When I was a younger, in its early days, the whole reason the internet was great is because there were no gender, skin color or religion, we were all just nerds. No one knew or cared WHAT you were, just WHO you were. I remember when the idea of telling someone your real name on the internet was considered madness. I miss those days. It was just a lot simpler.
Unfortunately, as the internet came to the masses it brought with it all the benefits but also all the problems of society in general. I remember the days when you could actually sell and trade items on Usenet (yes, Usenet =/ Internet) and not worry about getting scammed. Trolling did not have a bad connotation; it had classics such THF2's "Shadows in the vacuum of space." Ludwig Plutonium KIBO AFU even had periodic meetings where you got to know each other. Then came eternal September...
Of course, even in those days we had things like the Green Card Lawyers spam and a Usenet mob rising up in indignation. The Serdar Argic bot spamming every mention of Turkey.
Really? You have a State Issued ID that MUST be affixed to your car, and you are willfully driving it and PARKING IT in public view, on private property. And that is invading privacy?
True. Since a Bond DB5 license plate is not a feasible solution, the solution is to not shop there, encourage others to do the same, and let stores know why you won't shop there. Until, of course, once someone figures out how to hack CA new ePlate to darken it on command.
(The subsequent litigation over attorney's fees went all the way to SCOTUS.)
Fogerty was able to show an artist has a certain technique that can sound the same to the average listener but that each composition was different, and thus won. The interesting thing is SCOTUS decided defendants were potentially entitled to recovering lawyer's fees in any case, not just those that were frivolous or made in bad faith. That is important, as the previous standard meant only deep pocket defendants could bring a case or defend themselves. The court, since copyright law is intended to encourage artist to develop creative works for the public good, there needs to be an economic incentive to bring and defend copyright cases, regardless of the wealth of either party.
That said, IMO, the fair use determination is bogus, and would likely be overturned on appeal.
I would hope so; but a bigger issues many people feel anything they ind on the Internet is free to use. I worked for a company that pulled photos; chic strips, etc. and incorporated it into material we used for training sessions for which we charged (a lot). When I pointed this out one VP said "We found it on the Internet so it is free for use to use..." When I pointed out that much of our proprietary training materials are easily found online does that mean any of our competitors could use it for free, he responded "Of course not, it is our copyrighted material." At that point, I gave up arguing because you can't fix stupid so don't even try.
I'm surprised, when we did a round of layoffs, the no one anonymously sent material to the copyright owners; since several of them were large corporations that protect their material vigorously. Whenever I wrote training material if I found something of value I'd like to use I'd license it; which often was surprisingly cheap; or use photos I took of their buildings, etc. so there was no copyright involved with the photos. ranted, they may have design patent on them but I felt we would have much stronger case, rightly or wrongly, based on how we used their items and the disclaimers I included in the material.For example, I needed a photo of a ship pulling into port and pulled one of my photos of a ship docking.
The funny part of it is we never registered our material, so if someone did do that we could only recover a lot less than the cost of suing. While our use was clearly commercial and this different from the VA case; and I have seen similar material used in other company's training as well. it illustrates that even people who should know better think using whatever the find is ok is one even those who should know better is probably more widespread than we think.
So they decided Rickshaw was the guy after analyzing the information they had; then, when they got the last two letters, were able to decode them to conclusively prove he did it? They even were able to decode his name in the letters? He may have been a prime suspect, per TFA, but absent physical evidence such as a parachute or a stack of bills from the hijacking I would not consider that conclusive. If Rickshaw is a narcissist who needs to prove he was smarter than everyone else I would think he'd save proof that he was in fact D. B. Cooper an not yet another imposter.
businesses that don't have dedicated IT or consulting firms are unlikely to have the skills to write formal requirements.
Not only that, but they probably don't understand what it takes to write good requirements document and will balk at the cost of developing one. Add in they probably expect to get thousands of dollars of work for pennies on the dollar and you have a prescription for disaster. As a result, what they get is not what they expect and they are not happy.
Shouldn't that mean that either the players play according to the rules or change the rules? Saying that "The refs can't call the rules as the players play and that's just how it is" seems a bit silly to me. I'd be happy if they would start calling traveling and palming again.
