The science behind the building of the Autobahn lead to frequent bends in American highways.
Really? Hitler was concerned with drivers falling asleep when he built the German highway system? Where's the source for that?
Speed limits also are well thought out as the average driver does not possess the skills of Mario Andretti,
Fatalities per vehicle mile are lower in Germany, while average speeds are considerably higher. So much for that hypothesis. In addition, posted speed limits seem to have little effect on actual speed, speed "limits" are there primarily to make enforcement of "reasonable speed" predictable.
Many countries have speed limits of 81 mph. In Germany, 100 mph is a common speed on many stretches, with many people going as fast as 150 mph at times. So it's not like 85 mph is some totally reckless right wing Texas thing.
That doesn't make much sense. Are you saying MS is denying the JIT compilation of CLR code to native code? That wouldn't be needed for security reasons. Or are you saying the MS is denying people the ability to write their own JavaScript JIT compiler? That wouldn't be much of a restriction, since you can compile JS to CLR/DLR and then let the system JIT compiler compile that to native code.
So, can you elaborate what it is you think you can't do?
Apple clearly engages in anti-competitive and monopolistic practices at least as bad as anything Microsoft has ever done. If we only intervene once a company has succeeded in offing its competition, we are just going to wander from one monopoly to the next. Interventions like the consent decrees are far too slow to remedy the situation.
The real solution is to set some basic standards for openness and interoperability: devices should be required to allow installation of different operating systems, devices should allow third party app stores, app stores should be vendor neutral and free of restrictions other than those demonstrably based on security (i.e., iTunes should be required to carry Google Play Movies), etc. Ditto for Kindle Fire.
Should companies be able to sign legally binding deals with governments and then simply ignore them?
No, but maybe governments should be able to react to changes in the market more quickly or stop the meddling.
The EU agreement came way too late to make any difference in the browser market, but it is now in effect aiding an even worse monopolist than Microsoft, namely Apple.
You are trying to destroy the value of WiFi. So you are saying that it is okay to listen to all the communications at every restaurant, hotel, rest area just because they have open WiFi so that anyone can use it.
Basically, yes. Some of that data ends up on your computer anyway.
I have read that everyone should leave their WiFi system open as a courtesy so that people can make phone calls, download books while walking in front of your house.
Sure, if you want a visit from the FBI, CIA, RIAA, MPAA, DHS, or DEA. They are first going to hold you responsible for what happens on your access point and then sort it out later.
Just because you think it takes "special equipment" doesn't make it so. Just about any computer can listen in on WiFi traffic easily, with no special equipment and just a couple of mouse clicks. Likewise, traditionally, analog cell phone conversations didn't require special equipment to listen to, many receivers could receive it. To prevent reception of analog cell phone conversations, many manufacturers had to add extra hardware to their radios.
Anything you broadcast on the public airwaves should be there for anybody to listen to and record, without restriction. If you don't want it to be listened to, use a cable and encryption. The world does not owe you privacy on the public airwaves, and even less so on unlicensed bands.
...because listening to unencrypted cellphones is illegal.
That shouldn't be illegal either. It only became illegal because some stupid politicians were discussing embarrassing things on their cell phones and got taped. Traditionally, listening to wireless transmissions has been legal no matter what, and that was good.
Listening in to unencrypted wireless transmissions is not "unreasonable search and seizure", nor an invasion of privacy. You can't have an expectation that anything you _broadcast_ without encryption remain private.
But this isn't about private wiretapping, it's about government wiretapping
I'm sympathetic to what you want to achieve, but using wiretapping laws to achieve it is pointless. There are tons of other places where the government can collect private information on individuals without violating wiretapping laws.
What we really need is requiring warrants for aggregating and mining individual information, regardless of the technology involved. These warrants should be easy to obtain in many circumstances, but the important thing is that the judicial branch should be able to keep track of it and limit the power of police if necessary.
I meant cross-platform packages, just like SciPy or redland or maybe even Django, as opposed to OS X-native (or even Windows) stuff.
