Some places have even been accused of shortening the yellow light to catch more people running reds. I don't know if these allegations were proven, but I do know that I've seen some ridiculously short yellows.
...visibly. I guarantee that Apple's version is completely different under the hood. A small part of my job is maintaining a web scraper that monitors the website of an organization we work with and downloads updates to our local database. We do that because the organization doesn't provide a direct conduit for requesting the same data. If they decided to, though, I'm certain that their version wouldn't be implemented as a web scraper. They'd write something that dumped the output of an SQL query to XML, or similar.
I've done nearly the same thing with patches I've received to a GPLed project I maintain. Someone will send me a patch to add some new feature and I'll like the general idea of what it does, but not like the implementation. I'll re-implement it my own way make that part of the next release. I guess the biggest difference is that I publicly credit the submitter on my project's website.
with the exact same name
"Wi-Fi Sync". What else would you call it? That's the generic description of what it actually is.
and damn near the exact same logo. If it were one or two of those things, I might be willing to chalk it up to coincidence or obviousness.
You've got one of three. It is obvious functionality, and it is an obvious name. Yeah, Apple probably could've handled the PR better, but I don't see that they've actually done anything wrong.
I say this as the holder of a software patent related to adaptive systems that allows compiled applications to alter the structure and behavior of application classes at run time without writing code or recompiling the application source code.
Sigh. I just knew that if I didn't transcribe the entire event, someone would come to the worst possible (completely incorrect) interpretation. I didn't take detailed notes at the time, but the gist of it was this:
Sister set up an account with email address.
Once I figured out what happened - after getting over someone else sharing my very uncommon name - I posted something to the effect of "this account was set up incorrectly. Please have the owner write to me at [...] and I'll help him transfer the account to his own email address."
Sis promptly writes and asks why I'm hacking her brother's account.
I write back, still in a happy mood, and try to explain what happened and how we could straighten it out.
She logs into the Facebook account and changes the password, then starts complaining about hackers and friending a bunch of people for her brother. I'm seeing all of this in my email. I write to sis (because I still don't have the brother's email address) and ask her to please change its email address. She writes back angrily.
I reset the password - since it's still tied to my email - and disable the account so that it will be deleted and garbage collected within a few weeks.
A month or so later, I search for the guy and see that he has a new Facebook account with the same friends as when it was aimed at my email. It all worked out well in the end.
Again, I didn't make transcripts so I can't tell you exactly how it went down or exactly what was said, but I acted in good faith and tried to help the kid every step of the way. I was open and friendly, even when I was being accused of hacking his account. I didn't want to cause problems for anyone; I just wanted a stream of Facebook updates to stop flooding my account.
I also got an e-mail from classmates thanking me for opening a new account, I closed the account.
Hah! I have a pretty uncommon name, but I guess there's a kid in PA who shares it. His sister opened a Facebook account for him and gave my email address. After a few email exchanges where I tried to explain what happened and she ended up angry that I "hacked his account", I ended up setting its password to something 32 letters long and cryptographically random, then closing it.
I'm all for it! Basically, he's arguing that if software patents are valid, then his patents must also be valid. It probably won't be granted (but who knows these days?), but anything that highlights exactly how idiotic software patents really are. Think of his as the Flying Spaghetti Monster of Bilski. Go, crazy dude! Rock on, useful idiot!
It's a natural consequence of everyone toting around full Internet connectivity in their pocket. Client-server made sense when computing was vastly expensive, and networks were also expensive but still a cost-effective way to roll out access to centralized resources. It made no sense when networks were still expensive, but computing was cheap enough that a desktop could support common business needs. It made a lot of sense again when the network became so cheap and portable as to become pervasive, and people realized the value of having access to all their stuff while roaming around town.
I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but everyone I know who's seen the new FCP absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to upgrade. I'm sure there are people who don't like it but that's not the reaction I've witnessed at all.
I don't know whether OS X will live forever, but I'm sure that the end of Xserve isn't a sign of it going away. I know a lot of Mac people, but I've heard very few of them admit to having an Xserve, and none of those people were glad that they had it. It seemed very much a solution looking for a problem and no one actually wanted one. Basically, if you were big enough to actually need one, you were big enough to order a Dell or HP and install Linux or Windows yourself to get the same features.
Again, I have no idea what the future holds for OS X (but I can't imagine The Steve cutting off the oxygen to the high end). Regardless, pruning unsuccessful and unwanted products from their lineup is no indication that Apple is trying to get rid of their popular ones.
I don't believe in censorship or revisionism. It was part of the public record once, and it should remain so. I've seen the power to edit the record used for ill *far* more often than I've seen it used for good, and I'm not going to start down that path. Once posted, everything on my site stays posted. It's my site, so deal with it.
So I was right: it's your damn-the-consequences dedication to (your version of) the truth that's driving you. You strongly implied in your original post that you've cost him jobs. At what point have you punished him enough?