Having played and later refereed; the ref's job is to control the game without inserting themselves into it. If you make every ticky tacky call the game stops being the game. Call the big ones, penalize the flagrant, but let the players play the game. The players understand the bounds beyond the rules and generally stay within them; when they don't they get called for it.
This seems to work just fine for MLB, your mileage may vary as to whether this works for the NFL, and it is entirely broken in the NBA, such that with the latter, who the refereeing crew is for the night has become a popular fan metagame, considered to be very indicative of the success/failure of various teams. The NBA, more than any other sport I can think of, has a "dark cloud of suspicion" over it with distrust of the refereeing. It's made even worse by there being two different rulesets that referees tend to enforce -- one fairly relaxed set of rules that are applied to "superstars" (like the Kevin Jameses of the various teams), and another much harder set applied to everyone else. They allow the superstars to get away with more things that would be called fouls if anyone else did it.
Good points. In the end, its just entertainment. If robot refs make the game more interesting for the fans and boost revenue, they will do it. If not, they won't.
Which is good to keep in mind when buying from domestic brands, but Chinese manufacturers are increasing selling their shoddiest products directly through Amazon now. Some of these are designed directly in China with the intent of cutting costs to the minimum, which is even worse than the average cost-cutting approach used by domestic brands.
Seriously, putting much trust in brand names is silly these days, but buying a piece of critical safety equipment from TOPOLEK, or WINFI, or MODOAO or any of the assortment of identical looking and implausibly cheap sources is more than just naive.
Great points. At least with a well known brand you have some assurance of at least a minimal level of quality; plus someone to go after if it fails. As my dad said, sometime the cheaper alternative is more expensive.
Hence when the whole device costs in that range, you can be sure an ElCheapo $1 sensor was used. (Prices from Ebay, so YMMV.) Also, gas-flow is non-trivial, you cannot just put the sensor into a case, put some holes in that case and hope for the best. And actual testing the device is not so cheap or easy too. I expect these fails were "blind designs" were the "engineer" just read the datasheet and build the device without ever doing any real and costly testing.
Here's the thing about Chinese manufacturing. They will build to a price point and cut costs to meet the price and schedule. If you want quality you need to pay for it and closely monitor the results.
Don't even get me started on the NBA. An AI referee that called the rules as written would foul out the entire lineup for both teams in the first quarter.
Shouldn't that mean that either the players play according to the rules or change the rules? Saying that "The refs can't call the rules as the players play and that's just how it is" seems a bit silly to me. I'd be happy if they would start calling traveling and palming again.
Having played and later refereed; the ref's job is to control the game without inserting themselves into it. If you make every ticky tacky call the game stops being the game. Call the big ones, penalize the flagrant, but let the players play the game. The players understand the bounds beyond the rules and generally stay within them; when they don't they get called for it.
Beyond your examples, it provides a way for phone manufacturers to know when you are operating a vehicle,
If the manufacturer is monitoring every phone to the extent you suggest, they already know that, since they can safely assume you're not out for your morning jog at 70 mph....
It's to so much the manufacturer collecting the data but now they have a positive trigger on the phone that can be used to allow other actions as part of a workflow. Some can be positive like disabling texting, NFC could also allow auto emergency calls if an accident is detected, etc. Is the information already available by inference since if the GPS sees you go at 15 MPH they can assume you are in a car; this just verifies who is most probably driving. On the negative side, it could trigger auto tracking for a phone, send alarms if certain areas or speeds are exceeded, etc., based on the assumption of who is driving. In the long run, it's not that much different from what can be done already; as you point out.
Beyond your examples, it provides a way for phone manufacturers to know when you are operating a vehicle, under the assumption that the phone used to unlock and start is the drivers. Once they have that information, how will they use it? Turning off texting and other messaging apps would certainly help solve the problem of idiots who text and drive, but how else can that information be used? What other services will be disabled if the think you are driving? Siri already won't let me open the garage door when it thinks I am driving, even if I am in my own driveway.
When World Of Warcraft was in beta, after killing a certain number of monsters, your experience would per kill would be cut in half.
