Trusts, price-fixing, monopolies or near monopolies abusing their position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another, etc.
The less regulation you have, the sooner the "free market" turns in to just a few large multinationals crushing any small competitor that dares come along.
What good would that ridiculous rating system do again?
Hell, it's useless now! What kind of reputation does Wal-Mart have? Has that impacted their business in any significant way? BP and Exxon are doing just fine with a poor reputation. (It's not like they couldn't spend their own money to muddy the waters or try to discredit the rating agency anyway.)
The free market doesn't work the way you think it does.
Some rating agencies would take money from the industry and some would make their name by adding to the cost of the final product and thus take their money from the consumers.
Let's say this was true. Ratings agencies wouldn't have any incentive to bash one of their customers products -- and every incentive to extort a little extra from companies they rate to overlook problems or other dangers with their product.
In the case of thalidomide, how would the connection to the drug and horrible birth defects even have been detected? Even if such a connection were made, why wouldn't the drug company pay the rating agency and the press to keep it quiet?
I know, those companies will just "do the right thing" all on their own! Sure...
Still on medicine, what incentive do drug companies have to develop new drugs -- or to make sure that the new drugs they make actually work the way they say they will? Who's going to independently verify their claims? What's to stop them from paying off anyone who finds contradictory results? It's a free market -- pay me to not publish!
What about things like trusts and price-fixing? The unregulated free market LOVES those! What about anti-competitive practices to stifle competition? The free market is also really really good at that.
In the case of BP, why would they need insurance? DWH was outside US territorial waters, and without regulated markets, things like "Exclusive Economic Zone" don't make any sense, do they? I'd say the property owners would have been screwed. Even if they were legally responsible, why would insurance need to come in to play? They could just face all the lawsuits and bully a few to discourage the remainder. The mess would still be there -- who would clean it up? What incentive would BP have to clean up the spill?
I haven't even got to banks -- without regulation, we KNOW the kind of problems they can cause!
Unregulated markets are dangerous. History has shown this to be the case.
Maybe you should pose that 'hazardous material' question to your governments as is, because BP had 75Million dollar liability cap provided by gov't, so what gives? The free market does not provide liability caps,
You're right. Without government interference, BP wouldn't have any liability. They wouldn't have had to waste all that money cleaning up their spill! Think of all the jobs that clean-up money could have created!
There shouldn't be gov't standing between me and any drug manufacturer in the world
You've got me there! They should be free to sell thalidomide to pregnant women (works just fine for nausea!) , compete on equal footing with homeopathic medicine, and make any claims they want about their products. They made it, after all, the ought to know better than some gov't what their pills can do!
I was so mad when that damn gov't shut down Dr. Walker's all-purpose curative elixer and spot remover. That Obummer is outta control!
Companies should be able to do what they want and the only limit for them is like for individuals - the criminal code and the contract court. Gov't has a role: protection of individual rights,
Woah! Easy there libtard -- I don't want the gov't telling me what is right and wrong! My Bible takes care of that just fine. As for contracts, I've got a Smith and Wesson that'll take care of enforcement quicker than any gov't run kangaroo court!
There are some users here that have a pathological hatred for maximized windows -- just hearing about full screen, to them, is like getting raped by Satan.
These guys don't believe you can do anything productive without at least 7 36" monitors, with 15 or so windows arranged in each.
I have little doubt that they'd try to give a presentation on their dedicated presentation monitor (one of those old, microscopic, 21" LCDs) in a window that takes up about 25% of the display.
Be careful. They tend to bite if they're not handled a few times a week.
Yeah, it sucks we have things like the USDA, FDA, EPA, etc. that keep unsafe drugs and tainted food off the market and keep hazardous materials out of our air and water.
Companies should be free to do whatever they want. If they can get away with it (e.g. the public doesn't find out) that should be a-okay!
I mean, it's not like a large corporation would ever do anything to increase profits at the expense of the public good, right?
