Is it a bad analogy? One could argue that the test of any search engine in the marketplace is whether its results are accurate, and whether it delivers the desired information to the user (and perhaps sponsored information for advertisers).
If that is the test of a search engine's success or failure, I'd say that the analogy holds. Moreover, the entire purpose of enforcing no-cheating policies in school tests is to help ensure that we don't cheat in real life.
Now, no one, save for perhaps the FTC, can "expel" Microsoft for doing this the way a school administrator can expel someone for cheating on a test. If that's the contrast you were looking for, that's a rather pedantic rebuttal.
This is infuriating. While the oil and coal shills in Congress and the conservative propaganda networks insist global warming is not real, and while the Greens refuse to have anything to do with nukes, China will be light-years ahead of us in technology.
there simply is no feasible way to bypass the Golden Gate Bridge to get into the city. That's assuming you're coming in from the north (San Ramon, etc.). I'm pretty sure they don't call the Bay Bridge from Emeryville/Oakland the "Golden Gate"; and those from the South Bay will go for the 92 highway bridge.
It's also bloody effective in scaring the locals into staying indoors and out of opposition rallies.
And Bolton et al have the gall to say that if we don't support Mubarak we'll be allowing a radical Islamist regime to take over? Just who do they think are employing terrorist tactics here? What the fuck!?
It may have nothing to do with the success or failure of the revolt. I remember both Burma and Iran likewise cut off Internet access and both successfully crushed their rebellions.
If anything, this drives the movement further underground where it is harder for the authorities to track their messages-- since SSL and VPN/SSH tunneling aren't as widespread as they should be, it's not that hard for authorities to snoop on online conversations, especially if they are in control of the gateways. I'm sure there are/will be more than a few heated arguments between police and politicians over this one.
Maybe in the long run, such actions will result in the toppling of those two regimes as well. But the first step of any totalitarian regime is to control how the people receive information, and if the Internet stands in their way, they'll cut off the Internet. Strategically and politically it makes little more sense than an angry despot throwing a tantrum, but that's reality.
Mini-rant (and OT): The HTML tag <i> was permitted before the update, now the current comment software filters it out in "Plain Old Text" mode for some reason-- it's even in "Allowed HTML", for goodness' sakes. I don't suppose this is a test case that was overlooked? Maybe the new CSS sets a rule for the tag to "text-style: normal;"?
They've had built-in apps that you couldn't update through Market until recently-- Mail and Maps are two well-used examples.
While I agree with your sentiment that they should've employed at least a bit more forethought to this, this could motivate them to detach the browser from the OS (assuming that's possible), and push it as a standalone app on the Market where it can be updated independently of the OS.
What would be ideal, though, is updates for all OS components through the Market, similar to Ubuntu OS updates. Google ought to use this incident as leverage on the cell phone industry to tell them, "Look, we have to get security updates to the user ASAP, and we can't sit around debating whether they'll sue if something breaks on their devices."
But given their reluctance to indemnify anyone if their software breaks, I don't see them having much more leverage than a toothpick does on a redwood tree.
Perhaps it then falls to us IT guys to propose OSS in a "risk-mitigating" wrapper-- "What if we set up a workstation or two for some of the IT guys that uses Linux|LibreOffice|etc.?"
Sure, they'll probably say "no" to that regardless, but at least it shows the traditional business folks that we are conscious of business risk.
Seriously?? How often does the illicit camera pirate happen these days, when someone can leak the whole film to BitTorrent-- or someone posts the DVD/Blu-ray rip? Isn't this another example of Hollywood studios claiming billions in losses because every eyeball seeing the movie for free costs them $2000 using their marketers' and lawyers' fuzzy math?
Filmmakers love 3D because it means new toys. Studios and theaters love it because they get to charge the customers more. It's cheaper now than when it was first introduced, so they'll make billions on this new technology without ever improving on the screenplay or cinematography, both of which has essentially stagnated for the last few decades (sure, some blockbusters rocked the world with innovation, but then the rest of the industry tries to duplicate the blockbusters).
I've had some problems with text alignment and margins before*, so if you need to verify your LO-generated.DOC files, you can download and install Microsoft's free Word viewer. They only have the latest one based on Word 2007, but it should render 2003 files okay.
*This was four years ago, so I'm sure OO.o/LO has made improvements to the generating code.