Everyone hated it.
So, they flipped it around. Instead, they cut all the experience values in half, but gave you double experience at the start of your gaming session. People loved it.
Same thing is going on here.
Classic loss aversion. People react stronger to a loss, real or imagined, than from a gain.
I was a project manager for the AP1000 projects Sumner and Vogtle. I've told this story before, but these projects failed - along with the rest of the failed nuclear renaissance in America because of NIMBY and a conjoined abomination of regulation and oversight. For example: In ~2011(ish) ASME redefined SA316 Stainless Steel to change the tensile strength and allowable radius of forged material, which in turn affected the sourced materials and design plans for already purchased / designed / built components in stage 2 containment. These designs required congressional approval, which ASME is not beholden to.
The changed definition of SA316 required congressional approval....but congress wasn't in session. Tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns not withstanding, this tiny little thing caused a two year delay. Add together dozens of these type of issues happening across a myriad of issues, and that's why we can't have nice things.
The industry also didn't learn form the mistakes made in earlier construction, namely overly optimistic construction estimates and cost projections. Add in not building toe the licensed design when Vogtle installed non-complaint rebar and it's no surprise the costs ballooned and the plants became uneconomical. The COL was a good idea but once again the industry contributed to its own death. It didn't help that gas became so cheap.
Blame the stupid American government for this -- pushing states to be serious about drinking age laws. In most civilized countries, drinking age is 18, and a suggestion at that, not a firm rule.
Yup; they are stupid laws that just push underage drinking into teh shadows and cause more problems. Sam's doesn't want to risk its liquor license by accidentally selling beer or wine to a minor.
I am not sure I understand how this would be different from the Sam's Club 'Scan and Go' app I used the other day. I scanned each item (who really needs a 2 gallon jar of mayo??) and put it in my cart. When I was done, I told it to pay with my credit card and it generated a upc code and a receipt. The person at the door looked at the receipt, scanned the code and I was gone. No waiting in line. Yes, there is the risk of putting an item in you cart without scanning. I would assume that if you are buying an iPad or other expensive item (that could possibly be hidden) they would do something like 'Hey, let me scan that for you to make sure it comes up with the correct price."
Don't you scan a card and you pick it up after you've paid? That way, small high value items are hard to steal because there are none on the shelf, only a stack of cards showing the item and its barcode. What sucks is you can't scan and go alcohol and have them check your ID on the way out.
So customer takes two items off the shelf together, scans one, and puts them in their bag. Super difficult to catch.
Put a RFID tag with a UUID on every package that comes into the store. Sign customers in via various and/or appropriate methods, whether their phone or just an RFID sticker they can place on something else in their wallet. Scan customers aggressively on their way out, perhaps making them walk a circuitous path to enhance scan time and opportunity. Perform inventory scans frequently; since you can do them by just walking around, they can actually be done continually.
I have shopped at a store that has a scanning app, where you scan each barcode and it records the item and price. When I am done I select checkout and it charges my debit card. On the way to, they scan the payment barcode from the app, double check my cart matches the receipt and out I go. It's a lot faster than waiting in line or self checkout.
One side effect of such tech is it allows vendors to change prices dynamically based on buying trends, for example if you notice more water is sold on hot days or on Fridays you could bump the price a few cents.
yes, that can be expensive, at least in the US, but then he could have freely licensed it and have an easier time preventing other from patenting his idea. if it gets rejected as not patentable, that also helps prevent others from trying to patent his idea later since there would already be prior art.
1) It is expensive to run the servers needed to work around a patent, currently under dispute and may be invalid, so adding devices requires someone paying for the servers. So once the patents are ruled invalid the barrier to Apple making FaceTime available to other devices goes away?
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Wait so the joke's on them because you spent your money and got a narrower education than you could have done. Har har har! So funny! lol.
Or as one of my professors said, "If you don't want to learn that's not my problem. We've already gotten your money..."
You're a collection of bytes. Bytes don't have a gender.
0 and 1 would beg to differ...