It Is Evil To Ignore 4 Days, Does Your Teacher Know ?
You ignore 3 of 4 days - Force 4 days on Earth, They Already Exist. 4 Horsename have 4 days in only 1 Earth rotation 4 Angels stood on 4 corners. 4 Corners rotate to 16 corners Which Equal To 4 Corner Days Teachers Are Evil Liars
Yes, I think the people of Gartner are retarded Gungans.
What are these Gungans that you speak of? There were no such monsters shitting all over a beloved franchise. You must have imagined them as being part of three movies that don't exist.
File system management with advances like Content/Document management systems and web and cloud-based everything is no longer a really needed skill. Even the Dino OSs have unified search capabilities and most are moving to "cloud storage".
By "no longer a really needed skill" I think you mean "I predict that in the future it will no longer be a needed skill"
I'm not buying it. I've yet to see any "solution" that is actually simpler than the standard file system tree.
whereas on my desktop OS I have to try and download it , poke around trying to find it on my file system somewhere (good luck with that if you're not technical)
Come on! Even a 20-something secretary, who (prior to her employment) hasn't used a computer to do anything aside from "checking facebook", can handle basic file management!
How many technical people do you think you'll find in the average office? Now, how many of them regularly perform task that requires basic file management?
How many can send email attachments, use the copy machine to scan a document, or move files around on a USB drive?
It's not complicated. Millions of non-technical people do it every day.
Apple can get away with that kind of nonsense, for a while longer anyway. Microsoft on the other hand... well... this basically kills RT and "Metro" apps.
Don't be silly. Aging executives who could barely turn on their computer could use a BlackBerry efficiently and effectively. This is to say nothing of the zillion other smartphone brands that were also user-friendly.
You make it sound like using a smartphone before the iPhone was like flying the space shuttle! The truth is that most smartphones were easier to use than the average feature-phone at the time.
As for apps and web browsing being "awful" I recommend you read some reviews from 2005-2007. No one else seemed to thing that it was "awful".
It has not caused a problem in years of actual use.
This is simply not true.
Not long ago on work trip a colleague needed to send a file back to the office. He had a laptop and an iPhone. No wifi was available where we stopped and he had no way to get the file from his computer to his iPhone to send the file. The application you mentioned was unknown to either of us at the time and was, consequently, not installed.
I copied the file to my phone's SD card and emailed it to him so that he could send it from his phone. No special software or additional new knowledge required.
That's a problem and a problem that would not have occurred had the iPhone had a user accessible file system.
(Just curious, as I can't check for myself at present, the file was an Excel spreadsheet. Had he had the software you mentioned, could he have attached the file to an email once copied to the phone?)
When I'm invited to speak, typically there is a laptop connected to a projector to with which presenters will use to access their presentation. Presenters will, before the start of the session, copy their presentation on to the computer, or (on occasion) plug the drive in at the beginning of their presentation.
Now, if i wanted to replace the laptop with an iPad, how would the presenters get their presentation to the tablet?
Where I think Windows 8 and Windows RT will do well is this kind of common use case, where I have a file on a USB drive that I need on another device. With W8/RT I just plug the stick in to the side and open the file. With the iPad, I use a computer as an intermediary, provided that the necessary software has already been installed.
That's just one example, but you get my point. Not having a user accessible file system *introduces* new problems that it takes a far more competent and skilled technical person to solve. Not geek/tech guy problems, but normal business user problems. Normal student problems.
If Apple gave users a user accessible file system, it would dramatically improve the utility of their tablet. As we've seen from other platforms, you can still have a simplified "unskilled user" view without giving up the many benefits that "normal" FS access gives you.
Most people do not, but if you really want to you can do that with an iPad using an application like iPhone Explorer. I can place files onto the iPad anywhere, and also take them off.
It's not just technical users that want a user accessible file system -- it's also the average business person, the average student, etc. iPhone Explorer clearly helps meet a need, but it's far from sufficient for most users.
