of battery life) has to be greater than learning a new OS. Given that there is KDE4.2 and Vista, and the majority of people are still on XP, if you have to learn a new system, its a good way to et your foor in the door of being cheaper.
I am not sure how they plan to accomplish this hybridization - the ARM cpu needs its own OS and a communications API (via shared mem, usb?), with features (software function calls) it can provide. Or, they can put a linux client OS, and use a vmware or other client to access the ARM on a special internal network. If that is the case, then why not make it all ARM, since vendors now need to support Linux/ARM?
Absolutely true. But there are a jabillion non-ex-employees. The odds are you have his information. You don't have any random thief's information. The idea is that your set of suspects is a much smaller, manageable amount.
Now, unjokingly, you may have a common password for everyone. This is not a bad idea if the goal is to protect information from non-employee theft. Like being stolen out of cars, in-office robbery, etc. Protecting against employee theft is next to impossible.
Well, there would be terms of service, using defined terms such as: An update is a newer version of an existing file. These newer versions of files are files whose purpose is to fix bugs and add features to the existing version. New files may only be added to an update if the fix or added feature requires the additional file.
This update mechanism is to update files only. The update facility cannot add new software applications or update software which does not yet exist on the client. The user is in control to what software gets installed. Once installed the updater can update the installed software.
The updater software shall be written in such a way to prevent the sneaking of additional applications onto the system in addition to these terms of service.
In addition to a consolidated update facility, the software can fingerprint and identify the provider of any component to a software application. This provides some virus and corruption abilities, which would make this service an additional value for the computer owner.
Except that, Apple would be lying. Participation in the update channel would require "Terms of Service" stating that it is only for updating existing software.
Apple of course, could put a nag screen into all its products, but that would only negatively reflect on apple.
Just as when Miscrosoft slipped some updates out through windows update and lost trust, the update system need to be trustable. And that can only be enforced by contract.
It wouldn't take much more than a unified package format. (Linux has several, and they all work well, so there are working models). Providers would package their updates, sign them and upload them to the distribution channel. The system does not need oversight beyond verifying packages and signatures, which could be automated.
Your website is not better than porn. Even if it were, I don't pay for my porn anyway. Unlike the major networks, you don't make any real product, you jut report happenings that are reported elsewhere as well. And your original programming, is weak at best. So weak in fact, that I don't give a rats ass. However, if you make my cable bill go up, be sure I will cancel the packages you are a part of, and given sufficient cost increases, cancel cable all together. Currently local broadcast TV carries all the sports and entertainment I need. The rest I can get from Netflix.
If you want to derive revenue from the web, make ESPN a subscription site and watch your hit count plummet. But don't go charging my cable company for some hypothetical value that frankly will assuredly be overstated.
I really love the unified update system of the Linux distributions. One process updates all the software.
Right now, I have the following updaters running: Windows Adobe Kapersky (Anti-virus) Java Apple
Isn't it time everyone gets on board with 1 system? This way, Apple can't sneak Safari in, we can set a coordinated restore point, and there is only one update user interface.
As software releases become a more fluid experience relying on weekly builds and not annual or semi-annual releases, I think all these updaters are going to eventually create a clusterfuck and a negative user experience if we don't get everyone on the same system.
With Qt 4.5 going LGPL in March, one would have to wonder why you would use Mono over Qt or Java.
There are legitimate reasons - the CLR for instance or the multi-language support. But Qt has a Java API if you're addicted to virtual machines, and the C++ toolkit compiles anywhere with a modern C++ compiler. It supports Javascript (QtScript) and Python bindings. But unlike Mono, which is Microsoft derived, there will be no patent worries. Nokia really does want Qt everywhere.
The picture is getting more and more complicated when it comes to software development, and I think that's wrong. I liked.Net as an idea. We could all code to one platform, but the business/IP aspects prevented that technical utopia. I am hoping that LGPL Qt will, while a little more limited be that multi-platform toolkit that everyone can use to solve new problems, instead of continually recoding the old ones.
Anytime there is an artificial scarcity, a market is created. This idea of bandwidth caps just creates a premium, secondary market.
Someone just needs a way to allocate downloads for the top 1% of users amongst the lesser users and have them transfer a CD/Flash/HDD. Now, normally we'd have a hassle of a physical device needing to be shipped, but these users could be houses next door or down the street. In fact the downloaders could be chosen by shortest geographical distance. Users would pay $5/month to the downloaders effectively upping the caps for a smaller-than-upgraded service fee. If the downloaders had several subscribers he might get his internet access paid for.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as someone who's been involved in an accident with an uninsured motorist, the whole point is moot. The vast majority of people are insured. The people who aren't can't afford it. Its not like they are choosing between iphones or insurance. Insurance makes sense even to the poor because if you are in an accident, you NEED insurance - be it medical or liability. Of course, your recourse is to sue, but they usually have nothing anyway. Blood from a turnip.