For some reason I'm inclined to attach a "response" sensor to the aircraft-- if someone tries to aim a laser at the cockpit, the response laser determines the approximate location the laser was fired from and shines a HID light on the location. Surely the aircraft can manage a few kilowatts to remind some idiots that lasers are not toys.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure Google can pull trojans off its Market. The victim would have to be stupid enough to (a) download an app from an untrusted source, and (b) click through the "This app has access to this stuff" warning without reading it.
In other words, it's not much more different than PCs.
... for both Blizzard and the modding community. The reason is, this guy made this mod using tools Blizzard made available to all StarCraft II users. He didn't hack the game or add libraries.
If Blizzard's legal counsel decides to issue a C&D on the project itself (to my knowledge they've only griped at Google/Youtube so far), that will have a chilling effect on the modders, which is probably smaller than it would be had not Blizzard insisted on taking ownership of any mods made with their tools in the EULA. Furthermore, the modder who was targeted this time can probably prove in court (unless Activision Blizzard tries to starve him by stalling the court) that he didn't in fact violate the EULA and that Blizzard, should it take him to court, is acting arbitrarily. That could have consequences for Blizzard or the modders that wouldn't be good for anyone-- the EULA could be scuppered, or edited to include a "Blizzard can do anything it wants to your projects including shutting it down and banning it from the Internet" clause.
The best course of action is for Blizzard to back the fuck down. They're already going to lose this talented artist to Riot Games, and going after him may cause other artists and modders to avoid Blizzard like the plague.
I don't know what legal counsel Blizzard has, but they've clearly told Blizzard since the days of Battle.net that if they don't "protect their intellectual property", they'll lose it. Their attitude towards the modding community is predicated on this legal argument.
If that were the extent of his accomplishments (tongue in cheek), I don't think he'd compare that well to the Pope. Although he was a sneaky and ruthless bastard as a businessperson, he's actually a better person as a philanthropist.
Of course, it would be easier to paint him in a better light if he's a philanthropist than if he's a tycoon...
That would imply that there are article editing resources available to commenters (even a subset of them, like the highest-rated mods). As far as I know, that doesn't exist, so a better word would be outsourcing.
Newton, the father of classical physics, became a believer in alchemy. Tesla, arguably the greatest inventor of his time, made kookish claims like being able to split the earth using a few explosives.
All this demonstrates is that even the greatest minds can believe things that are false. Perhaps they couldn't get other Nobel laureates on board because they were busy working?
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the rationalization went thus: "If my kid dies to disease, at least I won't have to deal with him getting out of control because of autism."
It's a horrifying idea to think about, but there are parents who discover that actual parenting is insanely hard compared to whatever they thought it was like in their mind's eye, so much so that some want to give away the kids and return to relative freedom-- never mind that they're quite literally chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
It's almost as if we ought to consider requiring licenses for those who create children without considering the costs to themselves, their children, and their communities. (It won't fly, of course, so the best course of option is probably education...)
That's the nature of conspiracy theory and propaganda-- people readily believe things that are either shocking or that fit into their worldview, and resist un-believing such things because they don't like the idea that this new comfortable information could possibly be false.
If the locals don't charge him, the US attorney might-- assaulting a MoC may well be a federal crime (but IANAL). If this guy does not get convicted, it will be a disaster for justice.
They had this exact problem with Texas City-- they didn't do maintenance on the systems, so a subsystem overfilled with volatile hydrocarbons with no alarms going off at all-- and when one alert sounded at the monitoring area, they ignored it. They didn't invest the (relatively) small cost of installing a flare (to burn off excess), so the excess hydrocarbons spilled out into the open. Cost-cutting and an incredibly cavalier approach to maintenance from the London management generated a fucking fuel-air bomb in Texas.
This is one instance where the Brit management, when they changed to Hayward, should have told their investors to "fuck off-- er, give us a few years" and spend the necessary money to get their facilities up to snuff, or decommission the facilities that are too costly to maintain. Alas, profit motive proved more powerful than basic empathy or responsibility.
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Is it a bad analogy? One could argue that the test of any search engine in the marketplace is whether its results are accurate, and whether it delivers the desired information to the user (and perhaps sponsored information for advertisers).
If that is the test of a search engine's success or failure, I'd say that the analogy holds. Moreover, the entire purpose of enforcing no-cheating policies in school tests is to help ensure that we don't cheat in real life.