Unless I'm mistaken, iPhone Explorer is a Mac app that lets you treat your iPhone/iPad like a USB drive, yes? It's not quite the same thing as being able to jam a USB stick into the side of the machine (like business persons often do) and pulling up their file/presentation/whatever. They'll need a Mac and this program to act as an intermediary.
With any luck, Apple will come to their senses and do what's in the best interest of their customers.
Android and iOS are not the be-all, end-all of mobile operating systems. BB10 and Windows 8 have advantages over both and may or may not be a better fit than the two current leaders.
Windows RT seems like a wash, though I can see it competing successfully against iOS and Android in the enterprise just by having Microsoft Office. It could have been a real contender, but they locked "Metro" apps to the Store and put up a few pointless barriers for enterprise customers. If they change their tune and allow "Metro" apps to be "side loaded" easily by any and all customers, I would expect that it would be quite a hit. If they could then additionally manage remote management features on-par with RIM, they'd own the enterprise tablet market overnight.
So, yes, I want a third or fourth mobile OS. Competition is great.
(If we can foster enough diversity, maybe we could even get a standard for apps going. Even something simple like a universal HTML5 app package would be great for consumers.)
Are you serious? You want e-mails when most projects in medicine and physics that are federally funded don't even release their raw data?! Why aren't you clamoring for the DNA and raw collider data that has been built with your taxpaying dollars? Or should they just refuse federal funding as well?
Maybe this is off-topic, but I (and many others) believe that publicly funded research should be freely available to the public.
Slashdot Mirror
Regulation is necessary for competition.
Trusts, price-fixing, monopolies or near monopolies abusing their position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another, etc.
The less regulation you have, the sooner the "free market" turns in to just a few large multinationals crushing any small competitor that dares come along.
What good would that ridiculous rating system do again?
Hell, it's useless now! What kind of reputation does Wal-Mart have? Has that impacted their business in any significant way? BP and Exxon are doing just fine with a poor reputation. (It's not like they couldn't spend their own money to muddy the waters or try to discredit the rating agency anyway.)
I haven't checked, but I'll bet they'd even make Apple blush...
The free market doesn't work the way you think it does.
Some rating agencies would take money from the industry and some would make their name by adding to the cost of the final product and thus take their money from the consumers.
Let's say this was true. Ratings agencies wouldn't have any incentive to bash one of their customers products -- and every incentive to extort a little extra from companies they rate to overlook problems or other dangers with their product.
In the case of thalidomide, how would the connection to the drug and horrible birth defects even have been detected? Even if such a connection were made, why wouldn't the drug company pay the rating agency and the press to keep it quiet?
I know, those companies will just "do the right thing" all on their own! Sure...
Still on medicine, what incentive do drug companies have to develop new drugs -- or to make sure that the new drugs they make actually work the way they say they will? Who's going to independently verify their claims? What's to stop them from paying off anyone who finds contradictory results? It's a free market -- pay me to not publish!
What about things like trusts and price-fixing? The unregulated free market LOVES those! What about anti-competitive practices to stifle competition? The free market is also really really good at that.
In the case of BP, why would they need insurance? DWH was outside US territorial waters, and without regulated markets, things like "Exclusive Economic Zone" don't make any sense, do they? I'd say the property owners would have been screwed. Even if they were legally responsible, why would insurance need to come in to play? They could just face all the lawsuits and bully a few to discourage the remainder. The mess would still be there -- who would clean it up? What incentive would BP have to clean up the spill?
I haven't even got to banks -- without regulation, we KNOW the kind of problems they can cause!
Unregulated markets are dangerous. History has shown this to be the case.
Maybe you should pose that 'hazardous material' question to your governments as is, because BP had 75Million dollar liability cap provided by gov't, so what gives? The free market does not provide liability caps,
You're right. Without government interference, BP wouldn't have any liability. They wouldn't have had to waste all that money cleaning up their spill! Think of all the jobs that clean-up money could have created!
