a significant difference between an amateur and a pro is just the number of shots taken.
And this is surely the solution to the problem: professional photographers must have hundreds of pictures of their subjects, most of which will never be used because they are second-rate, though still better than the picture on Wikipedia. Why can't they release THOSE pictures under CC, instead of just throwing them in the trash?
Because no pro wants their name associated with a poor photo, a neither does the celebrity photographed.
Not to mention that the photographers do maintain their copyright. Only a permissive license to use the image is required, and then only for the image uploaded to Wikipedia, not the original work.
The world is filled with control freaks, it seems.
Well, it's the permissive aspect that is problematic - they are no doubt afraid that the image will become the image of choice of the celebrity; for which they will get no money.
Not that I agree with that, but most photographers are very protective of their copyright protections around usage; simply because that's how they make their money.
Of course, most of them aren't going to create the iconic image; more likely the real reason a Wiki photo would be used a lot is it is free. In the photographer's mind however, each use translates to ost money, never mind that the demand curve for the image approaches zero as teh price becomes non-zero.
We have had this sickening pattern of pandering to groups who take the most offense to things. Women in the workplace and black people in the work place. Neither are typically "minorities" and if/when the tables are turned and a group was making "white" or "man" jokes, white men would likely not care at all.
It's time to say "toughen up!!!" It's not like they are in fear of anything.
Actually, men have also files harassment claims, mostly for man on man. I guess they should have just toughened up as well.
The point is that this type of behavior in a workplace is simply wrong; and employers havea duty to take action to prevent or stop it.
There is no "fix", first sale says it is legal to resell a copyrighted work.
Actually, first sale in teh US is not always clear cut. While I agree you ought to be able to sell the physical copy of any copyrighted work you purchased; that's not always the case.
That's actually serious, since pilots
trying to make retirement could use it to pass. I imagine
they've thought of that before. At least I hope they have,
and are mixing up several versions of the test. Since we
all have printers now, they could even print a unique one
for each exam if it's something that critical.
Heh. I had a commanding officer taht meomrized it so he could pass a Navy physical exam. Best damn CO I ever had, by the way. And no, he wasn't a pilot.
There aren't 'correct' answers to the blots, they are images that one uses to project their beliefs and subconscious on.
The idea is that you won't see them in nature, or anywhere else...but being that the test has been studied, validated and correlated across thousands of individuals, there is a LOT of predictive nature to them. Look at it and tell me what you think of it...I think bunny wabits...ok, 90% of the people that saw this and gave that response grew up to be serial killers.
I'm not a Freudian by any means...I have never given this exam and really don't see the point in doing so...but I have a background in psychometrics. Letting folks get access to this stuff means that more people will be exposed and the more exposure, along with people putting out statistics about what things mean lowers the validity of the exam.
But, if ruining a reliable therapeutic technique for others is worth while, by all means, go ahead and publish the images...its not like they are that hard to come by anyways...no one checks licenses these days if you are ordering most exams these days...
Here's my question:
Is the problem that only an initial response, having never seen the test, is valid; or is it a fear that people will learn the "right" answers and hence be able to hide problems?
If it is the later, shouldn't a trained clinician be able to detect such behavior based on anomalous responses and dig deeper to determine what is going on and get valid answers? I've taken the MMPI more times than I can count, and in most settings it was accompanied by a discussion with a psychologist (who generally claimed we were all so boringly normal). Keeping the "questions" secret is not a very good way to prevent someone from gaming the answers; instead teh testing should be constructed to uncover if someone may be trying to game the system.
If it is the former, then couldn't the test be only given once to any person, since they would be aware of the designs once they take the test?
Science should be practical. It's good when it helps people. Any individual scientist who has done science to help people is worth looking up to. That also goes for anyone else of any profession.
Actually, science is about understanding how things work, engineering is about making the how practical; though the boundary is often blurred./P.