If this had reached the courts, which it nearly did, that would be part of the public record and would remain so with nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to.
That is an artifact of the design of the courts system, and not something you have direct control over. Furthermore, if he had gone to court and been found not guilty or not liable, then that judgement would also be part of the permanent record. You've decided to permanently archive only your side of the record and he never got the privilege of adding his defense (or eventual outcome) to it.
I'm obviously not that guy and don't have a dog in this race, but I reserve the right to believe that you're acting sociopathically to punish this guy for the rest of his life. We've all had bad stuff happen to us. I've been wronged by others - and in their opinion, probably wronged them too - but it's not my place to perpetually tell the world about all of it. Let it go, really. You're letting his past actions dictate your future and nothing good can come of it, for either of you.
You're a dick. So the guy did something bad when he was a kid, and "years later" (your words) you still want to punish him for it. It'd be one thing if he was still doing the crime, but you clearly believe his story that he's grown up, moved past it, and started living a responsible lifestyle. So what's your obsession with keeping this going? Is it some fucked up dedication to fanatically accurate historical documentation? Or is it the moral conviction that you're right and he's wrong and you'd be letting down your fellow judge-and-executioners by forgiving and forgetting? Or are you so in love with your words that you just have to keep them alive, even when it's clearly and blatantly hurting someone? I don't get it, man. Again, I'd be cool with this if the guy was still doing the same stuff, but you don't think he is. Why not be civil and help him move past the idiot stage of his life?
Why do you think it's dishonorable to ignore terms of service you find unconscionable? Imagine (easily enough) that only one non-dialup ISP services my city and I want/need Internet access. Their TOS states that I'm not allowed to visit any websites operated by the Green Party, or post any messages advocating any candidate not endorsed by the ISP. Am I morally obligated or honor-bound to follow their ridiculous restrictions? Of course not. I only owe them fairness in my dealings with them, where fairness is decided by the society we both live in and not some arbitrary limitations they want to impose.
Same with Netflix. It's clearly wrong and against the spirit of the contract for me to post my username and password on a message board so that all of my neighbors can use it without paying. It's not wrong at all for me to let my wife use the account, regardless of how Netflix feels about it (although they almost assuredly couldn't care less), and for damn certain regardless of how some dumbass governor wants it to be.
From the linked articled:
While those who share their subscriptions with a spouse or other family members under the same roof almost certainly have nothing to fear,
Translation: they abso-fucking-lutely have something to fear the first time a clever prosecutor decides to run with it.
Amazon will pick the fuck up and move out of the state.
And since Amazon isn't physically located in CA, their "employees" are local affiliates that Amazon can "fire" by dropping them from the affiliate program with a single bulk email. Sign a bill into law and watch as the sole effect is that 10,000 of your constituents lose their side incomes 15 minutes later. That's sure to help come re-election time!
Not married, huh? I'm willing to accept conditions on my travel plans that I would find completely unacceptable in software, mainly because it beats the hell out of sleeping on the couch. As people keep pointing out, these are two wholly separate parts of a person's life, and it's not at all hypocritical to manage them differently.
Oh, I don't know. There are times when I wish I could ask someone for advice, like "I have this problem, and I'm thinking about solving it this way. What do you think?"
First, SparkFun has a hugely better selection than the local Rat Shack ever did. Second, OK, so you decide to shift focus. Where are you going to get the people to staff these places? You can't throw a few ICs on a wall display and expect the mouthbreather at the front desk to be able to help with it. I'd honestly rather buy from a vending machine than deal with the kid who's trying to upsell me to a gold-plated breadboard, and would I like an iPod case with that? Finally, prices, prices, prices! The cat ate the charger to my wife's laptop. I found a replacement through the manufacturer's website for $50, and from eBay for $16. Rat Shack only stocked a universal (read: Soviet styling with crap specs) unit for $80.
So how's this supposed to work? They're not going to outstock online stores or other established local specialty shops. They don't have a competent sales force (and probably can't get one, because people worth having probably wouldn't be caught dead working there). I can't imagine that they'll ever set reasonable price points. Nah, they're dead to me - and apparently to almost everyone else. The "Radio Shack" brand is crap, and I don't think they can salvage it. I think their best best is to throw it away and launch a giant rebranding and "we used to suck and we're honest about that but we're better now" blitz.
Slashdot Mirror
Some places have even been accused of shortening the yellow light to catch more people running reds. I don't know if these allegations were proven, but I do know that I've seen some ridiculously short yellows.
They most certainly have been proven.
That's BS. It's the exact same functionality
...visibly. I guarantee that Apple's version is completely different under the hood. A small part of my job is maintaining a web scraper that monitors the website of an organization we work with and downloads updates to our local database. We do that because the organization doesn't provide a direct conduit for requesting the same data. If they decided to, though, I'm certain that their version wouldn't be implemented as a web scraper. They'd write something that dumped the output of an SQL query to XML, or similar.