There shouldn't be gov't standing between me and any drug manufacturer in the world
You've got me there! They should be free to sell thalidomide to pregnant women (works just fine for nausea!) , compete on equal footing with homeopathic medicine, and make any claims they want about their products. They made it, after all, the ought to know better than some gov't what their pills can do!
I was so mad when that damn gov't shut down Dr. Walker's all-purpose curative elixer and spot remover. That Obummer is outta control!
Companies should be able to do what they want and the only limit for them is like for individuals - the criminal code and the contract court. Gov't has a role: protection of individual rights,
Woah! Easy there libtard -- I don't want the gov't telling me what is right and wrong! My Bible takes care of that just fine. As for contracts, I've got a Smith and Wesson that'll take care of enforcement quicker than any gov't run kangaroo court!
Full screen presentations aren't needed
There are some users here that have a pathological hatred for maximized windows -- just hearing about full screen, to them, is like getting raped by Satan.
These guys don't believe you can do anything productive without at least 7 36" monitors, with 15 or so windows arranged in each.
I have little doubt that they'd try to give a presentation on their dedicated presentation monitor (one of those old, microscopic, 21" LCDs) in a window that takes up about 25% of the display.
Be careful. They tend to bite if they're not handled a few times a week.
Yeah, it sucks we have things like the USDA, FDA, EPA, etc. that keep unsafe drugs and tainted food off the market and keep hazardous materials out of our air and water.
Companies should be free to do whatever they want. If they can get away with it (e.g. the public doesn't find out) that should be a-okay!
I mean, it's not like a large corporation would ever do anything to increase profits at the expense of the public good, right?
And a war criminal.
We can all agree the X is a gigantic mess. It needs replaced by something better -- badly.
Yeah, we'll lose ... a lot ... but won't it ultimately be worth it in the end?
I see from your post that you are Educated Evil.
It Is Evil To Ignore 4 Days, Does Your Teacher Know ?
You ignore 3 of 4 days - Force 4 days on Earth, They Already Exist.
4 Horsename have 4 days in only 1 Earth rotation
4 Angels stood on 4 corners.
4 Corners rotate to 16 corners
Which Equal To 4 Corner Days
Teachers Are Evil Liars
Yes, I think the people of Gartner are retarded Gungans.
What are these Gungans that you speak of? There were no such monsters shitting all over a beloved franchise. You must have imagined them as being part of three movies that don't exist.
If that were true then why do I see all these monkeys with iPhones?
Oh...
It all makes sense now, thanks!
Call me when Android development doesn't suck.
(Because right now, it sucks. Even Apple and RIM are ahead there. How sad is that?)
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while...
(Probably not this time)
File system management with advances like Content/Document management systems and web and cloud-based everything is no longer a really needed skill. Even the Dino OSs have unified search capabilities and most are moving to "cloud storage".
By "no longer a really needed skill" I think you mean "I predict that in the future it will no longer be a needed skill"
I'm not buying it. I've yet to see any "solution" that is actually simpler than the standard file system tree.
whereas on my desktop OS I have to try and download it , poke around trying to find it on my file system somewhere (good luck with that if you're not technical)
Come on! Even a 20-something secretary, who (prior to her employment) hasn't used a computer to do anything aside from "checking facebook", can handle basic file management!
How many technical people do you think you'll find in the average office? Now, how many of them regularly perform task that requires basic file management?
How many can send email attachments, use the copy machine to scan a document, or move files around on a USB drive?
It's not complicated. Millions of non-technical people do it every day.
It's exactly as open as the iPad:
Which is a huge mistake.
Apple can get away with that kind of nonsense, for a while longer anyway. Microsoft on the other hand... well... this basically kills RT and "Metro" apps.
Don't be silly. Aging executives who could barely turn on their computer could use a BlackBerry efficiently and effectively. This is to say nothing of the zillion other smartphone brands that were also user-friendly.