SciPy isn't a "package" in the sense of "package management", it's merely a "software package" in the colloquial sense.
Why you keep condemning HomeBrew without knowing how it works is beyond me though.
I do know what it does: I looked at the documentation and the scripts. It lacks anything close to Ubuntu's dependency management, integration testing, or upgrades. I'm "condemning it" because claiming that it is an alternative to Linux package management is a lie, and it's a lie that might cost people a lot of time and money, just like the false claims about Fink and MacPorts caused me to waste years and a lot of money on OS X.
No, I don't know what you meant. "*nix" doesn't have packages. You seem to think of tar files of sources as "packages" and of pulling them down and installing them as "package management".
In any case, the SciPy install instructions using brew I referred to in my other post show that package management on OS X is still a complete trainwreck.
And when you're done, this is sure to break sooner or later as brew or OS X get updates. Many other scientific packages are missing entirely. Brew is the same kind of disaster as previous attempts at OS X package management.
On Ubuntu? You say "apt-get install python-scipy", and from then on it works, reliably, through upgrade after upgrade.
Brew installs into its own place but symlinks it all into/usr/local (by default, configurable) and respects all the "native" stuff. Brew does manage all dependencies of its packages, even different versions. It also executes the tests if the package manager added them. It's about as clean as it gets for the inherently messy *nix packages IMHO.
HomeBrew doesn't even come close to solving OS X's package management mess; it's inherently impossible to do consistent package and dependency management on OS X as an add-on to the system. Your problem is that you don't even know what packages or dependency management are (otherwise you wouldn't talk about such nonsense as "*nix packages").
If HomeBrew works for you that's nice. It's not a solution or replacement for real package management.
Rather, they seem to be suggesting that free market proponents will dismiss evidence that counters their established views
Evidence of what? I've read the IPCC report, the consensus of hundreds of scientific experts, and I don't care about the consequences it lists. I don't want my government to impose additional taxes or tinker with markets in an attempt to prevent those outcomes. The difference isn't one of science, it is one of values, economics, and politics.
What people reject isn't "climate science", what they reject is the imposition of draconian economic measures based on scientific results combined with a particular value system.
I don't give a sh*t whether the oceans rise by a few feet or whether polar ice caps melt. They have done so in the past, and they will do so again in the future, it's not going to affect me, and humanity is going to be able to cope. The IPCC report (i.e., the consensus of hundreds of experts) itself says that we can deal with such changes without big problems. Furthermore, I think the free market is far more effective in reducing carbon emissions than any kind of government intervention; the government programs on climate change won't even achieve what their intended goals are.
Yes, free market "ideology" correlates strongly with the rejection of draconian measures on climate change, but that does not amount to a rejection of science, it amounts to a rejection of centralized economic decision making. No apologies about that.
This is a very subjective area, but "overpriced" depends very much. The price of the OS is negligible (20$) and yes, you can get a cheaper machine than an iMac with about the same specs, but ultrabooks comparable to the MacBook Air only now start to roll out at the same or even lower prices
But that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is how much money you need to pay to get the job done. If Apple forces you to buy premium features you don't actually need, you are paying too much.
It's for the same reason that I haven't bought my desk at Ikea - I sit at the damn thing most of my day, I better feel good when touching the wood.
For professional users, it's return on investment that matters, not what makes you feel good. And Ikea desks are a good value and work very well. Many businesses and professionals use them. Many of them also look pretty good.
And "a pain to maintain", I don't feel this way at all, but again, this probably depends on which modules you need. In virtually all cases I can use the Ubuntu install instructions and substitute "brew" for "apt-get" and be done.
Brew doesn't seem to have much in the way of integration testing or dependency tracking. In addition, you are up to four package managers (native plus MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink) all doing their thing on your system, installing multiple versions, and none of them actually doing things quite right. That's not easy, it's a bloody mess. That's the main reason I eventually gave up on OS X.
There are lots of things Apple should do. But it's APPLE. They will do whatever it takes to maximize their profits and profit margins, and if that takes censorship or lying they will do it, just like they have no qualms about misusing the patent and trademark systems.