Can you elaborate why the GP is wrong, rather than engage in name calling? What he is essentially saying is that religion is all about blind faith in certain propositions (God exists, he created the universe, he created humans in his image etc etc) even in the face of complete absence of evidence, actually even in the face of very strong evidence contradicting those propositions (such as the evidence for evolution).
I find the whole evolution is inconsistant with religion argument wrong. God could use evolution to carry out His purpose; nothing in the scientific method demands that there not be some outside force that created the universe, nor does it demand that their was. Science simply explains the how; and individuals are free to decide on what determines the why on their own. Two people can look upon something and see beauty in for different reasons, neither of which is intrinisically a better reason
Of course, there is an undercurrent in some Christian sects that require believers to be persecuted and doubted as some sort of proof of the correctness of those beliefs. As a result, they need to feel like their beliefs are under attack or else their faith would be shaken; and so seek evidence of persecution or attack in every action.
Interestingly enough, religion, just like science has many vastly different viewpoints even within the same basic beliefs. Christianity, for example, has sects that refuse to believe the Catholic Church is the true Christian church; to the point that some do not even consider Catholics Christian. Of course, that is the beauty of belief vs. fact - you can simply say "You are wrong" and no amount of argument can change that viewpoint since there is no irrefutable proof; which is why I find most religious debates useless - one side is often quickly reduced to name calling and threats of hell and damnation, which only intensify when you point out that that is God's judgement, not theirs and to do so violates their beliefs.
Of course if you read the article, I know it is a lot to ask, you will find that he is not talking about competition. For the very short summary.
MS Makes money from Windows and Office.
Google makes money from search based advertising.
Nothing else really matters to either company.
MS attempts at the search ad market and Google's attempts are the OS market are not intended to succeed. They are just the corporate equivalent or "be nice to me or I will fuck your girlfriend". Both side know the other has no chance, but the media loves to talk about it.
Of course it's competition - it's the corporate equivalent of deploying forces to keep the other side's amin forces in check without overly threatining them. The idea is to make a counter move more expensive than it's worth and tie up resources that could be used elsewhere.
As long as both sides are reasonably rational and not out to destroy the other at all costs it works reasonably well. Both sides carve up the market, smaller players get marginalized and both big player's main markets are reasonably secure.
Call me crazy, but it seems that calling something a "sunken cost" is a justification for abandoning it only if there's really nothing useful to be done with the thing. When there really are some benefits to be had, using a position you're in thanks to money already spent is not unjustified.
A sunk cost is just that - unrecoverable costs no matter what you do. To that extent, sunk costs are irrelevant to the go - no go decision. As you correctly point out; what counts is the value going forward. That analysis is independent of the sunk costs.
It's like being in line - people will often continue to wait because they've already waited so long; when what they should really consider is how much longer will I wait and is the end result worth that time; not the total wait.
I know you're half-trolling, since the current iPhone has both GPS and a magnetic compass. And I can certainly see why you're not as irrationally excited by the iPhone as other are.
I'm not sure why you think I'm trolling. As an iPhone user, there are a few features that would need to be in a lite version to make me switch. For me, it's maintaining the screen size, GPS and Exchange connectivity (which is much worse than that on a WinMobile phone, IMHO).
But when you say "Had robust Exchange connectivity" wouldn't it be more reasonable to ask that Exchange "Had robust IMAP connectivity"? We have a widely-used, well-documented, long-established, royalty-free protocol for remote mailbox access, which the iPhone supports fairly well -- it's Exchange that doesn't speak email.
If you're going to whine about email access on a phone you should whine about the BlackBerry (any of them) and their lack of an IMAP client, or the ability to monitor more than one mail account, or the ability to not send your credentials to the BB server if you do use their non-syncing, inbox-only "IMAP" service. I know they're "helping" by providing push email, and it's not a terrible option for some people, but I get perfectly good battery life polling for email in 3 separate accounts, and the 2-minute average/4-minute maximum delay between message delivery and notification doesn't seem like a big problem for most uses.
I use Exchange for business - and the Iphone's implementation (lack of meeting invite capability, no notes / task synch) is frustrating. If it weren't for the screen I'd be back to my Treo.