There will be a segment of population that needs to drive, but can't afford insurance. Hell, most people were lucky to afford gas 6 months ago. You can't fix the insurance problem anymore than you can fix the poverty problem.
What happens? Your insurance company covers it and if not your fault (as in my case) your rates don't change. As long as these people remain a small percentage of all drivers, it is nominal across the insurance base.
What bothers me more, is the government's crackdown-attitude that "no one can do anything without our permission". This, in the land of free.
In short, its going to be a feature war.
Invariably for the bundled iPhone apps, "back" is top left, and "forward" is top right.
I'd like to see all the apps amended to have a "back" button on their root screen to go back to the application menu. So many time I think back-back-back, then I can't go back anymore and have to hit the damn button.
At that point though, you're not using your rights. You can be made to take the stand and you can say nothing. They can't compel you to speak. Which is what we're talking about in this article. They are attempting to make you give evidence against yourself. They can take the state of the laptop as-is. But they should not be able to compel further incrimination from yourself.
I thought all rights are in effect at all times. That's what makes them a right, right?
This is not a "copright", this is a legal, personal right between you and the government. Allowing any right to be waived, or implied o be waived is a slippery slope.
I've often though that Motley Fool's CAPS was ripe for the picking. Collective intelligence of investors - and they even are rated!
When will there be a Motley Fool CAPS fund that uses the investor intelligence?
For that matter, where is the utility to make my trades automatic based on investor intelligence?
One, two, three, four...
Hrmm!
One, two, (one, two, three, four!)
Let me tell you how it will be;
There's one for you, nineteen for me.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don't take it all.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
(if you drive a car, car;) - I'll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit;) - I'll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold;) - I'll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk;) - I'll tax your feet.
Taxman!
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Don't ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, mister Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more. (ah-ah, mister heath)
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
And you're working for no one but me.
Taxman!
Here here
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Certainly does carry the same meaning as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". It establishes who is initiating the act, who is performing he act and who is the recipient of the act.
I fear any attempt to amend the constitution today considering the people we have in congress.
WHY is the fact that the government wants to take full or partial control of your medical records NOT a cause for concern for you?
Well, they can't really control it. They can just act as a universal depository. You and your doctors determine what goes in your medical records.
As someone who works on this right now, where private companies are coming together, we are doing just fine, if not better, without government intervention. In fact, we're quite well on our way to an unworkable standard, thankyouverymuch.
The problem is the IT security requirements to run a non-consolidated records repository are huge. The current plan is to allow a NxM connection matrix. This is prohibitively expensive. If we could have a central government archive, we could have it perfectly implemented in a few years, fast and cheaper.
This started in 1913 with the passage of the Income Tax Amendment AND the Federal Reserve Act.
At this point, the government had a higher power - a bank - and the means to confiscate wealth at an alarming rate.
Things were quiet - even including the Great Depression, the only notable happening was the Fed grabbed some more power to prevent it from happening again (lets see how that worked out).
Then in 1945 Congress passed the Victory Tax act. This was an unconstitutional law that actually taxed people's individual wages. But in patriotic America, no one date question it, like the invasion of Iraq. The law was repealed two years later before anyone dare challenge it and replaced with one that was constitutional.
The precedent was set though - Through a Patriotic Campaign people were convinced to pay taxes on their "wages". Forms were set up and (W-2, W-4, etc) and used to collect the unconstitutional tax. After the Victory Tax Act was replaced, the precedent had been set, and a large wage tax the database established. The forms were kept the same, so no one was the wiser.
Today you can read for yourself the constitutional definitions in 3401 and 3121 of title 26. Note the definition of wages" "employment", "United States", and "State". If you doubt the meaning of "United States" contrast it with 4612.
Further more, Senator Bailey, the biggest income tax proponent had this to say:
"I have no hesitation in declaring that a tax on any useful occupation cannot be defended in any forum of conscience or of common sense. To
tax a man for trying to make a living for his family is such a patent and gross injustice that it should deter any legislature from perpetrating it." 44 Congressional Record 1702 (1909)
Well, Senator Bailey had no idea just how bad things would get. After WWII, we had a great sense of accomplishment. But we found ourselves in a cold war, and quickly moved into the Korean and Vietnam wars. All the while the expectations and budgets increased.
