The point is that if you choose not to buy something that is consumer hostile, you are quickly locked out of the modern world.
I could choose to not buy a phone that includes a walled garden or similar. But there really are only 2 viable smartphone eco-systems, and both of them do this. (Android to a lesser extent, but you'll find a lot of things you can't do if your device doesn't pass safetynet) I could choose not to buy a new car that I can't modify the software on, but that basically limits me to not buying a new car as they all have computers in them, and none of them are friendly to people wanting to modify them. A farmer could choose not to buy a tractor from John Deere, but are the competitors any better?
The world is moving towards a place where consumers are completely locked out of the equipment that they "own". Voting with your wallet only works if there's an actual choice that's any better, and these days those choices are shrinking fast.
Except that this is entirely due to the legislation in the first place. Without any government legislation on the matter, there would be no copyrights, not patents, and no penalties for modifying firmware.
What we have is legally protected monopolies. What people are asking for is a level playing field with the companies. Either remove the legal protections preventing customers and third party parts suppliers/repair shops from reverse engineering, building compatible parts, and repairing devices, or force the companies who built the devices to do so in exchange for the protection they are being given.
I always laugh at people who claim to be for fewer regulations, but only when it benefits the companies, not when it benefits the consumer. This isn't capitalism, it's regulatory capture.
Or, you could hold all people and companies accountable equally under the law... just a thought.
Your attitude is why the rest of the world has no respect for the US. In most of the civilized world, it actually matters if someone has done something wrong. The old "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" is actually true in many places.
Unfortunately we see a ton of politically motivated, rather than legally motivated, prosecution in the US. It really makes me wonder why anyone would willingly do business there.
From everything I can find, the EU was investigating VW at the same time as the US. The first indications of a problem were found at roughly the same time in Europe and in the US, and the fines levied were similar on both sides of the ocean. So yes, they were "investigating their own".
I haven't seen it listed in this case, but I know that Microsoft was one of the lead companies pushing the anti-trust actions against Google in the previous cases.
Seems that the EU is quite happy to do Microsoft's bidding, so I wouldn't expect them to turn on MS too soon.
The competitor's aircraft design is 20 years newer, and is still over 30 years old. If you can't come up with something in 50 years, then you deserve what you get. Regulators should have simply said no.
If you've ever done anything safety related, you'd know that the answer is always inherently safer design when that's an option. Only when it is not an option do you do the other things. Considering how many aircraft have the inherently safer design, I won't believe that doing so is not an option.
"we're going to kill LOTS of people!" "how about we only kill SOME people?" "ok, that sounds like a win!"
<quote><p>A system designed to overcome aerodynamic flaws of larger engines is not a major failure scenario?</p></quote> <p>Of course it is, but what is the safe action? </quote> The safe action is the one that nobody is talking about. The previous version of the 737 had engines so big that they had to flatten the intake on the bottom so it would fit under the wing. That should have been a clue that the existing 737 design was already at its limit. By putting even larger engines on it, they had to mess up the aerodynamic stability of the aircraft such that they had to implement this software fix just to get through the approvals. It's pretty obvious that someone should have said: "look, the 737 is great, but it's at end of life. We need to make a new aircraft design now."
Imagine if we were still flying the DC-3 with every new technological advance since it was designed kludged on to it even though it was never designed for them? At a certain point you need to realize that your design is at the end of its life and move on.
But that costs money, and apparently hundreds of lives.
And this is the truth. In reality, a space mission is unlikely to ever be planned to coincide with when a planet is hardest to reach, so AVERAGE distance is irrelevant. The only 2 things you care about are the thrust required, and the time it will take to get there, so closest distance is relevant, average not as much.
Cisco has been caught with back doors. Huawei has an unprecedented level of scrutiny on their code and equipment, and the most resources ever spent in the history of the world trying to find a back door, yet none has yet been found.
Beyond that, it's a tough argument that the US is a bastion of freedom these days. The US is also far more likely to be in a position to leverage information gained this way to harm me and my country than the Chinese are.
Nobody grounded the planes after the Lion Air crash, and it didn't stop airlines form ordering more. As far as management was concerned, no further action needed. They don't care about anything other than profit. If it's still making a profit, don't spend a dime to fix it.
Statistically the worst drivers are young. Statistically this same group are the least likely to buy the newest tech that's only preset on new, high-end, vehicles.