When I was a younger, in its early days, the whole reason the internet was great is because there were no gender, skin color or religion, we were all just nerds. No one knew or cared WHAT you were, just WHO you were. I remember when the idea of telling someone your real name on the internet was considered madness. I miss those days. It was just a lot simpler.
Unfortunately, as the internet came to the masses it brought with it all the benefits but also all the problems of society in general. I remember the days when you could actually sell and trade items on Usenet (yes, Usenet =/ Internet) and not worry about getting scammed. Trolling did not have a bad connotation; it had classics such THF2's "Shadows in the vacuum of space." Ludwig Plutonium KIBO AFU even had periodic meetings where you got to know each other. Then came eternal September...
Of course, even in those days we had things like the Green Card Lawyers spam and a Usenet mob rising up in indignation. The Serdar Argic bot spamming every mention of Turkey.
Since a Bond DB5 license plate is not a feasible solution,
You know, e-ink displays are getting cheap these days...
Now, if you could get an eInk display that was clear but could be darkened or patterned to obfuscate numbers...
Really? You have a State Issued ID that MUST be affixed to your car, and you are willfully driving it and PARKING IT in public view, on private property. And that is invading privacy?
True. Since a Bond DB5 license plate is not a feasible solution, the solution is to not shop there, encourage others to do the same, and let stores know why you won't shop there. Until, of course, once someone figures out how to hack CA new ePlate to darken it on command.
(The subsequent litigation over attorney's fees went all the way to SCOTUS.)
Fogerty was able to show an artist has a certain technique that can sound the same to the average listener but that each composition was different, and thus won. The interesting thing is SCOTUS decided defendants were potentially entitled to recovering lawyer's fees in any case, not just those that were frivolous or made in bad faith. That is important, as the previous standard meant only deep pocket defendants could bring a case or defend themselves. The court, since copyright law is intended to encourage artist to develop creative works for the public good, there needs to be an economic incentive to bring and defend copyright cases, regardless of the wealth of either party.
That said, IMO, the fair use determination is bogus, and would likely be overturned on appeal.
I would hope so; but a bigger issues many people feel anything they ind on the Internet is free to use. I worked for a company that pulled photos; chic strips, etc. and incorporated it into material we used for training sessions for which we charged (a lot). When I pointed this out one VP said "We found it on the Internet so it is free for use to use..." When I pointed out that much of our proprietary training materials are easily found online does that mean any of our competitors could use it for free, he responded "Of course not, it is our copyrighted material." At that point, I gave up arguing because you can't fix stupid so don't even try.
I'm surprised, when we did a round of layoffs, the no one anonymously sent material to the copyright owners; since several of them were large corporations that protect their material vigorously. Whenever I wrote training material if I found something of value I'd like to use I'd license it; which often was surprisingly cheap; or use photos I took of their buildings, etc. so there was no copyright involved with the photos. ranted, they may have design patent on them but I felt we would have much stronger case, rightly or wrongly, based on how we used their items and the disclaimers I included in the material.For example, I needed a photo of a ship pulling into port and pulled one of my photos of a ship docking.
The funny part of it is we never registered our material, so if someone did do that we could only recover a lot less than the cost of suing. While our use was clearly commercial and this different from the VA case; and I have seen similar material used in other company's training as well. it illustrates that even people who should know better think using whatever the find is ok is one even those who should know better is probably more widespread than we think.
So they decided Rickshaw was the guy after analyzing the information they had; then, when they got the last two letters, were able to decode them to conclusively prove he did it? They even were able to decode his name in the letters? He may have been a prime suspect, per TFA, but absent physical evidence such as a parachute or a stack of bills from the hijacking I would not consider that conclusive. If Rickshaw is a narcissist who needs to prove he was smarter than everyone else I would think he'd save proof that he was in fact D. B. Cooper an not yet another imposter.
businesses that don't have dedicated IT or consulting firms are unlikely to have the skills to write formal requirements.
Not only that, but they probably don't understand what it takes to write good requirements document and will balk at the cost of developing one. Add in they probably expect to get thousands of dollars of work for pennies on the dollar and you have a prescription for disaster. As a result, what they get is not what they expect and they are not happy.