You make it sound like using a smartphone before the iPhone was like flying the space shuttle! The truth is that most smartphones were easier to use than the average feature-phone at the time.
As for apps and web browsing being "awful" I recommend you read some reviews from 2005-2007. No one else seemed to thing that it was "awful".
It has not caused a problem in years of actual use.
This is simply not true.
Not long ago on work trip a colleague needed to send a file back to the office. He had a laptop and an iPhone. No wifi was available where we stopped and he had no way to get the file from his computer to his iPhone to send the file. The application you mentioned was unknown to either of us at the time and was, consequently, not installed.
I copied the file to my phone's SD card and emailed it to him so that he could send it from his phone. No special software or additional new knowledge required.
That's a problem and a problem that would not have occurred had the iPhone had a user accessible file system.
(Just curious, as I can't check for myself at present, the file was an Excel spreadsheet. Had he had the software you mentioned, could he have attached the file to an email once copied to the phone?)
I don't follow you're reasoning.
When I'm invited to speak, typically there is a laptop connected to a projector to with which presenters will use to access their presentation. Presenters will, before the start of the session, copy their presentation on to the computer, or (on occasion) plug the drive in at the beginning of their presentation.
Now, if i wanted to replace the laptop with an iPad, how would the presenters get their presentation to the tablet?
Where I think Windows 8 and Windows RT will do well is this kind of common use case, where I have a file on a USB drive that I need on another device. With W8/RT I just plug the stick in to the side and open the file. With the iPad, I use a computer as an intermediary, provided that the necessary software has already been installed.
That's just one example, but you get my point. Not having a user accessible file system *introduces* new problems that it takes a far more competent and skilled technical person to solve. Not geek/tech guy problems, but normal business user problems. Normal student problems.
If Apple gave users a user accessible file system, it would dramatically improve the utility of their tablet. As we've seen from other platforms, you can still have a simplified "unskilled user" view without giving up the many benefits that "normal" FS access gives you.
Most people do not, but if you really want to you can do that with an iPad using an application like iPhone Explorer. I can place files onto the iPad anywhere, and also take them off.
It's not just technical users that want a user accessible file system -- it's also the average business person, the average student, etc. iPhone Explorer clearly helps meet a need, but it's far from sufficient for most users.
Unless I'm mistaken, iPhone Explorer is a Mac app that lets you treat your iPhone/iPad like a USB drive, yes? It's not quite the same thing as being able to jam a USB stick into the side of the machine (like business persons often do) and pulling up their file/presentation/whatever. They'll need a Mac and this program to act as an intermediary.
With any luck, Apple will come to their senses and do what's in the best interest of their customers.
Microsoft didn't sell hardware ... now they do
What? They've been in the hardware game for a while.
Android and iOS are not the be-all, end-all of mobile operating systems. BB10 and Windows 8 have advantages over both and may or may not be a better fit than the two current leaders.
Windows RT seems like a wash, though I can see it competing successfully against iOS and Android in the enterprise just by having Microsoft Office. It could have been a real contender, but they locked "Metro" apps to the Store and put up a few pointless barriers for enterprise customers. If they change their tune and allow "Metro" apps to be "side loaded" easily by any and all customers, I would expect that it would be quite a hit. If they could then additionally manage remote management features on-par with RIM, they'd own the enterprise tablet market overnight.
So, yes, I want a third or fourth mobile OS. Competition is great.
(If we can foster enough diversity, maybe we could even get a standard for apps going. Even something simple like a universal HTML5 app package would be great for consumers.)
Why would it replace laptops but not iPads?
Do you think that business users are going to carry along two tablets? To what end? For what purpose?
Why don't you take a seat over there...
Are you serious? You want e-mails when most projects in medicine and physics that are federally funded don't even release their raw data?! Why aren't you clamoring for the DNA and raw collider data that has been built with your taxpaying dollars? Or should they just refuse federal funding as well?
Maybe this is off-topic, but I (and many others) believe that publicly funded research should be freely available to the public.