I've done nearly the same thing with patches I've received to a GPLed project I maintain. Someone will send me a patch to add some new feature and I'll like the general idea of what it does, but not like the implementation. I'll re-implement it my own way make that part of the next release. I guess the biggest difference is that I publicly credit the submitter on my project's website.
with the exact same name
"Wi-Fi Sync". What else would you call it? That's the generic description of what it actually is.
and damn near the exact same logo. If it were one or two of those things, I might be willing to chalk it up to coincidence or obviousness.
You've got one of three. It is obvious functionality, and it is an obvious name. Yeah, Apple probably could've handled the PR better, but I don't see that they've actually done anything wrong.
I say this as the holder of a software patent related to adaptive systems that allows compiled applications to alter the structure and behavior of application classes at run time without writing code or recompiling the application source code.
How the hell did you patent Lisp?
Is there a need an fsck? For example, ZFS doesn't have one and I haven't heard of anybody working on it (or of anybody actually wanting one).
Sigh. I just knew that if I didn't transcribe the entire event, someone would come to the worst possible (completely incorrect) interpretation. I didn't take detailed notes at the time, but the gist of it was this:
Sister set up an account with email address.
Once I figured out what happened - after getting over someone else sharing my very uncommon name - I posted something to the effect of "this account was set up incorrectly. Please have the owner write to me at [...] and I'll help him transfer the account to his own email address."
Sis promptly writes and asks why I'm hacking her brother's account.
I write back, still in a happy mood, and try to explain what happened and how we could straighten it out.
She logs into the Facebook account and changes the password, then starts complaining about hackers and friending a bunch of people for her brother. I'm seeing all of this in my email. I write to sis (because I still don't have the brother's email address) and ask her to please change its email address. She writes back angrily.
I reset the password - since it's still tied to my email - and disable the account so that it will be deleted and garbage collected within a few weeks.
A month or so later, I search for the guy and see that he has a new Facebook account with the same friends as when it was aimed at my email. It all worked out well in the end.
Again, I didn't make transcripts so I can't tell you exactly how it went down or exactly what was said, but I acted in good faith and tried to help the kid every step of the way. I was open and friendly, even when I was being accused of hacking his account. I didn't want to cause problems for anyone; I just wanted a stream of Facebook updates to stop flooding my account.
I also got an e-mail from classmates thanking me for opening a new account, I closed the account.
Hah! I have a pretty uncommon name, but I guess there's a kid in PA who shares it. His sister opened a Facebook account for him and gave my email address. After a few email exchanges where I tried to explain what happened and she ended up angry that I "hacked his account", I ended up setting its password to something 32 letters long and cryptographically random, then closing it.
I'm all for it! Basically, he's arguing that if software patents are valid, then his patents must also be valid. It probably won't be granted (but who knows these days?), but anything that highlights exactly how idiotic software patents really are. Think of his as the Flying Spaghetti Monster of Bilski. Go, crazy dude! Rock on, useful idiot!
Wrong movie, Ebert.
Steve Jobs must have read this book.
It's a natural consequence of everyone toting around full Internet connectivity in their pocket. Client-server made sense when computing was vastly expensive, and networks were also expensive but still a cost-effective way to roll out access to centralized resources. It made no sense when networks were still expensive, but computing was cheap enough that a desktop could support common business needs. It made a lot of sense again when the network became so cheap and portable as to become pervasive, and people realized the value of having access to all their stuff while roaming around town.
I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but everyone I know who's seen the new FCP absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to upgrade. I'm sure there are people who don't like it but that's not the reaction I've witnessed at all.
I don't know whether OS X will live forever, but I'm sure that the end of Xserve isn't a sign of it going away. I know a lot of Mac people, but I've heard very few of them admit to having an Xserve, and none of those people were glad that they had it. It seemed very much a solution looking for a problem and no one actually wanted one. Basically, if you were big enough to actually need one, you were big enough to order a Dell or HP and install Linux or Windows yourself to get the same features.
Again, I have no idea what the future holds for OS X (but I can't imagine The Steve cutting off the oxygen to the high end). Regardless, pruning unsuccessful and unwanted products from their lineup is no indication that Apple is trying to get rid of their popular ones.
I'll give a rat's ass when Sony is held to the same legal standards as Joe Hacker.
When you install Windows 7 or a new Linux kernel, do you have to restart? Why? OS X Lion don't require that.
Do you have a link to support your claim that Lion doesn't require a reboot after a kernel upgrade?
I don't believe in censorship or revisionism. It was part of the public record once, and it should remain so. I've seen the power to edit the record used for ill *far* more often than I've seen it used for good, and I'm not going to start down that path. Once posted, everything on my site stays posted. It's my site, so deal with it.