Now, no one, save for perhaps the FTC, can "expel" Microsoft for doing this the way a school administrator can expel someone for cheating on a test. If that's the contrast you were looking for, that's a rather pedantic rebuttal.
This is infuriating. While the oil and coal shills in Congress and the conservative propaganda networks insist global warming is not real, and while the Greens refuse to have anything to do with nukes, China will be light-years ahead of us in technology.
there simply is no feasible way to bypass the Golden Gate Bridge to get into the city.
That's assuming you're coming in from the north (San Ramon, etc.). I'm pretty sure they don't call the Bay Bridge from Emeryville/Oakland the "Golden Gate"; and those from the South Bay will go for the 92 highway bridge.
It's also bloody effective in scaring the locals into staying indoors and out of opposition rallies.
And Bolton et al have the gall to say that if we don't support Mubarak we'll be allowing a radical Islamist regime to take over? Just who do they think are employing terrorist tactics here? What the fuck!?
It may have nothing to do with the success or failure of the revolt. I remember both Burma and Iran likewise cut off Internet access and both successfully crushed their rebellions.
If anything, this drives the movement further underground where it is harder for the authorities to track their messages-- since SSL and VPN/SSH tunneling aren't as widespread as they should be, it's not that hard for authorities to snoop on online conversations, especially if they are in control of the gateways. I'm sure there are/will be more than a few heated arguments between police and politicians over this one.
Maybe in the long run, such actions will result in the toppling of those two regimes as well. But the first step of any totalitarian regime is to control how the people receive information, and if the Internet stands in their way, they'll cut off the Internet. Strategically and politically it makes little more sense than an angry despot throwing a tantrum, but that's reality.
Mini-rant (and OT): The HTML tag <i> was permitted before the update, now the current comment software filters it out in "Plain Old Text" mode for some reason-- it's even in "Allowed HTML", for goodness' sakes. I don't suppose this is a test case that was overlooked? Maybe the new CSS sets a rule for the tag to "text-style: normal;"?
They've had built-in apps that you couldn't update through Market until recently-- Mail and Maps are two well-used examples.
While I agree with your sentiment that they should've employed at least a bit more forethought to this, this could motivate them to detach the browser from the OS (assuming that's possible), and push it as a standalone app on the Market where it can be updated independently of the OS.
What would be ideal, though, is updates for all OS components through the Market, similar to Ubuntu OS updates. Google ought to use this incident as leverage on the cell phone industry to tell them, "Look, we have to get security updates to the user ASAP, and we can't sit around debating whether they'll sue if something breaks on their devices."
But given their reluctance to indemnify anyone if their software breaks, I don't see them having much more leverage than a toothpick does on a redwood tree.
You think Franken is a nutball??
I wouldn't search for "Victoria Jackson" on Youtube if I were you, then.
Perhaps it then falls to us IT guys to propose OSS in a "risk-mitigating" wrapper-- "What if we set up a workstation or two for some of the IT guys that uses Linux|LibreOffice|etc.?"
Sure, they'll probably say "no" to that regardless, but at least it shows the traditional business folks that we are conscious of business risk.
Seriously?? How often does the illicit camera pirate happen these days, when someone can leak the whole film to BitTorrent-- or someone posts the DVD/Blu-ray rip? Isn't this another example of Hollywood studios claiming billions in losses because every eyeball seeing the movie for free costs them $2000 using their marketers' and lawyers' fuzzy math?
Filmmakers love 3D because it means new toys. Studios and theaters love it because they get to charge the customers more. It's cheaper now than when it was first introduced, so they'll make billions on this new technology without ever improving on the screenplay or cinematography, both of which has essentially stagnated for the last few decades (sure, some blockbusters rocked the world with innovation, but then the rest of the industry tries to duplicate the blockbusters).
I've had some problems with text alignment and margins before*, so if you need to verify your LO-generated .DOC files, you can download and install Microsoft's free Word viewer. They only have the latest one based on Word 2007, but it should render 2003 files okay.
*This was four years ago, so I'm sure OO.o/LO has made improvements to the generating code.