IMAP for me is a non-starter - our IT shop won't enable it; so it could be the greatest thing in the world but to me it is useless. Even so, the polling delay would be annoying for me. I've used that before and it was frustrating at times. While I don't like IT's stance, I'm not going to change it and it's simply not worth the time to try. To me, Apple should do a better job enabling exchange activesynch; I'm sure there are other business users that would like enhanced capabilities as well.
I want a solution that works out of the box; the current iPhone is close but not quite there. My biggest gripe is ATT's network has many more dropped calls than I experienced on Verizon; so I'm not all that happy with ATT although I like my iPhone. My point is that Verizon has an opportunity to draw iPhone customers to its service; if the rumored phone can meet their needs better than the current one.
From the article: Morgan Stanley points out that Robson's assessment of the media landscape doesn't have the statistical rigour of its regular reports.
Translation:
"We felt we could get some PR by putting this out."
Of course, most "analysts" reports are useless anyway - many have no clue about the industry they cover, and merely spout whatever they hear from the analyst calls; so a 15 year old's anecdotal report is probably as good as most others.
"When I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that someone was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn't belong to them and then use it. That part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand: that simply because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking, and just because you can take it doesn't mean it belongs to you."
Actually, posting it on the internet does make it free for the taking, Garcia. It's just not free to sell or distribute as ones own.
Actually, you went just a bit to far/ Had you said:
It's just not free to sell or distribute.
you'd be correct for much of what is on the net. I run into the "I found it on the net so it must be free to use / public domain / not copyrighted;" it's amazing how many people think that even when they are otherwise savvy business people. I often ask "so because I can easily get electronic copies of our work on the net it must be free for anyone to use rather than pay use, eh?" Of course, these same people balk at that notion. Oh well...
At any rate; my opinion is that Fairey's painting is transformative enough to not be infringement; especially since a thoughtful pose is not all that original to begin with.
If the next version of Outlook is as different as the last issue of Word was from everything that went before, the advantage of familiarity will disappear.
I think it's a little different with Outlook - the tasks are much simpler (read and respond to email, manage a calender) for most users - many of who probably on use one or two task bar items (New, Reply, print) or tabs (Day, week, Month) so the switch wont entail learning a lot of new menus. So even if you change the overall interface as long as the on-screen view is relatively familiar people won't care.
Word, otoh, is much more of a user intensive experience; requiring the use of more commands, even if some are used infrequently. As a result, interface changes have a much greater impact.
That's right: they want to know everything about you to "minimize the chance of blackmail". Don't you mean "to create the opportunity for blackmail" by their own management and HR staff? Or better yet, to screen you as a potential employee by any arbitrary political standard they wish, and disguise it as "not suited ot the role"? Do you really want to put all that personal information in their hands? I may be a poly-amorous gay rights activist in my spare time: do you think I should have to tell that to my supervisor for a job as a Catholic school janitor?
The OP was referring to jobs requiring high security clearances, not private employers looking for janitors. Do I think it's unreasonable to dig deeply into one's private life for jobs where they can significantly impact national security if blackmailed? Yes I do think it's reasonable; your strawman not withstanding.
Can you stand up to the gov' in any western country either?
You go to a protest, get filmed, facial matched, and get a note in a record. You go for something that requires security clearance and you get denied without reason.
Certainly. Western courts are pretty good at challenging government authority; and we have a real ballot box when we decide to use it.
NASA employees and other linked agencies only recently had to reveal all protests they had been in for review. If they failed to list something that might be grounds for termination (and they might be terminated for taking part).
Certainly they want to know - just like they want to know affairs, business deals, etc. - they want to minimize the chance of blackmail. If they already know, then it's a lot harder to blackmail an employee. The main concern is if you are hiding something, rather than the actual act, so yea, failing to list something can be grounds for termination if it appears to be deliberately omitted . Of course, some things show a serious lack of judgment and may result in pulling a clearance; but that's not unreasonable.
