A few dozen patient deaths caused by a buggy app and the FDA will step in.
Any doc who blindly trusts an app without double-checking deserves to have his license revoked. It's our job to double check files, nurses and even doses of medications because not only is it our ass on the line it could also be the patient's life. If you blindly rely on an app to think for you you might as well let the smart-phone treat your patient.
At the rate they are going I think the huge mistake will be saturating the market. You can't have exponential sales forever. There's a finite amount of people in the world. Incremental upgrades help, but after a while people are going to get fed up of paying full price (again) for virtually nothing.
Exactly. 200 million income is nothing.Yeah it's more than you make or I make or slashdot makes, but 200 million is not that big of a company at all. Certainly not a 100 billion company.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sweetheart, a market research person placed rather high up in a Fortune 500 company. She's a smart cookie. I consider myself to not be too stupid either. Anyway here's the gist of the argument.
I'm an old dinosaur, having been around the PC since it took off in the 70's. I've always had a PC since my teenage years - Apple II, PC XT, AT, and all the way across the upgrade path to the current i7 quad core I'm writing this on. As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots. With those 8 slots you could increase the memory, add in a co-processor, a graphics card - hard drives, when those came out. The sky was the limit. And no one wanted to buy a computer that had few ISA slots - I mean, why shoot yourself in the foot right at the beginning? Compatibility was also paramount. It had to be IBM-compatible, because that was the "gold standard".
But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
Of course I think the current trend is wrong. I am dead set against the top-down model that manufacturers are desperate to impose on people - buy this machine, and then only buy from my store, and only run apps that I say, and eventually, don't run apps at all - lease CPU time from us "in the cloud" (which is just another way of saying the old mainfraime/client model). I think there is great danger in this route - because no one will look after your data, and you can be denied access to your data. And of course you will have to pay to access your data. Without even mentioning security problems. Personal computers had broken through that top-down model and everyone had a mini supercomputer (at least what passed for one in the 70's) on their desk and could do anything they wanted. Now you will only be able to do what you are allowed. But again, the market doesn't care. The market wants facebook and skype and angry birds and a camera and a phone and to be able to watch tv, and that's it.
Apple has seen this, and oh god are they ever cashing in. Others are catching up. But the direction of the technology is the same, be it apple or the competitors. A locked device, and pay for service. I think it's a shame, but I'll be dead soon.
Facebook, a nothing income company that hasn't even found a working business model: IPO for 100 billion. Apple, a maker of expensive shiny trinkets, the largest market cap on the street. Benjamin Graham would have a lot to say about times like these. I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one. But go on chumps, keep buying into the bubble. It's going to go up forever and we'll all be rich!
The smart IT manager realizes that even if employees spend 20 mins or so a day, they are far more productive than the ones fully restricted, locked down and persecuted. Studies have been done. Smart managers read them. Bad managers crack the whip according to arbitrary "productivity" goals that really mean nothing. Then they wonder why employees are always leaving the company and positions are so hard to fill.
Not only that but perhaps people are finally getting fed up of "Last Decade's Popular Title XIII" and such iterations. But hey, blame piracy, right? The sweetest thing is that while there may not be any more Electronic Arts games once this leviathan goes down, there will always be new and innovative games. Ubisoft should be next. SSI was great. Ubisoft showed promise but committed suicide.
So it's a protection racket? Pay up and do what we say or we will tell people you fund gorilla warfare|use conflict diamonds|exploit third world children|eat foie gras. This is what the politically correct future holds, idiots telling other idiots what to do, until we're all tied up in a big ball of nothingness - not allowed to do or say anything at all because of whatever flavor of the day topic. If you put gas in your damned car or turn on hour house lights, you are funding conflict, through fossil fuels. Because the fossil fuel producing nations are well known for sponsoring uprisings all over africa and the middle east. Hell if you are American or buy American, you are funding conflict - after all this country has been involved nay started, a lot of wars in the past few decades... Where does it stop?