For some reason I'm inclined to attach a "response" sensor to the aircraft-- if someone tries to aim a laser at the cockpit, the response laser determines the approximate location the laser was fired from and shines a HID light on the location. Surely the aircraft can manage a few kilowatts to remind some idiots that lasers are not toys.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure Google can pull trojans off its Market. The victim would have to be stupid enough to (a) download an app from an untrusted source, and (b) click through the "This app has access to this stuff" warning without reading it.
In other words, it's not much more different than PCs.
... for both Blizzard and the modding community. The reason is, this guy made this mod using tools Blizzard made available to all StarCraft II users. He didn't hack the game or add libraries.
If Blizzard's legal counsel decides to issue a C&D on the project itself (to my knowledge they've only griped at Google/Youtube so far), that will have a chilling effect on the modders, which is probably smaller than it would be had not Blizzard insisted on taking ownership of any mods made with their tools in the EULA. Furthermore, the modder who was targeted this time can probably prove in court (unless Activision Blizzard tries to starve him by stalling the court) that he didn't in fact violate the EULA and that Blizzard, should it take him to court, is acting arbitrarily. That could have consequences for Blizzard or the modders that wouldn't be good for anyone-- the EULA could be scuppered, or edited to include a "Blizzard can do anything it wants to your projects including shutting it down and banning it from the Internet" clause.
The best course of action is for Blizzard to back the fuck down. They're already going to lose this talented artist to Riot Games, and going after him may cause other artists and modders to avoid Blizzard like the plague.
And whaddaya know, Riot Games wants him aboard.
I don't know what legal counsel Blizzard has, but they've clearly told Blizzard since the days of Battle.net that if they don't "protect their intellectual property", they'll lose it. Their attitude towards the modding community is predicated on this legal argument.
Tell that to the local PHB.
If that were the extent of his accomplishments (tongue in cheek), I don't think he'd compare that well to the Pope. Although he was a sneaky and ruthless bastard as a businessperson, he's actually a better person as a philanthropist.
Of course, it would be easier to paint him in a better light if he's a philanthropist than if he's a tycoon...
That would imply that there are article editing resources available to commenters (even a subset of them, like the highest-rated mods). As far as I know, that doesn't exist, so a better word would be outsourcing.
I admit to not even having WP7 on the radar, but WTF Microsoft??
(Or is that 99 bucks for developer access? In that case... WTF Microsoft??)
Newton, the father of classical physics, became a believer in alchemy. Tesla, arguably the greatest inventor of his time, made kookish claims like being able to split the earth using a few explosives.
All this demonstrates is that even the greatest minds can believe things that are false. Perhaps they couldn't get other Nobel laureates on board because they were busy working?
One thing I'm not as fond of about Motorola's Android strategy is their penchant for marketing 6 underpowered crap Android handsets for every Droid X.
Sure, this may appease the marketers and the cheapskate crowd, but Moto doesn't have to sell both Pintos and Cadillacs, if you get my drift.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the rationalization went thus:
"If my kid dies to disease, at least I won't have to deal with him getting out of control because of autism."
It's a horrifying idea to think about, but there are parents who discover that actual parenting is insanely hard compared to whatever they thought it was like in their mind's eye, so much so that some want to give away the kids and return to relative freedom-- never mind that they're quite literally chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
It's almost as if we ought to consider requiring licenses for those who create children without considering the costs to themselves, their children, and their communities. (It won't fly, of course, so the best course of option is probably education...)
That's the nature of conspiracy theory and propaganda-- people readily believe things that are either shocking or that fit into their worldview, and resist un-believing such things because they don't like the idea that this new comfortable information could possibly be false.
If the locals don't charge him, the US attorney might-- assaulting a MoC may well be a federal crime (but IANAL). If this guy does not get convicted, it will be a disaster for justice.
They had this exact problem with Texas City-- they didn't do maintenance on the systems, so a subsystem overfilled with volatile hydrocarbons with no alarms going off at all-- and when one alert sounded at the monitoring area, they ignored it. They didn't invest the (relatively) small cost of installing a flare (to burn off excess), so the excess hydrocarbons spilled out into the open. Cost-cutting and an incredibly cavalier approach to maintenance from the London management generated a fucking fuel-air bomb in Texas.
This is one instance where the Brit management, when they changed to Hayward, should have told their investors to "fuck off-- er, give us a few years" and spend the necessary money to get their facilities up to snuff, or decommission the facilities that are too costly to maintain. Alas, profit motive proved more powerful than basic empathy or responsibility.