It's about standards. Apple's UI guidelines are very well written, and very well thought out. When developing your app, you don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about the proper place to put something, because it's generally obvious. This makes it so much more user friendly as a user can pick up on things in a very intuitive way. It also gives a general "feel" to the entire operating system.
When working with Objective-C/Cocoa in XCode, your almost forced to give your app a very Mac like feel to it. The same goes for the iPhone. Everything you'd want in your interface is already pre-built, so everybody's apps have a familiar feel. I know I've heard the exact opposite when developing for something like the Blackberry.
Having more people contribute with no clear guidance will just make things worse.
That's a big part, but an equally important part is the ability to enforce the standards. Apple has a dictator; most OSS does not have someone to enforce compliance, more importantly, teh nature of OSS allows anyone to go any way they want. While that is great from developer's perspective it adds to confusion in markets as well as disperses resources that could possibly be better used in a unified effort.
Judging by the comments in this thread, many developers don't want input; and really don't care about the user experience. That's fine, but don't expect users to adopt your project as readily.
Let's put it this way -- if receiving on unauthorized copy of copyrighted material was actionable, then I could just copyright something, arrange to have someone else email it to everyone in the world, then start suing everybody who didn't delete the email!
Uh, no ; because you gave permission for teh distribution so wetehr or not d/l is a copyright violation is irrelevant in your example.
Slashdot Mirror
a significant difference between an amateur and a pro is just the number of shots taken.
And this is surely the solution to the problem: professional photographers must have hundreds of pictures of their subjects, most of which will never be used because they are second-rate, though still better than the picture on Wikipedia. Why can't they release THOSE pictures under CC, instead of just throwing them in the trash?
Because no pro wants their name associated with a poor photo, a neither does the celebrity photographed.
Not to mention that the photographers do maintain their copyright. Only a permissive license to use the image is required, and then only for the image uploaded to Wikipedia, not the original work.
The world is filled with control freaks, it seems.
Well, it's the permissive aspect that is problematic - they are no doubt afraid that the image will become the image of choice of the celebrity; for which they will get no money.
Not that I agree with that, but most photographers are very protective of their copyright protections around usage; simply because that's how they make their money.
Of course, most of them aren't going to create the iconic image; more likely the real reason a Wiki photo would be used a lot is it is free. In the photographer's mind however, each use translates to ost money, never mind that the demand curve for the image approaches zero as teh price becomes non-zero.
Every US citizen knows about the Founding Fathers, the principals of the Constitution. .
You obviously never taught school in the US or know any high school government teachers.
We have had this sickening pattern of pandering to groups who take the most offense to things. Women in the workplace and black people in the work place. Neither are typically "minorities" and if/when the tables are turned and a group was making "white" or "man" jokes, white men would likely not care at all.
It's time to say "toughen up!!!" It's not like they are in fear of anything.
Actually, men have also files harassment claims, mostly for man on man. I guess they should have just toughened up as well.
The point is that this type of behavior in a workplace is simply wrong; and employers havea duty to take action to prevent or stop it.
There is no "fix", first sale says it is legal to resell a copyrighted work.
Actually, first sale in teh US is not always clear cut. While I agree you ought to be able to sell the physical copy of any copyrighted work you purchased; that's not always the case.
That's actually serious, since pilots trying to make retirement could use it to pass. I imagine they've thought of that before. At least I hope they have, and are mixing up several versions of the test. Since we all have printers now, they could even print a unique one for each exam if it's something that critical.
Heh. I had a commanding officer taht meomrized it so he could pass a Navy physical exam. Best damn CO I ever had, by the way. And no, he wasn't a pilot.
There aren't 'correct' answers to the blots, they are images that one uses to project their beliefs and subconscious on.
The idea is that you won't see them in nature, or anywhere else...but being that the test has been studied, validated and correlated across thousands of individuals, there is a LOT of predictive nature to them. Look at it and tell me what you think of it...I think bunny wabits...ok, 90% of the people that saw this and gave that response grew up to be serial killers.