People in the biomedical field use Macs more than other scientific and engineering disciplines, which means OS X works a bit better there.
I don't think OS X makes "much sense" for any professional user: it's still overpriced and limiting, there is little hardware available that runs it, and even with MacPorts and Fink, it's a pain to maintain.
And if one of those companies sued Apple, and produced equally compelling evidence that Apple was actively trying to copy those devices, those companies would likely receive large judgments as well. That's how intellectual property law works.
You write as if intellectual property law were mathematically well defined. But instead it's constantly shifting and determined by precedent. Back then, people wouldn't have sued over this because nobody would have believed they could get away with it. Many of the companies Apple ripped off went out of business before they could even file a complaint, or they are small companies without the resources to launch this kind of legal attack on Apple. That is what makes this verdict so intolerable: Apple is using the money and power it gained from ripping off others to sue over minutiae.
There is no legal requirement for designs to be original.
When other companies have trademarked and patented designs, there is indeed. That's how intellectual property law works.
Design patents need to be valid, and the purpose of trademarks is not to let companies monopolize a market. Apple has abused the patent and trademark process, and an incompetent jury swayed by Apple's marketing messages has set a precedent that is going to be very bad for the industry and innovation.
Yet it was obvious to the jury that Samsung's icons were far more like Apple's than either Apple's or Samsung's icons were like the green telephone buttons on older phones, and documentation was produced demonstrating that Samsung had studied Apple's designs and tried to copy them.
Good! That's what consumer electronics companies should do. Giving Apple a monopoly on a green button with rounded corners and a handset is against the interests of the public and it is not what design patents were intended for.
So it was not inadvertent overlap of universal industry practice but a deliberate pattern of copying that went far beyond that.
Of course it was deliberate copying. What Samsung did is standard practice in industry, and it should be standard practice because it is good for everybody. What Apple has gotten away with is like getting design patents on everyday objects, or getting IP protections for words of the language.
What Steve Jobs got, which others unfortunately didn't have, is a vision.
Yes, even if that vision mostly consists of ripping off whatever other people have been working on and bringing a shiny but inferior version to market earlier.
Mr. Jobs had taken great pain in making sure that the products that have the "Bitten Apple" mark on it come with as few bugs as possible. As I said, I am no Apple fanbois, and I do not own any Apple product
If you did own Apple products, you'd perhaps not repeat the myth of the well-engineered Apple product. I've had Apple products completely self-destruct, burn up, and have long term intermittent problems, and Apple's software crashes, mangles data, and fails just like the rest.
There are two things Apple does well: packaging and support. Not only do Apple products come in nice boxes, Apple software packages itself well too. When iPad apps crash, they just disappear instead of making a big deal out of it. When OS X apps leave crap behind, they just don't tell you about it. Etc. Not rubbing the user's face in all the software problems creates the impression of fewer bugs. And Apple's support is nice and friendly, even if the geniuses aren't and you are paying through the nose for their return policy.
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Really? Hitler was concerned with drivers falling asleep when he built the German highway system? Where's the source for that?
Fatalities per vehicle mile are lower in Germany, while average speeds are considerably higher. So much for that hypothesis. In addition, posted speed limits seem to have little effect on actual speed, speed "limits" are there primarily to make enforcement of "reasonable speed" predictable.
Many countries have speed limits of 81 mph. In Germany, 100 mph is a common speed on many stretches, with many people going as fast as 150 mph at times. So it's not like 85 mph is some totally reckless right wing Texas thing.
That doesn't make much sense. Are you saying MS is denying the JIT compilation of CLR code to native code? That wouldn't be needed for security reasons. Or are you saying the MS is denying people the ability to write their own JavaScript JIT compiler? That wouldn't be much of a restriction, since you can compile JS to CLR/DLR and then let the system JIT compiler compile that to native code.
So, can you elaborate what it is you think you can't do?