Look, I'm not against progress, I'm just against changing something that works when you don't have a replacement that can actually replace all it's existing features.
Even the rat study required some pretty large tweaks to show anything. In fact it only showed cancer in one specific group out of many exposed to the radiation, basically if you combined all the groups then no more showed cancer than would be expected in a random group, but by singling out the one group that did show a result, while ignoring those who didn't, they made it look statistically significant when it was at best a "maybe we should try again and see if this can be reproduced" but more likely a "yup, still doesn't cause cancer"
Unfortunately they'd take the wrong lesson from "the boy who cried wolf". I've already had this argument, and they say that in the end there really was a wolf, so it's the fault of the others for not believing him every time, not the fault of the boy who cried when there was no wolf.
The issue here is that no matter how many times they cry it, there will be no wolf. It's more like the "boy who cried sasquatch!"
The worst part about this initiative is that using Chrome on mobile, this "feature" bypasses all adblockers. (mobile adblockers use DNS and/or VPN to filter the pages, this bypasses both of those)
Honest question. Is there a true EU competitor to Cisco in the transport and switching space? (The 5G cell sites are just a distraction in this discussion, it's the network backbone that's the real issue here).
You think a 5G network is just the 5G sites themselves? Talk about naive! They all route back to switching equipment. That switching equipment is Cisco in many networks, but Huawei also makes the switch gear, at lower prices, for better quality, and with no NSA spyware. The US wants to prevent ALL Huawei equipment in the network, they know full well that the de-facto replacement is Cisco for everything in the network except the actual cell sites.
The US couldn't care less about the cell sites at the end. As you point out, the US doesn't have a horse in that race. This is about the transport network where the US wants to keep Cisco (and all their own back doors) dominant.
Slashdot Mirror
Making the phone wireless gave a notable benefit. The ability to take it anywhere you went.
Making the headphones wireless did not because you are still carrying both the phone, and the headphones, in close proximity to reach other.
I'm all for wireless technologies. But only where wired technologies don't do the same job better.
Companies haven't been loyal to their employees for decades. Why would any employee feel they should be loyal in return?
I think your point is undermined when you basically list every company in existence in your list of companies to avoid buying from.
At a certain point you have to choose the lesser evil, and realize it's still evil.
The point is that if you choose not to buy something that is consumer hostile, you are quickly locked out of the modern world.
I could choose to not buy a phone that includes a walled garden or similar. But there really are only 2 viable smartphone eco-systems, and both of them do this. (Android to a lesser extent, but you'll find a lot of things you can't do if your device doesn't pass safetynet)
I could choose not to buy a new car that I can't modify the software on, but that basically limits me to not buying a new car as they all have computers in them, and none of them are friendly to people wanting to modify them.
A farmer could choose not to buy a tractor from John Deere, but are the competitors any better?
The world is moving towards a place where consumers are completely locked out of the equipment that they "own". Voting with your wallet only works if there's an actual choice that's any better, and these days those choices are shrinking fast.
Except that this is entirely due to the legislation in the first place. Without any government legislation on the matter, there would be no copyrights, not patents, and no penalties for modifying firmware.
What we have is legally protected monopolies. What people are asking for is a level playing field with the companies. Either remove the legal protections preventing customers and third party parts suppliers/repair shops from reverse engineering, building compatible parts, and repairing devices, or force the companies who built the devices to do so in exchange for the protection they are being given.
I always laugh at people who claim to be for fewer regulations, but only when it benefits the companies, not when it benefits the consumer. This isn't capitalism, it's regulatory capture.
Or, you could hold all people and companies accountable equally under the law... just a thought.
Your attitude is why the rest of the world has no respect for the US. In most of the civilized world, it actually matters if someone has done something wrong. The old "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" is actually true in many places.
Unfortunately we see a ton of politically motivated, rather than legally motivated, prosecution in the US. It really makes me wonder why anyone would willingly do business there.
From everything I can find, the EU was investigating VW at the same time as the US. The first indications of a problem were found at roughly the same time in Europe and in the US, and the fines levied were similar on both sides of the ocean. So yes, they were "investigating their own".
I haven't seen it listed in this case, but I know that Microsoft was one of the lead companies pushing the anti-trust actions against Google in the previous cases.
Seems that the EU is quite happy to do Microsoft's bidding, so I wouldn't expect them to turn on MS too soon.
The competitor's aircraft design is 20 years newer, and is still over 30 years old. If you can't come up with something in 50 years, then you deserve what you get. Regulators should have simply said no.