I'm not a Freudian by any means...I have never given this exam and really don't see the point in doing so...but I have a background in psychometrics. Letting folks get access to this stuff means that more people will be exposed and the more exposure, along with people putting out statistics about what things mean lowers the validity of the exam.
But, if ruining a reliable therapeutic technique for others is worth while, by all means, go ahead and publish the images...its not like they are that hard to come by anyways...no one checks licenses these days if you are ordering most exams these days...
Here's my question:
Is the problem that only an initial response, having never seen the test, is valid; or is it a fear that people will learn the "right" answers and hence be able to hide problems?
If it is the later, shouldn't a trained clinician be able to detect such behavior based on anomalous responses and dig deeper to determine what is going on and get valid answers? I've taken the MMPI more times than I can count, and in most settings it was accompanied by a discussion with a psychologist (who generally claimed we were all so boringly normal). Keeping the "questions" secret is not a very good way to prevent someone from gaming the answers; instead teh testing should be constructed to uncover if someone may be trying to game the system.
If it is the former, then couldn't the test be only given once to any person, since they would be aware of the designs once they take the test?
gotta go with Forrest M. Mims III.
A blast from the past - I remember him from teh old MITS model rocketry days...
Science should be practical. It's good when it helps people. Any individual scientist who has done science to help people is worth looking up to. That also goes for anyone else of any profession.
Actually, science is about understanding how things work, engineering is about making the how practical; though the boundary is often blurred./P.
Can you elaborate why the GP is wrong, rather than engage in name calling? What he is essentially saying is that religion is all about blind faith in certain propositions (God exists, he created the universe, he created humans in his image etc etc) even in the face of complete absence of evidence, actually even in the face of very strong evidence contradicting those propositions (such as the evidence for evolution).
I find the whole evolution is inconsistant with religion argument wrong. God could use evolution to carry out His purpose; nothing in the scientific method demands that there not be some outside force that created the universe, nor does it demand that their was. Science simply explains the how; and individuals are free to decide on what determines the why on their own. Two people can look upon something and see beauty in for different reasons, neither of which is intrinisically a better reason
Of course, there is an undercurrent in some Christian sects that require believers to be persecuted and doubted as some sort of proof of the correctness of those beliefs. As a result, they need to feel like their beliefs are under attack or else their faith would be shaken; and so seek evidence of persecution or attack in every action.
Interestingly enough, religion, just like science has many vastly different viewpoints even within the same basic beliefs. Christianity, for example, has sects that refuse to believe the Catholic Church is the true Christian church; to the point that some do not even consider Catholics Christian. Of course, that is the beauty of belief vs. fact - you can simply say "You are wrong" and no amount of argument can change that viewpoint since there is no irrefutable proof; which is why I find most religious debates useless - one side is often quickly reduced to name calling and threats of hell and damnation, which only intensify when you point out that that is God's judgement, not theirs and to do so violates their beliefs.
Of course, these are the same people that are pouring billions to save dying companies such as GM, so I should not be surprised.
Hehe. Very apropos question in the title, then, coming from someone who clearly doesn't understand economics.
Care to explain your position?
Sunk costs can be looked at many ways. That's the area where "sunk costs" might mislead people - there may be some residual value to consider.
True. I would calculate the sunk cost as investment less any value you can get from a sale, reuse, etc; essentially the non-recoverbale costs.
Of course if you read the article, I know it is a lot to ask, you will find that he is not talking about competition. For the very short summary.
MS Makes money from Windows and Office. Google makes money from search based advertising. Nothing else really matters to either company.
MS attempts at the search ad market and Google's attempts are the OS market are not intended to succeed. They are just the corporate equivalent or "be nice to me or I will fuck your girlfriend". Both side know the other has no chance, but the media loves to talk about it.
Of course it's competition - it's the corporate equivalent of deploying forces to keep the other side's amin forces in check without overly threatining them. The idea is to make a counter move more expensive than it's worth and tie up resources that could be used elsewhere.