Apple clearly engages in anti-competitive and monopolistic practices at least as bad as anything Microsoft has ever done. If we only intervene once a company has succeeded in offing its competition, we are just going to wander from one monopoly to the next. Interventions like the consent decrees are far too slow to remedy the situation.
The real solution is to set some basic standards for openness and interoperability: devices should be required to allow installation of different operating systems, devices should allow third party app stores, app stores should be vendor neutral and free of restrictions other than those demonstrably based on security (i.e., iTunes should be required to carry Google Play Movies), etc. Ditto for Kindle Fire.
No, but maybe governments should be able to react to changes in the market more quickly or stop the meddling.
The EU agreement came way too late to make any difference in the browser market, but it is now in effect aiding an even worse monopolist than Microsoft, namely Apple.
Basically, yes. Some of that data ends up on your computer anyway.
Sure, if you want a visit from the FBI, CIA, RIAA, MPAA, DHS, or DEA. They are first going to hold you responsible for what happens on your access point and then sort it out later.
Just because you think it takes "special equipment" doesn't make it so. Just about any computer can listen in on WiFi traffic easily, with no special equipment and just a couple of mouse clicks. Likewise, traditionally, analog cell phone conversations didn't require special equipment to listen to, many receivers could receive it. To prevent reception of analog cell phone conversations, many manufacturers had to add extra hardware to their radios.
Anything you broadcast on the public airwaves should be there for anybody to listen to and record, without restriction. If you don't want it to be listened to, use a cable and encryption. The world does not owe you privacy on the public airwaves, and even less so on unlicensed bands.
That shouldn't be illegal either. It only became illegal because some stupid politicians were discussing embarrassing things on their cell phones and got taped. Traditionally, listening to wireless transmissions has been legal no matter what, and that was good.
Listening in to unencrypted wireless transmissions is not "unreasonable search and seizure", nor an invasion of privacy. You can't have an expectation that anything you _broadcast_ without encryption remain private.
I'm sympathetic to what you want to achieve, but using wiretapping laws to achieve it is pointless. There are tons of other places where the government can collect private information on individuals without violating wiretapping laws.
What we really need is requiring warrants for aggregating and mining individual information, regardless of the technology involved. These warrants should be easy to obtain in many circumstances, but the important thing is that the judicial branch should be able to keep track of it and limit the power of police if necessary.
What good would a "warning" do? This isn't some accidental security slip-up, it's a sign of utter incompetence.
SciPy isn't a "package" in the sense of "package management", it's merely a "software package" in the colloquial sense.
I do know what it does: I looked at the documentation and the scripts. It lacks anything close to Ubuntu's dependency management, integration testing, or upgrades. I'm "condemning it" because claiming that it is an alternative to Linux package management is a lie, and it's a lie that might cost people a lot of time and money, just like the false claims about Fink and MacPorts caused me to waste years and a lot of money on OS X.
Just because an author makes potentially self-serving claims about his book doesn't mean that Wikipedia should just uncritically adopt them.
No, I don't know what you meant. "*nix" doesn't have packages. You seem to think of tar files of sources as "packages" and of pulling them down and installing them as "package management".
In any case, the SciPy install instructions using brew I referred to in my other post show that package management on OS X is still a complete trainwreck.
BTW, here's the ridiculous gyrations you have to go through to get SciPy:
http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2011/installing-python-numpy-scipy-matplotlib-and-ipython-on-lion/
And when you're done, this is sure to break sooner or later as brew or OS X get updates. Many other scientific packages are missing entirely. Brew is the same kind of disaster as previous attempts at OS X package management.
On Ubuntu? You say "apt-get install python-scipy", and from then on it works, reliably, through upgrade after upgrade.
It isn't the function of government to protect your "intent" against your own stupidity.
If you want to keep your communications private, encrypt them.
HomeBrew doesn't even come close to solving OS X's package management mess; it's inherently impossible to do consistent package and dependency management on OS X as an add-on to the system. Your problem is that you don't even know what packages or dependency management are (otherwise you wouldn't talk about such nonsense as "*nix packages").
If HomeBrew works for you that's nice. It's not a solution or replacement for real package management.