We are incredibly guilty of this today. We have run up a $10T deficit, and we owe it to the Federal Reserve. Our money is has dropped to 1/25 its value, by moving from US Notes to Federal Reserve Notes.
It is our demands on the government that are to blame. Before we were all paying federal income taxes (and specifically the wage tax) there could be no consolidation of power in Washington DC. But now they have a vacuum into every household of America, called the wage tax which allows them to control both sides of the equation. This is very attractive target for lobbyists. Once you only have one city to work in, you have less to concentrate on and can do so much more effectively rather than persuade hundreds in state legislatures everywhere.
But still I continue to blame us. We must reject the idea of government being the solution. It has proven that unless it is war, it is not. All the solutions have come at a cost to future generations. They don't fix the problem they just sweep it under the rug for future generations. If we relied on government less, we'd not have to worry about these gross abuses of power because 1) they couldn't afford it. and 2) no one would pay attention.
Recently several states sent letters to Washington reminding D.C. that state sovereignty still exists:
Washington State
Arizona
Oklahoma
The whole idea of closed-source being more secure is like arguing Darwinism vs evolution by a creationist. The creationist will always misrepresent evolution as Darwinism. However, unlike creationism evolution itself evolves based on scientific evidence. Yes, it once started as Darwinism, but evolved into a rather complex theory on the behavior of DNA (not known by Darwin), to also include punctuated equilibrium and random mutation.
The closed source approach relies on security through obscurity. Except that, not even closed-source is that obscure. They generally use closed toolkits and closed operating systems. So once a problem in a toolkit or OS is found, all derived products are vulnerable. What's more if you're not even limited. The vast number of attacks come from buffer-overflow exploits. Anywhere you can input is an opportunity for hacking. The problem is once a problem is found you have to wait for the vendor to release the patch. You have no other course of action. You become subject to their development prioritization and processes.
Now, the problem they do refer to in open source does exist. You can scan through code looking for an exploit. You'll probably find one. But is it exploitable? For that, it has to be connected to user input in some way. But once the problem is discovered ANYONE can issue the patch. You can even patch it yourself! But the reality is these kinds of bugs only get made by inexperienced programmers, and they only persist in low-volume projects. The good news is the intelligent hacker isn't going to be looking at low-volume projects, since he needs to find users of the project to exploit. Just about any software of any importance will have several people looking over it. Hopefully one of them will be able to fix it. I call it my "First Release Vulnerability Theory". Often created by individuals to scratch an itch, the proper QA is not put into it. But by the time it is widely adopted, it should have been scanned by enough eyes that at least the exploitable bugs are fixed.
Finally remember proper security works regardless of development model. This means protected networks, using proper passwords and cryptographic techniques. The hacker should never even get to a login prompt, much less get in past the login prompt (be it network or local console)
Most hacking today is either buffer overflow exploits or password guessing. Interestingly, neither closed nor opensource is able to deal with those in a distinctive way. Your best best is to never use an array in C or C++, always use a bounds-checked container (available in both open and close source models), and always have a strong password.
Unfortunately, the PDF is not searchable, but feel free to read "Its Just in Time" but Martin Armstrong. (google for pdf link)
His Wikipedia page is not very flattering, but the idea is that there is a government conspiracy theory to keep him silenced. He was a well-respected financial analyst until he run a muck. It seems when your theories are too good, where they can detect manipulation, and can be used for manipulation, some people take issue with that. Anyway, its a free read. Have at it.
The conviction rate in the the US above 98%
The conviction rate during the Spanish Inquisition was 96%.
Therefore, either we're really good at identifying people, or "reasonable doubt" has become unreasonably weak defense.
If there was ARM Windows, this would not exist. The Intel CPU is now an added cost so that users can have their familiar windows interface, and a powerful processor when plugged in.
Now, consider the case of a dual ARM CPU box. Longer battery life, no x86 premium (cheaper). You can turn the additional CPU on or off if you're on battery or not.
Since you're asking vendors to support arm, it makes no difference now that they have to support two CPUs and three OSs.
After we subtract everything we have the added cost of supporting windows vs user's familiarity with it. Whatever the cost is - $100, $50 (includes license, plus value of battery life) has to be greater than learning a new OS. Given that there is KDE4.2 and Vista, and the majority of people are still on XP, if you have to learn a new system, its a good way to et your foor in the door of being cheaper.