As long as both sides are reasonably rational and not out to destroy the other at all costs it works reasonably well. Both sides carve up the market, smaller players get marginalized and both big player's main markets are reasonably secure.
Call me crazy, but it seems that calling something a "sunken cost" is a justification for abandoning it only if there's really nothing useful to be done with the thing. When there really are some benefits to be had, using a position you're in thanks to money already spent is not unjustified.
A sunk cost is just that - unrecoverable costs no matter what you do. To that extent, sunk costs are irrelevant to the go - no go decision. As you correctly point out; what counts is the value going forward. That analysis is independent of the sunk costs.
It's like being in line - people will often continue to wait because they've already waited so long; when what they should really consider is how much longer will I wait and is the end result worth that time; not the total wait.
I know you're half-trolling, since the current iPhone has both GPS and a magnetic compass. And I can certainly see why you're not as irrationally excited by the iPhone as other are.
I'm not sure why you think I'm trolling. As an iPhone user, there are a few features that would need to be in a lite version to make me switch. For me, it's maintaining the screen size, GPS and Exchange connectivity (which is much worse than that on a WinMobile phone, IMHO).
But when you say "Had robust Exchange connectivity" wouldn't it be more reasonable to ask that Exchange "Had robust IMAP connectivity"? We have a widely-used, well-documented, long-established, royalty-free protocol for remote mailbox access, which the iPhone supports fairly well -- it's Exchange that doesn't speak email.
If you're going to whine about email access on a phone you should whine about the BlackBerry (any of them) and their lack of an IMAP client, or the ability to monitor more than one mail account, or the ability to not send your credentials to the BB server if you do use their non-syncing, inbox-only "IMAP" service. I know they're "helping" by providing push email, and it's not a terrible option for some people, but I get perfectly good battery life polling for email in 3 separate accounts, and the 2-minute average/4-minute maximum delay between message delivery and notification doesn't seem like a big problem for most uses.
I use Exchange for business - and the Iphone's implementation (lack of meeting invite capability, no notes / task synch) is frustrating. If it weren't for the screen I'd be back to my Treo.
IMAP for me is a non-starter - our IT shop won't enable it; so it could be the greatest thing in the world but to me it is useless. Even so, the polling delay would be annoying for me. I've used that before and it was frustrating at times. While I don't like IT's stance, I'm not going to change it and it's simply not worth the time to try. To me, Apple should do a better job enabling exchange activesynch; I'm sure there are other business users that would like enhanced capabilities as well.
I want a solution that works out of the box; the current iPhone is close but not quite there. My biggest gripe is ATT's network has many more dropped calls than I experienced on Verizon; so I'm not all that happy with ATT although I like my iPhone. My point is that Verizon has an opportunity to draw iPhone customers to its service; if the rumored phone can meet their needs better than the current one.
Except Verizon already has dual CDMA / GSM phones for people who travel overseas.
Once again, Congress proves it doesn't understand the sunk cost fallacy:
"If we've spent a hundred billion dollars, I don't think we want to shut it down in 2015," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told Augustine's committee.
Of course, these are the same people that are pouring billions to save dying companies such as GM, so I should not be surprised.
From the article: Morgan Stanley points out that Robson's assessment of the media landscape doesn't have the statistical rigour of its regular reports.
Translation:
"We felt we could get some PR by putting this out."
Of course, most "analysts" reports are useless anyway - many have no clue about the industry they cover, and merely spout whatever they hear from the analyst calls; so a 15 year old's anecdotal report is probably as good as most others.
If Apple can come up with a stripped down iPhone that:
kept the same screen size
had robust Exchange connectivity
had an integrated GPS
had decent battery life
I'd switch back to Verizon, especially if it was a world phone. I'd even pay a premium for teh GSM side to be unlocked.
From Garcia in the techdirt article:
"When I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that someone was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn't belong to them and then use it. That part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand: that simply because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking, and just because you can take it doesn't mean it belongs to you."
Actually, posting it on the internet does make it free for the taking, Garcia. It's just not free to sell or distribute as ones own.