Or you could just be using this as a justification of your desire to copulate with as many strangers as possible because, you know, monogamy is not unique to the human species. So I doubt that it's a case of where human "morality" is overriding a "biological drive", unless you believe penguins and the like also have a highly developped code of ethics. In fact, the very existence of "jealousy" - an emotion that can even lead humans to kill each other - could be seen as an argument showing that monogamy is actually hard-wired into the human psyche, and perhaps those individuals who don't practice it are the unusual ones.
Either way I don't care, it's one of these argument that we will argue about 'till the cows come home but no one will actually ever be able to prove anything. Popcorn?
Looking at divorce rates, I am not so sure you make a valid points. Perhaps we mate with people we THINK we like, but end up hating... Perhaps it has a lot more to do with impulse than actual planning. I often think that as a species we're not as smart as we like to think we are. Otherwise the human race has a lot to answer for. Maybe when we're smart we can re-visit this whole selective breeding thing, in a million years or so.
Some would argue that autonomy is the only ethic that matters. But there will always be someone more than willing to tell you what to do and how to live.
or he will have to absorb a huge amount of liability.
Not necessarily. I believe that liability legislation is directly proportional to cost, all other things being equal. If the guy takes half an hour to sit down with you and walk you through the device, what it does, and what it doesn't do, and the device costs $20, you're not going to be too upset if/when it breaks. But if the device costs you $200,000 you are going to want it to last forever and do everything you can dream of and then some, and are going to be pissed if it doesn't.
Yeah in reality the "state" controls the means of production on behalf of the workers, because who would let a bunch of illiterate peasants actually control the means of production. And that's where the fun begins...
Slashdot Mirror
A few dozen patient deaths caused by a buggy app and the FDA will step in.
Any doc who blindly trusts an app without double-checking deserves to have his license revoked. It's our job to double check files, nurses and even doses of medications because not only is it our ass on the line it could also be the patient's life. If you blindly rely on an app to think for you you might as well let the smart-phone treat your patient.
Yeah, the problem with "what if" is that it dies the minute someone sees a way of making a profit.
If you're paying full price for your bonds you are doing it wrong. Just sayin'
At the rate they are going I think the huge mistake will be saturating the market. You can't have exponential sales forever. There's a finite amount of people in the world. Incremental upgrades help, but after a while people are going to get fed up of paying full price (again) for virtually nothing.
Exactly. 200 million income is nothing.Yeah it's more than you make or I make or slashdot makes, but 200 million is not that big of a company at all. Certainly not a 100 billion company.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sweetheart, a market research person placed rather high up in a Fortune 500 company. She's a smart cookie. I consider myself to not be too stupid either. Anyway here's the gist of the argument.
I'm an old dinosaur, having been around the PC since it took off in the 70's. I've always had a PC since my teenage years - Apple II, PC XT, AT, and all the way across the upgrade path to the current i7 quad core I'm writing this on. As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots. With those 8 slots you could increase the memory, add in a co-processor, a graphics card - hard drives, when those came out. The sky was the limit. And no one wanted to buy a computer that had few ISA slots - I mean, why shoot yourself in the foot right at the beginning? Compatibility was also paramount. It had to be IBM-compatible, because that was the "gold standard".
But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
Of course I think the current trend is wrong. I am dead set against the top-down model that manufacturers are desperate to impose on people - buy this machine, and then only buy from my store, and only run apps that I say, and eventually, don't run apps at all - lease CPU time from us "in the cloud" (which is just another way of saying the old mainfraime/client model). I think there is great danger in this route - because no one will look after your data, and you can be denied access to your data. And of course you will have to pay to access your data. Without even mentioning security problems. Personal computers had broken through that top-down model and everyone had a mini supercomputer (at least what passed for one in the 70's) on their desk and could do anything they wanted. Now you will only be able to do what you are allowed. But again, the market doesn't care. The market wants facebook and skype and angry birds and a camera and a phone and to be able to watch tv, and that's it.
Apple has seen this, and oh god are they ever cashing in. Others are catching up. But the direction of the technology is the same, be it apple or the competitors. A locked device, and pay for service. I think it's a shame, but I'll be dead soon.