Shouldn't that mean that either the players play according to the rules or change the rules? Saying that "The refs can't call the rules as the players play and that's just how it is" seems a bit silly to me. I'd be happy if they would start calling traveling and palming again.
Having played and later refereed; the ref's job is to control the game without inserting themselves into it. If you make every ticky tacky call the game stops being the game. Call the big ones, penalize the flagrant, but let the players play the game. The players understand the bounds beyond the rules and generally stay within them; when they don't they get called for it.
This seems to work just fine for MLB, your mileage may vary as to whether this works for the NFL, and it is entirely broken in the NBA, such that with the latter, who the refereeing crew is for the night has become a popular fan metagame, considered to be very indicative of the success/failure of various teams. The NBA, more than any other sport I can think of, has a "dark cloud of suspicion" over it with distrust of the refereeing. It's made even worse by there being two different rulesets that referees tend to enforce -- one fairly relaxed set of rules that are applied to "superstars" (like the Kevin Jameses of the various teams), and another much harder set applied to everyone else. They allow the superstars to get away with more things that would be called fouls if anyone else did it.
Good points. In the end, its just entertainment. If robot refs make the game more interesting for the fans and boost revenue, they will do it. If not, they won't.
Which is good to keep in mind when buying from domestic brands, but Chinese manufacturers are increasing selling their shoddiest products directly through Amazon now. Some of these are designed directly in China with the intent of cutting costs to the minimum, which is even worse than the average cost-cutting approach used by domestic brands.
Seriously, putting much trust in brand names is silly these days, but buying a piece of critical safety equipment from TOPOLEK, or WINFI, or MODOAO or any of the assortment of identical looking and implausibly cheap sources is more than just naive.
Great points. At least with a well known brand you have some assurance of at least a minimal level of quality; plus someone to go after if it fails. As my dad said, sometime the cheaper alternative is more expensive.
Hence when the whole device costs in that range, you can be sure an ElCheapo $1 sensor was used. (Prices from Ebay, so YMMV.) Also, gas-flow is non-trivial, you cannot just put the sensor into a case, put some holes in that case and hope for the best. And actual testing the device is not so cheap or easy too. I expect these fails were "blind designs" were the "engineer" just read the datasheet and build the device without ever doing any real and costly testing.
Here's the thing about Chinese manufacturing. They will build to a price point and cut costs to meet the price and schedule. If you want quality you need to pay for it and closely monitor the results.
If Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner can't do it, no one can. Not even the Gangster of Love...
Don't even get me started on the NBA. An AI referee that called the rules as written would foul out the entire lineup for both teams in the first quarter.
Shouldn't that mean that either the players play according to the rules or change the rules? Saying that "The refs can't call the rules as the players play and that's just how it is" seems a bit silly to me. I'd be happy if they would start calling traveling and palming again.
Having played and later refereed; the ref's job is to control the game without inserting themselves into it. If you make every ticky tacky call the game stops being the game. Call the big ones, penalize the flagrant, but let the players play the game. The players understand the bounds beyond the rules and generally stay within them; when they don't they get called for it.
If the manufacturer is monitoring every phone to the extent you suggest, they already know that, since they can safely assume you're not out for your morning jog at 70 mph....
It's to so much the manufacturer collecting the data but now they have a positive trigger on the phone that can be used to allow other actions as part of a workflow. Some can be positive like disabling texting, NFC could also allow auto emergency calls if an accident is detected, etc. Is the information already available by inference since if the GPS sees you go at 15 MPH they can assume you are in a car; this just verifies who is most probably driving. On the negative side, it could trigger auto tracking for a phone, send alarms if certain areas or speeds are exceeded, etc., based on the assumption of who is driving. In the long run, it's not that much different from what can be done already; as you point out.
- Creates new problems all of its very own.
Beyond your examples, it provides a way for phone manufacturers to know when you are operating a vehicle, under the assumption that the phone used to unlock and start is the drivers. Once they have that information, how will they use it? Turning off texting and other messaging apps would certainly help solve the problem of idiots who text and drive, but how else can that information be used? What other services will be disabled if the think you are driving? Siri already won't let me open the garage door when it thinks I am driving, even if I am in my own driveway.