I am not sure how they plan to accomplish this hybridization - the ARM cpu needs its own OS and a communications API (via shared mem, usb?), with features (software function calls) it can provide. Or, they can put a linux client OS, and use a vmware or other client to access the ARM on a special internal network. If that is the case, then why not make it all ARM, since vendors now need to support Linux/ARM?
Absolutely true. But there are a jabillion non-ex-employees. The odds are you have his information. You don't have any random thief's information. The idea is that your set of suspects is a much smaller, manageable amount.
All you have to do is set a password - the same password - that everyone knows.
Like:
password1
12345
159753
258456
147258369
963852741
Now, unjokingly, you may have a common password for everyone. This is not a bad idea if the goal is to protect information from non-employee theft. Like being stolen out of cars, in-office robbery, etc. Protecting against employee theft is next to impossible.
Well, there would be terms of service, using defined terms such as:
An update is a newer version of an existing file. These newer versions of files are files whose purpose is to fix bugs and add features to the existing version. New files may only be added to an update if the fix or added feature requires the additional file.
This update mechanism is to update files only. The update facility cannot add new software applications or update software which does not yet exist on the client. The user is in control to what software gets installed. Once installed the updater can update the installed software.
The updater software shall be written in such a way to prevent the sneaking of additional applications onto the system in addition to these terms of service.
In addition to a consolidated update facility, the software can fingerprint and identify the provider of any component to a software application. This provides some virus and corruption abilities, which would make this service an additional value for the computer owner.
WiiAgain
Except that, Apple would be lying. Participation in the update channel would require "Terms of Service" stating that it is only for updating existing software.
Apple of course, could put a nag screen into all its products, but that would only negatively reflect on apple.
Just as when Miscrosoft slipped some updates out through windows update and lost trust, the update system need to be trustable. And that can only be enforced by contract.
Well opensource does it.
It wouldn't take much more than a unified package format. (Linux has several, and they all work well, so there are working models). Providers would package their updates, sign them and upload them to the distribution channel. The system does not need oversight beyond verifying packages and signatures, which could be automated.
Your website is not better than porn. Even if it were, I don't pay for my porn anyway. Unlike the major networks, you don't make any real product, you jut report happenings that are reported elsewhere as well. And your original programming, is weak at best. So weak in fact, that I don't give a rats ass. However, if you make my cable bill go up, be sure I will cancel the packages you are a part of, and given sufficient cost increases, cancel cable all together. Currently local broadcast TV carries all the sports and entertainment I need. The rest I can get from Netflix.
If you want to derive revenue from the web, make ESPN a subscription site and watch your hit count plummet. But don't go charging my cable company for some hypothetical value that frankly will assuredly be overstated.
I really love the unified update system of the Linux distributions. One process updates all the software.
Right now, I have the following updaters running:
Windows
Adobe
Kapersky (Anti-virus)
Java
Apple
Isn't it time everyone gets on board with 1 system? This way, Apple can't sneak Safari in, we can set a coordinated restore point, and there is only one update user interface.
As software releases become a more fluid experience relying on weekly builds and not annual or semi-annual releases, I think all these updaters are going to eventually create a clusterfuck and a negative user experience if we don't get everyone on the same system.
With Qt 4.5 going LGPL in March, one would have to wonder why you would use Mono over Qt or Java.
There are legitimate reasons - the CLR for instance or the multi-language support. But Qt has a Java API if you're addicted to virtual machines, and the C++ toolkit compiles anywhere with a modern C++ compiler. It supports Javascript (QtScript) and Python bindings. But unlike Mono, which is Microsoft derived, there will be no patent worries. Nokia really does want Qt everywhere.
The picture is getting more and more complicated when it comes to software development, and I think that's wrong. I liked .Net as an idea. We could all code to one platform, but the business/IP aspects prevented that technical utopia. I am hoping that LGPL Qt will, while a little more limited be that multi-platform toolkit that everyone can use to solve new problems, instead of continually recoding the old ones.
Anytime there is an artificial scarcity, a market is created. This idea of bandwidth caps just creates a premium, secondary market.
Someone just needs a way to allocate downloads for the top 1% of users amongst the lesser users and have them transfer a CD/Flash/HDD. Now, normally we'd have a hassle of a physical device needing to be shipped, but these users could be houses next door or down the street. In fact the downloaders could be chosen by shortest geographical distance. Users would pay $5/month to the downloaders effectively upping the caps for a smaller-than-upgraded service fee. If the downloaders had several subscribers he might get his internet access paid for.
Just an idea.