Actually, you went just a bit to far/ Had you said:
It's just not free to sell or distribute.
you'd be correct for much of what is on the net. I run into the "I found it on the net so it must be free to use / public domain / not copyrighted;" it's amazing how many people think that even when they are otherwise savvy business people. I often ask "so because I can easily get electronic copies of our work on the net it must be free for anyone to use rather than pay use, eh?" Of course, these same people balk at that notion. Oh well...
At any rate; my opinion is that Fairey's painting is transformative enough to not be infringement; especially since a thoughtful pose is not all that original to begin with.
If the next version of Outlook is as different as the last issue of Word was from everything that went before, the advantage of familiarity will disappear.
I think it's a little different with Outlook - the tasks are much simpler (read and respond to email, manage a calender) for most users - many of who probably on use one or two task bar items (New, Reply, print) or tabs (Day, week, Month) so the switch wont entail learning a lot of new menus. So even if you change the overall interface as long as the on-screen view is relatively familiar people won't care.
Word, otoh, is much more of a user intensive experience; requiring the use of more commands, even if some are used infrequently. As a result, interface changes have a much greater impact.
That's right: they want to know everything about you to "minimize the chance of blackmail". Don't you mean "to create the opportunity for blackmail" by their own management and HR staff? Or better yet, to screen you as a potential employee by any arbitrary political standard they wish, and disguise it as "not suited ot the role"? Do you really want to put all that personal information in their hands? I may be a poly-amorous gay rights activist in my spare time: do you think I should have to tell that to my supervisor for a job as a Catholic school janitor?
The OP was referring to jobs requiring high security clearances, not private employers looking for janitors. Do I think it's unreasonable to dig deeply into one's private life for jobs where they can significantly impact national security if blackmailed? Yes I do think it's reasonable; your strawman not withstanding.
Can you stand up to the gov' in any western country either?
You go to a protest, get filmed, facial matched, and get a note in a record. You go for something that requires security clearance and you get denied without reason.
Certainly. Western courts are pretty good at challenging government authority; and we have a real ballot box when we decide to use it.
NASA employees and other linked agencies only recently had to reveal all protests they had been in for review. If they failed to list something that might be grounds for termination (and they might be terminated for taking part).
Certainly they want to know - just like they want to know affairs, business deals, etc. - they want to minimize the chance of blackmail. If they already know, then it's a lot harder to blackmail an employee. The main concern is if you are hiding something, rather than the actual act, so yea, failing to list something can be grounds for termination if it appears to be deliberately omitted . Of course, some things show a serious lack of judgment and may result in pulling a clearance; but that's not unreasonable.
It's about standards. Apple's UI guidelines are very well written, and very well thought out. When developing your app, you don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about the proper place to put something, because it's generally obvious. This makes it so much more user friendly as a user can pick up on things in a very intuitive way. It also gives a general "feel" to the entire operating system.
When working with Objective-C/Cocoa in XCode, your almost forced to give your app a very Mac like feel to it. The same goes for the iPhone. Everything you'd want in your interface is already pre-built, so everybody's apps have a familiar feel. I know I've heard the exact opposite when developing for something like the Blackberry.
Having more people contribute with no clear guidance will just make things worse.
That's a big part, but an equally important part is the ability to enforce the standards. Apple has a dictator; most OSS does not have someone to enforce compliance, more importantly, teh nature of OSS allows anyone to go any way they want. While that is great from developer's perspective it adds to confusion in markets as well as disperses resources that could possibly be better used in a unified effort.
Judging by the comments in this thread, many developers don't want input; and really don't care about the user experience. That's fine, but don't expect users to adopt your project as readily.
Let's put it this way -- if receiving on unauthorized copy of copyrighted material was actionable, then I could just copyright something, arrange to have someone else email it to everyone in the world, then start suing everybody who didn't delete the email!
Uh, no ; because you gave permission for teh distribution so wetehr or not d/l is a copyright violation is irrelevant in your example.