I hope you never work in any safety critical role.
The answer is never to kludge on a counter to a bad design when a good design would have eliminated the need.
If you've ever done anything safety related, you'd know that the answer is always inherently safer design when that's an option. Only when it is not an option do you do the other things. Considering how many aircraft have the inherently safer design, I won't believe that doing so is not an option.
"we're going to kill LOTS of people!"
"how about we only kill SOME people?"
"ok, that sounds like a win!"
ummm... how about we kill no people?
<quote><p>A system designed to overcome aerodynamic flaws of larger engines is not a major failure scenario?</p></quote>
<p>Of course it is, but what is the safe action? </quote>
The safe action is the one that nobody is talking about. The previous version of the 737 had engines so big that they had to flatten the intake on the bottom so it would fit under the wing. That should have been a clue that the existing 737 design was already at its limit. By putting even larger engines on it, they had to mess up the aerodynamic stability of the aircraft such that they had to implement this software fix just to get through the approvals. It's pretty obvious that someone should have said: "look, the 737 is great, but it's at end of life. We need to make a new aircraft design now."
Imagine if we were still flying the DC-3 with every new technological advance since it was designed kludged on to it even though it was never designed for them? At a certain point you need to realize that your design is at the end of its life and move on.
But that costs money, and apparently hundreds of lives.
And this is the truth. In reality, a space mission is unlikely to ever be planned to coincide with when a planet is hardest to reach, so AVERAGE distance is irrelevant. The only 2 things you care about are the thrust required, and the time it will take to get there, so closest distance is relevant, average not as much.
Cisco has been caught with back doors. Huawei has an unprecedented level of scrutiny on their code and equipment, and the most resources ever spent in the history of the world trying to find a back door, yet none has yet been found.
Beyond that, it's a tough argument that the US is a bastion of freedom these days. The US is also far more likely to be in a position to leverage information gained this way to harm me and my country than the Chinese are.
Nobody grounded the planes after the Lion Air crash, and it didn't stop airlines form ordering more. As far as management was concerned, no further action needed. They don't care about anything other than profit. If it's still making a profit, don't spend a dime to fix it.
Statistically the worst drivers are young. Statistically this same group are the least likely to buy the newest tech that's only preset on new, high-end, vehicles.
Paper voting has neither problem...
Look, I'm not against progress, I'm just against changing something that works when you don't have a replacement that can actually replace all it's existing features.
Even the rat study required some pretty large tweaks to show anything. In fact it only showed cancer in one specific group out of many exposed to the radiation, basically if you combined all the groups then no more showed cancer than would be expected in a random group, but by singling out the one group that did show a result, while ignoring those who didn't, they made it look statistically significant when it was at best a "maybe we should try again and see if this can be reproduced" but more likely a "yup, still doesn't cause cancer"
Unfortunately they'd take the wrong lesson from "the boy who cried wolf". I've already had this argument, and they say that in the end there really was a wolf, so it's the fault of the others for not believing him every time, not the fault of the boy who cried when there was no wolf.
The issue here is that no matter how many times they cry it, there will be no wolf. It's more like the "boy who cried sasquatch!"
Chrome also has a way to turn this off, just turn "Data Saver" off.
This bypasses the hosts file by using a google resolver.
The worst part about this initiative is that using Chrome on mobile, this "feature" bypasses all adblockers. (mobile adblockers use DNS and/or VPN to filter the pages, this bypasses both of those)
So the "fast" way is actually slower...
Thing is, Huawei has never been caught doing this. Many American companies have.
It's quite ironic hearing the Americans talk about the risk that is China when their own government is the one that's proven to be the risk.
Honest question. Is there a true EU competitor to Cisco in the transport and switching space? (The 5G cell sites are just a distraction in this discussion, it's the network backbone that's the real issue here).
You think a 5G network is just the 5G sites themselves? Talk about naive! They all route back to switching equipment. That switching equipment is Cisco in many networks, but Huawei also makes the switch gear, at lower prices, for better quality, and with no NSA spyware. The US wants to prevent ALL Huawei equipment in the network, they know full well that the de-facto replacement is Cisco for everything in the network except the actual cell sites.
The US couldn't care less about the cell sites at the end. As you point out, the US doesn't have a horse in that race. This is about the transport network where the US wants to keep Cisco (and all their own back doors) dominant.