Evidence of what? I've read the IPCC report, the consensus of hundreds of scientific experts, and I don't care about the consequences it lists. I don't want my government to impose additional taxes or tinker with markets in an attempt to prevent those outcomes. The difference isn't one of science, it is one of values, economics, and politics.
What people reject isn't "climate science", what they reject is the imposition of draconian economic measures based on scientific results combined with a particular value system.
I don't give a sh*t whether the oceans rise by a few feet or whether polar ice caps melt. They have done so in the past, and they will do so again in the future, it's not going to affect me, and humanity is going to be able to cope. The IPCC report (i.e., the consensus of hundreds of experts) itself says that we can deal with such changes without big problems. Furthermore, I think the free market is far more effective in reducing carbon emissions than any kind of government intervention; the government programs on climate change won't even achieve what their intended goals are.
Yes, free market "ideology" correlates strongly with the rejection of draconian measures on climate change, but that does not amount to a rejection of science, it amounts to a rejection of centralized economic decision making. No apologies about that.
But that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is how much money you need to pay to get the job done. If Apple forces you to buy premium features you don't actually need, you are paying too much.
For professional users, it's return on investment that matters, not what makes you feel good. And Ikea desks are a good value and work very well. Many businesses and professionals use them. Many of them also look pretty good.
Brew doesn't seem to have much in the way of integration testing or dependency tracking. In addition, you are up to four package managers (native plus MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink) all doing their thing on your system, installing multiple versions, and none of them actually doing things quite right. That's not easy, it's a bloody mess. That's the main reason I eventually gave up on OS X.
There are lots of things Apple should do. But it's APPLE. They will do whatever it takes to maximize their profits and profit margins, and if that takes censorship or lying they will do it, just like they have no qualms about misusing the patent and trademark systems.
People in the biomedical field use Macs more than other scientific and engineering disciplines, which means OS X works a bit better there.
I don't think OS X makes "much sense" for any professional user: it's still overpriced and limiting, there is little hardware available that runs it, and even with MacPorts and Fink, it's a pain to maintain.
iTunes TV shows and movies, however, are locked up with DRM and can't be transferred.
You write as if intellectual property law were mathematically well defined. But instead it's constantly shifting and determined by precedent. Back then, people wouldn't have sued over this because nobody would have believed they could get away with it. Many of the companies Apple ripped off went out of business before they could even file a complaint, or they are small companies without the resources to launch this kind of legal attack on Apple. That is what makes this verdict so intolerable: Apple is using the money and power it gained from ripping off others to sue over minutiae.
Design patents need to be valid, and the purpose of trademarks is not to let companies monopolize a market. Apple has abused the patent and trademark process, and an incompetent jury swayed by Apple's marketing messages has set a precedent that is going to be very bad for the industry and innovation.
Good! That's what consumer electronics companies should do. Giving Apple a monopoly on a green button with rounded corners and a handset is against the interests of the public and it is not what design patents were intended for.
Of course it was deliberate copying. What Samsung did is standard practice in industry, and it should be standard practice because it is good for everybody. What Apple has gotten away with is like getting design patents on everyday objects, or getting IP protections for words of the language.
Good! Because Apple's profits come out of the pockets of its customers. In an efficient market, companies should have small profit margins.
Yes, even if that vision mostly consists of ripping off whatever other people have been working on and bringing a shiny but inferior version to market earlier.
If you did own Apple products, you'd perhaps not repeat the myth of the well-engineered Apple product. I've had Apple products completely self-destruct, burn up, and have long term intermittent problems, and Apple's software crashes, mangles data, and fails just like the rest.
There are two things Apple does well: packaging and support. Not only do Apple products come in nice boxes, Apple software packages itself well too. When iPad apps crash, they just disappear instead of making a big deal out of it. When OS X apps leave crap behind, they just don't tell you about it. Etc. Not rubbing the user's face in all the software problems creates the impression of fewer bugs. And Apple's support is nice and friendly, even if the geniuses aren't and you are paying through the nose for their return policy.