Facebook, a nothing income company that hasn't even found a working business model: IPO for 100 billion. Apple, a maker of expensive shiny trinkets, the largest market cap on the street. Benjamin Graham would have a lot to say about times like these. I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one. But go on chumps, keep buying into the bubble. It's going to go up forever and we'll all be rich!
When the government does it, it's $1.39 million per drive.
I pay them. You don't pay them. Especially not with ad-block.
Or Schrodinger, because it was curiosity that caused him to open the box, but we all know it was the poison gas that really killed the cat. Or didn't.
Too bad the heat shield landed accidentally on the Elders' primary residence.
Irrelevant if the work gets done and employee satisfaction is high. Staring idly at a monitor is not productivity.
The smart IT manager realizes that even if employees spend 20 mins or so a day, they are far more productive than the ones fully restricted, locked down and persecuted. Studies have been done. Smart managers read them. Bad managers crack the whip according to arbitrary "productivity" goals that really mean nothing. Then they wonder why employees are always leaving the company and positions are so hard to fill.
Windows 8 = Windows Hate.
Not only that but perhaps people are finally getting fed up of "Last Decade's Popular Title XIII" and such iterations. But hey, blame piracy, right? The sweetest thing is that while there may not be any more Electronic Arts games once this leviathan goes down, there will always be new and innovative games. Ubisoft should be next. SSI was great. Ubisoft showed promise but committed suicide.
So it's a protection racket? Pay up and do what we say or we will tell people you fund gorilla warfare|use conflict diamonds|exploit third world children|eat foie gras. This is what the politically correct future holds, idiots telling other idiots what to do, until we're all tied up in a big ball of nothingness - not allowed to do or say anything at all because of whatever flavor of the day topic. If you put gas in your damned car or turn on hour house lights, you are funding conflict, through fossil fuels. Because the fossil fuel producing nations are well known for sponsoring uprisings all over africa and the middle east. Hell if you are American or buy American, you are funding conflict - after all this country has been involved nay started, a lot of wars in the past few decades... Where does it stop?
I could post anonymously but, meh
Or you could just be using this as a justification of your desire to copulate with as many strangers as possible because, you know, monogamy is not unique to the human species. So I doubt that it's a case of where human "morality" is overriding a "biological drive", unless you believe penguins and the like also have a highly developped code of ethics. In fact, the very existence of "jealousy" - an emotion that can even lead humans to kill each other - could be seen as an argument showing that monogamy is actually hard-wired into the human psyche, and perhaps those individuals who don't practice it are the unusual ones.
Either way I don't care, it's one of these argument that we will argue about 'till the cows come home but no one will actually ever be able to prove anything. Popcorn?
Looking at divorce rates, I am not so sure you make a valid points. Perhaps we mate with people we THINK we like, but end up hating... Perhaps it has a lot more to do with impulse than actual planning. I often think that as a species we're not as smart as we like to think we are. Otherwise the human race has a lot to answer for. Maybe when we're smart we can re-visit this whole selective breeding thing, in a million years or so.
Some would argue that autonomy is the only ethic that matters. But there will always be someone more than willing to tell you what to do and how to live.
Aren't you glad you're in the walled garden? Look who you've been walled in with...
This is how it's done.
His corners are not round enough to be able to work at the Apple factory.
or he will have to absorb a huge amount of liability.
Not necessarily. I believe that liability legislation is directly proportional to cost, all other things being equal. If the guy takes half an hour to sit down with you and walk you through the device, what it does, and what it doesn't do, and the device costs $20, you're not going to be too upset if/when it breaks. But if the device costs you $200,000 you are going to want it to last forever and do everything you can dream of and then some, and are going to be pissed if it doesn't.
Yeah in reality the "state" controls the means of production on behalf of the workers, because who would let a bunch of illiterate peasants actually control the means of production. And that's where the fun begins...
And Oracle, having recently acquired the Sun, is reviewing its legal options, starting with trespass.