When World Of Warcraft was in beta, after killing a certain number of monsters, your experience would per kill would be cut in half.
Everyone hated it.
So, they flipped it around. Instead, they cut all the experience values in half, but gave you double experience at the start of your gaming session. People loved it.
Same thing is going on here.
Classic loss aversion. People react stronger to a loss, real or imagined, than from a gain.
I was a project manager for the AP1000 projects Sumner and Vogtle. I've told this story before, but these projects failed - along with the rest of the failed nuclear renaissance in America because of NIMBY and a conjoined abomination of regulation and oversight. For example: In ~2011(ish) ASME redefined SA316 Stainless Steel to change the tensile strength and allowable radius of forged material, which in turn affected the sourced materials and design plans for already purchased / designed / built components in stage 2 containment. These designs required congressional approval, which ASME is not beholden to.
The changed definition of SA316 required congressional approval....but congress wasn't in session. Tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns not withstanding, this tiny little thing caused a two year delay. Add together dozens of these type of issues happening across a myriad of issues, and that's why we can't have nice things.
The industry also didn't learn form the mistakes made in earlier construction, namely overly optimistic construction estimates and cost projections. Add in not building toe the licensed design when Vogtle installed non-complaint rebar and it's no surprise the costs ballooned and the plants became uneconomical. The COL was a good idea but once again the industry contributed to its own death. It didn't help that gas became so cheap.
Blame the stupid American government for this -- pushing states to be serious about drinking age laws. In most civilized countries, drinking age is 18, and a suggestion at that, not a firm rule.
Yup; they are stupid laws that just push underage drinking into teh shadows and cause more problems. Sam's doesn't want to risk its liquor license by accidentally selling beer or wine to a minor.
I am not sure I understand how this would be different from the Sam's Club 'Scan and Go' app I used the other day. I scanned each item (who really needs a 2 gallon jar of mayo??) and put it in my cart. When I was done, I told it to pay with my credit card and it generated a upc code and a receipt. The person at the door looked at the receipt, scanned the code and I was gone. No waiting in line. Yes, there is the risk of putting an item in you cart without scanning. I would assume that if you are buying an iPad or other expensive item (that could possibly be hidden) they would do something like 'Hey, let me scan that for you to make sure it comes up with the correct price."
Don't you scan a card and you pick it up after you've paid? That way, small high value items are hard to steal because there are none on the shelf, only a stack of cards showing the item and its barcode. What sucks is you can't scan and go alcohol and have them check your ID on the way out.
So customer takes two items off the shelf together, scans one, and puts them in their bag. Super difficult to catch.
Put a RFID tag with a UUID on every package that comes into the store. Sign customers in via various and/or appropriate methods, whether their phone or just an RFID sticker they can place on something else in their wallet. Scan customers aggressively on their way out, perhaps making them walk a circuitous path to enhance scan time and opportunity. Perform inventory scans frequently; since you can do them by just walking around, they can actually be done continually.
I have shopped at a store that has a scanning app, where you scan each barcode and it records the item and price. When I am done I select checkout and it charges my debit card. On the way to, they scan the payment barcode from the app, double check my cart matches the receipt and out I go. It's a lot faster than waiting in line or self checkout.
One side effect of such tech is it allows vendors to change prices dynamically based on buying trends, for example if you notice more water is sold on hot days or on Fridays you could bump the price a few cents.
yes, that can be expensive, at least in the US, but then he could have freely licensed it and have an easier time preventing other from patenting his idea. if it gets rejected as not patentable, that also helps prevent others from trying to patent his idea later since there would already be prior art.
His theory seems to be:
1) It is expensive to run the servers needed to work around a patent, currently under dispute and may be invalid, so adding devices requires someone paying for the servers. So once the patents are ruled invalid the barrier to Apple making FaceTime available to other devices goes away?
2) They like lock in. I bet #2 wins.
Only for male physicists, though. (wiki for those not in the know)
That was a piss poor excuse to stop some from staging the play....
Those wacky Australians, it must have been a kangaroo court. What a bunch of wieners...