So I was right: it's your damn-the-consequences dedication to (your version of) the truth that's driving you. You strongly implied in your original post that you've cost him jobs. At what point have you punished him enough?
If this had reached the courts, which it nearly did, that would be part of the public record and would remain so with nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to.
That is an artifact of the design of the courts system, and not something you have direct control over. Furthermore, if he had gone to court and been found not guilty or not liable, then that judgement would also be part of the permanent record. You've decided to permanently archive only your side of the record and he never got the privilege of adding his defense (or eventual outcome) to it.
I'm obviously not that guy and don't have a dog in this race, but I reserve the right to believe that you're acting sociopathically to punish this guy for the rest of his life. We've all had bad stuff happen to us. I've been wronged by others - and in their opinion, probably wronged them too - but it's not my place to perpetually tell the world about all of it. Let it go, really. You're letting his past actions dictate your future and nothing good can come of it, for either of you.
Is carbon dating viable in a radioactive environment?
You're a dick. So the guy did something bad when he was a kid, and "years later" (your words) you still want to punish him for it. It'd be one thing if he was still doing the crime, but you clearly believe his story that he's grown up, moved past it, and started living a responsible lifestyle. So what's your obsession with keeping this going? Is it some fucked up dedication to fanatically accurate historical documentation? Or is it the moral conviction that you're right and he's wrong and you'd be letting down your fellow judge-and-executioners by forgiving and forgetting? Or are you so in love with your words that you just have to keep them alive, even when it's clearly and blatantly hurting someone? I don't get it, man. Again, I'd be cool with this if the guy was still doing the same stuff, but you don't think he is. Why not be civil and help him move past the idiot stage of his life?
Why do you think it's dishonorable to ignore terms of service you find unconscionable? Imagine (easily enough) that only one non-dialup ISP services my city and I want/need Internet access. Their TOS states that I'm not allowed to visit any websites operated by the Green Party, or post any messages advocating any candidate not endorsed by the ISP. Am I morally obligated or honor-bound to follow their ridiculous restrictions? Of course not. I only owe them fairness in my dealings with them, where fairness is decided by the society we both live in and not some arbitrary limitations they want to impose.
Same with Netflix. It's clearly wrong and against the spirit of the contract for me to post my username and password on a message board so that all of my neighbors can use it without paying. It's not wrong at all for me to let my wife use the account, regardless of how Netflix feels about it (although they almost assuredly couldn't care less), and for damn certain regardless of how some dumbass governor wants it to be.
From the linked articled:
While those who share their subscriptions with a spouse or other family members under the same roof almost certainly have nothing to fear,
Translation: they abso-fucking-lutely have something to fear the first time a clever prosecutor decides to run with it.
Bravo! [applauds enthusiastically]
Amazon will pick the fuck up and move out of the state.
And since Amazon isn't physically located in CA, their "employees" are local affiliates that Amazon can "fire" by dropping them from the affiliate program with a single bulk email. Sign a bill into law and watch as the sole effect is that 10,000 of your constituents lose their side incomes 15 minutes later. That's sure to help come re-election time!
You have an interestingly horrifying idea of "a civilized country".
Not married, huh? I'm willing to accept conditions on my travel plans that I would find completely unacceptable in software, mainly because it beats the hell out of sleeping on the couch. As people keep pointing out, these are two wholly separate parts of a person's life, and it's not at all hypocritical to manage them differently.
Oh, I don't know. There are times when I wish I could ask someone for advice, like "I have this problem, and I'm thinking about solving it this way. What do you think?"
First, SparkFun has a hugely better selection than the local Rat Shack ever did. Second, OK, so you decide to shift focus. Where are you going to get the people to staff these places? You can't throw a few ICs on a wall display and expect the mouthbreather at the front desk to be able to help with it. I'd honestly rather buy from a vending machine than deal with the kid who's trying to upsell me to a gold-plated breadboard, and would I like an iPod case with that? Finally, prices, prices, prices! The cat ate the charger to my wife's laptop. I found a replacement through the manufacturer's website for $50, and from eBay for $16. Rat Shack only stocked a universal (read: Soviet styling with crap specs) unit for $80.
So how's this supposed to work? They're not going to outstock online stores or other established local specialty shops. They don't have a competent sales force (and probably can't get one, because people worth having probably wouldn't be caught dead working there). I can't imagine that they'll ever set reasonable price points. Nah, they're dead to me - and apparently to almost everyone else. The "Radio Shack" brand is crap, and I don't think they can salvage it. I think their best best is to throw it away and launch a giant rebranding and "we used to suck and we're honest about that but we're better now" blitz.
I think it's spelled "SSD" now. Truthfully, SSDs are so fast that IO isn't the bottleneck on startups anymore.
"Lately". Heh.